Seek and You Will Find

In both Luke 11:9 and Matthew 7:7 of the bible one can read the words, "seek and ye shall find".  For every one who asks receives, and whoever seeks finds, and whoever knocks is admitted.  It means if you go looking for a god, you'll find it.

And I believe it's true.

Believe First, Then You'll Know
I get told time and again from believers in God, if I would only accept the signs that their particular deity exists, I'd be able to believe it.  If only I would believe first that mysteries could be answered with "god did it", then I can know "god did it" when I get have questions.

Ken Ham said several times in his recent debate with Bill Nye that he starts with the bible, and if you do that, you can claim you know:

He and many others who belong to this faith chant that same mantra: believe in god, and seek him, then you'll know god exists.

The reason we shouldn't do this should be obvious simply by looking at the logic in that statement, but we can further illustrate it with a little experimentation.  If you first believe that fairies exist, then you should be able to see evidence of them.  You'll probably one day be missing a sock, or the remote, or your car keys.

That's evidence of the fairies.

Have you ever been wondering where you sat that thing you were holding, and asked aloud, "now where did I put that"?  And then you have a gut feeling to look in the very place you find it?

That's evidence of the fairies -- you just have to ask and they blow invisible dust on you that draws you toward the object you desire.  It's similar to siren magic, only not as potent.

Ever known who was calling before you looked at the phone?  Or how about when you almost choke on a soft drink or a piece of candy, but then you don't.

That's evidence of the fairies.

So Open-Minded Your Brain Falls Out
We can even have different factions, similar to differing religions: maybe it's not exactly, fairies.  Elves?  Maybe spirits of dead relatives?  It works with anything, but the point is, see how far down this rabbit hole we can go?  At this point, we have no explanatory power -- we're explaining with mysteries.  If you look at some of the arguments made by those who believe in "higher powers", it see something very similar.  If you would only first believe that there is an infinite creator god trying to speak with you, you'd see evidence of that in rainbows and babies eyes.  Just like if you would only first believe that there are fairies who want to help you find your car keys, then you'd see evidence of them when such an event happens.

Turn on the TV and find a preacher -- I'll guarantee you at some point he'll tell you to seek God.  From local youth pastors to your religious grandmother, you'll be told to read your bible, trust in God first, then you'll gain understanding of him.  But then don't question that belief, or the whole thing falls apart because it's all built on simple belief.

It happens in religious contexts because theists base everything on a certain perception, a certain preconception, a starting-point that is taken for granted.  Instead, we should start with a blank slate, and build only on top of things we can demonstrate.  Block by block, we move higher and higher into better understanding.  When we make jumps in that stepladder of understanding by inserting appeals to unexplained or unexplainable things, we don't do justice to the institution of knowledge.

Those of us who don't believe things without first having a reason to are often told we are being "close-minded", that if we would just allow for the possibility of [insert whatever supernatural or metaphysical thing you wish], then we would be able to see what they see.

Translation: believe first, even if just a little, then find things you can claim as evidence to grow your belief.

Further translation: seek and ye shall find.



-STA

Fallacy Friday: Ad Hominem

Back by popular demand, we continue the Fallacy Friday series with the often misunderstood ad hominem.

Simply put, it's attacking the person rather than the argument.  It's saying that the person's claim is wrong
because of the person, and not because of reason or facts.  It might seem obvious to avoid attacking the character of a person rather than their ideas, but it happens all too often in the heat of an argument.  Sometimes a person might refuse to accept another person's statement and justify that refusal by criticizing the person.  This fallacy serves as a Red Herring because it drives the attention away from the actual argument at hand.

"You claim that atheists can be moral, yet I happen to know that you beat your wife and children!"

I said that this fallacy is often misunderstood.  What I mean is that calling someone names or otherwise being generally abusive toward them doesn't make your statements fallacious.  It's not an ad hominem to malign your opposition -- as long as the maligning is not the basis of your argument.  It can sometimes be subtle.  Just pay attention to what is being objected to.  Essentially the difference is "you're wrong and you're an idiot" versus "you're wrong because you're an idiot".  The latter is fallacious.

Don't be abusive to try to win arguments.  Remember, the truth of a statement isn't dependent upon the virtues, character, actions, or motives of the person making the claim.  All too often, it seems, people justify their stance on issues based solely on what they think about the character of their opposition.  That's another type of Argumentum ad Hominem: circumstantial.  It's usually phrased as "Of course, that's what you'd expect him to say." We need to be careful with this kind, however. If someone is a known perjurer or liar, that fact will reduce their credibility. It won't, however, prove that their testimony is false in this case. It also won't alter the soundness of any logical arguments they may make. It's not always invalid to refer to the circumstances of an individual who is making a claim, but there are some cases in which it may throw extra skepticism onto their position.


-STA

Same Camp, Same Colors

A Mild Delusion
I sometimes hear from Christians that don't accept the ways of the fundies.  Though we can both agree on their outrageous antics, we disagree when it comes to who takes the blame.  That's where I put moderates in the same bucket as the fundamentalists.  It doesn't matter what the amount of delusion is, it's the problems at the core that tie them all together.

Moderate and liberal believers act as a safe house for fundamentalists and provide a shield for them.  Whenever the majority becomes comprised of relaxed moderates and anything bad happens that would cause them to think God is angry with them or the world or whatever, the moderates begin thinking, "What did we stop doing that would cause God to be vengeful?  What changed?"  They most often find the answer in fundamentalism.

If You Can't Beat 'em, Keep 'em Around
I used to be a fundamentalist Christian, growing ever increasingly moderate all the way out.  Even though my tactics and reasoning were changing, I still had a mindset of a core fundamentalist.  I'd see someone going "a little too far" on something, but I always knew their heart was in the right place.  We had an elderly couple who began to grow more and more vocal over the choice of clothing the girls in the youth group wore to church: the dreaded and sinful pair of jeans.  "That's no way for a woman to dress!" they could be overheard exclaiming as the congregation filed out of services.  I didn't think God gave a damn about something as materialistic as pants, they backed up their objections with claims from the bible.  I don't recall any particular passages, but it's not uncommon for a believer to say, "well, that's Bible!" when it comes to something they firmly believe -- whether or not it is actually stated in there.  The point is that none of us less-sexist of the flock could shake the couple's certainty of the sin being committed, and we couldn't show them otherwise using the same "logical" tactics and arguments from the bible and faith.  Those types of disagreements always come down to, "I'll have to pray about it".

The harboring of fundamentalist ideals is performed by all believers, be they liberal, moderate, or extremist.  It's because the ideological framework is built using the same wood from the same tree (if you'll pardon the labored metaphor, and those that follow).  The scaffolding may reach differing heights, but the foundation is the same unfounded illusion.  Until the entire structure is torn down and can be rebuilt using actual knowledge and sound critical-thinking methods, the intellectual groundwork of moderates is indistinguishable from even the most delusional fundamentalists.


-STA

The Unmoving Mover

I realize I haven't done much lately as far as posting videos or making blog entries. That got me thinking about the definitions I'm often hearing about "God". Hopefully you'll see the connection in a minute.

Not only is the traditional concept of God a logically self-contradictory idea (consciousness without matter, life without birth or death, complexity without evolution, simultaneously all-knowing and all-powerful), it also produces static divinity.

A Static God
If God is everywhere, then there is nowhere he can go. I have the freedom to sit in that chair, but God doesn't because he's already in it. He is omnipresent and omnidirectional . If he knows everything already, then there's nothing he can learn (or change). He can't "want" something, because he's supposed to be perfect (and you can't want what you lack). He is essentially an unchanging, unmoving, inactive idea; an everything and a nothing all at once. Add one to the self-contradictory list.

The theists will disagree, but the basic God-triangle (omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent) produces a static deity. The omnipotence paradox and the omnipotence-omniscience paradox show how God is restricted by simply applying the "omni-" attribute. Another simpler way to look at it is the phrase "a expert of everything is an expert of nothing". You can't judge your expertise against anything if you're already counting everything. Maybe all that means to you is that your god is super-powerful, but to me that means he can't change. Change is good and necessary, especially in a being that's supposed to be a healthy judge.


-STA

Why We Can't Communicate

Like many of you who debate the lofty matters of religion online know, the arguments have a high probability of degenerating into little more than shouting matches of "Nuh-uh!" and "Uh-huh!" To avoid such situations on Gather.com, I've created a group there called Debate Faith (no, it's not related to the Stickam chat room run by AtheistAtLarge). Come join us if you like to discuss these affairs within the context of proper argument.

And argument is what I wanted to blog about today, namely the question of why theists and atheists have such a hard time understanding one another. I suppose the reasons I'll state go beyond the "God debate" and touch any opposing viewpoints that are so at odds with each other that a conclusion seems impossible.

Code Words
We communicate through the language of logic. If a language exists, then by definition logic exists, otherwise we wouldn't be able to communicate a thing (or even understand a thing). If I want to communicate a sentence to you, we must both first agree on certain fabricated rules; a type of code that we mutually 1) either invent or borrow from someone else, and 2) agree upon. In order for you to understand the sentence, "I play drums", you have to know what the sounds "I" and "play" and "drums" stand for. These code words point to our experiences, things we have seen or otherwise experienced before, and the rules that are encoded to relate these ideas. The words we use are important. If we substitute another meaning for an idea we're trying to convey without first agreeing up the new meaning, the communication breaks down. So if you hear me tell you "I play the drums" but you don't think of me banging around on a musical percussion instrument, then you cannot relate to what I'm trying to convey. Likewise, if I tell you "I play drums" but mean instead that I engage in a game utilizing a large metal cylinder used for storing liquid, then I'm responsible for the ambiguity.

Humans created the language of logic. All the symbols, formulas, statements, rules -- logic is man-made, yes; but logic itself is a representation of something else: the behavior of existence. It's a reflection of the way the universe commonly behaves. We don't just arbitrarily decide its rules, but rather they are built upon the framework that the universe provided to us. Something cannot both be and not be. Something must either be true or its negation must be true. When two things are the same, they are the same. We get these rules out of observing the nature of nature. If nature wasn't consistent then we couldn't have logic and thus we could not have the language to express it (or we'd have a completely different version of logic). Either we have contradictions but no language, or we re-write contradictions, change the rules and meanings of things, make contradictions no longer contradictions, and communicate.

There may be things that exist but cannot be communicated or described. But if they can be experienced then they can be given a code name and the idea can thus be communicated to anyone who has experienced the same thing and knows the code word for it.

If It Happened To You
This brings me to the idea of personal experience as justification for believing something (a topic I've written about extensively), specifically when it comes to subjects of theism and faith. It may very well be that your personal experience is genuine and that your perception and conveyance of the event is flawless and true. I could rightly argue against it by citing the way people tend to shade their experiences based on what they know, the way the mind can be tricked, the numerous different and contradicting accounts of that type, my own personal experience, and the simple fact that it's subjective and untestable. Regardless, there is no possible way for me to refute that idea sufficiently enough to a believer who is positively sure it is real. I couldn't convince such a person to even try to imagine otherwise. No one could.

The problem then, lies in the fact that I have not experienced what you're talking about -- I don't have the same rule in my rulebook for that code word. If you are ever to express your ideas to me, then I must either agree to accept your rules as my own, or I will have to experience it for myself.

This may sound obvious -- we either mean two different things (your red is my green, for example), or one of us has a code word for an experience which the other has neither -- but understanding what limits us from reaching agreements is key to creating a better, healthier, more tolerant and connected world. We need to learn to identify what stifles conversation; what brings our relatable experiences of reality to an impasse...and I feel in no other arena than the domain of faith is this needed most.

It is our shared experiences of reality that lay the tracks for our engines of understanding to run upon. If you tell me something purely subjective, like "Last night I dreamed about flying," for instance, there's no possible way for me to prove or disprove that (other than looking and brain scans while you slept, but even still I couldn't know what it was you were dreaming about). So why do we believe people when they say they dream? Because people dream. Because we understand what they mean when they use the code word "dream". Sure, it's subjective, but we all share it. Therefore, if you're going to use personal experience as a proof of a deity, your only hope to convince me with that argument is to pray that the god reveals itself to me in the same way it did for you. The only way for me to know and understand it is if I, too, experience it. After all, if you weren't convinced until it happened to you, why would anyone else be different?


-STA

STA Answers Frank Turek, Part 2

(Read Part 1 first!)

#5 - Logic and Reason Exist
Thus begins Frank Turek's short-list of "evidences" for his God being real. He states the fact that logic and rationality work and cannot be explained by materialism. In a materialistic worldview, Turek suggests, our brains are "just molecules and atoms" and therefore cannot be capable of…creating logic? This part of his argument gets a bit fuzzy for me (perhaps it's because I don't have a God to look up to?). I suppose he's saying that logic and reason are objective, thus there must exist a creator for these, and it's Jesus's daddy.

Again this is the same argument spun anew: "there is law, there must be a law-giver". While direct theism again doesn't follow this argument, a question that can be extrapolated from this is, "why does nature work the way it does?" To me, this question is nonsensical; it's equivalent to asking, why is water wet? Things are the way they are. We don't know why. But when we do find out -- just as we've found out the naturalistic explanations of so much else -- the answer won't be "God did it".


#6 - Mathematics
I'm unsure as to why Turek decided to make this a separate argument from the aforementioned as he's essentially arguing the same point, that is, math exists and can't possibly come from matter alone. This argument contains the same pitfalls of the god-of-the-gaps argument he made before as well as the fallacy of asking "who made it so".

Turek states that "mathematics is the product of mind not matter". However, mind is what the brain (matter) does. It's hard to believe that in this day and age there are people who don't seem to understand that the brain controls the body, and it's where thoughts are stored.


#7 - Human Freedom and the Ability to Make Choices
"If we are just molecules in motion," asks Turek, "how do we have human freedom?" Turek seems to be arguing against determinism here, and proposing in a round-about way the idea of theistic free will.

We are not "just molecules in motion", Frank. We have our own worth because we can say that and understand its implications. However, I will remove subjective worth from the equation and allow the argument to be predicated on the original fact. Sure, we're just a collection of molecules in motion. How then comes choice-making, you ask? You think something like that requires your God? Can you seriously not find a naturalistic mechanism for the ability of the human brain to pick something? I'm quite sure you could if you really cared to look for it, so I'll leave the task in your hands. If you'd like to ponder the philosophical ramifications of determinism, I highly suggest you read Richard Carrier's book, Sense and Goodness without God.

Turek also ties this in with his morality argument, even absurdly blurting, "What is the murder molecule? How much does justice weight? These are questions that can't be answered in a materialistic worldview!" Turek is clearly an imbecile.


#8 - Consciousness
"Why are some carbon-based molecules conscious and others are not?" begins Turek. He appears to be hell-bent on trying to show that we are more than mere chemicals and molecules (which I would agree in a sort of way), and that this is the direct result of an intelligent creator (which I wholeheartedly disagree).

After misinterpreting a sentence from Daniel Dennett's book, Turek merely asserts the proposition he used again and again before: there is consciousness, therefore there must be a consciousness-giver. Again he provides no evidence for making the claim, and again his argument does not follow through to theism. Turek is simply using a god-of-the-gaps argument over and over.


In summation of the above, Turek wrongfully charged Hitchens to explain the following from an atheistic perspective:

• how the universe arose from nothing
• how extreme fine-tuning and design arose from chaos
• how life arose from non-life
• how morality arose from materials
• how reason and the laws of logic arose from matter
• how mind arose from mud
• how mathematics arose from molecules
• how human freedom arose from blind, repetitive forces
• how consciousness arose from chemicals

Although Hitch ignored most of this list (and rightfully so, I feel), Turek seemed to forget the burden of proof rests on his affirmative shoulders -- not Christopher's -- to explain why the answer to all of them must be "God" (and then further, a specific god). He of course offered no such evidence.

Essentially, most of these arguments come down to us non-believers freely admitting that we don't know; we do not yet have an answer. Many of these questions have at least begun to be explained in naturalistic and materialistic terms, some of them are just the wrong question, some are incorrectly based on false pretenses (Turek's use of Thermodynamics' Second Law, for example), and some are the result of Turek not taking the time to research and learn what we do know, or at least the state of science now. It seems that when he discovers a reputable source on a subject, Frank Turek's first instinct is to ridicule and take sentences out of context.

I wrote this response in order to show how those who hold to a theistic worldview must grasp at straws and liberally apply logical fallacies to their arguments for their God, yet none of them can provide the necessary and convincing evidence. The same arguments get used time and again -- these arguments are usually phrased incorrectly, are fallacious, or have already been shown to be unsubstantial. No new arguments can be made, only these incorrect ones. And yet, somehow, these arguments are convincing to theists, even touted as flawless by many. If one fails to see the invalid and dangerous way of thinking that this kind of pseudo-logic delivers, then I fear one is doomed to the mires of ignorance forever.


-STA

Fallacy Friday: Argument From Authority

It's been a while since we had a Fallacy Friday, so let's start this Friday off with the argument from authority, or as they say in the Latin: argumentum ad verecundiam.


Respec Mah Authoritah!
Often times when arguing about something that can't be answered by observation or calculation, one might feel the need to appeal to an authority. This authority may or may not even be an expert in the field of that of the argument. A good example of this is when people quote Einstein's opinions about politics as though he were a political philosopher rather than a physicist.

At least in some forms of debate, quoting various sources to support one's position is not just acceptable but often mandatory. But one should only rely on authorities whose expertise relates to the question at hand, especially with regard to questions of fact. Saying, "Albert Einstein believed in God....are you saying that Einstein was wrong?" is committing a fallacy. It doesn't matter what Einstein said about God, politics, or anything else. He's a expert in the realm of physics.


Lemme Do It...I'm The Expert
It's necessary to distinguish between an authority and an expert. If a famous astronomer says that the universe is expanding, then it is very likely that the universe really is expanding. If a qualified doctor says that a patient is suffering from Parkinson's disease, that's most likely the case. In these examples, the astronomer and the doctor are experts in a field, and are addressing topics within their area of expertise. As experts, they have studied their respective fields, are familiar with the state of the art, have studied how to recognize certain events, features or conditions, know how to recognize many problems that might lead a layman astray and how to work around them, and so forth. When we take an expert's word for something, we are saying in effect that if we had the time to learn as much about the field as the expert has, we would be able to examine the evidence and reach the same conclusion.

On the other hand, if the Pope says, ex cathedra, that contraception is a sin, then that's true as well. In this case, the Pope is an authority in matters of sin: it is his job to determine what is and isn't a sin in the Catholic church. In a very real sense, contraception is a sin not because it is intrinsically bad, or even because it contradicts the Bible in some way, or even that "sin" is a real concept, but merely because the Pope has declared it to be so.


Well, You Know What They Say...
In science, there are experts but no authorities. Again, saying that a qualified physicist thinks the universe is expanding is fine, but saying that the President thinks that stem-cell research is of the devil is not. It's only a fallacy if it relies on an unqualified source for information about facts without other qualified sources of verification, or if it implies that some policy must be right simply because so-and-so thought so.



-STA

Uh, Well Yes But...

STA: "Wait...so, God sent Jesus to be killed as payment for sin?"

Theist: "Yes, the Bible tells us so!"

STA: "All sin?"

Theist: "Before and after; from now until the end of days."

STA: "So, there shouldn't be evil in the world."

Theist: "What?!"

STA: "Yeah. You said that evil 'came into the world' because of the Fall -- the Adam and Eve thing, right? What the Catholics call Original Sin?"

Theist: "Uh...yes. Bad things happen because of the sin of Adam."

STA: "But you just told me that Jesus paid the price of forgiveness for all sin!"

Theist: "Yeah, but..."

STA: "So bad things shouldn't happen in the world. Either that, or Jesus didn't have enough to cover that one. So evil shouldn't exist, and no one should be going to Hell for Original Sin."

Theist: "Uh...well yes, but..."



Silly Christians, logic is for nonbelievers!
-STA

Fallacy Friday: Sharpshooter Fallacy

On this Fallacy “Good” Friday, we’ll take a look at a logical error that I pointed out in a recent post. It’s formally called ‘non causa pro causa’; I call it the Sharpshooter Fallacy.

The Texas Sharpshooter is a fabled marksman who fires his gun randomly at the side of a barn, then paints a bull’s-eye around the bullet holes – to obviously make it look like he is an amazing shot. The fallacy is applied to the field of logic to describe a false effect after-the-fact. Information that has no relationship is interpreted or manipulated until it appears to have meaning.

Seeing a Face in the Clouds
This fallacy is similar to one of our earlier fallacies, post hoc ergo propter hoc. The fallacy is to assert that because two events occur together, they must be causally related. It's a fallacy because it ignores other factors that may be the cause(s) of the events.

What appears to be statistically significant (not due to chance) is actually expected by the laws of chance. This is probably best shown in the act of reading tea leaves or casting bones, as we’ve read about in old tales. The positioning of the leaves or bones isn’t significant or special; it’s just an artifact of randomness. The fallacy occurs when people try to place unreasoned meaning upon these artifacts.

What a Coinkydink!
When someone jumps to the conclusion that a cluster in some data must be the result of a cause--usually one that it is clustered around--they’ve fallen for the sharpshooter’s trick. When looking at data, there is a danger of jumping to a conclusion that a random cluster is a causal pattern.

What makes this fallacy dangerous is that, to the untrained eye, it can look a lot like what real scientists really do when they look at data and draw conclusions. There are other tests you can run to find the probability of a certain thing, but this is often overlooked by those who *want* there to be meaning where there is none (i.e., the self-made prophecy).

This problem is at the heart of the fine-tuning argument as scientific evidence for a god. There’s no reason to think that the universe is fine-tuned for life – actually, evolution shows that life is fine-tuned for the universe! The ‘fine-tuned’ argument is just like throwing six, six-sided dice. They come up, say ‘3, 6, 3, 2, 1, 1’. The odds of that happening are 1 in 1,679,616 chance!!! The fallacy is (obviously) that you’re counting it up after-the-fact. It’d be like saying “what are the odds that we’d draw the letter A the way we do?” like it’s got some sort of significant meaning. Without further testing, such a conclusion is seldom justified.

-STA

But How Do You Know?

Day after day, I talk with people who think they understand specific concepts based on the natural way in which the language surrounding those concepts is used. The biggest example of this is the laymen use of "theory". Being one who accepts evolution, I'm often confronted by evangelicals who claim that evolution is "just a theory". Their use of this phrase demonstrates their lack of understanding in what makes a "theory" (and their general misunderstanding of science on the whole).

I think that the majority of problems people have regarding religion, matters of faith, and scientific understanding is a matter of language. It is in the realm of colloquial, idiomatic speech that the confused person is trapped. Some people just don’t know how we know things.


How Do You Know?
There are ways we humans have of understanding fact from fiction. We realize that we can create practically anything in our imaginations, and we know that our senses can be fooled. So we need a way to distinguish reality from pretend. We have these reliable methods (we know they're reliable because we can show them to be so).

Logical reasoning is the primary foundation upon which we build our understanding of reality. We can prove the rules of logic are true, and we therefore make them rules.

Science makes use of logical reasoning, in conjunction with:

• independent verification, to avoid group-think
• repeated testing, for consistency
• falsification, to demonstrate that a hypothesis is reliable and is not producing an incidental result
• and, most importantly, peer review, because we are all fallible. Your work is reviewed by other experts to make sure that your test methodologies are correct, that you properly falsified your hypothesis, and that your tests and results are replicable.

Using these steps, a hypothesis, or guess about something, graduates to the highest level of attainability in science: a theory. When something is called a theory in scientific terms, it means that the idea has been gone through the rigors of the scientific method and shows to be reliable and useful, accurate predictions can be made using the theory. The theories of gravity, sexual reproduction, psychology, music, microbiology, and gene manipulation are among several proven scientific theories.
The problem is that the average person uses the word "theory" to mean a guess or a hunch. While I fail at times, (or I'm forced by language, i.e. "conspiracy theory",) I've resolved to use the term "theory" in scientific terms only, and when I mean "guess", I'll say "guess", or "hypothesis". But the average person will use the term loosely, and those who don’t understand the difference in terminology will get confused when they hear something like “the theory of evolution”.


What Do You Know?
Another general mistake is in the use of the term, "agnostic". When I ask someone whether they believe in god or not, some will say "I'm agnostic". Those who understand the term will realize that the answer given doesn't fit the question; it answers something else entirely. I've demonstrated the differences several times, so I won't go into it further.

The main focus here is that many people get tripped up in what it means to know something, and knowledge--or lack thereof--informs belief. The two aren't the same, but they are tied together.

So, what does it mean to know something? Or, more to the point, how can you truly be an Agnostic?

Well, it depends on what you mean by "knowledge". I’ve show above how we can know reality. If it can be demonstrated that, for example, a thing exists or occurs, and that this can be demonstrated to an incredibly high degree of predictability, then we can comfortably say we “know” it.

When it comes to believing in that thing, you still have options even if the thing can be known or not. Theism and Atheism address what you believe, Gnosticism and Agnosticism address what you know, or claim to know. If you want to define knowledge as "absolute certainty", then I’m an Agnostic Atheist; I don’t know that a god does not exist to an absolute certainty.

I don’t like "absolute certainty"; I think it’s a red herring. We can’t know anything to an absolute certainty. But if you want to define knowledge in practical terms--the way we use it in everyday language where we talk about something to some degree of certainty--if it’s okay to say "I know there’s no such thing as leprechauns", if that qualifies as "knowledge", then an I’m a Gnostic Atheist. In the same sense that I know there’s no leprechauns, I know there’s no god.


Belief vs. Knowledge, Redux
So why all this talk over belief? I mean, isn't what someone believes their own business?

Yes it is. I don't care what anyone believes, though I'd rather they base their beliefs on demonstrable reality. As I said above, knowledge informs belief. But your actions are affected by your beliefs, and that’s what matters. You can belief whatever you want until you start to infringe on others' beliefs/health/etc. That’s the point where your beliefs won’t be tolerated.

I think it’s beneficial to a society if its beliefs and subsequent actions have a basis in what can be shown to be true, and I hope that Earth’s population reaches this level ASAP.



-STA

Fallacy Friday: Slippery Slope

Time for another Fallacy Friday. This week's fallacy is often heard by the children of overprotective parents.


Slippery When High
"If we legalize marijuana, then people will join gangs and start taking crack and killing and raping each other! It'll be total anarchy!"

This is a clear example of the reductio ad absurdum, or slippery slope fallacy. The fallacy assumes that if one were to carry the position out to its logical end, that end would be inevitable and possibility harmful. There is no proof made that the harmful end (total anarchy) is caused by the original position (legalizing pot). This is not a way to prove a point, and though it lacks any real reason, the fallacy can be surprisingly tricky--especially in situations where there is a significant number of steps between one event and another.

But the slippery slope isn't always a fallacy. There are a variety of ways to make a slippery slope argument valid, or at least plausible. All you need to do is provide some reason why the adoption of one position will lead to the adoption of another, ie, show your work!



Watch Your Step
The fallacy is often used in emotional situations where careful thought is replaced by an irrational need for illogical proof and justification. We nonbelievers hear this all the time. If you don't believe in God, what's to stop you from killing anyone you want?

The above absurd extrapolation is wrong because it assumes that you need God to be good. Hopefully you, dear reader, will not slide down this hill too.



-STA

Fallacy Friday: Red Herring

This week's short fallacy is simply "distracting with an irrelevancy", and it's called the Red Herring.

Something Smells Fishy
How often are you talking with someone about one thing, then they bring up something else under the guise of the current discussion, and suddenly the conversation has shifted to their topic? This is an example of a red herring fallacy, a logical error that you may have heard of, if not only in name, which comes from the sport of fox hunting. Strong-smelling smoked herrings are used to throw off the scent of the fox and lead its pursuers down a different path.

The essence of this practice translates to logical argument: if your opponent brings up an irrelevant point and you follow it, then you've just been duped by his red herring. This fallacy of irrelevance may also be found in conjunction with the Straw Man fallacy. The two diversionary tactics snag the interest of a debater and can lead off in a completely different direction. Be wary of a smoke-screen argument that makes you say, "That's beside the point..."


An example of a red herring is this notion of "absolute knowledge". Proselytizers will usually say something like "How you do know there is no faeries/leprechauns/God? You'd have to know everything about everything, etc." No one can have absolute knowledge about anything, and it's a distraction to chase that trail. To the extent that we can know of these things, we can reasonably say "There is no faeries/leprechauns/God".



-STA

Arguing From The Bubble

Recently, I was in a pseudo-debate with a Christian on an internet forum. After enduring several claims of "fact", appeals to emotion, and general lack of cohesive reasoning from said Christian, I reached the conclusion that he was either A) too ignorant--and too blissfully therein--to ever understand his fallacies, or B) he was simply disregarding logic and formal rules of argument for the, pardon the pun, hell of it. I hope the latter wasn't the case, but even the former brings me grief to consider. I also hope I planted at least one seed of doubt in him. Whatever the case, it spurred me to make this post.


Does Not Compute
Einstein once said, "Logic will get you from A to B. Imagination will take you everywhere." My Christian opponent had an expansive imagination. He didn't (or chose to discard) the basic principals of logical reasoning, and I'm sure other apologists don't either.

Logic, as the study of the rules of correct thinking have shown, is fundamentally necessary for an argument to hold any weight or be taken as true in any useful sense. For it to remain consistent, an argument must provide set of statements, one of which is the conclusion, and the rest as premises supporting the conclusion. In other words, a statement along with the evidence that supports it. If your conclusion isn't held up by evidence, you've committed some kind of logical fallacy; you've broken the laws of logic. I cover these fallacies on this blog every Friday, so I need not go into them now.

Above I stated that most apologists don't hold to these principals, though I'm sure they all disagree. One might wonder how this could be possible. How could any religion survive for centuries if they aren't logically sound? The answers to these questions cover an extremely large amount of topics that I am not qualified to discuss (biology, psychology, sociology, history, etc.), and besides that it isn't the purpose of my blog. A more simple and purposeful answer: they are.


Superman, Hands Down
Yeah. Some religions are logically sound, but (you really didn't think there wasn't a kicker, right?) they are only sound internally; on the inside. Here's what I mean: If, for the sake of this example, Jesus really was the son of God...

Sorry, I nearly passed out just thinking of the number of leaps of faith that would take to believe. Anyway:

-If Jesus really was the son of God, then walking on water would be simple. He could do it.

-If the Hindu gods really drink soma, the moon would naturally wane because the gods are drinking away some of its properties.

-The angel Moroni must have told Joe Smith the truth, because the angel was from God, and angels can't lie.

-If Adam and Eve were oblivious to their nakedness, then eating from the Tree would indeed open their eyes.

All of the above logically follow from the premise. The problem is of course that the premises must be rejected outright, or at least backed up by something that, in turn is backed up by another thing, which is in turn backed up by another, which is itself backed up by another--how ever many or few steps this takes--all with sound reasoning. This is the labyrinth of logic that theists get lost in.

The point here is that yes, you can argue just fine within the bubble of your religion. This same principle is the reason why Trekkies can argue to the point of exhaustion regarding the layout of the Enterprise, or the inner workings of hyperdrive or whatever the fuck it is. The same goes for arguing a case for Neville Longbottom fulfilling the prophesy instead of Harry Potter, or what would happen if Spiderman fought Superman. The point is: THE SHIT AIN'T REAL.


A Ship of Corn Flakes Upon a Milk Sea
I don't give a fuck if you can convince yourself and your 8-year old daughter that humanity is suffering, and the only way to not suffer for the rest of eternity is to find Jesus. You must still show how any of that shit makes logical sense IN THE FIRST PLACE!!!!

I'm sorry for this rather blunt way of putting things, but this stuff really gets in my craw. Of course it's fine to argue and speculate on who would win in a fight between superheroes, or even what would happen if Jesus came back. The problems arise when you take these fanciful arguments as truth without backing up their underlying proposition. Even worse when you start taking actions against others for not agreeing.

It is in the best interest of your children, your countrymen, and yourself to learn to think critically, and learn how to logically get from A to B.


-STA

Fallacy Friday: Non Sequitur

New Series
Since argument is a large part of atheism, and life in general, we'll talk about a few major logic errors in argumentation every Friday. Being an atheist, I tend to argue a lot. These basic rules of rhetoric and argumentation are not strictly exclusive to atheists; these fallacies should be avoided by anyone trying to establish a correct, watertight argument. So if you're a theist, make sure you don't break these (and other) rules when defending your position. Ditto to you non-theists as well.


Not Followin' Ya
To get things started, we should cover the most basic type of fallacy of which most all others are a subset of: the non sequitur. Latin, it literally means "it does not follow". A big thing when dealing with logical progressions (ie, step-by-step argument) is that the conclusion must follow from the premise. I know, great idea, right? You'd be amazed at how Here's a few examples:

"Millions of people have seen unexplained lights in the night sky. Life on other planets is quickly becoming certainty."

"If I am in Tokyo, then I am in Japan. I am not in Tokyo. Therefore, I'm not in Japan."

Arguing at length, "My religion is of great help to many people." Then, concluding: "My religion is undoubtably true!"

If you're going to construct a chain of causation (A leads to B leads to C, etc.) without justifying each step in the chain, you're guilty of committing a non sequitur. For each step in the chain that you fail to justify, it will be obvious by the end that the alleged chain of causation is tenuous and implausible.

If have a habit of doing this, or you'd like to learn more about non sequiturs, Google is your friend. There are tons of sites on the internet that will show you how to avoid such errors in the future. If you can learn to argue without such incorrect reasoning, we atheists will be more likely to hear your position and, who knows, maybe even concede it!

-STA

Atheism 101: Rational Thought

Rationally Thinking Creatures
We use rational thought every day. Just take some time and think about it. Do you stop at the stop light when it's red? Do you swim in scalding hot water? Do you put your cup on the table, or just let it go? Stop and ask yourself: Why? Why don't you just let go of your cup? Do you think it's going to fall?

Of course you do. You believe that because it has been proven to you through your own reason. You have a plethora of reliable human experience (both your own and throughout the entire history of man) telling you that it will fall if you let it go. You're not hoping it won't, and you don't have faith in gravity. You know because you have a reasonable expectation.

Try going through one day - even one hour - without using your rationale. I hope you're still around to read my next post!

You can see now that human beings all think rationally (some moreso). So isn't it strange that some people will use their rationale to begin believing in something, and then try to discredit the very ability that got them there?

It's logical, rational thinking that leads some atheists to their position (or rather, away from the other position). Throughout this blog I'll show you why I think that belief in god -- and the supernatural, for that matter -- is irrational and even dangerous.