Monday, February 26, 2007
What's cooking?
While washing baking sheets on Ash Wednesday a cafeteria worker found the following pattern on one of them. She asked her co-workers what it looked like. She also asked the cafeteria manager, and finally the principal. What did they all say it was?
Thursday, February 22, 2007
No privacy with one's privates
Dan Dennett asks a simple rhetorical question: Would you masturbate in front of your mother (or for that matter your father/grandparents/pastor/priest)?1 I bet my soul none of us has ever done so and would never ever do so. In fact we've made sure we're not seen in the act by these people (and by most others).
Now not a few Christians believe that their deity frowns upon masturbation. For instance the Catholic Church teaches that masturbation is an "intrinsically and gravely disordered action" and is an "offense against chastity."2 Christians also believe that their god, among other things, is all-seeing and is everywhere (omnipresent). So how is it that these believers are able to perform autoerotic acts in front of God? Think about it. Such believers are never alone; God is always there with them. They can lock themselves inside a hermetic bank vault and God would still be there (and everywhere else simultaneously), closer to them than all the duffel bags of cash in the room. And if they also believe in guardian angels, then surely their personal bodyguard is with them 24/7. Unless angels can become afflicted with diseases such as glaucoma, they see everything their charge does.
So I'm scratching my head here. If their deity forbids masturbation how can they ever have the gall to do it right in front of God (and angels)? Isn't that much worse, more shameful, more scandalous than wanking off in front of one's parents?
It seems to me that one possible explanation why such believers are able to commit such a proscribed act in the very presence of their deity, is that they don't fully believe--they aren't totally sold on the idea--that their deity is right there with them all the time (not least because they don't see him/it), they don't completely believe that this entity can actually see everything, or at that moment when biological urges become strong enough they go into a (transient) state of denial of their god's existence/presence. (If Ted Haggard really believed in his all-powerful, all-seeing deity, how could he have committed the acts that led to his downfall?)
But can you imagine how ludicrous and delusional such psychological trickery would be were you jacking off right in front of your parents? You could close your eyes and deny that they're there watching but that won't change the facts, would it? You would only do it if you believe that you're alone, that the walls are opaque, that there are no hidden cameras.
If you truly believe your parents are there in front you, you won't even go naked. But if you can't see, hear, feel, smell, detect by any means whatsoever your deity, and you've never seen, heard, felt, smelled this thing you worship, then maybe, just maybe, it isn't really around--and so you can touch yourself, "in private."
Given that this deity is right there in front of them all the time (and behind, above, below, to the left, right, and all around them at the same time, and see/know everything inside them including their thoughts and feelings) how is it that any believer can cheat, lie, steal, plagiarize, be hybristic, think evil thoughts, etc.? Again, one possible explanation is that they haven't bought into the belief as fully they profess. Indeed if a person believed in the reality of this all-seeing, omnipresent deity so fully that s/he has been able to make herself see and hear its presence all the time (even if only in their heads), that person cannot possibly commit any wrongdoing. How can you possibly cheat, tell a lie, steal, ... when you're always face-to-face with this omni-everything being that has the power to punish in the worst ways imaginable for eternity? So perhaps it may do believers well to become hallucinatory and see and hear their God 24/7 if they wish to become saintly. On the other hand, to be constantly aware that God is there with you every second of your life--that might just be a living hell for some. I think the denial or de facto atheism that believers practise from time to time keeps them sane and "normal."
---
1. Daniel Dennett, Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon, Viking, 2006, p. 227.
2. Catechism of the Catholic Church, par. 2352.
Now not a few Christians believe that their deity frowns upon masturbation. For instance the Catholic Church teaches that masturbation is an "intrinsically and gravely disordered action" and is an "offense against chastity."2 Christians also believe that their god, among other things, is all-seeing and is everywhere (omnipresent). So how is it that these believers are able to perform autoerotic acts in front of God? Think about it. Such believers are never alone; God is always there with them. They can lock themselves inside a hermetic bank vault and God would still be there (and everywhere else simultaneously), closer to them than all the duffel bags of cash in the room. And if they also believe in guardian angels, then surely their personal bodyguard is with them 24/7. Unless angels can become afflicted with diseases such as glaucoma, they see everything their charge does.
So I'm scratching my head here. If their deity forbids masturbation how can they ever have the gall to do it right in front of God (and angels)? Isn't that much worse, more shameful, more scandalous than wanking off in front of one's parents?
It seems to me that one possible explanation why such believers are able to commit such a proscribed act in the very presence of their deity, is that they don't fully believe--they aren't totally sold on the idea--that their deity is right there with them all the time (not least because they don't see him/it), they don't completely believe that this entity can actually see everything, or at that moment when biological urges become strong enough they go into a (transient) state of denial of their god's existence/presence. (If Ted Haggard really believed in his all-powerful, all-seeing deity, how could he have committed the acts that led to his downfall?)
But can you imagine how ludicrous and delusional such psychological trickery would be were you jacking off right in front of your parents? You could close your eyes and deny that they're there watching but that won't change the facts, would it? You would only do it if you believe that you're alone, that the walls are opaque, that there are no hidden cameras.
If you truly believe your parents are there in front you, you won't even go naked. But if you can't see, hear, feel, smell, detect by any means whatsoever your deity, and you've never seen, heard, felt, smelled this thing you worship, then maybe, just maybe, it isn't really around--and so you can touch yourself, "in private."
Given that this deity is right there in front of them all the time (and behind, above, below, to the left, right, and all around them at the same time, and see/know everything inside them including their thoughts and feelings) how is it that any believer can cheat, lie, steal, plagiarize, be hybristic, think evil thoughts, etc.? Again, one possible explanation is that they haven't bought into the belief as fully they profess. Indeed if a person believed in the reality of this all-seeing, omnipresent deity so fully that s/he has been able to make herself see and hear its presence all the time (even if only in their heads), that person cannot possibly commit any wrongdoing. How can you possibly cheat, tell a lie, steal, ... when you're always face-to-face with this omni-everything being that has the power to punish in the worst ways imaginable for eternity? So perhaps it may do believers well to become hallucinatory and see and hear their God 24/7 if they wish to become saintly. On the other hand, to be constantly aware that God is there with you every second of your life--that might just be a living hell for some. I think the denial or de facto atheism that believers practise from time to time keeps them sane and "normal."
---
1. Daniel Dennett, Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon, Viking, 2006, p. 227.
2. Catechism of the Catholic Church, par. 2352.
Jesus telecoms
He's been sighted again. No pareidolia this time. It's Jesus in the flesh.
They should check their cell phones for any text messages from Him.
In Gulu town, excited residents, many of them primary school pupils, rushed to an MTN mobile phone mast following rumours that a manifestation of Christ had been sighted at its top.... Eric Odongo, one of the onlookers, claimed he first saw clouds on top of the mast and that Jesus appeared to be standing amidst clouds. "I saw Jesus standing on top of the mast. He was standing between two people and was putting on a white cloth. His hair was black," Mr Odongo claimed, in a description that was echoed by many more at the scene. Reporters, however, did not see anything, and Herbert Omoding, the MTN Assistant Engineer in Gulu, said he had seen nothing unusual.
They should check their cell phones for any text messages from Him.
Friday, February 16, 2007
What the bleep do they know?
In a response to Alister McGrath, Richard Dawkins makes a most important point:
When I design circuits, unless the circuit is something as simple as feeding the right amount of juice to an LED, I don't have the doubtless confidence of telling myself or the world that I know it's going to work perfectly, flawlessly. As is typical and standard practice, I go over the design a number of times, recheck my calculations, and then breadboard the whole thing, crossing my fingers that I don't blow a fuse or fry an IC (again). A crucial part of the design cycle is testing. However confident I may be that a design is ok, I can never be absolutely certain until I build the circuit, power it up, put it through its paces, and see whether it does all the things it's suppose to do. (and even then I can't be certain that I've not pushed any component to its operating limit, including thermal limit, thus leading to possible early failure).
A circuit design issues from the brain. It may or may not work. And when one's a novice the odds are in favor of unwittingly zapping something or turning out a lemon. The only real way to find out whether it actually works (and how robust it really is) is to build it and power it up. Testing is all important in order to validate our belief that the design works. (Yes, I'm aware of simulation software that can obviate some actual hardware testing. I actually use Microchip's simulation software whenever the design incorporates one of their PIC microcontrollers)
Theologians, religionists who insist that this and that theological claim is true, on the other hand, are perhaps some of the most hybristic people in the world. How can they possibly claim to know and insist a certain claim about the supernatural is true when they haven't checked whether what their brains have churned out is in fact in consonance with reality? When they haven't tested the validity these ideas? And how can they simply trust--have faith--in these claims despite or because of the fact that these claims can't ever be tested and checked for validity/veracity? There's something very wrong in this line of thinking and behavior.
It's actually much worse. Those who design circuits have various premises. For example, I take for granted that (nondefective) diodes conduct only when there's a positive potential difference between their anode and cathode, but not the other way around. I don't go about questioning this assumption. Why? Because there already exists much evidence that this is so. Furthermore, if someone, including myself, were to question this claim, it can always be tested. Another example. One of the most important equations in electronics is Ohm's Law. V = IR, where V = voltage (in volts), I = current (in amperes), R = resistance (in ohms). Again I take it for granted that this law holds. And again those who are skeptical of it can always build a circuit using precision components and test this equation's validity to their satisfaction. While it may seem that we take certain things on authority, the fact is that not only are the presumptions backed up with evidence, but also that they are testable and can be proved (or disproved) if one wishes to do so.
What about theological premises? None of them are known to be true. And they can't be known to be true--they are untestable. Now if the facticity and veracity of the premises are not known to be true, then no argument or conclusion founded upon them can be known to be true. When it comes to theology--whether Hindu, Zoroastrian, Muslim, Christian, or what have you--there is no claim therein that is known to be true. Every one of them is at best a hypothesis.
So what in fact do theologians know when it comes to the supernatural? Isn't it that they're merely spouting fantastical, unverifiable claims and performing mental gymnastics?
If we claim to know then we must be able to elucidate a valid way of actually knowing it, and show that what is being declared is in fact true. To say that we know through revelation or through authority or tradition--these are illicit and vacuous ways. Just to tackle revelation: Because we know that humans are unreliable (would you really fall on your knees and lend your ears and brain every time someone claims s/he's received a communique from his/her deity?) all so-called revelations need to be tested and checked. But how do we test whether a claimed revelation is not just a misfiring of neurons, or a result of some illness, or a mere delusion, or some other thing? Is there a way of doing so? And of course there are more fundamental questions: How do religionists know that revelations really exist? Is there at least one indubitable instance that they can cite? If so, how do they know it really was a revelation? And is revelation not the same as intuition? How do we definitively and testably differentiate one from the other?
Thus, I cannot but agree with Dawkins when he asks whether theology is a subject at all. What could theologians be experts in? Well certainly not in phenomena that are or can be known to be real, in claims that you can go check and confirm/disconfirm. If you ask me, devoting half a century of one's life to theology is a pitiable waste. It's not much better than spending the same amount of years in becoming an authority on the Lord of the Rings. The thing about theists that sets them apart from Shakespeare, Rowling and Tolkien experts is that the latter know their expertise is in works of fiction. Theists have the delusion that their claims are in consonance with reality, that they know of an otherworldly reality.
[W]hereas I and other scientists are humble enough to say we don’t know, what of theologians like McGrath? He knows. He’s signed up to the Nicene Creed. The universe was created by a very particular supernatural intelligence who is actually three in one. Not four, not two, but three. Christian doctrine is remarkably specific: not only with cut-and-dried answers to the deep problems of the universe and life, but about the divinity of Jesus, about sin and redemption, heaven and hell, prayer and absolute morality.
When I design circuits, unless the circuit is something as simple as feeding the right amount of juice to an LED, I don't have the doubtless confidence of telling myself or the world that I know it's going to work perfectly, flawlessly. As is typical and standard practice, I go over the design a number of times, recheck my calculations, and then breadboard the whole thing, crossing my fingers that I don't blow a fuse or fry an IC (again). A crucial part of the design cycle is testing. However confident I may be that a design is ok, I can never be absolutely certain until I build the circuit, power it up, put it through its paces, and see whether it does all the things it's suppose to do. (and even then I can't be certain that I've not pushed any component to its operating limit, including thermal limit, thus leading to possible early failure).
A circuit design issues from the brain. It may or may not work. And when one's a novice the odds are in favor of unwittingly zapping something or turning out a lemon. The only real way to find out whether it actually works (and how robust it really is) is to build it and power it up. Testing is all important in order to validate our belief that the design works. (Yes, I'm aware of simulation software that can obviate some actual hardware testing. I actually use Microchip's simulation software whenever the design incorporates one of their PIC microcontrollers)
Theologians, religionists who insist that this and that theological claim is true, on the other hand, are perhaps some of the most hybristic people in the world. How can they possibly claim to know and insist a certain claim about the supernatural is true when they haven't checked whether what their brains have churned out is in fact in consonance with reality? When they haven't tested the validity these ideas? And how can they simply trust--have faith--in these claims despite or because of the fact that these claims can't ever be tested and checked for validity/veracity? There's something very wrong in this line of thinking and behavior.
It's actually much worse. Those who design circuits have various premises. For example, I take for granted that (nondefective) diodes conduct only when there's a positive potential difference between their anode and cathode, but not the other way around. I don't go about questioning this assumption. Why? Because there already exists much evidence that this is so. Furthermore, if someone, including myself, were to question this claim, it can always be tested. Another example. One of the most important equations in electronics is Ohm's Law. V = IR, where V = voltage (in volts), I = current (in amperes), R = resistance (in ohms). Again I take it for granted that this law holds. And again those who are skeptical of it can always build a circuit using precision components and test this equation's validity to their satisfaction. While it may seem that we take certain things on authority, the fact is that not only are the presumptions backed up with evidence, but also that they are testable and can be proved (or disproved) if one wishes to do so.
What about theological premises? None of them are known to be true. And they can't be known to be true--they are untestable. Now if the facticity and veracity of the premises are not known to be true, then no argument or conclusion founded upon them can be known to be true. When it comes to theology--whether Hindu, Zoroastrian, Muslim, Christian, or what have you--there is no claim therein that is known to be true. Every one of them is at best a hypothesis.
So what in fact do theologians know when it comes to the supernatural? Isn't it that they're merely spouting fantastical, unverifiable claims and performing mental gymnastics?
If we claim to know then we must be able to elucidate a valid way of actually knowing it, and show that what is being declared is in fact true. To say that we know through revelation or through authority or tradition--these are illicit and vacuous ways. Just to tackle revelation: Because we know that humans are unreliable (would you really fall on your knees and lend your ears and brain every time someone claims s/he's received a communique from his/her deity?) all so-called revelations need to be tested and checked. But how do we test whether a claimed revelation is not just a misfiring of neurons, or a result of some illness, or a mere delusion, or some other thing? Is there a way of doing so? And of course there are more fundamental questions: How do religionists know that revelations really exist? Is there at least one indubitable instance that they can cite? If so, how do they know it really was a revelation? And is revelation not the same as intuition? How do we definitively and testably differentiate one from the other?
Thus, I cannot but agree with Dawkins when he asks whether theology is a subject at all. What could theologians be experts in? Well certainly not in phenomena that are or can be known to be real, in claims that you can go check and confirm/disconfirm. If you ask me, devoting half a century of one's life to theology is a pitiable waste. It's not much better than spending the same amount of years in becoming an authority on the Lord of the Rings. The thing about theists that sets them apart from Shakespeare, Rowling and Tolkien experts is that the latter know their expertise is in works of fiction. Theists have the delusion that their claims are in consonance with reality, that they know of an otherworldly reality.
Wednesday, February 14, 2007
Jesus' sparkling eyes
Some are claiming that they've seen sparks emanating from the eyes of a steel and bronze statue of Jesus on exhibit at the Liverpool Academy of Art.
Brian Burgess, the sculptor, said,
Sparks or reflections? Or something else?
I'd recommend turning off the lights and checking for anything "anomalous" but then we know how it's so easy for us humans to hallucinate, specially when we're expectant and know what's supposed to be detected/perceive. The mere suggestion that we should alert people if we see sparks is enough to elicit the hallucination in some people.
Mesmerized by dancing suns and sparkling eyes. Human psychology is fascinating indeed.
Brian Burgess, the sculptor, said,
It began when one woman who saw the statue fell to her knees and began praying. She was transfixed for more than thirty minutes and when she came out of the trance she said she had witnessed sparks coming from the eyes of the Christ figure. Now the word has spread and we have hoards of people coming along to pray and venerate the statue and many of them have said they have witnessed these sparks too.... I worked on the piece for about a year but I never saw any sparks apart from those coming from the welding torch.
Sparks or reflections? Or something else?
I'd recommend turning off the lights and checking for anything "anomalous" but then we know how it's so easy for us humans to hallucinate, specially when we're expectant and know what's supposed to be detected/perceive. The mere suggestion that we should alert people if we see sparks is enough to elicit the hallucination in some people.
Mesmerized by dancing suns and sparkling eyes. Human psychology is fascinating indeed.
Monday, February 12, 2007
Delusions continue despite Evolution Sunday
Not a few Christians already accept evolution. And some of them are making it known publicly.
There's a deluge of evidence supporting the theory of evolution (as well as the evolution of galaxies, stars, planets, including the age of the universe and our home planet). The evidence simply cannot be ignored. To believe a Bronze Age claim and reject the wealth of scientific findings is totally irrational. Because there is an irreconcilable contradiction between the creation story in an ancient text (just one among many creation stories in the ancient world) and what science has discovered, one has to choose one or the other (or perhaps reject both). Creationists (including young earth creationists) take the irrational route and opt for literalizing mythology. Other Christians--apparently those who are not as attached to the bible and who permit parts of it to be read as fiction--have implicitly given science and the methods of science a thumbs up.
The reasoning of this latter group seems to me to be as follows. Since science has discovered such and such and it is universally accepted in the scientific community that this is so, and since biblical account G is totally at odds with that scientific truth, therefore G must be fictional and is just allegorical/metaphorical/poetic/etc. Well and good.
The problem is with those accounts in the bible (in the gospels for instance) that are claimed to be historical for which disconfirming evidence is very hard to come by or even impossible. I have in mind such events as virgin birth, miracles (water into wine, multiplication of loaves/fishes, etc.), resurrection. The strongest argument for not believing in these claims is that we have never observed these events, and that there is no known way of producing these phenomena. But that of course seldom puts a dent in the faith of believers. They merely argue (albeit ad hoc) that these are one-off events which only a deity(-incarnate) could perform and had performed. Strictly speaking they would be right in throwing at skeptics and atheists the principle, "absence of evidence is not evidence of absence." Just because we don't know how these events can come about and just because we have not encountered such events does not imply they cannot and did not happen. But what Christians who resort to this fail (or realize) to say is that absence of evidence hardly warrants belief, and certainly does not merit unwavering faith! Since there is no evidence for Shiva, Muhammad riding a flying horse, gremlins manipulating our thoughts, aliens inhabiting the Moon ... why do they not believe in these extraordinary claims as well? The rational thing to do when there is no evidence for X is to withhold belief in it.
Given that it will probably be impossible to disprove the virgin birth, miracles, and resurrection, I think most of those who are reared in Christianity or have adopted that religion will continue to believe that these events did occur, that they are not merely fictional/allegorical/metaphorical, or just an exercise of storyteller's license by the biblical writers, or just part of an encomium wherein a hero's biography is embellished (posthumously) to suit the public's perception of this person's stature.1
Unlike the evolution vs. creationism issue where the former more than satisfactorily disconfirms the latter, no such thorough disconfirmation is forthcoming vis-a-vis the gospel claims. Thus, while there is no good reason to believe the extraordinary claims, the lack of a definitive disproof (notwithstanding the various reasons to disbelieve), will ensure that not a few will continue taking these claims on faith.
Still from the same article:
When Zimmerman claims that science and theism can co-exist I read that as: scientific understanding of the world and supernatural beliefs can coexist in the same mind, that one can hold both very rational and truly irrational beliefs simultaneously without any sense of conflict. Well, I don't understand how he (and Human Genome Project director Francis Collins, among others) is able to do this. It must take some self-deception to get away with it.
---
1. Robert W. Funk, Honest to Jesus: Jesus for a New Millennium, New York: Harper Collins, 1996, p. 281ff. Funk explains the hellenistic encomium:
Flocks of the Christian faithful in the US will this Sunday hold special services celebrating Charles Darwin's theory of evolution. The idea is to stand up to creationism, which claims the biblical account of creation is literally true, and which is increasingly being promoted under the guise of "intelligent design". Proponents of ID say the universe is so complex it must have been created by some unnamed designer.
Support for "Evolution Sunday" has grown 13 per cent to 530 congregations this year, from the 467 that celebrated the inaugural event last year. Organisers see it as increasing proof that Christians are comfortable with evolution.
There's a deluge of evidence supporting the theory of evolution (as well as the evolution of galaxies, stars, planets, including the age of the universe and our home planet). The evidence simply cannot be ignored. To believe a Bronze Age claim and reject the wealth of scientific findings is totally irrational. Because there is an irreconcilable contradiction between the creation story in an ancient text (just one among many creation stories in the ancient world) and what science has discovered, one has to choose one or the other (or perhaps reject both). Creationists (including young earth creationists) take the irrational route and opt for literalizing mythology. Other Christians--apparently those who are not as attached to the bible and who permit parts of it to be read as fiction--have implicitly given science and the methods of science a thumbs up.
The reasoning of this latter group seems to me to be as follows. Since science has discovered such and such and it is universally accepted in the scientific community that this is so, and since biblical account G is totally at odds with that scientific truth, therefore G must be fictional and is just allegorical/metaphorical/poetic/etc. Well and good.
The problem is with those accounts in the bible (in the gospels for instance) that are claimed to be historical for which disconfirming evidence is very hard to come by or even impossible. I have in mind such events as virgin birth, miracles (water into wine, multiplication of loaves/fishes, etc.), resurrection. The strongest argument for not believing in these claims is that we have never observed these events, and that there is no known way of producing these phenomena. But that of course seldom puts a dent in the faith of believers. They merely argue (albeit ad hoc) that these are one-off events which only a deity(-incarnate) could perform and had performed. Strictly speaking they would be right in throwing at skeptics and atheists the principle, "absence of evidence is not evidence of absence." Just because we don't know how these events can come about and just because we have not encountered such events does not imply they cannot and did not happen. But what Christians who resort to this fail (or realize) to say is that absence of evidence hardly warrants belief, and certainly does not merit unwavering faith! Since there is no evidence for Shiva, Muhammad riding a flying horse, gremlins manipulating our thoughts, aliens inhabiting the Moon ... why do they not believe in these extraordinary claims as well? The rational thing to do when there is no evidence for X is to withhold belief in it.
Given that it will probably be impossible to disprove the virgin birth, miracles, and resurrection, I think most of those who are reared in Christianity or have adopted that religion will continue to believe that these events did occur, that they are not merely fictional/allegorical/metaphorical, or just an exercise of storyteller's license by the biblical writers, or just part of an encomium wherein a hero's biography is embellished (posthumously) to suit the public's perception of this person's stature.1
Unlike the evolution vs. creationism issue where the former more than satisfactorily disconfirms the latter, no such thorough disconfirmation is forthcoming vis-a-vis the gospel claims. Thus, while there is no good reason to believe the extraordinary claims, the lack of a definitive disproof (notwithstanding the various reasons to disbelieve), will ensure that not a few will continue taking these claims on faith.
Still from the same article:
Michael Zimmerman, founder of Evolution Sunday and dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at Butler University in Indianapolis. "We're saying you can have your faith, and you can also have science."
When Zimmerman claims that science and theism can co-exist I read that as: scientific understanding of the world and supernatural beliefs can coexist in the same mind, that one can hold both very rational and truly irrational beliefs simultaneously without any sense of conflict. Well, I don't understand how he (and Human Genome Project director Francis Collins, among others) is able to do this. It must take some self-deception to get away with it.
---
1. Robert W. Funk, Honest to Jesus: Jesus for a New Millennium, New York: Harper Collins, 1996, p. 281ff. Funk explains the hellenistic encomium:
The retrospective interpretation of the hero's life from the perspective of his or her noble death was regarded as a legitimate perspective. The basis for that perspective was the view that one's destiny was predetermined or controlled by fate. What a particular individual turned out to be was determined at the outset, at birth. At the same time, one could not know what fate had in store until that life had run its course. Birth stories were considered an essential part of the biography because infancy anecdotes recounted omens that pointed to the future, a future known only from the perspective of the hero's noble death. If someone had died a noble death and lived an exemplary life, that person must have had a noteworthy birth.
The hellenistic biography or encomium, following the model of Aristoxenus, a student of Aristotle, consisted of five elements: a miraculous or unusual birth; revealing childhood episode (or episodes); a summary of wise teachings; wondrous deeds; a martyrdom or noble death. This form of the biography was more suitable for philosophers and religious heroes, such as Socrates and Jesus. The New Testament gospels encompass precisely these five elements and are thus examples of the hellenistic biography. (p.282)
Friday, February 09, 2007
Misplaced skepticism
I have this friend who's been up in arms since the 2007 IPCC report on global warming came out. He's a skeptic. He doubts that global warming is real, despite the IPCC findings. Is my friend a meteorologist or climatologist or even a volcanologist? No. Does he have a science degree? No. Has he provided empirical evidence that refutes the IPCC claims? No. He's only made claims. So should I give his skepticism weight?
Judging from his emails, what's really eating him is that atheists (I believe that for simplicity's sake he uses this term loosely to mean nonbelievers, rationalists, critical thinkers and the like) are skeptical of religious claims but are not being skeptical of the IPCC report. He's used "hypocrisy." I think he means prejudice and bias. In so many words he's saying that on the one hand we critique Christianity and dismiss it. We hardly listen to Church fathers and theologians (so called experts in religion). But when a bunch of scientists (so called experts in climate) pronounce that global warming is very likely already happening and very likely to be anthropogenic, we don't even switch our critical thinking faculties on but simply nod our heads wildly in toadyish assent.
Well, I have really been scratching my head over the past week. I don't understand what has gotten over this friend of mine who by the way still has one foot in Christianity. Sure, being skeptical of claims, even by scientists is good. We shouldn't believe anything just on the basis of authority. The problem though is that a good number of scientists, experts in climate change, have for many years been studying the evidence and in the latest international gathering have said that global warming is occurring and is caused by humans. I don't have a fraction of the expertise necessary to pore over the evidence--both for and against--to find out for myself whether there is indeed good reason to say that temperatures are or will be increasing. And neither does my friend. While it is fallacious to argue that since most scientists say X is true, therefore X is true, it is pretty strange to say that, being a layperson who has no expertise and has not examined the evidence, we should be highly skeptical of the claims of these scientists.
I have not studied medicine but I trust my doctor is going to help my body fight the disease I'm saddled with through the medication he's prescribed. I don't have the expertise to say whether his prescribed treatment is right or wrong. But when a second and third expert opinion are in agreement I tend to become quite confident of the treatment's predicted efficacy. Same thing with the recent IPCC report. When you have a good number of scientists (whom I presume have studied lots of data/evidence) come to conclusion that it is highly probable that there's warming and that we humans are to blame, and when they are even more confident today than when they isued their 2001 findings (90% versus 66% in 2001), then I tend to believe that anthropogenic warming is real. I have less (or little) reason to be skeptical.
In one of my earlier replies to my friend I shared the following heuristic by Bertrand Russell:
It is not that when there's a majority consensus among scientists that what they're saying is therefore true. Rather, being nonexperts we can do no more than rely on those who know the subject matter far better than we do and who have the ability to analyze the data and evidence properly. It always is the case that our belief must be in proportion to the evidence. We nonexperts, however, can only depend on those who are qualified and who have examined the evidence. Think of these panel of scientists as consultants if you like.
So I find my friend's skepticism a bit puzzling. I find it disproportionate. I find it irrational even. He's mentioned Michael Crichton several times in the past during our phone conversations and I'm just wondering whether he's being skeptical on the basis of Crichton's skepticism. I should hope that he's got a more reliable source and foundation than a novelist.
Now moving on to what I think is really bugging him. My friend wrote:
It escapes my friend that there is a huge difference between empirical claims made by scientists studying the greenhouse effect and global warming and supernatural claims by theologians and Church fathers. For instance, most supernatural claims are nonfalsifiable, not least because religionists always posit an out--they provide ad hoc explanations to rationalize apparent disconfirmations. The greenhouse effect and global warming are observable events, can be measured, and are falsifiable claims.
Why should we be very skeptical of supernatural claims? Well, for starters up to now there is not a shred of good evidence for them. There has been no progress in the realm of theology. Not a single theological claim (and I'm talking of all religions) has been proved to be true. In contrast we know that the greenhouse effect is real. Just train your scopes on Venus to see what a runaway global warming can do. So, no, my friend. Theistic claims deserve more skepticism.
He then goes on to say that a majority of scientists now are of the opinion that global warming is for real. And because this is the majority opinion, atheists he says believe it as well. He continues:
He's asserting that if we are not be guilty of double standards and we believe scientific consensus then we should also believe the world consensus when it comes to the supernatural. Of course what he's advocating is that we commit the fallacy of argumentum ad numerum.
Scientists are experts in their respective fields, just as an oncologist is an expert on cancer. Is there any theologian who is an expert in the supernatural? Is there any nontheologian who is an expert in the same? No. For the very simple reason that no one, not even the best theologian has any evidence (or proof) that the supernatural is real, that any deity exists. No theologian, no theistic religion can even substantiate the most fundamental premise and truth claim they have. And needless to say there is no consensus among the menagerie of religions on what the supernatural is, how many deities there are, etc. On the contrary.
Those who believe in global warming and root their belief in expert opinion of scientists are being rational, not least because science has a reputable track record. Science works.
In his email today, among other things, he wrote:
I replied: Skeptics don't have the burden of proof. The thing is, if those claiming that global warming is real already have a litany of evidence in support of their hypothesis then the burden of proof shifts to those who are claiming that it is not occurring. Should there be a time in the future when warming skeptics gain the upper hand, then the onus shifts again. This is similar to what happened with evolution. The prevailing hypothesis before Darwin was religious creationism. But during and after Darwin evidence in support of evolution came pouring in such that by the 20th century the burden of proof had squarely shifted to the creationists to provide evidence for their hypothesis. Conspicuously, creationists have not been able to provide positive evidence. But what they've been trying to do is to produce/find confuting evidence against evolution. But this strategy is fallacious. If we find disconfirming evidence against hypothesis X, it does not imply that hypothesis Y then is true. This is a false dichotomy. If evolution is found false it does not mean creationism is true. Both could be wrong; some yet unproposed explanation being the correct one. Right now the burden of proof is most definitely on those who are skeptical of evolution, or for that matter, those doubtful of the theory of relativity, theory of electromagnetic radiation, ....
I don't exactly know what my friend has been reading that's made him so skeptical and critical of the IPCC and its findings. As I said above I find his skepticism disproportionate and even irrational. I--one who won't be able to pass a Metereology 101 exam--would be skeptical of my skepticism should there be a consensus among climate experts. So I find my friend's staunchly held position a bit arrogant. I find it really strange that he'd be so skeptical of global warming but not of the existence of the supernatural.
Judging from his emails, what's really eating him is that atheists (I believe that for simplicity's sake he uses this term loosely to mean nonbelievers, rationalists, critical thinkers and the like) are skeptical of religious claims but are not being skeptical of the IPCC report. He's used "hypocrisy." I think he means prejudice and bias. In so many words he's saying that on the one hand we critique Christianity and dismiss it. We hardly listen to Church fathers and theologians (so called experts in religion). But when a bunch of scientists (so called experts in climate) pronounce that global warming is very likely already happening and very likely to be anthropogenic, we don't even switch our critical thinking faculties on but simply nod our heads wildly in toadyish assent.
Well, I have really been scratching my head over the past week. I don't understand what has gotten over this friend of mine who by the way still has one foot in Christianity. Sure, being skeptical of claims, even by scientists is good. We shouldn't believe anything just on the basis of authority. The problem though is that a good number of scientists, experts in climate change, have for many years been studying the evidence and in the latest international gathering have said that global warming is occurring and is caused by humans. I don't have a fraction of the expertise necessary to pore over the evidence--both for and against--to find out for myself whether there is indeed good reason to say that temperatures are or will be increasing. And neither does my friend. While it is fallacious to argue that since most scientists say X is true, therefore X is true, it is pretty strange to say that, being a layperson who has no expertise and has not examined the evidence, we should be highly skeptical of the claims of these scientists.
I have not studied medicine but I trust my doctor is going to help my body fight the disease I'm saddled with through the medication he's prescribed. I don't have the expertise to say whether his prescribed treatment is right or wrong. But when a second and third expert opinion are in agreement I tend to become quite confident of the treatment's predicted efficacy. Same thing with the recent IPCC report. When you have a good number of scientists (whom I presume have studied lots of data/evidence) come to conclusion that it is highly probable that there's warming and that we humans are to blame, and when they are even more confident today than when they isued their 2001 findings (90% versus 66% in 2001), then I tend to believe that anthropogenic warming is real. I have less (or little) reason to be skeptical.
In one of my earlier replies to my friend I shared the following heuristic by Bertrand Russell:
[T]he opinion of experts, when it is unanimous, must be accepted by non-experts as more likely to be right than the opposite opinion. The scepticism that I advocate amounts only to this: (1) that when the experts are agreed, the opposite opinion cannot be held to be certain; (2) that when they are not agreed, no opinion can be regarded as certain by a non-expert; and (3) that when they all hold that no sufficient grounds for a positive opinion exist, the ordinary man would do well to suspend his judgment.
It is not that when there's a majority consensus among scientists that what they're saying is therefore true. Rather, being nonexperts we can do no more than rely on those who know the subject matter far better than we do and who have the ability to analyze the data and evidence properly. It always is the case that our belief must be in proportion to the evidence. We nonexperts, however, can only depend on those who are qualified and who have examined the evidence. Think of these panel of scientists as consultants if you like.
So I find my friend's skepticism a bit puzzling. I find it disproportionate. I find it irrational even. He's mentioned Michael Crichton several times in the past during our phone conversations and I'm just wondering whether he's being skeptical on the basis of Crichton's skepticism. I should hope that he's got a more reliable source and foundation than a novelist.
Now moving on to what I think is really bugging him. My friend wrote:
My say is that if the skeptics of religion believe in global warming, they are applying a double standard because global warming deserves just as much skepticism.
To also say that global warming can and will be proven within the next decade or within the next century whereas religion such as Christianity cannot be proven because of supernatural claims is also deficient of reasoning.
It escapes my friend that there is a huge difference between empirical claims made by scientists studying the greenhouse effect and global warming and supernatural claims by theologians and Church fathers. For instance, most supernatural claims are nonfalsifiable, not least because religionists always posit an out--they provide ad hoc explanations to rationalize apparent disconfirmations. The greenhouse effect and global warming are observable events, can be measured, and are falsifiable claims.
Why should we be very skeptical of supernatural claims? Well, for starters up to now there is not a shred of good evidence for them. There has been no progress in the realm of theology. Not a single theological claim (and I'm talking of all religions) has been proved to be true. In contrast we know that the greenhouse effect is real. Just train your scopes on Venus to see what a runaway global warming can do. So, no, my friend. Theistic claims deserve more skepticism.
He then goes on to say that a majority of scientists now are of the opinion that global warming is for real. And because this is the majority opinion, atheists he says believe it as well. He continues:
If the atheist believes this line of thinking, then he is applying the double standard. For the atheist is a minority when it comes to religion. Majority of the world's populatiion believe in some kind of God or Gods. In the line of thinking that the majority should prevail in the interpretation of Truth, then the religious are right and the atheists are wrong.
The atheist as skeptic should question the climate change issue just as much as he questions the the religion issue.
He's asserting that if we are not be guilty of double standards and we believe scientific consensus then we should also believe the world consensus when it comes to the supernatural. Of course what he's advocating is that we commit the fallacy of argumentum ad numerum.
Scientists are experts in their respective fields, just as an oncologist is an expert on cancer. Is there any theologian who is an expert in the supernatural? Is there any nontheologian who is an expert in the same? No. For the very simple reason that no one, not even the best theologian has any evidence (or proof) that the supernatural is real, that any deity exists. No theologian, no theistic religion can even substantiate the most fundamental premise and truth claim they have. And needless to say there is no consensus among the menagerie of religions on what the supernatural is, how many deities there are, etc. On the contrary.
Those who believe in global warming and root their belief in expert opinion of scientists are being rational, not least because science has a reputable track record. Science works.
In his email today, among other things, he wrote:
Why should skeptics of global warming be saddled with the burden of proof for their doubts? Atheists argue that religious people should show evidence while the non-believers sit back in their armchairs and criticize?
I replied: Skeptics don't have the burden of proof. The thing is, if those claiming that global warming is real already have a litany of evidence in support of their hypothesis then the burden of proof shifts to those who are claiming that it is not occurring. Should there be a time in the future when warming skeptics gain the upper hand, then the onus shifts again. This is similar to what happened with evolution. The prevailing hypothesis before Darwin was religious creationism. But during and after Darwin evidence in support of evolution came pouring in such that by the 20th century the burden of proof had squarely shifted to the creationists to provide evidence for their hypothesis. Conspicuously, creationists have not been able to provide positive evidence. But what they've been trying to do is to produce/find confuting evidence against evolution. But this strategy is fallacious. If we find disconfirming evidence against hypothesis X, it does not imply that hypothesis Y then is true. This is a false dichotomy. If evolution is found false it does not mean creationism is true. Both could be wrong; some yet unproposed explanation being the correct one. Right now the burden of proof is most definitely on those who are skeptical of evolution, or for that matter, those doubtful of the theory of relativity, theory of electromagnetic radiation, ....
I don't exactly know what my friend has been reading that's made him so skeptical and critical of the IPCC and its findings. As I said above I find his skepticism disproportionate and even irrational. I--one who won't be able to pass a Metereology 101 exam--would be skeptical of my skepticism should there be a consensus among climate experts. So I find my friend's staunchly held position a bit arrogant. I find it really strange that he'd be so skeptical of global warming but not of the existence of the supernatural.
Saturday, February 03, 2007
Grayling's challenge
Philosopher and author A.C. Grayling offers this challenge: What contribution has Christianity ever made to science?
Looks like no one has come up with any. Grayling notes,
Looks like no one has come up with any. Grayling notes,
I asked Madeleine Bunting to name a single contribution to science made by Christianity. She accepts with pleasure the magnificent response of the many special-pleaders who responded on her behalf by naming Christian (whether nominal or convinced) scientists, the evolution of science in Christian (nominally or convinced) countries, and the role of Christian institutions (and institutions under church control: monasteries, universities).
I was in equal parts staggered and amused by this response, staggered because it seemed astonishing to me that anyone would seriously think it was not obvious that there were scientists who were (nominal or convinced) Christians, that science developed in countries many of which were (nominally or convinced) Christian countries, and so on, and amused because in their triumphalist teaching of how to suck eggs on this matter, the responders had so vastly missed the point of my challenge, even when I clarified it for them. For obviously and manifestly I did not ask Ms Bunting if there had even been Christian scientists, or whether science had been pursued in Christian countries. I challenged Ms Bunting to explain what Christianity, a body of beliefs and doctrine about virgin birth, miracles, resurrection of the dead, angels and archangels, voices from heaven, stigmata, and all the rest of the superstitious paraphernalia, had contributed to science.
I even, in clarification to those who had astonishingly mistaken so straightforward a challenge (but perhaps wilfully?), asked if the virgin birth was a contribution to gynaecology, whether the miracle of the loaves and fishes was a contribution to food science and marine zoology, whether the assumption of the virgin was a contribution to aeronautics. I fail to see how this challenge is unclear; I fail to see how it constitutes a claim that no scientists were ever Christians and that science did not develop in Christian countries, as all the would-be rebutters endlessly chorused. But so it did: remarkable.
I still await a reply to my challenge, though I am not holding my breath.
Thursday, February 01, 2007
Understanding consciousness
Psychology professor Steven Pinker has an enlightening piece on the brain and consciousness. Here's an excerpt:
Consciousness is, of course, the product of the brain. The mind is an epiphenomenon of our gray matter. The manifestations of what has been traditionally called "soul" is indistinguishable from sentience, self-awareness, capacity for ethical judgement. We know that "soul" is merely a natural phenomenon because psychotropic drugs, trauma to the brain, neurological disease, hypoxia (lack of oxygen), electrical stimulation of the cortex--all these affect this so called soul. And needless to say, to date, no one has provided testable evidence for a disembodied soul, much less interaction with such (notwithstanding the litany of anecdotes out there).
Furthermore, just as there are no souls, there is no such thing as contra-causal free will. Our thoughts, actions, behavior are all the result of natural causation; they are all determined by various physical factors. This is only to be expected. And it follows from the fact that consciousness is a product of neurological processes. Those processes are caused by various determinants including neurons, chemicals (including medication we take), electrical impulses, and environmental stimuli. What we see as our freedom to choose is not freedom without causal determinants. The "I" that knows, understands, chooses, and makes decisions is an epiphenomenon of the brain.
The "I" is not a free-floating entity transcendent of and untrammeled by the natural world. Rather, it is a fully caused and fully determined phenomenon. It is as natural as the brain of which it is a derivative, and fully subject to the laws of nature.
Although neither [the easy nor the hard] problem has been solved, neuroscientists agree on many features of both of them, and the feature they find least controversial is the one that many people outside the field find the most shocking. Francis Crick called it "the astonishing hypothesis"--the idea that our thoughts, sensations, joys and aches consist entirely of physiological activity in the tissues of the brain. Consciousness does not reside in an ethereal soul that uses the brain like a PDA; consciousness is the activity of the brain.
THE BRAIN AS MACHINE
SCIENTISTS HAVE EXORCISED THE GHOST FROM THE MACHINE NOT because they are mechanistic killjoys but because they have amassed evidence that every aspect of consciousness can be tied to the brain. Using functional MRI, cognitive neuroscientists can almost read people's thoughts from the blood flow in their brains. They can tell, for instance, whether a person is thinking about a face or a place or whether a picture the person is looking at is of a bottle or a shoe.
And consciousness can be pushed around by physical manipulations. Electrical stimulation of the brain during surgery can cause a person to have hallucinations that are indistinguishable from reality, such as a song playing in the room or a childhood birthday party. Chemicals that affect the brain, from caffeine and alcohol to Prozac and LSD, can profoundly alter how people think, feel and see. Surgery that severs the corpus callosum, separating the two hemispheres (a treatment for epilepsy), spawns two consciousnesses within the same skull, as if the soul could be cleaved in two with a knife.
And when the physiological activity of the brain ceases, as far as anyone can tell the person's consciousness goes out of existence. Attempts to contact the souls of the dead (a pursuit of serious scientists a century ago) turned up only cheap magic tricks, and near death experiences are not the eyewitness reports of a soul parting company from the body but symptoms of oxygen starvation in the eyes and brain. In September, a team of Swiss neuroscientists reported that they could turn out-of-body experiences on and off by stimulating the part of the brain in which vision and bodily sensations converge.
Consciousness is, of course, the product of the brain. The mind is an epiphenomenon of our gray matter. The manifestations of what has been traditionally called "soul" is indistinguishable from sentience, self-awareness, capacity for ethical judgement. We know that "soul" is merely a natural phenomenon because psychotropic drugs, trauma to the brain, neurological disease, hypoxia (lack of oxygen), electrical stimulation of the cortex--all these affect this so called soul. And needless to say, to date, no one has provided testable evidence for a disembodied soul, much less interaction with such (notwithstanding the litany of anecdotes out there).
Furthermore, just as there are no souls, there is no such thing as contra-causal free will. Our thoughts, actions, behavior are all the result of natural causation; they are all determined by various physical factors. This is only to be expected. And it follows from the fact that consciousness is a product of neurological processes. Those processes are caused by various determinants including neurons, chemicals (including medication we take), electrical impulses, and environmental stimuli. What we see as our freedom to choose is not freedom without causal determinants. The "I" that knows, understands, chooses, and makes decisions is an epiphenomenon of the brain.
The "I" is not a free-floating entity transcendent of and untrammeled by the natural world. Rather, it is a fully caused and fully determined phenomenon. It is as natural as the brain of which it is a derivative, and fully subject to the laws of nature.
Sunday, January 28, 2007
Another Lourdes disconfirmation
Wonder how decomposed the corpse was when police found it.
Not only did she not receive any miracle cures from from the famed shrine, no miraculous resuscitation of her corpse occurred either. Perhaps the grandmother's religious convictions have been shaken a bit? Or has she rationalized these events away already?
But I'm more interested in how all this will affect the granddaughter. According to her teachers she was quite withdrawn during the holiday season. (I don't know whether it's more the loss of her mother or the fact that her granny kept the corpse in a room that distressed her.) It isn't known yet whether she knew of her mother's illness. I'm wondering how this 11-year old's religious beliefs (if any) will be affected when she does find out her mom had cancer and that Lourdes didn't help her at all and realizes that her grandmother had hoped she would resurrect. The loss and the undeniable lack of any miracles just might tip her over to nonbelief (or make her more confident of her stance if she's already doubtful of religious claims to begin with).
The body of a British woman was kept secretly for four months by her mother, who hoped that because their home was near to the Catholic sanctuary of Lourdes a miracle would lead to her resurrection. Marian Kearney, 46, died from cancer in September, while staying at her mother’s home near Lourdes, in the foothills of the Pyrenees.... Kearney and her daughter left England five years ago to travel to the remote shrine in the hope that the reputed holy powers of the spring water would cure her cancer. She had refused all conventional medicine and the French Catholic sanctuary was thought to be a last resort in her battle with the disease.
Not only did she not receive any miracle cures from from the famed shrine, no miraculous resuscitation of her corpse occurred either. Perhaps the grandmother's religious convictions have been shaken a bit? Or has she rationalized these events away already?
But I'm more interested in how all this will affect the granddaughter. According to her teachers she was quite withdrawn during the holiday season. (I don't know whether it's more the loss of her mother or the fact that her granny kept the corpse in a room that distressed her.) It isn't known yet whether she knew of her mother's illness. I'm wondering how this 11-year old's religious beliefs (if any) will be affected when she does find out her mom had cancer and that Lourdes didn't help her at all and realizes that her grandmother had hoped she would resurrect. The loss and the undeniable lack of any miracles just might tip her over to nonbelief (or make her more confident of her stance if she's already doubtful of religious claims to begin with).
Wednesday, January 24, 2007
Wishing for a genie
When I was a child, I used to pray to God for a bicycle. But then I realized that God didn't work in that way--so I stole a bike and prayed for forgiveness
--Emo Philips, comedian
Whatever a man prays for, he prays for a miracle. Every prayer reduces itself to this: Great God, grant that twice two be not four.
--Ivan Turgenev, novelist
Supplication has got to be the mostly widely practiced superstition in the world. Millions of adults believe that murmuring some words or even silently saying them in their head has the power to make their wishes come true. I think one reason why prayer is so prevalent is that it's a vast "improvement" over the childhood belief that what I want to be true will become so simply because I wish it to be so. In this "new improved version" of that infantile belief the agent that makes one's wishes come true is no longer the "I," rather it is a transcendent "I", an anthropomorphic being who has been vested with far greater powers or even (peri) omnipotence. What started out as "what I say will be so" has been transformed into "a superagent who is outside of me hears my thoughts/words/desires and will make my wishes come true." In effect one has conjured up a personal (invisible) genie.
As with other superstitions one mechanism (but not the only one) that keeps the belief in prayer alive is the existence of actual positive correlations, even if such correlations are sporadic and infrequent. Given the millions of prayers uttered in the world each day there will be a number of entreaties that will apparently be answered. Because the correlation is interpreted as a causal relationship it is a post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy. (Even very strong correlations do not necessarily imply causation. Suppose every time after clipping my nails I implore a certain god to make them grow back in a week. Does the perfect positive correlation between prayer and nail growth mean that prayer works and that there exists this particular deity that causes nails to grow a couple of millimeters every week?) The questions and experiments that don't get asked and done are: What if the prayers hadn't been transmitted? Would the results have been the same/different? What if we want K but prayed for the opposite? Would K still have transpired?
Given the law of large numbers it would be most miraculous if no coincidences (apparent successes) occur. Such coincidences are to be expected (not least because, among other things, what counts as success and the time frame within which it's suppose to happen are not clearly specified). This is similar to the occurrence of supposed precognitive dreams. With the billions of dreams per night, it is certain that a few of these dreams will "come true." Again, what would be most incredible is the situation wherein there are absolutely no matches between what are dreamt of and events thereafter in the real world
Throughout our life we have heard over and over implicitly or explicitly the claim that prayer works, that this or that deity hears and answers prayers. The biggest problem with this ubiquitous claim however is that there is no good evidence that it's true. On the contrary, there is a litany of anecdotal evidence and a host of scientific studies that show the opposite is the case--that prayers don't work. But because we don't receive news reports of the millions of prayers that weren't answered and given that what we do hear from media or from friends and family are the few stories of wishes that were supposedly granted, the availability error kicks in. There is the tendency to think that the effectiveness of prayer is real because we hear (and remember) the success stories, but hardly hear of the much much larger number of stories of failure.
Closely allied with the availability error is the biasing condition of vividness. When we hear success stories of prayer resulting in such wonderful miraculous events we tend to remember these highly inspiring/motivating/emotional stories. The more vivid the anecdotes the more they tend to get imprinted in our memory, and the more they serve as among the bases for judging the efficacy of prayer. Furthermore, an ardent believer will be biased toward selectively remembering his/her own personal anecdotes of successes while brushing away or even forgetting instances of failure. Confirmation bias then becomes a way of supporting their belief in prayer.
Like having a lucky rabbit's foot or lucky shoes, the intriguing thing about prayer is how rationalizations are immediately sought and manufactured when the desired result fails to materialize. If the horse I bet on loses the race then perhaps I didn't shine my lucky shoes well enough today, or maybe the chain wasn't slung around my neck just right for the amulet to be centered on my chest. As for petitionary prayers, when cognitive dissonance is experienced (i.e., when prayer undeniably fails to result in what is desired) rationalizations of sorts are offered to explain away the apparent failure. And to me the following (illicit) ad hoc explanation wins hands down: "God always answers prayers, but sometimes he says no." This is a "win-win" rationalization since whether praying results in success or failure, the core belief in the supernatural and in the power of prayer remains intact. With this ad hoc explanation the claim that God hears and answers prayers becomes nonfalsifiable, irrefutable. It conveniently explains away all failure and is thus a most effective way in keeping the belief forever immune to disconfirmation. Of course, when asked how they know that there is a deity (and is the kind they believe in and not the deity of another religion) and one who sometimes doesn't grant what is wished for, some believers may use the fact that some prayers fail to result in what is wished for as their evidence. When it's pointed out to them that that's circular reasoning, they might then start a frantic search in their sacred text. When pointed out to them that there is no evidence that any of the theological claims in their text are true, they sooner or later fall back on the ultimate back door: "You must have faith!" And when pointed out to them that belief however strong does not make something true they just might ...
I don't expect belief in prayer to disappear anytime soon. It frequently is a last resort for people. Desperation can drive us to the edge. We can become irrational and clutch onto anything, even a delusion. But as in the case of amputees, the whole world can pray everyday for the next thousand years but no lost limbs will ever be restored.
Here's what Heather MacDonald has to say about entreaties to the one on high.
...I had started noticing the puzzling logic of petitionary prayer. What was the theory of God behind prayer websites, for example: that God is a democratic pol with his finger to the wind of public opinion? Is the idea that if only five people are praying for the recovery of a beloved grandmother from stroke, say, God will brush them off, but that if you can summon five thousand people to plead her case, he will perk up and take notice: "Oh, now I understand, this person's life is important"? And what if an equally beloved grandmother comes from a family of atheist curs? Since she has no one to pray for her, will God simply look the other way? If someone could explain this to me, I would be very grateful.
I also wondered at the narcissism of believers who credit their good fortune to God. A cancer survivor who claims that God cured him implies that his worthiness is so obvious that God had to act. It never occurs to him to ask what this explanation for his deliverance says about the cancer victim in the hospital bed next to his, who, despite the fervent prayers of her family, died anyway.
Wednesday, January 17, 2007
Muslim fashion statements
This is an interesting and encouraging development. It seems that not all (male) Muslims approve of the veil.
What I'd like to know is why there are women choosing (rather than being forced) to wear the niqab, the face veil. What could be their reasons for doing so? Could it be that for some there's an anxiety reducing factor in hiding one's face? I could relate to that (but then donning a paper bag over my head would attract even more stares!). Are some of these women embarrassed of their looks (find themselves homely)? Do some of them get a kick out of going out as masked women? Have some been brought up believing that women should not be seen (in public)? That they are second rate citizens? That it is shameful for them to expose their faces? What are the (various) reasons that drive them to remain hidden/anonymous in public?
And while on the subject of female attire, here's the latest on female Muslim swimwear--the Burqini.
Looks to me that with it women can go jogging and then dive right into the pool.
I'm not into swimming but I bet having such loose clothing is an inefficient way of moving through water.
The Egyptian minister of religious endowments [Hamdy Zaqzuq] has forbidden his ministry's religious counselors from wearing the face veil, or "niqab," the press reported on Monday.... [Zaqzuq said,] "The niqab is a matter of custom and not the faith -- it has nothing to do with the religion."
What I'd like to know is why there are women choosing (rather than being forced) to wear the niqab, the face veil. What could be their reasons for doing so? Could it be that for some there's an anxiety reducing factor in hiding one's face? I could relate to that (but then donning a paper bag over my head would attract even more stares!). Are some of these women embarrassed of their looks (find themselves homely)? Do some of them get a kick out of going out as masked women? Have some been brought up believing that women should not be seen (in public)? That they are second rate citizens? That it is shameful for them to expose their faces? What are the (various) reasons that drive them to remain hidden/anonymous in public?
And while on the subject of female attire, here's the latest on female Muslim swimwear--the Burqini.
Looks to me that with it women can go jogging and then dive right into the pool.
I'm not into swimming but I bet having such loose clothing is an inefficient way of moving through water.
Monday, January 15, 2007
This Superman can't make sacrifices
In a public forum an adherent of the Members of the Church of God International shared the following quote which he said comes from Batman:
But who in fact came up with it isn't what concerns me. What immediately popped into my head when I read it was that it must've escaped this Christian that similarly the supposed sacrifice of God wasn't a sacrifice at all because God didn't die. He (that includes all three of him) is indestructible.
We can't talk of God's bravery or selflessness or about God giving himself. How can the father have given his only son when no such thing ever happened? [1] God didn't get terminated. He can't. Or are believers saying that the Trinity was, for 3 earth days circa 30CE, whittled down to a Duo? Are there theologians who say that while Jesus lay dead the Second Person of God was nonexistent?
Some may say that Jesus did die. But God isn't a human being, notwithstanding the doctrine of incarnation. And what does it mean to say that he became a terrestrial creature? Surely, theologians and believers aren't saying that while Jesus was alive there was no god out there anymore. Or are they saying that part of God became human? What could that mean? Or are there Christians out there who believe that a supernatural entity literally impregnated a human female, a la Greco-Roman mythology, resulting in the birth of a hybrid--a cross between a deity and Homo sapiens?
Being perfect and all-powerful God can recreate the human Jesus and have him crucified a trillion times, and God would still be God. He wouldn't be any less or more than before this exercise. Being omniscient God knew everything even before he created the universe. Being outside time saying he knew all this before the creation doesn't even do justice to the timeless nature of his knowing. Being omnipotent and having perfect knowledge, it really boggles the mind why God even created this universe--this vale of tears. It can't be by necessity--it can't be that God couldn't have but created this universe--since that would imply he isn't omnipotent.... The problems are legion. The point here simply is that given the presumptions about this particular deity, God couldn't possibly make sacrifices.
We humans are able to make sacrifices because we're mortal, because we can suffer, because we necessarily have to expend energy and resources and exert ourselves in order to attain our objectives, because we're finite in all respects. A being who is perfect, eternal and omnipotent can't be harmed, can't die, can't change, can't suffer, can't make sacrifices. Christians can't have it both ways. Either their deity is just finitely more intelligent, powerful, evolved/developed than we are and thus can still possibly suffer and die and make sacrifices--give something that will diminish it in some way--or it's omni-everything and simply too perfect such that it's impassible and immutable.
Now amongst humans who are those who (in some sense) make a greater sacrifice when they lay down their lives for some cause? If you think about it, it's those who don't have any belief in or deny outright an afterlife. When these people put themselves in harm's way they believe (or know) they're risking the only life they will ever have. On the other hand, those who believe they're going to wake up even after they've breathed their last are of the mindset that even though they put their lives on the line and end up dead they'll still rise up once more like some phoenix (and from then on live forever), with their egos, memory, personality intact. [2] The fear of annihilation is assuaged by the belief that death is merely the dissolution of the body, that the self, one's "essence" if we may call it that, does not die. So how one understands death makes a difference in how the sacrifice is felt.
---
1. And what does God being "father" and "son" mean? They're biological concepts and can hardly apply to something immaterial. Even "giving" and "sacrifice" are anthropomorphisms.
2. Here, of course, I'm excluding those who believe that individuality doesn't survive death. Christianity is pretty egoistic in its conception of the hereafter. If I were in the market for an afterlife I'd choose the Hindu version--when we die we will be like raindrops returning to the sea, losing our individual identities, merging with the ocean and becoming just one body of water.
Superman isn't brave. You can't be brave if you're indestructible. It's everyday people like me and you who are brave, knowing we can easily lose but still continue forward. That's true bravery.I did a little googling and my search traces the quote, or at least the first part of it, to the movie Angus.
But who in fact came up with it isn't what concerns me. What immediately popped into my head when I read it was that it must've escaped this Christian that similarly the supposed sacrifice of God wasn't a sacrifice at all because God didn't die. He (that includes all three of him) is indestructible.
We can't talk of God's bravery or selflessness or about God giving himself. How can the father have given his only son when no such thing ever happened? [1] God didn't get terminated. He can't. Or are believers saying that the Trinity was, for 3 earth days circa 30CE, whittled down to a Duo? Are there theologians who say that while Jesus lay dead the Second Person of God was nonexistent?
Some may say that Jesus did die. But God isn't a human being, notwithstanding the doctrine of incarnation. And what does it mean to say that he became a terrestrial creature? Surely, theologians and believers aren't saying that while Jesus was alive there was no god out there anymore. Or are they saying that part of God became human? What could that mean? Or are there Christians out there who believe that a supernatural entity literally impregnated a human female, a la Greco-Roman mythology, resulting in the birth of a hybrid--a cross between a deity and Homo sapiens?
Being perfect and all-powerful God can recreate the human Jesus and have him crucified a trillion times, and God would still be God. He wouldn't be any less or more than before this exercise. Being omniscient God knew everything even before he created the universe. Being outside time saying he knew all this before the creation doesn't even do justice to the timeless nature of his knowing. Being omnipotent and having perfect knowledge, it really boggles the mind why God even created this universe--this vale of tears. It can't be by necessity--it can't be that God couldn't have but created this universe--since that would imply he isn't omnipotent.... The problems are legion. The point here simply is that given the presumptions about this particular deity, God couldn't possibly make sacrifices.
We humans are able to make sacrifices because we're mortal, because we can suffer, because we necessarily have to expend energy and resources and exert ourselves in order to attain our objectives, because we're finite in all respects. A being who is perfect, eternal and omnipotent can't be harmed, can't die, can't change, can't suffer, can't make sacrifices. Christians can't have it both ways. Either their deity is just finitely more intelligent, powerful, evolved/developed than we are and thus can still possibly suffer and die and make sacrifices--give something that will diminish it in some way--or it's omni-everything and simply too perfect such that it's impassible and immutable.
Now amongst humans who are those who (in some sense) make a greater sacrifice when they lay down their lives for some cause? If you think about it, it's those who don't have any belief in or deny outright an afterlife. When these people put themselves in harm's way they believe (or know) they're risking the only life they will ever have. On the other hand, those who believe they're going to wake up even after they've breathed their last are of the mindset that even though they put their lives on the line and end up dead they'll still rise up once more like some phoenix (and from then on live forever), with their egos, memory, personality intact. [2] The fear of annihilation is assuaged by the belief that death is merely the dissolution of the body, that the self, one's "essence" if we may call it that, does not die. So how one understands death makes a difference in how the sacrifice is felt.
---
1. And what does God being "father" and "son" mean? They're biological concepts and can hardly apply to something immaterial. Even "giving" and "sacrifice" are anthropomorphisms.
2. Here, of course, I'm excluding those who believe that individuality doesn't survive death. Christianity is pretty egoistic in its conception of the hereafter. If I were in the market for an afterlife I'd choose the Hindu version--when we die we will be like raindrops returning to the sea, losing our individual identities, merging with the ocean and becoming just one body of water.
Just don't pull the plug
Mary has made an appearance. This time as a stalagmite, in the meat section.
The Virgin looks pretty phallic in this apparition, doesn't she?
The Virgin looks pretty phallic in this apparition, doesn't she?
Thursday, January 11, 2007
Gangway!
Just sighted the following bumper sticker (white fonts on red background) on the car in front of me. Took a picture of it using my phone's camera but its resolution is just too low and the image too blurry to make out.
There's a little stylized Christian fish symbol on the bottom right. Without the fish this could easily be satire. With it, I don't know how seriously it was intended to be. Nor what the owner of the car was thinking when he stuck it.
Here's one that leaves no doubt as to its creator:
And no, the children won't be raptured since they're of Hindu, Muslim, Buddhist, Taoist, and Zoroastrian parents.
Maybe I'll stick the following on mine:
Beam me us up, ET!
Warning
In case of rapture
this car will be unmanned
In case of rapture
this car will be unmanned
There's a little stylized Christian fish symbol on the bottom right. Without the fish this could easily be satire. With it, I don't know how seriously it was intended to be. Nor what the owner of the car was thinking when he stuck it.
Here's one that leaves no doubt as to its creator:
And no, the children won't be raptured since they're of Hindu, Muslim, Buddhist, Taoist, and Zoroastrian parents.
Maybe I'll stick the following on mine:
FYI
In case of alien abduction
this car will rematerialize in my garage
In case of alien abduction
this car will rematerialize in my garage
Beam me us up, ET!
Wednesday, January 10, 2007
Going bananas
Psychics and fortune tellers cost money. So why not consult a tree instead?
Would that be a 3, 4, 5 or 6-digit lottery? How distinct are the numbers? Are they in Arabic numerals or in some other language?
It isn't a matter of if you can win the lottery by this method. It's just a matter of when. Rub the mixture over and over and over, read/interpret the results as you wish, and sooner or later (I'm betting on later) you'll get some/all of the digits correctly. I'm wondering how many have bet and haven't won a single Baht.
People in Thailand have been flocking to visit a banana tree which is said to be able to predict winning lottery numbers.... They rub a mixture of powder and water on the tree's trunk, then wait to see what number the solution resembles as it dries.
Would that be a 3, 4, 5 or 6-digit lottery? How distinct are the numbers? Are they in Arabic numerals or in some other language?
It isn't a matter of if you can win the lottery by this method. It's just a matter of when. Rub the mixture over and over and over, read/interpret the results as you wish, and sooner or later (I'm betting on later) you'll get some/all of the digits correctly. I'm wondering how many have bet and haven't won a single Baht.
Peachy friend
Carole Peach is a South African psychic. Unfortunately for her she failed to see that she was going to be robbed.
She should have a nice long talk with her invisible Red Indian friend. Surely, this kind of incompetence is unpardonable.
She had no forewarning that a mugger would reach through the open passenger window of her husband's car, punch her in the face and grab her bag containing two wallets, R2 500 in cash, bank cards, her telephone and ID books, two cellphones and her heart tablets.... Peach, a medium who does predictions on Radio Lotus, said that she was a "transreader" who helped people through a Red Indian guide. "He talks through me," she explained.
She should have a nice long talk with her invisible Red Indian friend. Surely, this kind of incompetence is unpardonable.
Monday, January 08, 2007
How do we know it's true?
Among the differences between an epistemology that actually works, i.e., one that gets us (closer) to the truth, and one that's bogus--a pseudo-epistemology--is that there is convergence of understanding in the former and divergence in the latter.
At the start, when we have yet to understand the nature of phenomenon X, there will be various possible, plausible, competing hypotheses/explanations for X. Our goal is to prune and throw out those which are wrong. We want to know which ones are false so we can reduce the number of feasible hypotheses. And this can only be done if there is a methodology for doing so.
In the epistemic realm nothing beats the methods of science for understanding reality. While there may be an infinity of possible, explanations for X, the methods of science allow us to rule out a massive amount of hypotheses. What remains are those that best explain the phenomenon in question and those that have the best predictive capacity. This is what I mean by convergence. Via science we converge toward the best/right explanation.
Theology (not limited to the Semitic traditions), on the other hand, is one prime example of a pursuit that results in divergence. Theology is pseudo-epistemology; it does not lead to any knowledge of reality. The number of theologies in the world is still increasing. And one reason for this is because theological hypotheses can't be tested. Unlike in science, they can't be disproved.1 This feature of nonfalsifiability is the Achilles heel of theological claims. It implies that they can never be known to be true.
Because science leads to epistemological convergence, we don't have a Xiamen chemistry that's different from Mumbai chemistry that's at odds with Manila chemistry that disagrees with Nairobi chemistry that's irreconcilable with Tehran chemistry that's .... And as far as we can tell the laws and theories in chemistry are the same on the Moon, Mars, Neptune, or for that matter, celestial objects a million light years away.
Contrast that with theology. Chinese, Indian, Philippine, African, Iranian, ... theologies have not in the past hundreds/thousands of years ever converged toward one theology. There has been no pruning of what isn't true. On the contrary, the opposite has been the norm. And to go beyond our little home, is it really believable that on planets dozens/hundreds/thousands/millions of light years away, where intelligent life forms have arisen as well, that any of their religions (if the organisms are genetically/psychologically/culturally predisposed to religion in the first place as we are) would be the same as any of the ones we have here? Will their deity and theology uncanny likeness to, say, Christianity?2 On the other hand, can you imagine a technologically savvy civilization on any planet that teaches physics that contradict ours? Can you imagine those extraterrestrial science professors teaching that atoms don't have protons, neutrons and electrons, that carbon cannot produce double bonds, that x-rays have a frequency lower than visible light, that the mass of an object remains constant even as it approaches the speed of light? 3 The findings of science are universal. The claims of religions are provincialist and culture-bound.
You know your epistemology is worth it if there's progress in your fund of knowledge, when what you say is true is in fact in accord with reality. And this can only be known if there is an objective way to test the claims. Theology has no such methodology. Its claims are mere speculations.
----
1. Some may think that this property of disprovability implies that the claim must therefore be true. But one example should suffice to illustrate how this certainly is not the case. Let's say I claim that there is a planet located 500,000 light years away. On this planet--which like ours revolves around a nearby star--lives a certain advanced species. By some technology they have been able to gather the works of various civilizations in star systems including ours. At this very moment a member of this species is writing a synopsis of Sagan's The Demon-Haunted World. Now I cannot prove this series of claims. But it also cannot be disproved. Even if there is a planet in the location in space where I say it is and even if we have a telescope powerful enough to resolve objects the size of mice, we still have to wait 500,000 years for the light from that planet to reach us. For all practical purposes the above claims are immune to disconfirmation. But it doesn't mean they are therefore true. On the contrary, we're apt to consider them implausible and give them a low probability rating.
2. You get a feeling of the provincialism and shortsightedness of, say, Christianity when you ask whether on other planets God had also incarnated and died and resurrected. It becomes comical once God stages the drama of incarnation-death-resurrection on every planet with pre-scientific civilizations. Moreover, Christianity tells us that humans are made in the image of their deity, but if life exists on other planets, given how evolution works, extraterrestrials will look pretty different from us and may even have very different personalities/psychologies. For the religions of the Earth better if intelligent life has and will never develop elsewhere in the universe. And better if the law of large numbers are not operative--given the huge number of planets in the billions of galaxies it is almost ridiculous to even suggest that the conditions for life existed and will exist only on Earth.
3. And even in those areas of scientific knowledge where indeed there is a discrepancy, human and extraterrestrial scientists can and will eventually converge on what is true. We--humans and aliens--can and will find out which of the hypotheses/explanations is the right one or the best one. The methods of science, whoever practices them, lead to testable, intersubjectively verifiable knowledge. Science works.
There is of course the question whether alien scientists would be employing some other methods which they call scientific but which we have not discovered/invented. As with "our" scientific method if it works it is naturally selected.
At the start, when we have yet to understand the nature of phenomenon X, there will be various possible, plausible, competing hypotheses/explanations for X. Our goal is to prune and throw out those which are wrong. We want to know which ones are false so we can reduce the number of feasible hypotheses. And this can only be done if there is a methodology for doing so.
In the epistemic realm nothing beats the methods of science for understanding reality. While there may be an infinity of possible, explanations for X, the methods of science allow us to rule out a massive amount of hypotheses. What remains are those that best explain the phenomenon in question and those that have the best predictive capacity. This is what I mean by convergence. Via science we converge toward the best/right explanation.
Theology (not limited to the Semitic traditions), on the other hand, is one prime example of a pursuit that results in divergence. Theology is pseudo-epistemology; it does not lead to any knowledge of reality. The number of theologies in the world is still increasing. And one reason for this is because theological hypotheses can't be tested. Unlike in science, they can't be disproved.1 This feature of nonfalsifiability is the Achilles heel of theological claims. It implies that they can never be known to be true.
Because science leads to epistemological convergence, we don't have a Xiamen chemistry that's different from Mumbai chemistry that's at odds with Manila chemistry that disagrees with Nairobi chemistry that's irreconcilable with Tehran chemistry that's .... And as far as we can tell the laws and theories in chemistry are the same on the Moon, Mars, Neptune, or for that matter, celestial objects a million light years away.
Contrast that with theology. Chinese, Indian, Philippine, African, Iranian, ... theologies have not in the past hundreds/thousands of years ever converged toward one theology. There has been no pruning of what isn't true. On the contrary, the opposite has been the norm. And to go beyond our little home, is it really believable that on planets dozens/hundreds/thousands/millions of light years away, where intelligent life forms have arisen as well, that any of their religions (if the organisms are genetically/psychologically/culturally predisposed to religion in the first place as we are) would be the same as any of the ones we have here? Will their deity and theology uncanny likeness to, say, Christianity?2 On the other hand, can you imagine a technologically savvy civilization on any planet that teaches physics that contradict ours? Can you imagine those extraterrestrial science professors teaching that atoms don't have protons, neutrons and electrons, that carbon cannot produce double bonds, that x-rays have a frequency lower than visible light, that the mass of an object remains constant even as it approaches the speed of light? 3 The findings of science are universal. The claims of religions are provincialist and culture-bound.
You know your epistemology is worth it if there's progress in your fund of knowledge, when what you say is true is in fact in accord with reality. And this can only be known if there is an objective way to test the claims. Theology has no such methodology. Its claims are mere speculations.
----
1. Some may think that this property of disprovability implies that the claim must therefore be true. But one example should suffice to illustrate how this certainly is not the case. Let's say I claim that there is a planet located 500,000 light years away. On this planet--which like ours revolves around a nearby star--lives a certain advanced species. By some technology they have been able to gather the works of various civilizations in star systems including ours. At this very moment a member of this species is writing a synopsis of Sagan's The Demon-Haunted World. Now I cannot prove this series of claims. But it also cannot be disproved. Even if there is a planet in the location in space where I say it is and even if we have a telescope powerful enough to resolve objects the size of mice, we still have to wait 500,000 years for the light from that planet to reach us. For all practical purposes the above claims are immune to disconfirmation. But it doesn't mean they are therefore true. On the contrary, we're apt to consider them implausible and give them a low probability rating.
2. You get a feeling of the provincialism and shortsightedness of, say, Christianity when you ask whether on other planets God had also incarnated and died and resurrected. It becomes comical once God stages the drama of incarnation-death-resurrection on every planet with pre-scientific civilizations. Moreover, Christianity tells us that humans are made in the image of their deity, but if life exists on other planets, given how evolution works, extraterrestrials will look pretty different from us and may even have very different personalities/psychologies. For the religions of the Earth better if intelligent life has and will never develop elsewhere in the universe. And better if the law of large numbers are not operative--given the huge number of planets in the billions of galaxies it is almost ridiculous to even suggest that the conditions for life existed and will exist only on Earth.
3. And even in those areas of scientific knowledge where indeed there is a discrepancy, human and extraterrestrial scientists can and will eventually converge on what is true. We--humans and aliens--can and will find out which of the hypotheses/explanations is the right one or the best one. The methods of science, whoever practices them, lead to testable, intersubjectively verifiable knowledge. Science works.
There is of course the question whether alien scientists would be employing some other methods which they call scientific but which we have not discovered/invented. As with "our" scientific method if it works it is naturally selected.
Thursday, January 04, 2007
Xerox copies are just that
Stories from the GiTMO closet:
Ethical issues aside, I'm intrigued by the fact that humans can get really provoked and enraged by the vandalism of a book, that they perceive this as desecration.
Let's examine the incidents for a moment. A copy of the Quran had been doused with (human) urine, another squatted upon (it doesn't say whether the officer had pulled his pants down), one was booted, and yet another had been used as a foot stool.
Think about it. Those book are copies of some original. They were probably printed in the last couple of decades. They're just copies. They're nothing but pulp and ink. If we burn a thousand copies of the Quran (or the Bible, or Vedas, or the Pali Canon, or the Tao Te Ching, ...) there would still be thousands of the same exact volume around the world. Vandalizing a few (in the Guantanamo case) isn't at all the same as shredding extant ancient manuscripts/codices.
Some would turn the table and say, Won't you--a rationalist and an atheist-- become incensed were dozens of copies of Darwin's Origin of Species or Dawkins' The God Delusion or Sagan's Varieties of Scientific Experience ripped/burned/spitted on/defecated upon/etc.? Well, no. I've tried to imagine exactly that and while it's true that spit and sh*t per se are quite off-putting to me I find myself watching the whole thing with amusement as well as scientific detachment, observing how the perpetrators are trying to light my fire so to speak and perhaps even getting a kick out of what they're doing (as the Guantanamo soldiers probably did). I'd gladly vandalize and tear up any book I treasure--if you'll just reimburse me (and highlight the exact same passages). I simply have no problem with it. I don't venerate 9 x 5 x 1" sheaves of paper. I don't deem them sacred. For me there isn't such a thing as desecration of copies of a book. I don't fill my shelves with all that paper for the cellulose and ink. It's the ideas therein that are precious to me. The medium by which it arrives to me is just that--a medium. If I can get the same thing via a less tangible form such as the Internet, then it's pretty much the same to me (and in some cases I prefer digital copies since I can do a computer search on them--which of course makes finding specific quotes such a cinch).
What I do take issue with and feel quite strongly about is the destruction of originals, of one-offs, of things that are irreplaceable. Whether that be the giant Buddha stone statue blown up by the Taliban, or the Nag Hammadi manuscripts/codices, or the palimpsests of Archimedes, or the various ancient "originals" of the Quran--I would be one of the first voices to be heard if these were intentionally vandalized/destroyed for any reason at all. These are precious historical records. This is human history. They're portholes into the human mind. What we lost when the Library of Alexandria was gutted is unimaginable. What went up in smoke then (as far as we know) is forever lost. Even original religious texts are invaluable in this historical, archaeological, psychological, scientific, humanistic sense.
On the other hand, it does get my goat when a book is vandalized or destroyed for no reason at all, since it is a waste of materials, human labor, and fuel. I may not agree with what's in the book, I may not have even read it at all, but I am against destruction for destruction's sake or simply for kicks. Burning a thousand copies of the Quran would elicit nothing from me if not for the fact that it contributes to pollution and greenhouse gases, is a waste of the energy that went into making them, and forever precludes the reuse of nearly a ton of paper. In such a case I would rather that those thousand volumes had not been printed at all in the first place.
And need it be said that if destruction of a certain copy results in a person's loss of access to that particular version of the text, that too would be something that I'd think of as improper.
In October 2002, a U.S. Marine captain allegedly squatted over a copy of the Quran during intensive questioning of a Muslim prisoner, who was "incensed" by the tactic, according to an FBI agent.... After an erroneous report of Quran abuse prompted protests overseas in 2005, the U.S. military conducted an investigation that confirmed five incidents of intentional and unintentional mishandling of the Quran at the detention facility. They acknowledged that soldiers and interrogators had kicked the book, had stood on it and, in one case, had inadvertently sprayed urine on a copy.
Ethical issues aside, I'm intrigued by the fact that humans can get really provoked and enraged by the vandalism of a book, that they perceive this as desecration.
Let's examine the incidents for a moment. A copy of the Quran had been doused with (human) urine, another squatted upon (it doesn't say whether the officer had pulled his pants down), one was booted, and yet another had been used as a foot stool.
Think about it. Those book are copies of some original. They were probably printed in the last couple of decades. They're just copies. They're nothing but pulp and ink. If we burn a thousand copies of the Quran (or the Bible, or Vedas, or the Pali Canon, or the Tao Te Ching, ...) there would still be thousands of the same exact volume around the world. Vandalizing a few (in the Guantanamo case) isn't at all the same as shredding extant ancient manuscripts/codices.
Some would turn the table and say, Won't you--a rationalist and an atheist-- become incensed were dozens of copies of Darwin's Origin of Species or Dawkins' The God Delusion or Sagan's Varieties of Scientific Experience ripped/burned/spitted on/defecated upon/etc.? Well, no. I've tried to imagine exactly that and while it's true that spit and sh*t per se are quite off-putting to me I find myself watching the whole thing with amusement as well as scientific detachment, observing how the perpetrators are trying to light my fire so to speak and perhaps even getting a kick out of what they're doing (as the Guantanamo soldiers probably did). I'd gladly vandalize and tear up any book I treasure--if you'll just reimburse me (and highlight the exact same passages). I simply have no problem with it. I don't venerate 9 x 5 x 1" sheaves of paper. I don't deem them sacred. For me there isn't such a thing as desecration of copies of a book. I don't fill my shelves with all that paper for the cellulose and ink. It's the ideas therein that are precious to me. The medium by which it arrives to me is just that--a medium. If I can get the same thing via a less tangible form such as the Internet, then it's pretty much the same to me (and in some cases I prefer digital copies since I can do a computer search on them--which of course makes finding specific quotes such a cinch).
What I do take issue with and feel quite strongly about is the destruction of originals, of one-offs, of things that are irreplaceable. Whether that be the giant Buddha stone statue blown up by the Taliban, or the Nag Hammadi manuscripts/codices, or the palimpsests of Archimedes, or the various ancient "originals" of the Quran--I would be one of the first voices to be heard if these were intentionally vandalized/destroyed for any reason at all. These are precious historical records. This is human history. They're portholes into the human mind. What we lost when the Library of Alexandria was gutted is unimaginable. What went up in smoke then (as far as we know) is forever lost. Even original religious texts are invaluable in this historical, archaeological, psychological, scientific, humanistic sense.
On the other hand, it does get my goat when a book is vandalized or destroyed for no reason at all, since it is a waste of materials, human labor, and fuel. I may not agree with what's in the book, I may not have even read it at all, but I am against destruction for destruction's sake or simply for kicks. Burning a thousand copies of the Quran would elicit nothing from me if not for the fact that it contributes to pollution and greenhouse gases, is a waste of the energy that went into making them, and forever precludes the reuse of nearly a ton of paper. In such a case I would rather that those thousand volumes had not been printed at all in the first place.
And need it be said that if destruction of a certain copy results in a person's loss of access to that particular version of the text, that too would be something that I'd think of as improper.
Wednesday, January 03, 2007
Robertson hears voices in his head ... again
Psychics get their tips from spirits. Robertson receives his from an invisible sky daddy.
So what's Robertson's out when this 2007 forecast of his falls through? Here's one: The mere fact that this information had been made public was enough to alert the authorities or frustrate the perpetrators.
Robertson also said, I have a relatively good track record. Sometimes I miss." Is he referring to those predictions he received from God? If so how can an omniscient being have misses? Was God playing a trick on Robertson? Was there static, interference, a heavy accent, or a translation error such that Robertson misheard/misunderstood what his deity announced to him? Did Robertson's short term memory fail to record everything faithfully? But then why didn't the deity rectify these faults and dial up Robertson again? And for that matter since it's omniscient it knew even before it created the universe that Robertson would relay the prediction erroneously and should then have done something about it even before it whispered into Robertson's ears.
Pat Robertson predicted Tuesday that a terrorist attack on the United States would result in "mass killing" late in 2007. "I'm not necessarily saying it's going to be nuclear," he said during his news-and-talk television show "The 700 Club" on the Christian Broadcasting Network. "The Lord didn't say nuclear. But I do believe it will be something like that." Robertson said God told him during a recent prayer retreat that major cities and possibly millions of people will be affected by the attack, which should take place sometime after September.
So what's Robertson's out when this 2007 forecast of his falls through? Here's one: The mere fact that this information had been made public was enough to alert the authorities or frustrate the perpetrators.
Robertson also said, I have a relatively good track record. Sometimes I miss." Is he referring to those predictions he received from God? If so how can an omniscient being have misses? Was God playing a trick on Robertson? Was there static, interference, a heavy accent, or a translation error such that Robertson misheard/misunderstood what his deity announced to him? Did Robertson's short term memory fail to record everything faithfully? But then why didn't the deity rectify these faults and dial up Robertson again? And for that matter since it's omniscient it knew even before it created the universe that Robertson would relay the prediction erroneously and should then have done something about it even before it whispered into Robertson's ears.
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