Atheism's 10 Commandments

p>I saw a display recently on “Atheism’s 10 Commandments.” In fact, it was brought to my attention by somebody who asked if I had been involved in creating it because it sounds so much like me. When I listened to it, I was horrified to think that people would see that and think of me.

Okay, ‘horrified’ is too strong a word. I was stricken with the need to clarify where I would disagree with these 10 commandments and, in fact, why I would be disinclined to write a set of commandments to start with.

On the issue of having commandments at all, I have often compared atheism to heleocentrism (the view that the sun, rather than the earth, is at the center of the solar system) in that neither has anything substantive to say about morality. To understand morality, you have to look someplace other than the orbit of the Earth around the sun, and you have to look at what does exist rather than at what does not exist. The only implication that atheism has for morality is that no true moral claim requires that the proposition, “a god exists” to be true.

I do have a few moral slogans that I trot out from time to time. For example, I am fond of saying, “The only legitimate response to words are words and private actions; the only legitimate response to a political campaign in an open society is a counter-campaign.”

However, I hold these up as rules of thumb, not as commandments. In the words of the famed pirate Barbosa from Pirates of the Caribbean, these are . . . more what you'd call guidelines than actual rules.

By ‘guidelines’ I do not mean that they can be broken on a whim. I mean that they are simplistic approximations of moral truth that are useful in a lot of common situations, but they are not literally true.

The free speech slogan above, for example, says nothing about libel and slander, or of fraud (which basically is a crime using words – lies – to manipulate the actions of others), revealing private information, (e.g., publishing somebody’s credit report online), or violating national security (printing or publishing the plans for the Allied assault on Normandy in 1944).

Another reason why I would not speak in terms of commandments is that I hold that there is a truth value to moral claims, and some of our views are mistaken. If anybody should offer a moral proposition then that proposition – like all propositions – needs to be held up the light of reason, studied, and evaluated. As our understanding of the real world improves, we can expect to discover that some of the moral claims we thought to be true are false.

In fact, I would suggest (require) that any moral claim offer as a ‘commandment’ be closely studied to reveal whether it is true or false – whether it is fact that we ought to do what we are being commanded to do, or whether we should not.

As we engage in this study, we can expect different people to come up with different views on the subject. Just as biologists disagree over whether evolution can function on the level of individuals only or groups, and paleontologists disagree over whether T-Rex was primarily a hunter or a scavenger, we can expect disagreement over the truth of moral propositions. Presenting these moral propositions as ‘commandments’ seems incompatible with holding that they have a truth value that can be questioned.

[I know that there are some moral non-cognitivists who would disagree with the above statement. I can deal with those objections in a separate post.]

So, that’s what I would like to do here. I would like to take these propositions that one commenter said seemed to be something I would have written and evaluate their truth value. Are they moral propositions that I would hold to be true, or would I hold them to be false?

Disclaimer: I do not have space to go through all of the commandments in this post, so I will do some later. For the rest of today’s post, I will look only at the first two.

(1) Try to treat others as you would have them treat you.

This is a nice slogan, comparable to “the only legitimate response to words are words and private actions.” It’s not actually true.

The primary problem with this claim is that it emphasizes the ways that we are similar, but shoves aside our differences. In all likelihood, there are areas in which I do not like to be treated the way that you would have others treat you. Treating me the way you like to be treated – rather than the way that I like to be treated – ignores those differences and assumes that we should all be alike, and belittles our differences.

It would seem, then, that we should treat others the way they want to be treated, not the way that we would want them to treat us.

Yet, this has even greater problems. What the ‘other’ wants is to be treated as a master. He wants total obedience from his slaves whose sole job is to be ready to satiate whatever desire should come up. Certainly, I would not be a moral monster if I refused to treat him the way that he wants us to treat him, and simply insisted that he had no right to that type of subservience.

Actually, the claim to ‘treat others the way you would want them to treat you’ is a statement about the universal nature of moral claims. The statement “X is wrong” implies “Any person in a similar situation would be doing something wrong if he were to do X.” This, in turn, implies, “If I were in a similar situation, I would be doing something wrong if I were to do X.”

Do not say that it is morally permissible for you to do X if you would say that it is morally prohibited for somebody else in a similar situation to do X.

The key difference between this version and the original proposed commandment is that this version has nothing to do with likes and dislikes, and only applies to moral ‘ought’ and ‘ought not’. A more sensible version of this proposal is the Kantian imperative, “Act on that principle that you can will to be a universal law.”

Desire utilitarianism, by the way, captures this by looking at morality as a question of promoting desires that it would be good for everybody to have, and inhibiting desires that it would be good for nobody to not have. We are not so much looking at universal principles but universal desires (or the universal absence of certain desires). In fact, since people always act to fulfill the most and strongest of their desires given their beliefs, you can’t get a person to act in accordance with a particular principle unless you make that action one that fulfills the most and strongest of the agent’s desires, given his beliefs. The only way to do that is to alter the agent’s desires.

(2) Be truthful and honest even if inconvenient or uncomfortable.

There should be a love of truth (and reason), and an aversion to dishonesty (and sophistry).

People seek to fulfill the most and strongest of their desires. However, they act so as to fulfill the most and strongest of their desires given their beliefs. False beliefs get in people's way of realizing those states that have value to them. We have reason to promote a love of that which gives us true beliefs, and an aversion to that which gives us false beliefs – where those beliefs are relevant to our actions.

We have a reason to promote a love of truth. What this means is that people are to be encouraged to seek truth for its own sake – not just because it is useful, but because they like truth. Their attitude towards truth should be like their attitude towards chocolate . . . well, for some of us . . . who eat chocolate not only for its calorie and nutrition content (its usefulness), but for its own sake (we like it, and would eat it in the absence of usefulness).

However, our love of truth should not be so strong or indiscriminate that we cannot put it away from time to time. One of the questions we can ask about the proposition above is, “What should you do if the Nazis come to your door, asking if you know of any Jews hiding in the neighborhood. And you do know of Jews hiding in the neighborhood. Should your love of truth be so strong that you reveal where the Jews are hiding?”

Answer: No.

There are two types of exemptions from moral demands; exceptions and outweighing. The difference between the two is that an ‘outweighing’ carries a psychological burden with it, while an exception does not.

A good example of a moral exception is the example of lying to the Nazis mentioned above. The aversion to lying comes with an exception – except when you protect the innocent by lying to wrongdoers.

An example that I frequently use to illustrate how one moral concern can outweigh another is the case of a parent out fishing with a child. The child gets stung by a bee and starts to have an allergic reaction. The parent’s car will not start, but there is another car nearby with the keys in the ignition. He takes the car to get his child to the hospital.

What distinguishes the two cases is that, in the second case, there is still a sense that the agent did something wrong. He did it out of necessity, but it was wrong. We see this by the fact that the father should regret having to take the car and recognize an obligation to make it up to the owner of the car – make up for the fact that he took the car without consent.

However, there is no sense that the person who lies to the Nazi guards should feel any regret and should have to apologize to the Nazi guards for lying to them.

The difference between the two is that the Nazi guard case involves an exception that is written directly into the aversion to lying. We do not promote a simple aversion to lying. We promote an aversion to lying except when one is lying to a wrongdoer in defense of the innocent. A person with this particular desire would have no aversion to lying to the wrongdoer when done to protect the innocent.

On the other hand, the fishing family case involves two conflicting desires that everybody should have but which cannot both be fulfilled in this situation. On desire is the desire to take care of one’s children. The other desire is the aversion to taking the property of another without consent. We want both desires to be operating because we have reason to want people to exhaust other possibilities before taking the car. Taking the car is a last resort. The aversion to taking property without consent motivates agents to look at other, less intrusive options first and to take the car only when no other option presents itself.

One of my objections to a commandment system of ethics is that it is a rule-centered theory of ethics. Rule-based moral theories can easily handle the moral phenomena of exceptions. That is to say, we can write into any rule, “Do A, except under conditions C,” and still have a perfectly good universal rule.

However, rule-based theories of ethics have a great deal of difficulty dealing with the issue of moral weight. It can say, “Do not take another person’s car without consent unless you need to get your dying child to the hospital,” but it cannot account for the moral phenomena that taking the car still has some residual wrongness, it still requires an apology, and it still requires the agent to “make it up” to the victim in some way.

One mark in favor of desire utilitarianism is that it can account for these two different types of exemptions from moral commands – in terms of exceptions being grounded on single complex (good) desires, while outweighing is grounded on two or more (good) desires coming into conflict in unusual circumstances.

A Speech Proposal

I have written a couple of times on the decision on the part of the Connecticut Valley Atheists to put a sign up in front of city hall that shows the World Trade Center buildings before 9/11 with the words, “Imagine: No Religion.”

These posts have brought to mind an idea of how I would like to see this situation resolved. It is a fantasy - something that I think will do a whole lot of good. It would be nice . . . .

This would be for the Connecticut Valley Atheists to make arrangements to either replace these images, or to cover them, and to release a statement that goes something like this:

When given an opportunity to put up a holiday display in front of town hall, we decided to put up a sign that showed the World Trade Center towers as they were before 9/11, with the words: “Imagine: No Religion.” That sign was an insult to anybody who accepts some religion, but who would never participate in or condone an act such as 9/11. We were wrong to put up that message, and we apologize for doing so.

Two wrongs do not make a right. We are forced to endure a barrage of writers and speakers who hold up Stalin and Mao Tse Tung and say, in effect, “Imagine: No Atheism.” As if we are somehow personally responsible for crimes committed by other atheists. Crimes we did not commit and do not condone.

That makes us angry. We were not there. We had nothing to do with those events. Yet, we are being held accountable for them.

It is tempting, in the face of that type of bigotry, to strike back and say, ‘How do you like it when others do the same to you? How do you like being blamed, in effect, for acts that you did not participate in and do not condone – simply because the perpetrators happened to be religious?”

Yet the phrase, “Two wrongs do not make a right” is meant to point out the error in that way of thinking. Only hypocrites can treat other people in ways that they would consider wrong if others did the same thing to them.

We live in a country with a pledge that declares that those who are not ‘under God’ are as unpatriotic – as un-American – as any who would support rebellion, tyranny, and injustice for all.

We live in a country that has adopted as its national motto – the most important principle of its political life – the idea that its population must be divided between a “We” who trust in God, and a “They” who do not.

We live in a country where Presidential candidates declare that freedom requires religion, and sitting Presidents insist that no person who thinks that our rights have a source other than God is qualified to be a judge.

We live in a country where we hear these things, not from a few bigoted neighbors, but from our own government and from elected officials who are supposed to represent all Americans, and not just those who agree with them on matters of religion.

In the face of this, it is tempting to find an opportunity to give people a taste of their own medicine, as it were.

However, two wrongs do not make a right. Two wrongs, almost invariably, lead to three wrongs, then four, then five. Our lives are far too short to waste in a society where people compete over who can commit the last and greatest wrong against the other. Somebody needs to refuse to take part in that contest. So, we apologize for the wrongs that we have done, and we resolve to work harder in the future to ensure that we do not do to others those things that we condemn when others do them to us.

[Speaking time: 3 minutes, 20 seconds]

And the world would be a better place.

Note: Any readers who think that the sign is morally defensible – but how think that pointing to the acts of Hitler and Stalin to discredit all atheists is not – are invited to view my previous posts on this subject:

(1) Connecticut Valley Atheists: Imagine

(2) Communication, Causation, and Condemnation – paying particular attention to the section on causation.

Communication, Causation, and Condemnation

Today, I wish to address some comments from a member of the studio audience. Those comments concern my objection to the “Imagine: No Religion” poster that superimposes these words on an image of the World Trade Center towers before 9/11. I presented those objections in an earlier posting called Connecticut Valley Atheists: Imagine.

I assert that the meaning of this poster is clear, false, and unjust. That it is, in effect, the same sort of argument used against atheism when a theist mention Hitler, Stalin, Mau Tse Tung, and Pol Pot and says (in effect), “Imagine: No Atheism.” Anybody who recognizes the unfairness – in the outright bigotry of the second statement should recognize the same bigotry in the first. The reaction, “How dare you condemn me for actions that I had no part in and do not condone?” applies both to those who use the ‘Imagine” poster and those who use the Hitler and Stalin cliché.

Matt E, in a comment to that post, offered some responses. His defense brings up important and relevant issues in the realm of communication, causation, and responsibility. I want to address those issues.

I want to attract the reader’s attention specifically to the issue of causation, discussed below, because there is a bit of sophistry behind the claim that religion ‘caused’ the 9/11 attacks.

Interpretation

The first issue that I want to address is question of how to interpret this sign. I have heard a fair number of creative interpretations for this sign. However, the interpretation that matters is the thought that will likely occur in the brain of just about anybody who views the sign.

I do a fair amount of communicating as I write this blog. The purpose behind each sentence is to cause certain concepts to appear in the minds of the readers. The ‘meaning’ of each statement is determined by the ideas that appear in the minds of readers who encounter it.

With every sentence that I write I ask myself, “How will this be interpreted by those who read it?” , and the rule for every sentence that I write is that its meaning is determined by the concepts that are most likely to appear in the mind of the reader.

For example, let’s say that I were to create a sign that said “Black people are stupid.” When challenged about the sign, I say that by ‘stupid’ I mean that black people are bipedal. The statement has nothing at all to do with their intelligence. When I put that message up on a billboard on a major interstate it would be perfectly legitimate for others to protest that the statement denigrates blacks by calling them unintelligent. My personal, private definition of the term is irrelevant. The public meaning – the meaning to competent English speakers who encounter the sign – is what matters.

In this case, the “Imagine” sign means, “You should hate and fear everybody who believes in God because the people who did this believed in God and acted on that belief.” It is no different than showing a sign of Hitler, Stalin, Mau Tse Tung, and Pol Pot and saying, “Imagine: No Atheism” People who do this are telling my neighbors to hate and fear me, not because of anything that I have said or condone, but because of the evil acts of others who I, too, condemn.

Matt E. adds:

I have a hard time imagining anyone seeing that sign and thinking "Yeah, all religious people are as dangerous as the 9/11 highjackers! Let's arrest all the Christians!" So what is the harm of the sign? It might be offensive to some people, but it is not bigotry.

I hear or read the Hitler and Stalin cliché somewhere just about every day. Those people are also not saying that we should arrest all atheists. However, this fact does not save those who use this claim from the charge of hate-mongering bigotry. They are still telling my neighbors to hate and fear me – even if they have to wait until I actually committed the inevitable crime to actually arrest me.

I have a right to be judged by my own words and deeds. People who believe in God who would never commit or condone an act like 9/11 also have the right to be judged on their own words and deeds. Spreading hate and fear beyond the group that is actually guilty of a crime is simply unjust. It’s wrong.

And the idea that there is one set of moral rules for ‘us’ and another for ‘them’ – where we claim a moral right to do that which we condemn in others . . . the word for that way of thinking is ‘hypocrisy’, which is still wrong.

Causation

Another argument that Mike E. and others have used in defense of the message on the sign is what can be called “If-not-but-for causation.” That is to say, “If not but for religion, the towers would still be standing.”

However, “If-not-but-for causation” is senseless and is not the way we use the term ‘causation’.

Imagine that there had been a fire – a house has burned down killing the five occupants. Fire inspectors go into the home to determine the cause of the fire. They hold a press conference, and they declare, “We have determined that the fire was caused by the presence of oxygen in the atmosphere. Our research shows that, if not but for the presence of oxygen in the atmosphere, there would have been no fire.”

Those inspectors would be . . . or should be . . . marched straight out of the press conference and into their office to clean out their desk and start looking for new work. Inspectors who think that the concept of ‘causation’ can be answered by looking at the if-not-but-for role of oxygen prove that they have no understanding of what people mean when they talk about cause.

When it comes to explaining the fire, what the investigators are supposed to discover is the difference that explains why this house burned down and why others did not. The presence of oxygen in the atmosphere does not answer this question. There are hundreds of millions of houses existing in an atmosphere that contains oxygen that are not burning down. The cause of the fire is that which distinguishes – that which marks the difference – between the house that burned down and the many houses that did not.

Saying that ‘religion’ is responsible for 9/11 is like saying that the presence of oxygen in the atmosphere is responsible for a particular house fire. The overwhelming numbers of people who are religious who would never participate in or condone 9/11 is proof of the absurdity of making such a connection, just as the overwhelming numbers of houses existing in the presence of oxygen that are not burning down proves that the inspector’s report is a joke.

If you could honestly say that religion played absolutely no role in the motives of the 9/11 attackers, then the sign's message would be clearly false.

That’s the wrong test.

As I said above, I do not prove that the inspectors produced an absurd report by showing that oxygen had nothing to do with the fire. I prove it by showing that there are hundreds of millions of houses existing in an atmosphere containing oxygen that are not burning down. That is the fact that justifies firing the inspectors for stupidity and incompetence.

Similarly, the test to use against the Imagine sign is not to show that religion had nothing to do with the 9/11 attacks. It is done by showing that there are billions of people who are religious who would never participate in or condone such an attack. This proof is so clear, so obvious, that we can legitimately question the moral character of those who decide to ignore it.

The “if-not-but-for” test is not reason. It’s sophistry.

We would actually never expect to find inspectors who are so foolish that they would use ‘if-not-but-for causation’ in reporting the cause of a fire. The idea is so blatantly absurd that the problem is obvious. However, when it comes to vilifying a hated group, people are more than capable of blinding themselves to this absurdity. That doesn’t make “if-not-but-for causation” any less absurd.

The Moral Dimension

At this point, we have reason to ask why anybody would embrace the absurdity of ‘if-not-but-for causation’. The answer to that question is because they want to. They like the conclusion – it makes them feel good. They do not care if the argument in support of that conclusion makes no sense – if it cannot be defended rationally. All that matters is that the conclusion feels good. The ‘defense’ will come later, in the form of whatever rationalizations one can think of to throw at the critics, no matter how absurd.

Face it, these arguments are rationalizations. They are weak inferences that people grab on to because they love the conclusion and are eager to grasp at anything that seems to support their desired conclusion, no matter how feeble. I see a lot of this behavior on the part of leading Christians, and I condemn it where when I see it. Another quality that I find in a lot of leading Christians that I feel no desire to emulate is the blatant hypocrisy of turning one’s back on wrongs committed by people “on our side.”

Criticizing Religion

I have not denied that a religion was responsible for the World Trade Center attacks. However, holding a religion responsible means finding that set of religious beliefs that distinguish those who embrace the idea of crashing airplanes into sky scrapers, and those who do not. If anybody were to create a sign that says “Imagine: No (insert name of religion whose members believe in the legitimacy of engaging in such acts here)”, I would have no room for complaint.

We live in a culture that says that it is wrong to criticize religion. Because of this, people have learned that they can engage in the worst atrocities and avoid any type of accountability by hiding behind the cloak of religion. “You are attacking my faith” has become the universal “get out of moral responsibility free card,” and we are seeing huge numbers of those who love to do harm flocking to religion for protection.

The days of finding security from condemnation by hiding behind scripture and holy symbols must come to an end. I am not saying that it is wrong to criticize religion. What I am saying is that, when criticizing a religion, justice requires condemning those who are actually guilty of the offense. Condemning those who are not actually guilty (because one wants to encourage others to hate and fear the target group) is the antithesis of justice.

This condemnation of religions that make its followers a threat to others is not limited to suicide bombings. Ultimately, I use the same standard in evaluating those whose religion prompts them to pass legislation against homosexual marriage, in favor of teaching myth and superstition in science classes, and blocking vital medical research.

When we look at the dead and the suffering that they leave in their wake, those who oppose medical research or sound biology education for religious reasons make Al Queida look like a boy scout troop. You are far more likely . . . far more likely . . . to lose your own life or health – or a loved one – to these perpetrators of medical and scientific ignorance than you will to any suicide bomber.

These are harsh words. Yet, any who would wait for me to retract this or to apologize for it is going to have a terribly long time to wait. That apology will come only if somebody should prove that I am mistaken. It will not come by claiming that my statement may have hurt somebody's feelings. To apologize for the sake of religious sensitivity is to say that religious sensitivities are more important than the life and health of the people allowed to suffer as a result of those actions. That is exactly backwards.

Yet, it is still the case that my criticism is directed entirely at those whose religion prompts them to block medical research. I blame those who are guilty, and do not step out of the boundaries that justice prescribes. The fact that they do harm for religious reasons gives them no immunity from condemnation. The fact that there are others, who are religious, yet who do no harm for religious reasons, provides those others with a perfectly adequate defense.

A Few Random Notes

This is one of those days in which I do not feel like writing an essay on any given topic. I just want to chat about a few things.

Romney’s Atheist Appointments

As you know, Presidential candidate Mitt Romney is under fire for demanding that there be a religious test for government (freedom requires religion), in the same speech in which he condemned religious tests for government (thou shalt not hold my Mormon beliefs against me).

He has now explicitly said that he will not bar atheists from holding judicial and cabinet appointments – that a qualified atheist can be appointed to one of these positions.

MR. RUSSERT: So if you determined that the most qualified person for the Supreme Court or for attorney general or secretary of education happened to be an atheist or an agnostic, that wouldn't prevent you from appointing them?

GOV. ROMNEY: Of course not. You, you, you look at individuals based upon their skills and their ability, their values, their intelligence. And there are many who are agnostic or atheist or who have very different beliefs about the nature of the divine than I do, and, and you evaluate them based on their skills. But I, I can tell you that I, I myself am a person of faith and, and respect the, the sense of the common bond of humanity that comes from that, that fundamental belief.

Of course, a ‘qualified’ candidate is a candidate who believes that our rights come from God.

From Romney’s “Faith in America” speech:

Our greatness would not long endure without judges who respect the foundation of faith upon which our constitution rests.

I can hear Romney speaking about his tenure in office in hindsight. “I am not a bigot. I would have been more than happy to appoint an atheist to one of these positions. However, it had to be a candidate that realized that faith is necessary for freedom and that our rights come from God. Unfortunately, I could not find a qualified candidate for the job.”

Huckabee and the Family

Presidential Candidate Mike Huckabee is getting some press recently for signing a letter in 1998 saying that women should submit to their husbands.

"You are right because you called wives to graciously submit to their husband's sacrificial leadership.

“Sacrificial leadership” is a leadership style where the leader sacrifices some advantage for the sake of gaining the support of followers. The “sacrificial leader” makes it a point to do more than those who follow him, and to accept less in return. In exchange, the others accept his (and ‘his’ is definitely the operative word here) leadership, allowing him to make the decisions for the group. Followers have a reason to do this given their greater share of the benefits of that leadership.

Yet, none of this changes the fact that leadership should go to the person who is best qualified to be leader, regardless of the style. Even where “sacrificial leadership” is a legitimate leadership strategy, nothing in this justifies the claim that the husband must be the leader and the wife must be the follower. If the wife is better skilled at figuring out a plan that benefits the family – if her plans have a greater chance of success and impose less risk, then why is it that the wife must submit to the (inferior) plans of the husband?

In most families, I would wager that the husband and wife have somewhat different strengths and weaknesses. This will allow one to be the better planner and leaders in his areas of comparative advantage – and the other the better leader in her areas of comparative advantage. The rational couple would recognize these strengths and weaknesses and yield to the better mind in relevant situation. It is simply false (and bigoted) to hold that the husband is the best decision maker in all instances.

Huckabee and Science

Also this week the Climate Change conference ended in Bali, Indonesia. The United States was widely recognized to have been a major obstacle to progress at that conference. Again, the American government has shown that putting a few more million dollars into the pockets of key campaign contributors is worth the destruction of whole cities.

Former vice-President Al Gore suggested that the conference attendees reach some sort of agreement without the United States – that they leave the U.S. sections of the treaty blank to be filled in at a later date, when America is being governed by sane and moral individuals. However, Gore is assuming that, in 18 months, America will be governed by a sane and moral individual.

Huckabee’s performance to date suggest that he has one of the weakest grasps of reality of all Presidential candidate. There is no indication on his part that he can pick up an article in a peer-reviewed scientific journal and even understand the context in which that article was written. Salon reports Huckabee as saying:

"Oh, I believe in science. I certainly do," he said. "In fact, what I believe in is, I believe in God. I don't think there's a conflict between the two. But if there's going to be a conflict, science changes with every generation and with new discoveries and God doesn't. So I'll stick with God if the two are in conflict."

A “fool” is a person who can be easily tricked. Huckabee is a fool. His inability to understand simple science means that he will not be able to sort the good science that comes to him in debating an issue and junk science. This inability to tell the difference – inability, even, to say what science is – will make it easy for individuals to pass junk science as good.

Gore suggested this strategy because he did not want to see the attendees tying themselves to a bad treaty for 5 years. Rather than negotiate a bad treaty with the current Administration, he thought it better to negotiate no treaty with the United States with the hopes of getting a sane treaty in 2 years.

Yet, getting a sane treaty in 2 years depends on having somebody in the White House who can listen to scientists explaining the global warming problem, understand what they are saying, understand the options, and pick a solution based on the best available evidence.

Huckabee is not capable of understanding the science behind any serious problem this nation may face, including global warming. Thus, he is not the person who can make an informed real-world contribution to this issue.

Religious Boycotts

Yesterday, I mentioned the way that religious organizations are throwing around their economic weight to make sure that no mention of views other than theirs gets a hearing beyond the narrowest audience. They do so, in part, by protesting that any statement that questions their perfect knowledge and moral virtue is cast as an insult, and from that they demand an economic boycott against those who have dared to suggest that they were fallible.

They get a portion of that substantial economic weight because the rest of us are forced to contribute, one way or another, to their war chests.

The lie is that ‘secularists’ are trying to remove all sign of God from the public square. The truth is that ‘secularists’ are trying to get greedy sectarian hands out of their bank account.

The Pledge of Allegiance is a daily advertisement, targeting children, promoting the God product over all other products that the child might buy into – in a country that says that it is wrong for the government to establish a religion. If, in place of “In God We Trust” on the money and on the walls of public buildings, we placed the slogan, “GE: We Bring Good Things to Life,” we would see this for what it is – the use of government property for putting up billboards for advertising religion over non-religion. Some of those government-funded billboards are brightly lit, like any commercial neon sign, designed to attract the potential customer’s attention to the message. That message being “Buy God,”

At which point, the people who “sell God” use their economic power to help make sure that no competing message ever gets posted – because anybody who dares to suggest that the Christian message might contain a flaw is “insulting our religion” and worthy of condemnation.

Godless Short Stories

Yesterday’s posting has caused me to think of a project that might be worth while. And, if some organization were to take up this project, I would be pleased to make a cash contribution towards its success.

The project is a short-story contest, with prizes to the winner. The contest is for short stories that boldly assert that there is no God and that counters some of the lies and sophistry that denigrate atheists in pop culture. The stories are aimed for young children and, in fact, there should be several contests for several age groups. The winning stories will be bundled together and offered as a book – self-published if necessary.

Of course the religious right will protest about a “stealth campaign” to sell atheism to children. They would be wrong. I am talking about a campaign that is not the least bit stealthy. I am talking about a campaign that virtually shouts that it is just as permissible to create literature that presents atheism in a way that children can understand as it is to create a child’s bible or other religious literature that targets children.

Let them scream. Screaming will just mean more advertizing.

This should be taken up by an organization that is set up to receive donations, because one of the things that I will then do is write a few posts explaining the need for people to make contributions to this project. It will require cash contributions to be offered as prizes, and it will require a great deal of labor to read and judge the stories. Plus, some contributions should go to the organization itself for being an organization that would run a contest like this.

Like I said, I will be more than willing to volunteer time and money to such a project. Really, what I would like is a reputable organization set up to receive and disburse money to handle the bank account.

Child-Friendly Atheism

If one is interested in seeing the movie, "I Am Legend", then be warned that this post contains spoilers.

If (1) you do not wish to see the movie, (2) have already seen it, (3) do not mind spoilers, or (4) hate spoilers but suffer from a compulsive curiosity as to why I am mentioning this movie, then feel free to continue.

The spoiler is that this movie sets up a "tense" situation, then brings God into the movie to make a magical solution at the last minute.

The original book, by the way, was a "science fiction" book in the classic sense. It attempted to offer a scientific explanation for everything and shunned supernatural explanations.

I can rant about what type of God would take steps to stop a plague after it had nearly killed everybody when he could have taken action much sooner. I could go on a rant about how the hero's sacrifice to find the cure becomes meaningless once the cure is handed to him by God and, we may assume, God would have done some magic, somewhere even if this hero had done nothing.

However, the purpose of this post is not to offer these types of complaints.

The thought that came to my mind concerns the fact that there is a call to boycott The Golden Compass on the grounds that it is a part of a stealth campaign to introduce children to atheism. Yet, a stealth campaign arguing for theism is not subject to question. There is a bit of hypocrisy going on here, but that is not the worst of it.

The boycott has almost certainly cost the movie some money. Movie companies are going to take this into consideration the next time that somebody produces a movie. The author will be vetted for atheist sympathies. If you are an author with atheist sympathies, then you are going to have a little bit harder time getting that movie made. They will amost certainly gut it of any atheist message. However, they will not be able to divorce the movie from the fact that you (the author) is an atheist. So, your hopes of having a movie made out of that book depend not only on your refusal to put an atheist message in the text, but on your own refusal to "come out" as an atheist.

Stewert Lee, who created the play "Jerry Springer: The Opera," said that he would not do another work like this, "because 'idiots' could too easily close it down."

It's the same story - worry over revenue after the religious right targets a product means that companies involved in these projects simply are not going to consider products that the religious right does not approve of.

Imagine having a censorship board, where all works of art need to first be submitted to a fundamentalist board, and only those that the board approves of are allowed to continue. Well, actually, these projects can be made. However, one has to keep them small and inexpensive with no expectation that the will be mass marketed to the general public.

As a result of these two events (and others like them) expect the entertainment industry to be particularly skittish about releasing anything that puts atheism in a positive light. After all, we must remember that anything that portrays atheism positively is militantly anti-theist and, thus, not to be permitted in civil society.

(Though a movie like "I Am Legend" could never be thought of as militantly anti-atheist; as if that could be thought of as a bad thing.)

So, this brought a simple question to my mind.

Where can one go in this country to say that no God exists?

Contrary to popular lies that are spread by hate-mongering bigots, teaching evolution in the classroom is not the same as teaching atheism. If it were, then explaining what is wrong with the car without mentioning God would also be an example of atheism. Every day, even devout Christians explain real-world events without reference to a supernatural force without claiming that the answer is atheistic.

So, when I ask where a person can actually say "No god exists," the classroom does not qualify.

I am also not talking about some work of fiction with some dysfunctional drunk or perpetually depressed individual who hates God because his or her spouse and/or child died in some tragic event.

I am talking about a case where a well-adjusted individual can argue against the existence of God on its merits - a case where the character can turn to another who is cowering in prayer and say, "That's not going to help you. The only way you're going to get through this is to work for it."

A character who can complain, "Don't go giving the credit for what I do to God."

I am particularly interested in asking this question, "Where can one go and say, 'No god exists'," in the presence of children?

Another think that I am not talking about is identifying oneself as an atheist. There is a difference between saying, "I am an atheist," and saying "God doesn't exist." This is closely related to the shows that I mentioned above.

There is a clear difference between a show in which a character declares himself to be an atheist and one in which no God exists. Just as there is a clear difference between a show in which a character declares himself to be a theist and one in which God can be heard whispering a message or creating a miracle at the last moment to save humanity.

I am talking about a show in which "No god exists" is stated as clearly as "god exists" is stated - as clearly as it is stated in the Pledge of Allegiance and on the money, and everywhere else a child may look. Where can a child look and see the message, "No god exists?"

It is socially prohibited to tell a child (other than one's own child) that no God exists. So, the vast majority of children in this country grow up thinking that the claim is unchallengeable.

Sure, children are aware that there are some people 'out there' who do not believe in God. However, they are always perpetually depressed people angry at God for taking away their spouse/child in some tragic accident. They are people we should feel sorry for - not people who have actually adopted their position based on thought and reason.

The result of this prohibition is that we have one generation after another that views religious claims to be unquestionable. Which is exactly how this nonsense perpetuates itself from one generation to the next - because it is set up to prevent any alternative from even taking root; poisoning the ground so that only the fewest number of seeds can ever take root.

Why do the boycotts such as that on The Golden Compass exist? Precisely to enforce a social prohibition on making the statement, "No god exists" in the presence of a child. Many other statements can be made in the presence of a child, but not this one.

What was that charge used against The Golden Compass again? Oh, yes. It was charged with "stealth atheism to kids."

If we lived in a society where people can speak openly about atheism - where atheists are permitted to be as open (in the presence of children) as Jews and Muslims, then the very idea of "stealth atheism" would be laughable. "Stealth" only makes sense in a context where being open and direct is assumed not to be an option. We only worry about people sneaking into a house where they do not have permission to walk in the front door.

Yet, we do live in a society where speaking openly about atheism in the presence of children is prohibited. And, so, those who guard these boundaries (the church officials who like their monopoly on access to children so that they can brainwash children into their way of thinking) then need to worry about atheists 'sneaking in' to a child's mind where all opportunities for direct exposure have already been blocked.

The best way to deal with this problem is to insist on the right to present atheism in a way that is friendly to children in just the way that theism is too often presented in ways that are friendly towards children – to do so deliberately and unapologetically.

Addendum: Monday, Dec. 17

This morning I woke to news of yet another boycott. Some Christians are offended because Border advertised to those who purchased Richard Dawkins' book, The God Delusion with a card that read, "Oh Come All Ye Faithless".

These Christians say that the card is an insult to Christianity.

The Evangelical Alliance's Thacker added: “I think the atheists will love it because it's bashing Christians around the head. It's another thing to take a Christian festival and abuse it.

Of course, if this card is an insult to Christianity, then "Oh come all ye faithful" is an insult to atheists, right?

Of course not. However, these people who claim that their religion gives them a perfect conduit to immoral behavior and a perfect incentive to be moral could not recognize The Golden Rule if it bit them on the fact. They are so in love with lies and hypocricy that they seem perpetually driven to provide us with new examples of both.

The fact is, they view the very existence of a belief that no God exists as an insult to their religion, and will not be content until the mere mention of this 'insult' guarantees economic ruin (or worse) on the part of those who mention it.

Their economic power is great enough that they just might succeed, unless and until those who do not wish to see such a world are willing to speak all the more loudly in response.

E2.0: Darrin McMahon: Enlightenment as the Seed of Social Disorder

This is the first in a new series of weekend posts taken from the presentations at the Salk Institute’s “Beyond Belief: Enlightenment 2.0.”. I have placed an index of essays in this series in an introductory post, Enlightenment 2.0: Introduction.

This first presentation was given by Darrin McMahon, the Ben Weider Professor of History at Florida State University.

Before I get into this, it will be relevant to repeat that this is not an ‘atheist’ blog in that I do not discuss evidence for and against whether the proposition “at least one god exists” is true. I take it for granted that it is not true – just as I take for granted that the earth is not flat and that it circles the sun. “The Enlightenment” represents a philosophy that tends to be (though it does not need to be) atheistic. However, it also tends to encompass a set of values. I want to warn the reader not to get confused over the difference between defending or rejecting enlightenment philosophy and defending or rejecting atheism.

As I discussed in the introductory post, the project here is to examine the Enlightenment of the 18th Century (Enlightenment 1.0), look over its successes and its failures, and then to introduce modifications. McMahon started this project quite well by telling us what some critics have said against Enlightenment 1.0.

Many of those critics, as it turned out, charged that these problems were inherent to Enlightenment 1.0 and provided reason to abandon the project entirely. McMahon talked about two groups of critics; religious conservatives who were proposing a competing project called “religious fundamentalism”, and liberals proposing an alternative product called “post modernism.” They, of course, felt (feel) that their products were better than Enlightenment 1.0 in some key areas.

On the religious conservative side, McMahon mentioned the concerns expressed by French priests, such as Charles-Louis Richard in Exposition de la doctrine des philosophes moderns.

In Richard's view the long fuse of the enlightenment was preparing devastation of just this sort. The overturning of altars, regicide, parricide, social anarchy and breakdown, sexual license and dissolution, terror and civil war, followed by despotism and tyranny of a sort never before seen.

McMahon also includes a quote for Sir Isaiah Berlin, The great 18th century philosophers were responsible for a lot of intellectual tyranny ending in the Soviet Union and Gulag.

Anybody familiar at all with atheism in America will not find these accusations at all strange. We are continually told, even by Presidential candidates, that the proponents of science and reason are responsible for the crimes of Napoleon, Hitler, and Stalin in the past, and will bring these horrors back if they (we) were given any amount of political power in the future.

The left, McMahon “Enlightenment, we are told . . . behaves towards things as a dictator towards man. The enlightenment is totalitarian. . . . [It] objectified nature and enslaved humanity in a modern myth of a hegemony of reason.”

However, McMahon wants us to dismiss these charges. His argument is that, given the nature of the enlightenment, it is to be expected that the advocates of the conservative status quo and the advocates of radical revolution would both have complaints with the principles and values of the enlightenment.

McMahon itemized the values of the Enlightment

The disposition to live without fear in what might well be a fatherless world.
The disposition to chart our own course and our own ends for ourselves.
The disposition to subject even our most cherished assumptions to constant criticism and investigation – to take nothing on faith.
The adoption of mathematical and historical reason as the sole criterion of truth.
The rejection of supernatural agency – magic, disembodies spirits, divine providence of any kind.
A defense of the equality of all humanity including racial and sexual equality.
A belief in a secular universalism in ethics based on equity, justice, and charity.
The vindication of freedom of expression.
The adoption of democratic-republicanism as the most legitimate form of political organization.
Personal liberty of lifestyle in sexual and other matters.
Comprehensive toleration and freedom of thought based on independent critical thinking.

Given this package of values, there should be no surprise that the advocates of competing system will see the need to vilify it – accusing it of crimes without evidence of its guilt.

Ultimately, McMahon concluded that there is nothing wrong with Enlightenment 1.0, that the alleged problems of the enlightenment are simply the claims of a marketing campaign that has targeted it.

The universal revolution in ideas, education, culture, social theory and political reality postulated by the radical thinkers of the enlightenment were nowhere ever fully carried through and remains today incomplete at least in the United States.

I have long been suspicious of these types of claims. I have heard them over and over again. I have not met a Libertarian capitalist who has not said, when pointing to the failures of libertarian civilizations, that libertarianism has never been tried. Hard-core Marxists still argue that hard-core Marxism has never been tried. Now, McMahon is telling us that the Enlightenment has never been tried.

This is an extremely convenient argument – convenient, because it will never be the case that the ‘pure form’ of any system of any political or economic or philosophical system will ever be tried. The argument, in effect, is so convenient that it should never be used, because it can never say anything substantive.

If somebody were to argue, “My system will work; however, it requires that everybody adopt it and that nobody dissents from it,” that that person is effectively saying that his system will never work. A system does not “work” unless it is capable of working in a society where there is a great deal of disagreement over what the system commands, and even over whether it is a good system.

However, there is a good argument that can be used against any who would hold up Napoleon, Stalin, Hitler, and Mao as representatives of the fate of the enlightenment. One version of the response would go something like this:

Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t realize that you thought that Nazi Germany and Stalinist Russia were states in which agents were free to criticize any belief that anybody might want to put forward. See, one of the principles of The Enlightenment is the freedom to challenge every belief; nothing is to be taken on faith. So, if you think that the former Soviet Union represents a criticism of The Enlightenment, then you must think that it is a demonstration of the problems with free inquiry and, I assume, evidence why it would be necessary to prohibit free inquiry and control what people believe.

This is not an argument that states that “The enlightenment has never been tried.” It is an argument that says, “What would have been the case in this alleged counter-example to The Enlightenment if that society had actually embraced the Enlightenment value of free inquiry?”

In asking this type of question, we can readily see that the alleged “excesses” of The Enlightenment were not examples of The Enlightenment at all. They represented a repudiation or a casting off of Enlightenment principles in favor of something else.

Imagine, a parent starts to put together a child’s toy using The Instructions. Half way through the project, he decides he does not need the instructions and he throws them out. Soon, he finds himself in a bind. When this happens, he cries in frustration, “Those instructions were so bad! I started off using them and look where it got me!”

This is . . . shall we say . . . not a particularly impressive model of a valid criticism.

As we start to build Enlightenment 2.0, this still does not tell us of anything we need to change. I repeat; McMahon’s actual argument is that we do not have to change much of anything – that we simply need to re-install Enlightenment 1.0 more carefully, doing a better job of following the instructions.

That may be true. However, we should get a few more opinions before we make that judgment.

E2.0: Beyond Belief: Enlightenment 2.0: Introduction

The opportunity has come to do another series of posts that looks at the claims of some of the brightest minds in the area of science, humanities, and atheism and to offer commentary.

Last year the Salk Institute put on a conference called "Beyond Belief 2006" concerning the conflict between science and religion. That conference, too, had some of the best thinkers in their respective fields: Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, Paul Churchland, Patricia Churchland, Michael Shermer, Neil deGrasse Tyson, just to name a few. It gave me an excellent opportunity to “catch up” on what the academic leaders were telling each other on the subjects that interested me.

I wrote a series of essays on that conference – 35 essays in all – covering each of the speakers and the discussions that went on between speakers.

I have links to all of them in Beyond Belief: Summary.

This year, the Salk Institute ran another conference. They called this one, "Beyond Belief: Enlightenment 2.0". This time, they called together a group of thinkers on the Enlightenment. This year, I have another opportunity to see what the academic leaders are telling each other on these matters, and another opportunity to respond through a series of posts.

The reason that I am doing this?

The primary reason is that, since I left graduate school and had to hold down a real job, I fear losing touch with new developments in the relevant academic fields. I fear that my writing will become “so 20th century.” I am tremendously grateful for the Salk Institute for bringing these people together and giving me an opportunity to catch up on these fields.

A second reason is because I put a lot of effort into studying moral philosophy. I want to know if the ideas that I formed still make sense in the context of new advances in the field. I would like to know if I have any power to solve some of the problems, address some of the concerns, and correct some of the mistakes that these people make.

Of course, I think that I can do all of these things. However, many people who have such beliefs are mistaken. The best that I can hope to accomplish is to present my arguments and let others judge if they actually accomplish what I think they can accomplish.

That is what I will do in the set of blogs to come.

Like last year, I will confine my essays to weekend postings – leaving weekdays for current events, addressing comments from the studio audience, and the like. Like last year, I should be able to work my way through the whole conference in about 5 months or so. When I am done, the reader will have a good idea of what the academic leaders are saying about science, morality, and atheism, the implications that their claims have for desire utilitarianism, and the implications that desire utilitarianism has for their claims.

This year, the Salk Institute decided to present the conference topic in the form of a software analogy. About 300 years ago, academic leaders proposed a set of rules for organizing societies that one can call “Enlightenment 1.0”.

Wikipedia defines the Age of Enlightenment as follows:

The Age of Enlightenment . . . was an eighteenth century movement in European and American philosophy — some classifications also include 17th century philosophy (usually called the Age of Reason).

The term can more narrowly refer to the intellectual movement of The Enlightenment, which advocated reason as the primary basis of authority. Developed in France, Britain and Germany, it influenced the whole of Europe including Russia and Scandinavia. The era is marked politically by governmental consolidation, nation creation, greater rights for the common people, and a decline in the influence of authoritarian institutions such as the nobility and Church.

This frame of reference invites a number of questions.

(1) What was Enlightenment 1.0 anyway? It was built as an open-source program with a lot of contributors. Almost immediately, it branched out into a number of different versions. Some started to claim that their opponents had made changes that were so central to the program that they could no longer sensibly say that their alternative was a member of the “Enlightenment” family. So, what are we evaluating, really, when we look at Enlightenment 1.0.

(2) Did Enlightenment 1.0 actually have any bugs? Or were the system crashes that we witnessed actually a product of user error? The case can be made that some users simply did not read the instruction manual very well and improperly installed the software on their political systems – that this was responsible for the system crashes that resulted. If we were simply to install the package correctly, then it would work.

However, even if we take this route we have to ask ourselves questions like, “Can we alter Enlightenment 1.0 to make it easier to install? Can we somehow block the types of errors that lead to these system crashes? After all, the best software in the world is hardly useful if nobody can get it installed.

(3) Are there any ways to solve the problems with Enlightenment 1.0? Some people who seek to offer a competing project – particularly various versions of Fundamentalism software – argue that these system failures are inherent to Enlightenment 1.0 – that the operating system is inherently unstable. Its builders will never be able to fix it, so it is best to simply throw it out and to go with something that has thousands of years of proven usefulness behind it – various forms of religious fundamentalism.

Of course, Enlightenment proponents choke on their drinks when they hear Fundamentalist proponents argue that their system actually works in anything more than a rudimentary way. “Sure. Right. Go back to counting on your fingers, if that’s what you want. You’ll be starving to death within a year.”

These are the questions that I will be exploring every weekend for the next few months. I hope that you, the reader, will find this series useful and informative, as I certainly will.

One major difference between last year’s presentation and this year’s presentation is that, this year, I will update this introductory post with each new essay. So, if you would like to bookmark this posting or add it to your shortcut bar, you will be able to come back here for a direct link to each post in this series as I produce them.

I also would like to recommend a recent post of mine that will serve as a foundation for some of my further postings: Morality from the Ground Up. There, I described a set of increasingly complex societies and the (objectively true statements about) relationships between objects of evaluation and reasons for action. In the essays that follow I will add some other descriptions of relationships between objects of evaluation and desires using the same model.

Finally, I would like to encourage you to make a contribution to the Salk Institute in support of the Beyond Belief series. (Disclaimer: I have no association with the Salk Institute other than exploiting their Beyond Belief series for the purpose of creating a series of blog post).

Table of Contents

Essay 1: E2.0: Darrin McMahon: Enlightenment as the Seed to Social Chaos. McMahon provides an introduction to Enlightenment 1.0 and its most significant bug - a tendency to lead to social chaos and, eventually, tyranny.

Essay 2: E2.0: Margaret Jacob: Enlightenment 1.0 as a Populist Movement . Jacob describes the beginnings of Enlightenment 2.0 as a populist movement, suggesting the importance of taking the arguments to the people.

Essay 3: E2.0: Edward Slingerland: The Religion that Denies it is a Religion. Slingerland argues that Enlightenment 2.0 must necessarily be another religion, though one of the better religions.

Essay 4: E2.0: Discussion 1: Necessary False Beliefs. This essay is a discussion of some of the responses from the audience to Slingerland's suggestion that morality consists in desires to do harm to others and to make up reasons to justify those harms.

Essay 5: E2.0: Donald Rutherford: Other Worldly Happiness. Rutherford sees two types of people; those who seek happiness in this world, and those who seek happiness in the next. I, on the other hand, think that Rutherford is mistaken to put so much emphasis on happiness.

Essay 6: E2.0: Discussion 2: Happiness and the Absence of Suffering. Several members of the audience agree with this idea that happiness and absence of suffering is the root of morality. Some disagree. This essay discusses their remarks.

Essay 7: E2.0: Daniel Dennett: "But What If It's True?" . Dennett defends the harshness of New Atheist criticism of religion by asking, "What if it's true?" that these particular religious beliefs are causing people to waste their lives and are dangerous to children?

Essay 8: E2.0: Daniel Dennett: Teach the Children. Dennett proposes a method of dealing with religious superstition - by teaching children about all (major) religions so they can see that none have a special right to superior knowledge over any other.

Essay 9: E2.0: David Sloan Wilson: New Atheism a Stealth Religion . Wilson defines a 'stealth religion' as any belief system that departs from reality, points out some claims that the New Atheists make as just plain false in order to classify it as a Stealth Religion.

Essay 10: E2.0: Jonathan Haidt: Moral Intuitionism . Haidt proposes that moral theory is shifting away from the idea that morality depends on reason, and towards the idea that we have fundamental (biologically rooted) intuitions of right and wrong.

Essay 11: E2.0: Jonathan Haidt: Five Foundations of Morality . Building off of the intuitionist idea discussed in the previous essay, Haidt argues that there are five fundamental pillars of morality, each corresponding to an evolved disposition: the harm principle, fairness/justice, community, authority, and purity.

Essay 12: E2.0: Michael Shermer: Tribalism and the Free Market . Shermer argues that religion is not the real problem, but tribalism. The best cure (or at least a very good cure) for the evils of tribalism is to set up free markets - trade between different tribes - that builds trust, alliances, and good will.

Essay 13: E2.0: Discussion: Reasons, Lies, and Types of Communities". I took three items from a panel discussion that took place after Shermer's talk. (1) The way in which emotions control our beliefs and beliefs control our emotions. (2) The correct sense in which it is true that many religious people lie through their teeth about atheists and secularism. (3) The types of communities we should be tolerant of and those types of communities that are beyond tolerance.

Essay 14: E2.0: Gregory Clark: The Evolution of Capitalism. Clark offers a theory that the mindset that is compatible with capitalism evolved when poor people in England died off to be replaced by the middle-class people in England who had a more capitalist mindset.

Essay 15: E2.0: Deirdre McCloskey: The Morality of Capitalism. McClosky is a Christian who holds that Christian values can be found in capitalism - that capitalism both promotes and springs from Christian values.

Essay 16: E2.0: Stuart Kaufman: Function, Agency, and Reductionism.. Stuart Kaufman gives a presentation in which he argues that there is more to the universe than that which can be reduced to principles of physics. In doing so he includes concepts of function and agency - both of which I discuss in reductionist terms.

Essay 17: Sean Carroll: The Origin of the Universe. Sean Carroll notes that the question of how the universe began is an area where religious people seem to claim to have an upper hand over atheist scientists. Carroll argues that the arguments for a beginning to the universe are weak - that the laws that allow us to explain the universe back to 1 second after the big bang do not apply to what comes before. So, we cannot really say that the universe began in a big bang, at least not scientifically.

Essay 18: David Albert: The Power of Physics. David Albert also argues in favor of reductionism, that physics can explain everything in the universe. However, his 'argument' is little more than an assertion that modern theories seem to do way with the problem of the limits of science that was accepted in the early 1900s.

Essay 19: Peter Atkins: On Pride and Chemistry. Peter Atkins dismisses the idea that scientists cannot reduce such concepts as the wetness of water or romantic love to a set of scientific equations. To the degree that the scientist can describe how water molecules behave on another surface, this is sufficient for describing its wetness. And scientists should not be concerned about the accusation of suffering from 'pride' when they say that they can do these things. 'Pride' in the morally contempatible sense has to do with asserting that one has abilities that one does not have. This does not apply to the chemist's ability to explain things that people want to believe are unexplainable.

Essay 20: Sir Harold Kroto: Issues on Science vs. Religion. Harold Kroto gave a presentation that was highly critical of religion and of the Templeton Foundation which provides people with what Kroto said was a misleading account of the relationship between science and religion. He argues for demanding a more accurate account and the condemnation of groups like the Templeton Foundation for their misleading claims.

Essay 21: Scott Atran: The Causes of Terrorism. Atran challenges the idea that religion is the cause of terrorism. He traces the cause back to sociological factors. In doing so, he condemns those who would condemn religion for not being scientific - for offering 'theories of terrorism' that simply do not fit the available data.

Essay 22: Lee Silver: Religion Without God. Lee Silver challenges a different type of religion - not a religion that believes in a personal God with beliefs nd desires, but in the worship of 'nature' in which 'natural' and 'intrinsically good' are taken to be necessarily lined

Essay 23: Greg Epstein: The Heart of Humanism. Epstein argues for the importance of ritual and art in humanism - that without these humanism is missing a 'soul' that will naturally make it appear unappealing to others. Religion, with these elements, fulfills a need that humanism cannot fulfill unless it, too, adopts these elements.

Essay 24: Ronald D'Sousa: A Passion for Science. Using a parable in which a person finds a stone roughly shaped like a human face, and compares the marvel that nature might create such an image without direction compared to the mundane claim that some designer fassioned it, D'Sousa argues for generatin a passion and wonder in science.

Essay 25: Patricia Churchland: The Relation of Science and Morality.. Patricia Churchland spoke about relationships between values and brain structure, giving a number of examples in which differences in brain structure were associated with differences in values.

Essay 26: Rebecca Newberger Goldstein: Atheism from the Inside Out. Rebecca Newberger Gibson gave a reading out of a novel of hers which contains an atheist character (and significant knowledge of the current atheist literature) to describe his relationship to and wonder at the universe and, in particualar, at his own existence.

Essay 27: John Allen Paulos: Probability and Error. John Allen Paulos looks at the probability arguments for the existence of God and answers how many of them misunderstand the nature of probability.

Essay 28: V.S. Ramachandran: Bridging Humanities and Science. V.S. Ramachandran wants to draw one relationship between the humanities and science by associating the scientific study of the phenomenon of synesthesia (seeing numbers as colors) with the literary quality of metaphor.

Essay 29: Adam Kolber: Brain Studies and the Law. Adam Kolber looks at the effect that brain science will have on the law. Specifically, he looks at the legal implications of scientific breakthroughs that will allow us to use brain scans to now what a person believes and on our ability to alter our memories (for therapeutic reasons).

Essay 30: Jonathan Gottschall: Literary Science. Jonathan Gottschall notes that there have never been any persistent advances in literary knowledge - no building up of knowledge over time like what we found in science. To combat this, he wants to make literary studies more science like and explains some ways in which literary theories can be tested experimentally.

Essay 31 David Brin: The Great Silence and the Enlightenment. David Brin is concerned with the fact that we have not heard from any other intelligent race. He argues that the natural state of humanity is feudalism, and that we have recently been able to fight this by establishing four institutions of truth - democracy, science, law, and markets. Brin argues that preserving these institutions against the natural disposition to descend again into a form of feudalism will be the differnce between our thriving as a species or, perhaps, disappearing into 'the great silence'.

Essay 32: Robert Winter: The Nature of (Musical) Genius". Using Beethoven as an example, Robert Winter looks at some of the claims made about musical genius - about its association with insanity and the idea that genius involves pulling ideas out of thin air (or having them given to a person by a God). He disputes these claims, at least in Beethoven's case, then directs scientists where they might want to look to give us some insights into (musical) genius.

Essay 33: Sam Harris: The End of Religion. Sam Harris returns to the conference to explain some of his views on religion in a different way. In listening to him, I suggest the possibility that Sam might have been using two different senses of 'religion' throughout his writings, a broad sense (that makes his views appear intolerant), and a narrower sense in which he simply refuses to tolerate those beliefs that lead to great harm.

Essay 34: Daniel Smail: The Historian's "Creationist" Contamination. Daniel Smail seeks to argue that biology is not the only field contaminated with Creationism. The desire to reserve a place for God and the biblical story of creation also places some artificial limits on history and invites a challenge to historians to teach an alternative (biblically correct) version of history that the evidence simply does not support.

Essay 35: Jeff Hawkins: Entrepreneurial Atheism. Jeff Hawkins argues that atheists need more than the right ideas. They need an entrepreneurial way of looking at things and advancing their cause. They need not only people with ideas but ideas on how to get things done.

Essay 36: PZ Myers: Should I call myself an atheist?. P.Z. Myers describes his life as the village atheist in a conservative community and as one of the more outspoken bloggers defending atheism and science.

Attack My Beliefs, Please!

This post was inspired by comments that Mitt Romney made when he heard that Huckabee had asked a question, "Don't Mormons believe that Jesus and the devil are brothers?" Romney responded by saying that, "attacking someone's religion is really going too far."

This inspired me to thank of an important difference between my attitudes towards beliefs and those of people such as Romney.

I grew up in a culture that said that this is what you do to beliefs – attack them, at every opportunity. There is no such thing as a sacred belief – a belief that ought not to be questioned. At any day or time an individual is free to pick up any belief he or she chooses, hold it under the light of reason, turn it over, stretch it, take it apart, put it back together again, and subject it to all sorts of tests. If it survives, then you can keep it. Sometimes, it survives, but it is not quite the same as it was before you started to examine it. You can keep those, too. However, if it does not survive, then it is time to toss that belief and look for one with a little more substance.

Of course, Romney is a hypocritical bigot. He used an opportunity in a televised speech to denigrate the beliefs of others. “Don’t secularists belief that all mention of God should be removed from the public square?” Only, Romney did not express this as a question – an expression of something he heard somewhere and did not know to be true or false. Romney stated it as a fact – more like Huckabee saying, “Mormons believe that Jesus and Satan were brothers.”

In fact, I can’t go a day without having my beliefs attacked – without being insulted or denigrated on the basis of what I believe.

This claim is actually too easy to believe. Every day, children in schools around the world are taught to attack the beliefs of atheists, holding that a person who is not “under God” have no allegiance to the United States. Romeny’s own speech included claims that I (and those who believe as I do) are not Americans, cannot maintain a free society, and are at risk of producing atrocities comparable to those of Hitler and Stalin, and that, even though (according to Romney, my beliefs constitute a ‘religion’ of secularism that those beliefs are quite simply ‘wrong’. But, none of this is new. Romney did not say anything that I had not read a dozen times in the says before the speech from any number of religious sources.

Yet, I have not thought to respond by saying that it is wrong to attack my beliefs – that the mere act of attacking my beliefs is immoral and something that no good American (let alone a Presidential candidate) should ever do.

My complaint against Romney and others like him is not that they attack my beliefs, but that they use lies and sophistry to misrepresent my beliefs. If they were to attack what I actually believed, that would be one thing. However, their habit is to assign to me beliefs that I do not have and then to assert beliefs that they created – that they created, typically, just so that they can have an easy target to attack.

Not only has Romney attacked my beliefs, but I encounter people attacking my beliefs every time I check my blog – and find a set of comments – many of them telling me that something I wrote is wrong, that I misrepresented the phenomena that I was writing against, or that I had made some other sort of mistake.

The Benefits of Attacking Beliefs

Actually, I welcome attacks on my beliefs. I have learned a lot from them.

At one time, I was a libertarian. I thought that libertarian propositions were so true that no intelligent person could question them. However, intelligent people all over the place questioned them. I sought to find out why and asked one of my fellow libertarians to direct me to a critique. He showed me an article that attacked my beliefs. I read the article. I went to the library and did a little more research. The result . . . I gave up on libertarianism. The attack worked. I had believed – and I had held to be beyond question – a set of propositions that were very definitely not beyond question.

Two days ago I commented in passing that I used to hold that ‘good’ necessarily referred to relationships between objects of evaluation and desires. More than a few people attacked this belief and, eventually, they argued me out of it. I now hold that ‘good’ refers to relationships between objects and evaluation and reasons for action. I think that desires are the only reasons for action that exist. However, these critics convinced me that if other reasons for action did exist, then they would have to be relevant.

It really took them months, perhaps years, of attacking to get me to see this point. But, eventually, they won – and I was the beneficiary of their attack.

Please, people, keep attacking my beliefs.

Absurdity of Not Attacking Beliefs

The idea that it is wrong to attack somebody else’s beliefs is actually quite absurd.

I want to believe that I have one million dollars in my bank account. And I want to hold anybody in contempt if they should ever say or do anything that would challenge that belief. When the bank refuses to honor my checks, I want to accuse them of “attacking my beliefs” and to insist that, whatever they do, they must not do anything that even hints at a lack of respect of my belief that I have a million dollars in my bank account.

And I want to believe that burning somebody alive at the stake is good for them. It actually cleanses their soul and allows them to enter into a blissful afterlife. Otherwise, they will suffer eternal torture. I want to see anybody who expresses doubt or shows any lack of respect for that belief – people, for example, who stand in the way of my burning people at the stake – held in moral contempt for refusing to respect my belief that they may be so burned. Andrea Yates killed her five children, allegedly because the devil was out to get them, and the only way she had to protect them was to kill them while they are still innocent and, thus, give them over to God for protection. Whether we declare her insane, or whether we say she is guilty of a crime, we certainly are attacking her beliefs. Romney apparently believes that this ought not to be done. Romney apparently would like to argue that we should leave such people alone because, more than anything, it is wrong to show any measure of disrespect for what somebody else believes.

A rule that we may not attack the beliefs of others is simple nonsense. We must constantly search for truth, and that requires attacking any belief that might not be true.

Misrepresentation

Now, Romney does have a legitimate line of criticism to use against Huckabee, but it is not the objection, “Thou shalt not attack my religion.” The objection is, “Thou shalt not spread lies and slander about my religion or attribute to me beliefs I do not have.” In other words, “Thou shalt not bear false witness against me (by misrepresenting my beliefs).” Huckabee has a defense, of course. He did not say that Romney held these beliefs – he merely asked. On the other hand, Romney gave a nationally televised speech in which he misrepresented my beliefs while asserting that he knew what they were.

The moral crime of lying about others so as to denigrate them is not the same as attacking their beliefs (or their religion).

We find this moral crime in a number of claims that people make. We find it in the absurdities that bigots typically embrace regarding those they do not like – that that Jews are a part of a money-hungry cabal that controls the world economies, that homosexuals are responsible for AIDS, that secularists want to remove all mention of God from the public square, that there are no atheists in foxholes, that people not ‘under God’ have no allegiance to the United States. These are beliefs that we not only have a right to question – but we also have reason to question the moral character of those who would embrace these bigotries.

Not a Theist vs. Atheist Distinction

By the way, this view that there are no sacred beliefs and that all beliefs are to be held up to the light of reason is not a theist/atheist distinction. There are quite a few theists who have held that all beliefs may be questioned. They assert that a belief in God can survive this scrutiny – and I hold that this is not true. However, these people are not insulted by questions and objections – they do not feign offense and cry, “How dare you!”. They try to come up with honest answers.

At the same time there are atheists who have asserted that certain beliefs may not be questioned. This was true of Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, and the other infamous atheist dictators. They were atheists, but they prohibited the questioning of a great many beliefs.

Many theists and many atheists try to portray the distinction between successful and failed states as a distinction between theist and atheist states – simply ignoring the counter-examples that arise in history. Yet, we get a better correspondence if we look at them in terms of nations that hold that there is a body of beliefs that may not be questioned, and nations that hold that any belief is subject to question. The failed atheist states and failed theist states alike fit into the former category. The successful atheist states (much of Western Europe and Japan now qualify in this category) and theist states fit into the second category.

Understanding Freedom of Thought

Religious freedom is not found in refusing to ‘attack’ somebody else’s religious beliefs. It is found in refusing to violently assault those who have different beliefs. Beliefs may be attacked, but they may only be attacked in debate – attacked with words and other forms of communication. The ‘attack’ may never take the form of a club or a gun or an arrest warrant.

However, 'freedom' is not preserved by a prohibition on attacking the beliefs of others. Indeed, the idea that we are free only makes sense if it includes a freedom to attack the beliefs of others - attack with evidence and reason, not with weapons and laws. People who want to put limits on attacking the beliefs of others are people who do not actually understand what freedom is about.

House Resolution Recognizing the importance of Christians and the Christian Faith

It turns out that it is extremely easy to demonstrate, by means of logical argument, that the Christian culture in American is dominated by liars and sophists – people who are morally impaired in their respect for truth and reason.

This is not to say that all Christians are liars and sophists, but that those who have a respect for truth and reason are so few and so impotent that liars and sophists dominate the culture.

An example of this can be found in a resolution passed yesterday in the House of Representatives “Recognizing the importance of Christians and the Christian Faith.”

Sophists and liars propose resolutions like this. Those who value truth and reason would condemn it.

The strategy behind resolutions such as this is simple.

Person A asserts a proposition “P and Q”. For example, Person A could say, “The sun is hot and grasshoppers are mammals.” He then asks Person B whether B agrees or disagrees with this statement. If B agrees with the statement, then A ridicules B for saying that grasshoppers are mammals. If B disagrees with the statement, then A ridicules B for denying that the sun is hot.

This demagoguery is nothing that an honest and fair person would ever endorse, let alone perform. The fact that only a morally impaired person would engage in such a trick is blatantly obvious. The fact that the Christian culture celebrates people who would engage in such a trick is proof that liars and sophists dominate the Christian culture – that honest Christians are too few and too impotent to do anything about it.

The resolution states, truthfully, that there are a lot of Christians in the country, and that Christians have done a lot of good. This is without a doubt since – merely because there are so many Christians in the country, if any good is done, then the chances are that it was done by a Christian. No sane person holds that Christians are 100% evil or that it is impossible for a Christian to do a good deed. Therefore, no sane person could reject these claims.

However, the resolution also calls upon its members to support Christianity. Of course, supporting Christianity means that one has a duty and obligation to promote the Christian religion, and to oppose anything that questions the truth of the Christian religion. That, of course, is not something that any Representative has any right to do – insofar as he is a Representative. Because, just as he represents Christians in this country, he also represents non-Christians, and he does so under contractual agreement (called The Constitution) that says that he will not use his political power to establish or favor one religion above others. This is how we keep the peace – compared to other countries torn by religious war.

So, now we have our two propositions, “P and Q”. P = “There are a lot of Christians and they have done a lot of good things,” and Q = “As a Congressman, I will support Christianity.” Furthermore, we know that this resolution has been proposed by liars and sophists that dominate the Christian culture in this country. Consequently, we know that we can expect the following demagoguery:

If a Representative says that this is true, then this will be used in public to say, “All of Congress has recognized that it is the duty of Congress to promote the Christian religion.” If, on the other hand, the Representative rejects this proposition, then the lying sophist will say, “This Representative denies that it is the case that there are a lot of Christians and that they do a lot of good things. This person, therefore, has insulted all of you Christians who vote.”

This is not even a hidden agenda. Those who proposed this resolution did not trip into it accidently. They planned to use lies and sophistry for political purposes to advance the Christian religion. The also fully expected (expect) to get away with it – to be cheered for their use of lies and sophistry, particularly by the Christian community. From this it follows that the Christian culture (and by this I mean the bulk, though not all, of the Christian community) are enthusiastic supporters of a morality of lies and sophistry. Of course, it is a hypocritical endorsement of lies and sophistry. In true hypocritical fashion, they would clearly condemn the use of lies and sophistry by others while, at the same time, cheering its use by those who ‘are on our side.’

If, instead, these same Representatives were working within a culture of respect for truth and reason, then they would not have dared to even try such blatant lies and sophistry. A culture of truth and reason would shun them and terminate their employment at the first opportunity. Since these Representatives are not dealing with a culture of truth and reason, they do not have to worry about the voters terminating their employment.

Technically, according to the rules of logic, the proposition “P and Q” is true if and only if P is true and Q is true. If somebody says, “The sun is hot and grasshoppers are mammals,” formal logic says that this is false – because grasshoppers are not mammals. This is the honest answer. However, the Christian culture in America likes nothing more than to expose honest representatives so that they can replace those honest representatives with liars and sophists. Consequently, the honest politician faces a dilemma – to come out of the closet as an honest politician and lose the support of a large portion of the Christian community, or give up his seat to a lying sophist.

Telling the truth is a virtue. However, helping to elect lying sophists to Congress is not. So, this is a true moral dilemma. No matter what the person does, he is forced to do something wrong. Of course, he is forced to do something wrong by lying sophists who, as a part of their moral impairment, love to force honest politicians into situations where they must do something wrong.

The argument is solid. Christianity in America today is a culture that celebrates lies and sophistry and empowers liars and sophists above all others. Their claim to moral superiority is simply another one of their lies. If they were in fact dedicated to doing the right thing, they would start by condemning lies and sophistry, rather than promoting it.

Of course, it is not the case that the Christian culture is the only culture dominated by liars and sophists. It would seem that the atheist culture (to the degree that there is one) suffers from the same problem. Just as the lovers of truth and reason in Christianity seem impotent when it comes to altering the behavior of their leaders, the lovers of truth and reason among atheists suffer from the same deficiency.

I argued in “Connecticut Valley Atheists: Imagine” that this sign represents lies and sophistry. It commits the informal logical fallacy of hasty generalization. People support the argument by saying, “If not for religion, the towers would still be up.” However it is just as true that “If not for airplane travel, the towers will still be up.” Yet, a sign that says, “Imagine no airplane travel” would quickly be recognized as absurd – a sophist’s assertion. The same is true of the sign, “Imagine: No Religion”.

Many Christians are fond of saying that atheists borrow their morality from Christians. One aspect of Christian morality (or, at least, the dominant form of it) that atheists do not need to copy is the practice of using sophistry to support fiction motivated by hate. The “Imagine: No Religion” sign commits the logical fallacy of hasty generalization to support a fiction (that if one is religious than one is disposed to destroy things such as the World Trade Center) motivated by hate. If the culture of atheism is a culture of truth and reason, than this culture should be strong enough to withdraw sophistry supporting fiction motivated by hate and replace it with something that is true and reasonable.

If atheists who live truth and reason are too impotent to affect these types of change, then the atheist culture itself is borrowing too much from the Christian culture that surrounds us.