The Agnostic Argument - 10 (Is Faith "Religion" Or Just Superstition?)

I saw this witty riposte to an anti-atheist question, and posted it on Facebook:

In response, one of my friends wrote:

Disagree with the false equivalence.

Those who do believe in God do not deny science. In fact many scientists themselves were deeply religious. So there is no case for someone believing in God to deny themselves the benefit.

Quite different from the point being made that atheists should not avail religious holidays because it certainly is the case they do not believe in God.

Of course the reason I feel it is perfectly acceptable to enjoy the religious holidays is because they are an entitlement earned by working for x number of days for a company and not a reward for one's religiosity.

I shot off an immediate rejoinder quibbling that those who believed in a concept like "god" without proof could not really be said to be practising science, but my friend's comment did make me think a bit more about the relationship between scientists (i.e., those who could be thought of as practising science) and their faith, if such faith exists.

Specifically, the claim that "many scientists themselves were (are) deeply religious", made me think about ISRO's (the Indian Space Research Organisation's) former chairman K Radhakrishnan, and how he took a replica of the GSLV (Geostationary Satellite Launch Vehicle) rocket and Mangalyaan (the Mars probe) to the Tirumala temple to be "blessed". As one who believes it was the meticulous research and calculations of the ISRO team that were responsible for the success of these projects, I was offended by the eminent scientist's genuflection towards religion.

ISRO Chairman Dr K Radhakrishnan praying at Tirumala with a replica of the GSLV rocket and the Mangalyaan Mars probe

I could not visualise the head of NASA or the European Space Agency (ESA) taking a replica of one of their spacecraft to a church to be blessed, and I could not help wondering why an Indian (Hindu) scientist would think nothing of doing this sort of thing.

My conclusion is that people (even the educated ones) from less advanced countries have more recently been at the mercy of forces of nature than people from advanced countries. Death, disease, destitution and other major misfortune are part of virtually every family's not-too distant history. (My own extended family, over just the last three generations, has had many examples of needless tragedy caused by forces of nature.) This leads to higher levels of fatalism and superstitious belief. These attitudes of fatalism and superstition are wrongly and charitably labelled "religion".

To be sure, sudden catastrophes, both lethal and economically crippling, overtake people in advanced countries as well, but these can generally be traced quite readily to human agency. Traffic accidents, homicide and drug overdoses are the major causes of untimely death in advanced countries. Retrenchments/layoffs and marriage breakups are the major non-lethal yet potentially catastrophic events in the lives of people. Yet if we think about it, all of these events can be readily traced back to human agency.

In advanced countries, natural disasters do not claim as many lives. Deaths due to disease or animal attacks are similarly rare. Droughts or floods do not cause the same scale of economic havoc. In other words, people in advanced countries are less likely to be affected by "acts of God". The factors that impact on their lives tend to be obviously traceable to human activity and human will. No supernatural force need be invoked to explain any of them.

So I'm forced to the conclusion that the wider prevalence of what we think of as "religion" in less advanced countries is probably the result of a sense of helplessness in the face of an amorphous, abstract and malevolent Nature, which has to be propitiated and appeased if people have to be spared its wrath.

It's not surprising to me that 93% of the scientists who belong to the US National Academy of Sciences self-identify as atheists or agnostics. They are the elite even among scientists, and their families have probably been insulated for generations from forces of nature. It's small wonder that they are not tormented by the same background fear that haunts those much less fortunate.

In conclusion, I don't believe it's fair to defend religious faith by pointing to scientists who are believers. There is a larger sociological influence on such believers than their scientific training, and this is what accounts for their belief in spite of their training. In any case, such belief is not a positive, "spiritual" quality but a manifestation of collective subconscious fear. As the world develops and begins to insulate more of its people from the vagaries of nature ("acts of God"), I have no doubt that superstitious beliefs (wrongly called religion) will recede. Those trained in science will always remain in the vanguard of scientific thinking, and those from societies that are less threatened by the forces of nature will remain freer from superstitious fears. As both scientific thinking and social progress spread throughout the world, atheism will gradually replace religion.

Is "Rabid Atheism" As Bad As Rabid Religiosity?

I posted on Facebook in response to a news item that Sylvester Stallone had sent his family to Haridwar in India to perform a "shradh" (Hindu funeral rites) for his son Sage, in the hope that his son's soul would attain peace.

I posted that in order to comment on the human need for comfort in times of grieving, which a purely rational way of thinking (which is what atheism is) cannot provide, even though it is probably the truth.

I said,

Atheism is too bracing a truth to offer needed comfort to grieving people. That explains why religion continues to have such a hold on humanity. The Hindu ceremony is no more valid than a Christian funeral service, because there really is nothing after death. But I do understand why Stallone would seek out ways to find comfort.

In response, I received the following comment:

How do you know there's nothing after death? Have you been there and back? Rabid atheism is as stupid as rabid religiosity. I would leave individual souls to seek out their own truth, whatever that turns out to be.

Let me answer this in two parts.

First, atheism is not a belief. It is the refusal to believe in ideas that have no evidence to back them up. Perhaps the term "atheism" is too emotive for many people. Let's just call it rationalism then, with no loss of accuracy.

Do you believe that after you shut down your computer, Windows (or whatever your operating system is) continues to run somewhere "up there"? You surely know that an operating system, although an intangible thing ("software"), only runs when electricity flows through the hardware circuits of your computer. When the computer is down, the operating system simply cannot be running.

This isn't a far-fetched analogy for human consciousness. Functional MRI has mapped the exact regions of the brain that are responsible for our thoughts and feelings. One area of the brain "lights up" when we are trying to solve a mathematical problem, another part lights up when we are trying to remember the words to a song, yet another lights up when we are being creative. Similarly, different parts of the brain are active when we have different feelings, such as happiness, sorrow, and anger.

Research has also shown that the brain consumes energy when experiencing thoughts and feelings. It is very like a computer that requires energy to process information. In fact, it's an exact analogue.

Now, if all thoughts and feelings are, as proven by scientific investigation, the result of activity in brain cells, doesn't it logically follow that when brain cells decompose and die, they will no longer be capable of sustaining thoughts and feelings?

Isn't it therefore highly unlikely that there is no such thing as a thinking, feeling, disembodied soul? Just because the belief in a soul is widespread, it does not mean it is true. On the contrary, it simply means the majority of humanity is not thinking logically. This may be a hard idea to accept, but as the saying goes, truth is sometimes bitter.

Second, here's why rationalists can't simply "leave individual souls to seek out their own truth".

Implicit in the question is the argument that beliefs, however irrational, are benign personal affairs that should be no one else's business.

Indeed, personal beliefs are every individual's own business, except when they manifest themselves as impositions on other people.

This is exactly what religious beliefs do. They don't remain benign, personal beliefs for long.

"My religion tells me that women should cover themselves from head to toe. So I will force women to cover themselves from head to toe even if they don't want to."

"My religion says apostasy is a crime punishable by death. So if someone from my faith says they no longer believe,  they must be killed."

"My religion says this path is the only way for your soul to be saved. So because I love you and want your soul to be saved, I will disparage your faith and try to convert you to mine."

"My religion says the cow is holy and eating its meat is a sin. So I am justified in lynching you because I think you may have eaten a cow's meat."

This is why rationalists cannot sit back and let people maintain their irrational beliefs. Because sooner or later, those "personal" beliefs start to affect the lives of other people who do not share them, and who have a right not to share them.

So no, there is no such thing as "rabid atheism". Uncompromising adherence to logic is not rabidity.

And no, atheism is nowhere near as bad as religiosity.

The Atheist Dogma On Abortion

While I am in the main opposed to organised religion, I don't believe that everything (say) the Catholic Church opposes must therefore be supported by rationalists and atheists. Yes, religious beliefs often distort concepts of morality in very ugly ways, but this is not an infallibly predictable rule.

There is a Facebook site I subscribe to called "Atheist Quotes of the Day" (AQOTD). Normally, the posts here are the warm and fuzzy attacks on religious dogma and superstition that I enjoy. Recently, however, there have appeared some posts in favour of abortion, and these have not been greeted with the same degree of agreement even by the ..er.. faithful.

I have always been highly uncomfortable with abortion. I believe it is not a subject that has clear demarcations between right and wrong, and one of the mistakes made by hard-liners on either side of the debate is in assuming that there is a clear line and the other side is just not seeing it.

My point is that the line, if there is one, is highly blurred. Making an unequivocal statement of right and wrong is naive at best and dangerously arrogant at worst. So I don't want to see legislation outlawing abortion, and at the same time, I wouldn't want to see people accepting an abortion as nothing more serious than the extraction of an inconvenient tooth. (See what I did there? "An inconvenient tooth", get it?). Obviously, I would support abortion in cases of rape and incest, and also when the life of the mother is threatened. These are absolutely non-controversial to me. What makes me say "Not so fast!" is the hard-line feminist argument that a woman's body is her own and therefore there can be no questioning of a woman's decision to abort the child she is carrying inside her body under any circumstances.

I think we need to look at abortion not as a crime but as an ethical issue. That should take some of the heat out of the debate while still keeping us from turning our backs on it. I also strongly believe we should take religion out of the debate and rely on reason and empathy alone. I think reason and empathy form the necessary and sufficient foundation for a moral worldview. Religion only muddies the waters. As Arthur C Clarke said,

The greatest tragedy in mankind's entire history may be the hijacking of morality by religion.

Abortion should be seen as a moral issue, not a religious one. And (surprise!) atheists can have morals too. The most recent post on AQOTD that spurred me to respond showed a petri dish containing human eggs (it wasn't clear whether they were fertilised or not). The site's owner had posted a rather arrogant (I thought) statement under it: "These are not human beings. Any questions?"

Edict from the High Church of Atheism: "These are not human beings. Any questions?"

This was the proverbial last straw. I can understand dogma from the religious, but dogma from atheists?

It's a little like the vegetarian debate, which again should be divorced from religion. There are people who are strict vegans and do not favour any kind of human imposition on the animal kingdom, the "ordinary" vegetarians (lacto-vegetarians), the ovo-lacto-vegetarians who will not eat fertilised eggs (and those who will), people who will eat fish and poultry but not red meat, people who will eat "regular" meat but not dogs, cats, horses and monkeys, those who will eat anything that moves except humans, and of course, cannibals. To each group of people, those further "ahead" of them seem weird and/or immoral, and those "behind" them are unnecessarily squeamish and should get with the program.

It's a bit like the saying about driving - anyone driving slower than you is an idiot; anyone driving faster than you is a maniac.

The resolution to all of these issues is the recognition that there is no single line that divides the acceptable from the unacceptable. Real life is messy, and different people (however rational and intelligent) will fail to agree on where to draw the line. Each will draw it in a slightly different place, and we must learn to accept some degree of difference in our approaches to ethical issues without condemning people as either immoral or superstitious.

When thinking about how to respond to the AQOTD post, I weighed several response styles from humorous to sarcastic and finally settled on a tone of civilised reason:

"So, after the non-controversial arguments against believing in imaginary friends, we have now moved on to the more controversial topic of human morality. As rational people, how can we be expected to accept someone else's line on morality without thinking for ourselves?

Hear me out. 100% of rationalists would agree that the killing of unfertilised eggs or of sperms is not murder. Also, 100% of rationalists would agree that the killing of a new-born baby is murder. Clearly, all of us have crossed over from "not murder" to "murder" at some point along the development of the human foetus.

Is this point conception (the point before which development into a complete human was impossible)?

Is it the development of discernible organs (when we begin to feel empathy for something like ourselves)?

Is it the development of a heartbeat (when we begin to think of the foetus as a living being and therefore capable of being "killed")?

Is it the development of the nervous system to the point of being able to feel pain (which again appeals to our empathy)?

Is it the development of the foetus to a point where it can be kept alive artificially outside the body of the mother (which makes it a complete and viable human being)?

No matter how we look at it, the 100% of rationalists who cross over from "not murder" to "murder" do so at different points, depending on their personal philosophies, which have nothing to do with god or religion (so don't insult anyone's intelligence by accusing them of religious beliefs).

It is naive to believe that there is a single line in the sand here after which 100% of rationalists will immediately cross over from "not murder" to "murder". We are all intelligent beings who believe in reason, but we need not all agree on everything, certainly not on something as blurry as the development of a human being from individual cells.

What I am asking for is an end to dogma and more respect for the views of other rationalists. "These are not human beings. Any questions?" sounds like an arrogant religious diktat from the High Church of Atheism. It is not respectful of the considered opinions of other rationalists and leaves a bitter taste in the mouth. Let the atheist community not degenerate into another church with its own approved dogmas."

That should have kicked the hornet's nest good and proper :-). The angry buzzing must have started already. But I'm sure there will be plenty of people whose thoughts and sentiments I have expressed, so I'm not going to be alone.

The Agnostic Argument - 3 (What Would Spock Do?)

The title of this post is a takeoff on the question devout Christians ask themselves when faced with a moral dilemma - What would Jesus do?

A friend recently sent me a link to an article in Psychology Today by Nigel Barber that provocatively avers that Atheism will replace Religion. I however found the analysis a little superficial.

I found Andrew Park's thoughtful rejoinder much more convincing and meaningful. He takes the more realistic view that the continued existence of religious belief, for whatever reason, is something that atheists need to acknowledge - and acknowledge without disparaging the intelligence or relevance of believers. We (and our children) have to share this world with believers for a long time, and a harmonious relationship is perhaps more important than winning the argument. I may be putting words in his mouth here, but that's what I took away from his piece.

Todd Kashdan's critique was also quite good. He reframes the debate in psychological terms, and ends by focusing on superstition rather than religion as a whole. I agree that attacking superstitious beliefs is more likely to succeed than attacking people's faith in general.

Reading some of the comments on these articles, I develop the distinct impression that people expect atheism to provide a fully-fledged philosophy of how to live life, so as to make it easy for a theist to simply discard one set of values and adopt another without breaking stride. But that expectation does atheism an injustice.

The term 'atheism' is emotionally loaded, and so instead of framing the debate as 'atheism versus belief in God', I would prefer to think of it as 'rationalism versus superstition'. By training people to question specific instances of blind belief, and by demonstrating scientific explanations for each of them, we can lead from the specific to the general and inculcate scientific thinking as a basis for making decisions about our lives.

After all, atheism is nothing but a lack of belief in God because of lack of evidence for the existence of God. It does not claim to be a school of philosophy.

What does all this have to do with Mr Spock of Star Trek? I'm reminded of what Spock said to Lt Valeris (perhaps the only Vulcan whose name doesn't begin with an 'S' or end with a 'k') in The Undiscovered Country: "Logic is the beginning of wisdom, not the end."

How true. Atheism is the beginning of a rationalist philosophy, not the end.