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Monthly Archives: April 2012

Student Einstein Trumps Atheist Philosophy Professor

24 Tuesday Apr 2012

Posted by in Other

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There are quite a few variations of this story about Einstein beating his atheist philosophy professor in a philosophical argument. Here is one variation of the story. I’ll add my own thoughts after it. My commentary and counter arguments are rather extensive and I apologize for the length of this post. I do hope it clears up some of the myth surrounding this story.

Professor : You are a Christian, aren’t you, son ?
Student : Yes, sir.
Professor: So, you believe in GOD ?
Student : Absolutely, sir.
Professor : Is GOD good ?
Student : Sure.
Professor: Is GOD all powerful ?
Student : Yes.
Professor: My brother died of cancer even though he prayed to GOD to heal him. Most of us would attempt to help others who are ill. But GOD didn’t. How is this GOD good then? Hmm?
(Student was silent.)
Professor: You can’t answer, can you ? Let’s start again, young fella. Is GOD good?
Student : Yes.
Professor: Is satan good ?
Student : No.
Professor: Where does satan come from ?
Student : From … GOD …
Professor: That’s right. Tell me son, is there evil in this world?
Student : Yes.
Professor: Evil is everywhere, isn’t it ? And GOD did make everything. Correct?
Student : Yes.
Professor: So who created evil ?
(Student did not answer.)
Professor: Is there sickness? Immorality? Hatred? Ugliness? All these terrible things exist in the world, don’t they?
Student : Yes, sir.
Professor: So, who created them ?
(Student had no answer.)
Professor: Science says you have 5 Senses you use to identify and observe the world around you. Tell me, son, have you ever seen GOD?
Student : No, sir.
Professor: Tell us if you have ever heard your GOD?
Student : No , sir.
Professor: Have you ever felt your GOD, tasted your GOD, smelt your GOD? Have you ever had any sensory perception of GOD for that matter?
Student : No, sir. I’m afraid I haven’t.
Professor: Yet you still believe in Him?
Student : Yes.
Professor : According to Empirical, Testable, Demonstrable Protocol, Science says your GOD doesn’t exist. What do you say to that, son?
Student : Nothing. I only have my faith.
Professor: Yes, faith. And that is the problem Science has.
Student : Professor, is there such a thing as heat?
Professor: Yes.
Student : And is there such a thing as cold?
Professor: Yes.
Student : No, sir. There isn’t.
(The lecture theater became very quiet with this turn of events.)
Student : Sir, you can have lots of heat, even more heat, superheat, mega heat, white heat, a little heat or no heat. But we don’t have anything called cold. We can hit 458 degrees below zero which is no heat, but we can’t go any further after that. There is no such thing as cold. Cold is only a word we use to describe the absence of heat. We cannot measure cold. Heat is energy. Cold is not the opposite of heat, sir, just the absence of it.
(There was pin-drop silence in the lecture theater.)
Student : What about darkness, Professor? Is there such a thing as darkness?
Professor: Yes. What is night if there isn’t darkness?
Student : You’re wrong again, sir. Darkness is the absence of something. You can have low light, normal light, bright light, flashing light. But if you have no light constantly, you have nothing and its called darkness, isn’t it? In reality, darkness isn’t. If it is, well you would be able to make darkness darker, wouldn’t you?
Professor: So what is the point you are making, young man ?
Student : Sir, my point is your philosophical premise is flawed.
Professor: Flawed ? Can you explain how?
Student : Sir, you are working on the premise of duality. You argue there is life and then there is death, a good GOD and a bad GOD. You are viewing the concept of GOD as something finite, something we can measure. Sir, Science can’t even explain a thought. It uses electricity and magnetism, but has never seen, much less fully understood either one. To view death as the opposite of life is to be ignorant of the fact that death cannot exist as a substantive thing.
Death is not the opposite of life: just the absence of it. Now tell me, Professor, do you teach your students that they evolved from a monkey?
Professor: If you are referring to the natural evolutionary process, yes, of course, I do.
Student : Have you ever observed evolution with your own eyes, sir?
(The Professor shook his head with a smile, beginning to realize where the argument was going.)
Student : Since no one has ever observed the process of evolution at work and cannot even prove that this process is an on-going endeavor. Are you not teaching your opinion, sir? Are you not a scientist but a preacher?
(The class was in uproar.)
Student : Is there anyone in the class who has ever seen the Professor’s brain?
(The class broke out into laughter. )
Student : Is there anyone here who has ever heard the Professor’s brain, felt it, touched or smelt it? No one appears to have done so. So, according to the established Rules of Empirical, Stable, Demonstrable Protocol, Science says that you have no brain, sir. With all due respect, sir, how do we then trust your lectures, sir?
(The room was silent. The Professor stared at the student, his face unfathomable.)
Professor: I guess you’ll have to take them on faith, son.
Student : That is it sir … Exactly ! The link between man & GOD is FAITH. That is all that keeps things alive and moving.
By the way, that student was EINSTEIN.

I have a lot of things to say about this tale, so many, in fact, that I’m going to break it up into parts and sub-parts. First, I’m going to critique the presentation, and then I’ll critique the philosophical arguments.

The Presentation

Historically False

This was not Einstein, that’s a myth. This is a tale that has been making its rounds on the internet for quite a few years. Over the years, parts of it change but the overall idea is still the same – Einstein trumps an atheist professor’s philosophical argument for disproof of God.

See: http://www.snopes.com/religion/einstein.asp

There is another historically false claim – that Einstein was a Christian. That is just wishful thinking.

See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Einstein%27s_religious_views

Fallacious Appeals to Authority

Whoever invented this tale used Einstein’s name in an attempt to add intellectual authority to the tale. An appeal to authority can be a valid argument tactic but in this case it is fallacious because a consensus does not exist among legitimate experts on the matter under discussion. Even if the story actually was true (it has been established that it is not) this appeal to authority would be a fallacious tactic.

See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_authority

The appeal to authority that I’m referring to above is the idea that Einstein would endorse the specific arguments put forth in the tale. There is also another implicit appeal to authority – that Einstein endorsed Christianity. This is fallacious for the simple reason that it is historically false as has been established earlier.

Psychological Manipulation Tactics

This tale portrays the atheist philosophy professor as being ignorant and easy to trap in philosophical arguments. No professor of philosophy (atheist or Christian) is as dumb as the one portrayed here.

The tale-writer is a psychological manipulator that utilizes the human tendency for conformity (See Bandwagon effect). Notice how the tale-writer has included an entire group of people (a classroom) and notice their reactions during the dialogue between student and professor;

  • “The lecture theater became very quiet with this turn of events.”
  • “There was pin-drop silence in the lecture theater.”
  • “The class was in uproar.”
  • “The class broke out into laughter.”
  • “The room was silent…”

It is obvious that the tale-writer used the “crowd” as a conformity tactic. I mean, who doesn’t want to agree with the majority?

These psychological manipulation tactics employed by the tale-writer are intended to persuade a reader to take the side of the student. Such persuasion tactics go beyond that which an objective presenter of the philosophical arguments would use. The tale-writer did not present the philosophical arguments in an objective manner, but rather, lies about the origin of the tale, makes fallacious appeals to authority, and attempts to psychologically manipulate the reader.

The Philosophical Arguments

The major points of this tale are its two philosophical claims;

  • Evil was not so much created by God as it is an example of an absence of God
  • Even scientists have faith

Unjustified Claim: Evil is the Absence of God

On the surface, the argument that evil is just the absence of God seems to be compelling based on the given analogies. However, let us look closer…

Arguing that cold is just the absence of heat, and darkness is just the absence of light, is an argument of semantics. It is not how we think of our world in our day to day lives.

When we think about temperature, we think of a spectrum ranging from low temperature (cold) to high temperature (hot). To argue that heat is just the absence of cold is to disregard the definition of the two as they are used in natural language.

When we think about light, we think of a spectrum ranging from bright light (light) to low light (dark). To argue that darkness is just the absence of light is to disregard the definition of the two as they are used in natural language.

Despite the two arguments about cold/heat and light/darkness being just arguments of semantics – they are logically valid if we all agree to constrain our normal definitions of the terms.

They are valid because temperature and light are physical, quantifiable, phenomena in our universe. Temperature is a quantifiable property of matter that can be precisely measured with scientific instruments. Light is electromagnetic radiation that can be detected with scientific instruments, and many of its properties can be measured with precision. The point is – these are real, physical, and measurable phenomena of our universe.

Good and evil are not. Good and evil cannot be detected with scientific instruments. Good and evil cannot be quantified with scientific instruments.

It is my counter claim that good and evil are not physical phenomena. Rather, they are our subjective assessments of the effects of certain events. It makes no more sense to claim that evil is the absence of good than it does to make the claim that good is the absence of evil.

Overall, this is a specious argument that benefits neither side of the debate.

Unjustified Claim: Everybody has Faith

Here I will not attempt to disprove the existence of God but merely to demonstrate the difference between religious faith and rationally justified beliefs, thereby showing the final claim of this tale to be unjustified as well.

To make the claim that religious faith has the same epistemological value as rationally justified beliefs demonstrates a complete ignorance of the scientific method.

The belief that persons have brains is supported by the following scientific evidence:

1) The fact that every person that has ever been scientifically examined in the necessary manner has been found to have a brain.

2) The brain is the only known object that can cause the complex behavior of persons.

3) There is no evidence to suggest that there are persons with no brains.

While these facts do not deductively prove that any specific person (that has not been scientifically examined) does have a brain, it does constitute a rationally justified belief that is fully supported by Occam’s razor.

Religious faith, on the other hand, is a set of beliefs that is not supported by scientific evidence.

To equate religious faith with scientific beliefs is to blatantly redefine our commonly accepted definitions of these terms and it is an insult to intelligent beings everywhere.

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“Pulling” Bellyaches: An Amish Medical Superstition

22 Sunday Apr 2012

Posted by in The Amish

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There is a notion among some Amish that bellyaches (abdominal pain) can be “pulled” from another person. The notion is that, coming into physical contact with a person suffering from a bellyache will cause the bellyache to transfer to the new person.

In a show of empathy and altruism, a grown person will attempt to pull a bellyache from a suffering child or baby. Some Amish parents go so far as to judge the health of their babies by whether or not the parent gets a bellyache while holding the child.

I don’t think this medical superstition is widespread among the Amish, and it is also possible that it’s not restricted to the Amish. It’s just that on the few occasions I ever heard about it, it’s been an Amish person that has told me.

The Amish Ordnung: High and Low

20 Friday Apr 2012

Posted by in The Amish

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Each Amish church generally has its own Ordnung, or set of rules, which dictates the dress code, behavioral rules, and accepted technologies for that church and its members. Among the Amish, when it comes to comparing the Ordnungs of different churches, there is a concept of ‘higher’ and ‘lower’. A relatively conservative Ordnung or church is said to be “low” and a relatively liberal Ordnung or church is said to be “high”.

When it comes to accepted technologies, some Amish churches allow electricity in the home and others don’t. When it comes to dress code, some Amish churches require the ladies to wear brown and black, while other churches allow them to wear brighter colors. When it comes to behavioral rules, all Amish churches ban divorce, abortion, and military service. Most of them ban civil lawsuits, birth control, and higher education.

An Amish church that does not allow indoor hot water plumbing may decide to put that technology up to vote. If they decide to accept the technology then the church has gone ‘higher’. While it does happen that an Amish church goes ‘lower’ it is more common for them to go higher.

We can think of it as a vertical scale with a dress code on one side of the scale and the accepted technologies on the other side. We can ignore the behavioral rules in this case because they are fairly uniform among the Amish. Some technologies and dress codes are traditionally higher on this scale than others. For example, an Amish church is more likely to approve the use of cellular phones than to approve the use of computers so in this case the computer would be higher on the scale.

The line between Old Order Amish and New Order Amish, and the line between New Order Amish and Mennonite aren’t really clear cut. While the image below is not completely accurate, it gives you a reasonable idea of the technological differences between New Order and Old Order Amish, and the relative position of the various technologies on the scale.

Technology Acceptance Among the Amish

A church that bans indoor hot water plumbing is considered to be fairly ‘low’. A church that allows the women to wear bright clothing and allows church members to have electricity in the home is considered a pretty ‘high’ church. This same implicit scale is often used to distinguish Old Order Amish from New Order Amish from Conservative Mennonites. The line between Old Order and New Order is somewhere between bicycles and home phones and the line between New Order Amish and Mennonites is somewhere between electricity and cars.

Non-Amish are commonly known as the “English” but they’re also called “hoch” (high, singular) and “hoch-ee” (plural).

The Amish position on dress code and acceptance of technology is based primarily on two Biblical virtues – modesty and non-worldliness. Since the Bible does not specify exactly the dress code, or how one should be different from the world, each Amish church decides what is an acceptable dress code and which technologies are to be used and which are to be shunned. That’s why you have higher (more liberal) churches and lower (more conservative) churches among the Amish

While the higher Amish might tend to think the lower Amish are making things unnecessarily hard on themselves, and the lower Amish might tend to think the higher Amish are slipping off the right path, the terms ‘high’ and ‘low’  themselves are generally not used in a derogatory manner. Wow that was a long sentence. I added these last two sentences only because apparently a single sentence does not a paragraph make.

The Obduracy of Religious Belief

19 Thursday Apr 2012

Posted by in My Philosophy, Religion

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The Christian belief in the Bible is quite unlike, for example, my current belief in “The Blind Watchmaker” by Richard Dawkins. Back when I believed in the Bible, I thought of it as “truth”. I also believed other books but I would think of them as good stories or as helpful information.

Why the big difference? Why did I consider one ancient text as pure truth and all other ancient texts as just stories? Why did I consider the Bible to be pure truth but other books, that I also believed to be nonfiction, were just informationally helpful?

In the Bible, fantastical stories such as a person living briefly inside of a whale, a virgin giving birth, a snake talking to people, were perfectly acceptable. Why were those fanciful stories acceptable but similar stories in other books were dismissed as myths? If I had read a story in The Blind Watchmaker that claimed a person had lived and survived inside of a dinosaur for three days, I would have been extremely skeptical. I would have asked for some serious evidence to back up this extraordinary claim. Why then, was it perfectly alright for a similar story to be in the Bible?

Some atheists will arrogantly state that they became atheist as a child when they first read the Bible. These people relate the story of how upon reading fantastical stories about talking snakes and virgin births that of course they had to discard the whole thing as mythical… as if the rest of us are just too stupid to get it.

I have a brain capable of critical analysis and I made full use of this skill when reading all but one book. Why did it take so long for me to become skeptical of the Bible? The answer to this can soon be reached once we understand that the Bible is a very significant part of a huge set of beliefs called “Christianity”.

The answers to all of these questions, I believe, can be answered by understanding what religion is and understanding how and when it is taught to a person. But first, check out this post I wrote about belief systems because I’ll be talking a lot about beliefs and belief systems for the rest of this post.

Religion is a set of beliefs that is pretty comprehensive – it pretends to explain everything from ‘why are there mountains’ to ‘how should I live my life’. Therefore, for a religious person, the set of beliefs that is his religion is almost inextricably meshed with the rest of the person’s belief system. Even changing one little belief is difficult to do because it would have ramifications for many of the other beliefs that it is intertwined with. A religion generally forms a large fraction of a person’s belief system.

Secondly, religion includes metaphysical beliefs. Metaphysical beliefs are beliefs that have to do with being and existence, and concepts such as cause and effect. Religion provides answers to such metaphysical questions as ‘why is there something rather than nothing’, ‘what was the first cause’, ‘where did we come from’, and ‘why are we here’. As such, religious beliefs become foundational to the person’s overall belief system. Individual religious beliefs become the axioms upon which the rest of the person’s belief system happily rests. To change these beliefs is almost as hard as tearing the foundation of a house out from underneath the house without disturbing the rest of the house.

The religious person suffers less from existential angst than the non-religious person because his metaphysical questions are answered. If a religious person starts questioning his own beliefs these metaphysical questions pop up and he wonders ‘well, why are we here then’. The existential angst that would be caused by unanswering these metaphysical questions is often on its own, enough of an incentive to stay with religion.

Religion is also a self-supporting set of beliefs. When questioned on one belief, the religious person can always bring out another belief that supports the first one. In this way, everything backs itself up. In logic, this is known as “circular reasoning” and it is a fallacy. In a small syllogism, circular reasoning is easy to identify and to recognize as fallacious but in a very large set of beliefs like religion, it is so easy to miss it.

Children will happily believe in Santa Claus but after learning that Santa doesn’t really exist, it is much easier for them to accept it and move on than it is for anybody to accept that their religion may not be true. Why is there such a difference? I believe it is because of the reasons I listed above. Believing in Santa is only a small set of beliefs, and it answers only one metaphysical question – ‘why should I be good’, whereas a religion is a huge set of beliefs and it answers pretty much all of the metaphysical questions.

It could also be that a child finds it easier to revise beliefs and possibly even to completely rebuild their belief system. After all, their brains are still developing and they are in the perfect stage to absorb massive amounts of information and to incorporate a massive number of beliefs.

In the previous paragraphs I explored several of the qualities of religious belief which have a direct effect on its obduracy. Now it is time to examine the methods that are used to deliver these beliefs to a person’s mind and how these methods also have an effect on its obduracy.

A baby starts off with basically an empty mind when it comes to beliefs about the nature of things. If you start with an essentially empty mind, the mind will accept the first thing that comes to it because there are no pre-existing beliefs to contradict the incoming information. For that reason, it is easy instill any kind of belief system in a child.

It is generally easier to dismiss new information than it is to revise existing beliefs so once a belief system has been established, it is very difficult to remove it even if it blatantly contradicts reality.

Most religious parents teach their children the religion starting at the youngest possible age. Long before the child learns that different people have different ideas about how things really are, long before the child learns that there are many different religions, and long before the child learns anything about critical thinking, the child is taught that its parents’ religion is the only possible truth.

Can you blame a child for rejecting other viewpoints? As the child matures, and if the parents continue to reinforce the same belief system, the belief system becomes more and more difficult to change.

The installation of a religious belief system is quite different from the installation of a secular belief system. With religion, the child is taught that not only is the religion pure truth – it is unquestionable truth. Any question that the child has that could undermine their belief system is quickly rebutted by the parents with reproachful assertions that it is evil to ask those questions. The child is admonished and sometimes physically abused simply for asking the unwanted questions.

Can you blame the person when years later he is still unable to honestly question his belief system when the mere occurrence of such a question feels treasonous and blasphemous?

To educate someone is to provide information, to provide explanations, to provide instruction. To indoctrinate someone is to provide information, to provide explanations, to provide instruction. The difference is, when someone is indoctrinated they are not expected to question what they are learning and in many cases they are not allowed to question or to critically examine what they are being taught. Someone who is being indoctrinated is not given the choice to believe or disbelieve.

Religious parents do not educate their children about religion – they indoctrinate them.

Belief Systems: Coherency, Completeness, and Reality

18 Wednesday Apr 2012

Posted by in Epistemology, My Philosophy

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Something that you believe is obviously a belief. To be more precise, a belief is a statement about the universe that the holder believes to hold true. The sum of all the things that you believe is your “belief system”. And, once again, to be more precise, a belief system is the sum of all statements that the holder believes to be individually true.

Everybody has a belief system. Without it, we wouldn’t have any way to make sense of anything from the smallest question such as ‘why does water flow downhill’, to the biggest of questions such as ‘what is the meaning of life’.

So what defines a good belief system and how could one belief system possibly be objectively better than another? There are three qualities of a belief system that are very important; coherency, completeness, and reality. I will explain these ideas in some detail below although not in the order just given.

Reality

The individual beliefs in a belief system must comport with reality. It is possible to have a completely fantastical belief system, only if you’re unlike most people (i.e. you’re completely insane).

What I mean is that your beliefs must agree with what you see in reality. If you stub your toe really hard and you firmly believe that you did not stub your toe, then your belief does not comport with reality (and you are most likely insane).

Such a belief system is useless because it does not help you make accurate predictions about the future. Life is all about making accurate predictions. For our entire lives, the sun has risen every morning. Based on this evidence, we form the belief that the sun will always come up in the morning. Based on this belief, whether or not we think about it, we make the prediction that the sun will come up tomorrow morning.

If for some reason, the sun stops rising in the morning, then our belief that the sun will always rise in the morning, does no longer comport with reality. When that happens we are forced to discard the belief and search for a new one. Perhaps we’ll revise our belief to ‘the sun sometimes rises in the morning’. If after a long period of not even that happening, we would be forced to revise it even further, to something like, ‘the sun used to rise in the morning’.

Coherency

Coherency is about how well one’s beliefs make sense when more than one at a time are considered. A coherent belief system is a belief system in which all the individual beliefs fit together in such a way as to create a solid whole. A belief system that contains contradictory beliefs is not coherent.

For example, suppose you held the bizarre belief that all Mennonites are weird. You also hold the belief that a certain friend named Sam is a cool dude and is not at all weird. Then you find out that Sam is a Mennonite. Suddenly you realize a contradiction in your belief system. On the one hand you believe all Mennonites are weird and on the other hand you believe that one Mennonite is not weird. These two beliefs do not fit together. Taken one at a time, they might make sense, but taking both at the same time results in a logical contradiction.

An incoherent belief system is bad. If you hold contradictory beliefs in your belief system it must logically be the case that at least one of your beliefs does not comport with reality. It is false. This tends to cause confusion and cognitive dissonance – neither of which are good attributes to possess in this complex life.

Finding contradictions in one’s belief system is actually quite common for the serious thinker. That’s because we are all operating on incomplete information. None of us knows everything and no matter how strongly we believe in something, new information could pop up which totally disproves our belief. Finding a contradiction can actually be a refreshing experience because it gives you the opportunity to explore intellectually and perhaps to happen upon bigger truths.

It is a common tactic for debaters (think atheist versus Christian) to attack the coherency of the other person’s belief system in an attempt to find and display a contradiction in the opponent’s belief system.

The important thing is that you remove the contradiction. Think about the conflicting beliefs because one of them must logically be false. Are all Mennonites really weird? Is Sam really a cool and completely non-weird guy? In your investigation into the basis of your opposing beliefs you may just stumble onto something new. Perhaps not all Mennonites are weird after all!

Completeness

The last quality of a belief system is “completeness”. This idea is related to how big your belief system is. Are there still questions that you don’t know the answer to? Of course there are! Our belief systems will probably always be incomplete but yours can be more complete than your neighbor’s.

The completeness of one’s belief system can be deceptive. This is particularly true when it comes to religion. Believing that God does literally everything is a pretty damn complete belief system isn’t it?

Well, no because as it turns out, this belief system actually just skips over everything. Take earthquakes for example. Years ago, many people thought God caused earthquakes and that was that. This idea was an explanation for earthquakes but it was useless. It was of no help in predicting earthquakes nor in gaining a better understanding of the overall workings of our planet. Nowadays we know about plate tectonics – how the plates move about on the Earth’s surface, grinding against each other, pressing against each other, and suddenly releasing tension. This explanation of earthquakes is more complete – it is more useful. It helps us predict earthquakes, it helps us gain a better understanding of how the Earth works as a whole, and it even helped explain several things in evolutionary theory that had previously been mysteries.

Updating Your Belief System

We are often given new information. Our job is to analyze that information and ask ourselves if it makes sense with what we can see of reality. If it does, we need to ask ourselves if it is coherent with our existing beliefs? If so, the information is quickly incorporated into one’s belief system but if not, the information must either be discarded as false or one’s belief system must be revised.

When it comes to larger chunks of information (such as the theory of evolution), it is wise to take a little more time to ensure that everything in the set of statements actually coincides with reality. If it does, then we need to check the internal coherency. Do all the statements within the set, make sense when taken as a whole (remember to disregard your own beliefs through this process)? If it comports with reality and has good internal coherency it is time to see how well it would fit with the rest of your belief system. If there are conflicts then things start getting interesting. On the one hand you have a scientific theory that explains reality quite well but on the other hand it doesn’t fit with your beliefs about the nature of reality.

Now you need to start thinking hard. Could you modify your existing beliefs enough so that evolution could fit inside without causing coherency problems? If so, would the resulting belief system be better than your current one? Would it be more coherent? More complete? If so, there’s only one viable option. Revise your current belief system enough so that you can import the new segment.

When I first studied the evidence for evolution I marveled at the how well it explained some of questions that I had often wondered about. It appealed to me because it mirrored reality so well and it was so much more complete than my existing beliefs on the subject – that God created man and all the animals. However, I couldn’t be expected to just drop the idea of God entirely. My beliefs about him were entwined with all the other beliefs in my belief system. So I started wondering if I could believe in both. As it turns out, I could – as soon as I re-interpreted the Bible as more of a metaphorical work than a literal work.

Rarely does a person’s entire belief system change overnight regardless of how much evidence is thrown at the person. It is often easier to live with contradictory beliefs than it is to completely switch a belief system. This is particularly true for belief systems that are well established in a person’s mind. I’m referring to religion and how it is often indoctrinated starting at a very young age.

Judging from my own experiences, I believe it is essentially impossible for a firm Christian to become an atheist in any short period of time (despite having been born atheist, mind you). For me the whole process took about 10 to 12 years.

So if you are intent on changing someone’s belief system – don’t try to do it overnight. Work on one or several beliefs at a time rather than the whole system at once. You increase your odds of eventually succeeding.

Note: In this last section, I have approached the issue of updating one’s belief system from the perspective of someone watching your mind (metacognition). When it happens to yourself, it will not seem quite this analytical. In fact, many of these steps will be taken by your mind without you even realizing it.

Thoughts on God by an ex-Amish Heathen

17 Tuesday Apr 2012

Posted by in The Conversion

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The following are some thoughts that I noted in my handheld over the past year or so. It is interesting to wonder what I was going through at the time… The most recent notes are at the top.

March 12, 2012, 7:45 PM

I wish God would stay the f*** out of my life.

November 17, 2011, 1:47 AM

Shouldn’t the Army also have chaplains for all the other religions?

September 10, 2011, 6:46 PM

Amish boy to atheist man: On the one hand, life becomes less meaningful and less serious. On the other hand, there can be no more afterlife goals.

August 3, 2011, 3:34 AM

Which is more important, truth or belief?

July 13, 2011, 12:13 AM

Very few statements make less sense than, “I wasn’t hallucinating!”

(I bet I was thinking about the religious visions that some people claim to experience.)

June 12, 2011, 10:25 PM

Conventional behavior bears no resemblance to rational behavior.

April 19, 2011, 2:53 AM

The difference between the theist and the agnostic: The agnostic accepts the unknown simply as the unknown while the theist anthropomorphizes the unknown for a variety of reasons ranging from 1) a lack of independent thought, 2) a need for companionship, and 3) a fear of the unknown… Even false hope is comforting.

Date and Time Unknown

I do not believe a supreme being would design a universe that operates according to rules of logic… and then hide from logic.

I also do not believe a good supreme being would punish someone for reaching a logically valid conclusion given the available information.

A God that punishes its subjects for a logically valid conclusion… is an evil God that I want no part of!

It’s Just a Theory

17 Tuesday Apr 2012

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Many of the less educated Christians when faced with the onslaught of a scientific theory that contradicts their beliefs, whether it’s the Big Bang theory or evolutionary theory, shout back with, “It’s just a theory!” This, of course, is an egregious abomination onto language and epistemology.

First of all, the term “theory” when used as scientists use it, is quite different from the definition ascribed to it by the layman. The layman would define “theory” as ‘a possible explanation for something’. Scientists have a word that fits that definition too. It is “hypothesis”. When a scientist talks about an idea that is a possible explanation for something, he or she uses the term “hypothesis” because “theory” has quite a different definition in the fields of science.

A scientific theory is a bunch of confirmed hypotheses all tied together in a manner that can be used to explain and make predictions relevant to the phenomenon under question. A theory is the closest thing to “proof” that seekers of knowledge about nature can hope to reach.

The Christian may go on to argue, how can scientists be so sure that evolution or the big bang are true? Nobody was there to see it. The Christian will argue adamantly that you can’t prove that something is true without somebody having been there to see it and verify it.

It is at this point that I ask the Christian what 1000 plus 1000 is. Well, duh – it’s 2000.Then I ask if they have ever actually counted 1000 of something, another thousand of something, put it all together and counted everything again to verify that it really is 2000. Well of course not but that’s just ridiculous.

No, I point out. Arithmetic is just a theory – a logical framework resting ultimately on pure assumptions. Arithmetic has never proven itself wrong so we continue believing it to be a valid theory. Natural selection has never been proven wrong (and all it takes is one thing out of place), so we continue believing it to be a valid theory.

The Fear of Death

17 Tuesday Apr 2012

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The other night some friends and I went out and watched Titanic 3D. My girlfriend loves the movie. I thought the movie was well-written, well-directed, well-acted, and totally depressing.

It was depressing to watch all those people dying toward the end of the movie and it really made me wonder what I would be feeling if I was in their situation. I mean think about it. What would be going through your mind if you knew death was imminent? Would you pray to whatever God you believe in? Would that provide peace for you? Would you be able to die without that mental anguish that I envision?

In one scene, there is a minister praying and the people around him are reaching out to him, touching him, and holding onto him as the Titanic sinks. In that moment I felt the comfort those people were getting from that. If I was in that situation I might even be reaching out to the minister, despite my lack of belief in God.

Death is feared. I think that when a person contemplates imminent death, the emotional response is so powerful that it can completely overwhelm any rational output of the mind. A powerfully emotional movie like the Titanic allows some of us to experience in a small way what imminent death might feel like. After watching the movie I realized that even a rational mind like my own could be overwhelmed by the emotions and trigger a deathbed conversion.

I remember hearing, as an argument against atheism, the stories of atheists that suddenly convert to Christianity on their death beds. As the stories go, the atheists mock God until almost the very end when they suddenly start praying to him and begging for forgiveness.

Those stories are at most anecdotes, and many are no more than myths (particularly the one about Darwin). It wouldn’t surprise me, however, if that kind of thing actually happened on a regular basis. I imagine myself on my deathbed and I think there’s a chance that even I might do something like that. I think it will take a lot of courage to face death without falling into the wishful thinking of Christianity.

However, I disagree that this is evidence for the existence of God, as many Christians would like to claim, or proof that all atheists know deep down that there really is a God. Quite the contrary. The only thing that deathbed conversions are evidence for, is fear of death.

Religion provides an answer for one very powerful metaphysical question – what happens when we die? Christianity, for one, gives you the belief that you’re immortal in a sense. Being an atheist, I believe technology is our only hope for immortality.

I wouldn’t be surprised if the the deathbed conversion was found to be more likely among atheists that left religion than among atheists that have never been religious. The claim that deathbed conversions are caused by ‘all atheists know deep down that there really is a God’ could be tested statistically. If those atheists that left religion had deathbed conversions at a rate significantly higher than those atheists that were never religious, it could be evidence that deathbed conversions are caused in part by a person’s previous religious experiences rather than something that all atheists know deep down.

To end this post on a lighter note I will close with a deathbed story about Voltaire – the famous philosopher. When asked by a priest to renounce Satan and turn to God, Voltaire allegedly said, “Now is no time to be making new enemies.“

The Creature on my Lawn

16 Monday Apr 2012

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There is a creature sitting on my lawn.

There is? But I don’t see a thing.

Of course not. The creature is invisible. You can’t see it with your naked eyes nor can it be detected with any sort of optical equipment.

But I don’t hear anything of it either.

Of course not, the creature never makes a sound.

Well, then, what kind of creature is it?

It’s a rather large creature, about six feet tall and two feet wide.

Well then, if it’s that large I should be able to go outside and feel around for it until I find it.

No, that’s quite impossible. The creature lacks all mass whatsoever. You wouldn’t be able to feel it nor would you be able to detect it with any sort of seismic sensor or even a statistical analysis of the movements of air particles in the area.

Ah, it must be one of those new-fangled energy creatures. Let me get out my magnetometer.

Don’t bother.

How in the world am I supposed to detect this creature?

Oh that’s quite impossible. The creature is completely undetectable by any scientific instrument or method now or that will ever be made.

How can you possibly know about it then?

It talks to me.

Atheists are Ignorant

15 Sunday Apr 2012

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Atheists are an ignorant bunch.

Atheists don’t know for sure how life began on Earth. They hypothesize a number of ideas such as abiogenesis – the idea that life sprang from an inorganic primordial soup and panspermia – the idea that life was brought here from another place in the universe. Christians know exactly where life comes from – God created it.

Atheists don’t know for sure how long the universe will last. Some think it will end in a Big Crunch at some unknown point in the distant future. Others think it will end in a Big Bounce, again at some point in the distant future. Christians know that the end is near and that it will be caused by God’s hands.

Atheists aren’t sure where the universe came from although many suggest that it came from nothing. Christians know exactly where the universe came from – God created it.

Atheists aren’t sure why there is something rather than nothing. Christians know that it’s God’s plan for there to be something rather than nothing.

Atheists don’t know the answer to, “Why are we here?” and some of them will go as far as claiming the question is meaningless because it anthropomorphizes a natural process. Christians know exactly why we are here – we are here to prepare ourselves for the afterlife.

Atheists know very few of the answers to the big questions in life. Christians know almost all of them.

Atheists may be ignorant but at least they’re not delusional.