I have long struggled to understand how it is that otherwise intelligent adults can make religious claims that make no sense at all. For instance, otherwise intelligent people will claim that Jesus walked on water, or that Mary had a baby even though she was a virgin. These claims have no factual basis. To my ears, these are ludicrous claims. How is it that the human intellect allows these things to be uttered? Well, perhaps the intellect barely tolerates this. The human intellect is a relatively weak Johnny-come-lately to our cognitive apparatus. What really drives our decision-making is a big elephant underneath a tiny lawyer. Each of us is a tiny lawyer riding a big elephant.
It turns out, however, that the elephant has almost irresistible power to reach up and invade the lawyer’s ability to articulate. It takes great training to resist the elephant and to maintain disciplined abstract self-critical thought. When we speak words, then, it is rarely the lawyer in full command of the mouth. That elephant is smart in the sense that it was evolutionarily honed over many millions of years to allow us to survive; most of those years, we survived even though we were not even conscious. And that elephant is still powerful, compelling decision-making based upon millions of years of trial and error. And the intellect? We give it far too much credit, even though this is where humans can sometimes shine above and beyond the other animals. After all, other animals cannot calculate a 15% tip, and they cannot figure out how to invent medicines or discover DNA.
The abstract human higher intellect is quite impressive, but it is fragile-one big half by the elephant and the “pure” intellect dissipates. The fact that abstract thinking works at all is an accident. It was not purposely designed such that we could figure out algebraic equations or compose music we intend to share on YouTube.
What I’m proposing is an idea that it’s taken me years to fully get my head around. The fact that we can think abstractly, including our abilities to play chess and to make iPods, was not an endpoint for which evolution strove. We happened to get this ability to think abstractly in modest doses, but we shouldn’t make too much of this ability, because the elephant usually runs the show and the elephant repeatedly commandeers our use of words and symbols. You see, both the elephant and the lawyer struggle to make use of words and symbols, and the elephant usually wins. As David Hume argued, “Reason is and ought only to be the slave of the passions, and can never pretend to any other office than to serve and obey them.” [From A Treatise of Human Nature, (2nd Ed.), Book II, Part I, Section III (“Of the Influencing Motives of the Will”) (1739)].
Once I really, finally, understood that the evolutionarily-honed elephant is still very much in command, and that it still craves the conduct and habits that got us through the Pleistocene era (without the use of sophisticated language), this allowed me to see that bizarre religious utterances are words being spoken by elephants who crave the comfort of the groups and who quite often tremble at the use of self-critical thought.
Frederick Nietzsche clearly saw this dichotomy, and wrote about it in The Gay Science. The following selection is from an aphorism titled “Origin of Knowledge” (this passage is aphorism # 110, from Walter Kaufmann’s translation, dated 1974):
Over immense periods of time the intellect produced nothing but errors. A few of these proved to be useful and helped to preserve the species: those who hit upon or inherited these had better luck in their struggle for themselves and their progeny. Such erroneous articles of faith, which were continually inherited, until they became almost part of the basic endowment of the species, included the following: that there are enduring things; that there are equal things; that there are things, substances, bodies; that a thing is what it appears to be; that our will is free; that what is good for me is also good in itself. It was only very late that such propositions were denied and doubted; it was only very late that truth emerged–as the weakest form of knowledge. It seemed that one was unable to live with it: our organism was prepared for the opposite; all its higher functions, sense perception and every kind of sensation worked with those basic errors which had been incorporated since time immemorial. Indeed, even in the realm of knowledge these propositions became the norms according to which “true” and “untrue” were determined–down to the most remote regions of logic.
Thus the strength of knowledge does not depend on its degree of truth but on its age, on the degree to which it has been incorporated, on its character as a condition of life. Where life and knowledge seemed to be at odds there was never any real fight, but denial and doubt were simply considered madness. Those exceptional thinkers, like the Eleatics, who nevertheless posited and clung to the opposites of the natural errors, believe that it was possible to live in accordance with these opposites: they invented the sage as the man who was unchangeable and impersonal, the man of the universality of intuition who was One
image by ecophoto at dreamstime (with permission)
and All at the same time, with a special capacity for his inverted knowledge: they had the faith that their knowledge was also the principal of life. But in order to claim all of this, they had to deceive themselves about their own state: they had to attribute to themselves, fictitiously, impersonality and changeless duration; they had to misapprehended nature of the knower; they had to deny the role of the impulses and knowledge; and quite generally they had to conceive of reason as a completely free and spontaneous activity. They shut their eyes to the fact that they, too, had arrived at their propositions through opposition to commonsense, or owing to a desire for tranquility, for sole possession, or for dominion. The subtler development of honesty and skepticism eventually made these people, too, impossible; their ways of living and judging were seen to be also dependent upon the primeval impulses and basic errors of all sentient existence.
This subtler honesty and skepticism came into being wherever two contradictory sentences appeared to be applicable to life because both were compatible with the basic errors, and it was therefore possible to argue about the higher or lower degree of utility for life; also wherever new propositions, though not useful for life, were also evidently not harmful to life: in such cases there was room for the expression of an intellectual play impulse, and honesty and skepticism were innocent and happy like all play. Gradually, the human brain became full of such judgments and convictions, and a ferment, struggle, and lust for power developed in this tangle. Not only utility and delight but every kind of impulse took sides in this fight about “truths.” The intellectual fight became an occupation, an attraction, a profession, a duty, something dignified – – and eventually knowledge and the striving for the true found their place as a need among other needs. Henceforth not only faith and conviction but also scrutiny, denial, mistrust and contradiction became a power; all “evil” instincts were subordinated to knowledge, employed in her service and acquired the splendor of what is permitted, honored, and useful – and eventually even the eye and innocence of the good.
Thus knowledge became a piece of life itself and hence a continually growing power – – until eventually knowledge collided with those primeval basic errors: two lives, two powers, both in the same human being. A thinker is now that being in whom the impulse for truth and those life-preserving errors clash for their first fight, after the impulse for truth has proved to be also a life-preserving power. Compared to the significance of this fight, everything else is a matter of indifference: the ultimate question about the conditions of life has been posed here, and we confront the first attempt to answer this question by experiment. To what extent can truth endure incorporation? That is the question; that is the experiment.
Erich Vieth is an attorney focusing on civil rights (including First Amendment), consumer law litigation and appellate practice. At this website often writes about censorship, corporate news media corruption and cognitive science. He is also a working musician, artist and a writer, having founded Dangerous Intersection in 2006. Erich lives in St. Louis, Missouri with his two daughters.
Erich, I don't understand your apparent pre-occupation with claims of fact versus claims of faith. Facts are not faith. Faith does not make claims of verifiable fact. You keep contemplating your navel lint, a minor irritation of little consequence, as though it were the be all and end all of existence.
Faith is the belief in the absense of fact. There are no verifiable facts in my faith. My faith does not make claims to factual issues. I wasn't there to see what my faith tells me nor may I objectively verify what my faith informs. I admit to the possibility of that my faith beliefs may be erroneous, ill-informed, appear to be delusional or the belief in invisible friends. So what?
What I wish for you (and your similary situated skeptical colleagues)is that you apply your considerable talents to something other than navel lint contemplation and set about solving one or more of the serious social problems of our time so that the world which you leave to your children is a better world. I would glady join you in such a quest!
Tim: You are being disingenuous. Regardless of your own Cafeteria Catholic version of religion (I'm not picking on you by this characterization–I just know that you are Catholic in a way that would not make the Pope completely happy), millions of Americans assert that their religious beliefs are matters of fact, and that they are actually a special unquestionable type of fact. They claim that these facts require no evidence. They claim that they "know" things that are even oxymoronic (that a virgin had a baby). They try to commandeer various aspects of my life based upon these facts (by prohibiting the teaching of real science in biology classrooms and preventing others from preventing pregnancy because it is is a "fact" that "God" disapproves of these pills and devices).
This is a critically important topic. From my perspective, people need to be woken up from many (if not most) of these delusions, especially to the extent that they lead people to stomp on the fundamental human rights of others. Some of these religious "facts" lead politicians to fight wars that kills thousands of people. Important enough for you?
Further, it is my position that there are many types of religion out there (most of them not taking the form of a traditional religions) and all of them involve "facts" that are not demonstrable in an objective way. Check out this "science" of Ms. Bolte-Taylor here: http://dangerousintersection.org/2008/04/15/can-s… She and those who lap up her "science" are massively lacking in self-critical thought. It is my belief that their inner social drives are clouding and deluding them to the extent that they lap up Bolte-Taylor's hopes and desires as "scientific fact."
Yes, I pick on religion, and I know that this doesn't make you comfortable, but the themes I am exploring apply to all of us, not just those who go to church on Sunday. I will be posting soon on an excellent series of articles written by David Sloan Wilson that make this clear. Religion and religious beliefs are ubiquitous, not simply in churches. The ideas I'm exploring should threaten all of us–all of our world views. Stay tuned.
Tim: To summarize, you claim this: "Faith does not make claims of verifiable fact." Then please tell that to the many millions of people who claim otherwise. When you convince them that you are correct, I'll stop writing about this huge problem, which is also a fascinating issue for cognitive scientists.
"set about solving one or more of the serious social problems of our time"
You, Karl, the Westboro Baptist Church, (and the rest of your ilk) are the biggest threat to me and my rational lifestyle. Your faith/lies shall be subject to challenge despite your delusion that faith-heads make no factual claims.
I would like to know in what ways Christians in general are a threat to your rational life style.
There are some religious faiths that might clearly fit that mold, but I do not think they are considered to be threats only because they are in the minority in America.
Do you also consider the possibility that you think your rational life style is basically at odds with the irrational beliefs of Christians?
If a person of faith claims their beliefs are "fact," they are mistaken. If a skeptic critically keeps writing that people of faith claim faith as fact, they are correct to the degree which some persons of faith make claims of their faith as factual.
I am not uncomfortable that some, or you Erich, challenge people of faith who make claims as though their faith is fact, I just think that there are far more productive ways to spend time, like petting my cats or going upstairs and peeking in on my kids as they sleep or whatever. Hey, where's Hank, anyway?
This is true in instances in which the matter under consideration is itself not assumed at present to be a simple scientific study of known variables.
Whether one decides to pursue verifiable facts or not is left to the perogative of the individual. In the cases in which the pursuit of verification fails the prerequisites of the the individual seeking scientific facts the matter of faith has been narrowed to only apply to that which science can adequately and accurately observe, measure and replicate.
Karl & Tim: There are millions of people out there who claim that they know certain facts to be true as a matter of faith, despite the lack of evidence. I've spoken to hundreds of them myself.
I use the term "rational" loosely when speaking about myself. I was referring more to my (non-religious) ideology than to the way I behave day to day.
The ways that religion infringes on my life vary. Some may be just perceptions I have, others are just things which conflict with my idea of what the future *should* be.
What got me started was (reading about) the textbook battles in southern states. Proposed legislation to ban science/evolution from textbooks seems like a bad idea to me. To me it is clear (and comforting) that evolution is indeed factual.
Then, I heard that (some) Christians would prohibit distribution of condoms based on ideas gleaned from ancient bible blurbs. (Seemingly ignorant that the bible is no more magical than an enchanted spell book from World of Warcraft.)
Then there is of course the deleterious religious theme that women shall be subservient, and not be allowed to have access to safe abortions.
And I'm alarmed by the all too common religious belief that the earth is created for them. That they are somehow entitled and righteous. And further that their chosen (imprinted by parents) religion is the correct one and should thus be propagated to all of humanity. The best ways to squelch the impending (already occurring) clash between Christianity and Islam without a bloody world war is to douse both sides with a scalding pot of atheism.
And I forgot to mention that I learned that homosexuality is a normal (though less common in some animals than heterosexual) NATURAL behavior. Did you ever learn that Karl?
"There are millions of people out there who claim that they know certain facts to be true as a matter of faith, despite the lack of evidence."
Agreed.
Many people don't care what President Obama wants kept from the public concerning his past. Lack of evidence doesn't bother them, they will believe what they want to.
But an honest search to find/establish or even to discredit/eliminate physical evidence for or against one's beliefs is a biased matter to begin with.
Take macro-evolution for example. Some claim they have all the evidence they need to consider it fact.
I have all the evidence I need to say that it could be flat out wrong, and only a useful tool for eliminating other perspectives.
This is similar to how the atheist will say there is no know way to currently prove in a strictly physical manner that a creator exists.
I have as much lack of evidence if not more (in my thinking)to be able to believe by faith that unguided mutation induced and natural selection favored macro-evolution is not factual, only hopeful thinking.
There are millions of Americans, including Kark, who take if as an act of pure faith that Obama was not born in Hawaii. They take it on pure faith that animals do not morph into new species over time. Karl, you have a long history of being close-minded about evolutionary biology. Please go read a good biology book before further commenting, or consider visiting this site: http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolibrary/home.php
I have read plenty of books and scholarly articles on both evolution and intelligent design. Just because I am not convinced that macro-evolution morphs one species into another doesn't mean I haven't considered the possiblity. I simply find the mechanism and likelihood too improbable.
I have said before that if I had no inclination to believe in a creator, that would be the only clearly physical way of attempting to account for life and living things.
I could challenge you to carefully read the Bible and consider the implications but I know you only look for the errors when you read it.
In my estimation the actual number of significant historical errors published by those who believe in evolution greatly outweights what are the perceived errors found in the Bible.
I frankly don't care very much about where Obama was born. President Chester Author also lied about who his father (a British citizen) was. The nation survived that one as well.
Karl: Glad to hear that you've moved on from your birther days. I assume you'll get back into the swing of things as the next presidential election heats up.
"I am not uncomfortable that some, or you Erich, challenge people of faith who make claims as though their faith is fact, I just think that there are far more productive ways to spend time, like petting my cats or going upstairs and peeking in on my kids as they sleep or whatever."
Tim, the problem is that I/we cannot live and speak freely as atheists in public without scorn. Many people don't "get" atheism at all. We are here on the internet to try and soften the grip of fundamentalism, sans (high) risk of physical harm. Making a difference thanks to Erich and others.
I didn't say I didn't care. I said I didn't care much about where the 44th POTUS was born. The man who he claims is His father was born in Kenya and that made him under British Law a subject of the British Empire, the same as was true for Chester Arthur's father. Barack's mother, Stanley Ann Durham was under 18 when Barack was conceived and had just turned 19 when he was born.
Chester Arthur was a naturalized citizen, it is documented. He was not a natural born citizen. A natural born citizen of the United States, is a child born to parents that were both official citizens of the United States at the time of birth, and who properly requested and registered said birth. Following the birth there are also residency requirments of one manner or another.
Michelle Obama has already said that Barack's mother was both "very young and very single" when she gave birth to Barack. The actual birth records, that is what ever is to be found, will reveal lies about an assumed marriage that either never took place, or which was illegal by common American standards.
I don't pronounce scorn or derision on anyone here at Dangerous Intersection. It appears to be just the opposite from how I see it. I express my point of view and try to be considerate of others beliefs.
Granted there are people who will mock anyone different than themselves, but that is not a proper way to handle differences.
If I have said anything that gives you the impression that you have to hide your views in public I am truly sorry.
I do not purport to know how the Spirit of God accomplished the incarnation so that Mary was found to be with child. I do know that Mary would have known if she was still a virgin or not.
I'm stating that not all women have gotten pregnant by having sexual intercourse, and that it is indeed possible or a young virgin to be with child without having "known" a man in a sexual way.
I did not suggest Mary was artificailly inseminated. However, the agency of her pregnancy was such that people have claimed it not possible. I believe it was possible.
Mark, virginity was something one used to be able to show proof of. If alcohol was involved nearly anyone may not remember what happened to them that resulted in their being with child. However, the proof of virginity was one not taken lightly by ancient people.
Mary aoparently had proof for herself that she "knew" no man until after the birth of Jesus.
Karl: Let me get this straight because I'm on the verge of concluding that you are so abjectly disconnected from reality that I will not need ever again to consider your attempts to communicate as meaningful. Here's what you wrote: "I’m stating that not all women have gotten pregnant by having sexual intercourse, and that it is indeed possible or a young virgin to be with child without having “known” a man in a sexual way."
Are you claiming that (without going into a laboratory and doing high tech cell manipulation) a woman can become pregnant without an egg combining with a sperm cell?
Or are you merely claiming (sorry to be so graphic but I truly want to understand) that perhaps Mary and some human man had some sort of sexual encounter but that the man didn't actually insert his penis into her vagina?
Please be absolutely specific in a highly detailed way. I want to know, in sum, whether you believe that a woman (and again, I not including high tech bio lab cell manipulation) who has never been within 10 feet of a human man's sperm can become pregnant. If so, please provide the link and explain in detail because if you are correct, you are about to be awarded a Nobel Prize.
Well, Karl, if Barrack's mom was single and gave birth in Hawaii (which has been amply established) then where daddy was born doesn't matter. What it then comes down to, I suppose, is whether a bastard can be POTUS and the law says nothing about that.
Oh, please. Sperm is always involved. Some friends of mine, before they got married, thought she might be pregnant even though no penetration had occurred. But a load of ejaculate did get on her around the area and the doctor informed them that, yes, there was a not dismissable chance some of it got in. I wrote a story once involving something called "Spontaneous conception" which came out of WWII during the Blitz. Several women claimed they'd gotten pregnant after the severe trauma of having a building collapse around them. It was recorded as established fact in a couple of books I had on hand. I sent the story to a few places, they all rejected it, but once editor questioned the phenomenon mentioned and we had a little back and forth about it. The editor in question had been a doctor. By the end of our tete e tete she had dumped enough data on me that I was convinced this was just a lot of women who'd gotten "help" explaining a baby to their absent husbands. No such thing as spontaneous conception. In point of fact, just the opposite seems to be the case during high stress circumstances like war—menstruation tends to cease, depending on the continuity of the stress, and miscarriages are higher, as is the simple inability to conceive.
As to virginity. You do know there are women who never lose their hymen, don't you? A dozen men can "have them" and the damn thing doesn't break or, in some instances, it grows back. Likewise, the stories of girls losing it to the balance beam in high school gym class are not as apocryphal as some folks would like to believe. But also, there are some women who have extremely atrophied hymen, none at all, or have ruptured it through masturbation, all prior to any intercourse. (This may be one reason why girls are so much more severely disciplined to leave the crotch alone than boys and accounts for the disparate numbers of masturbation between male and female—and, regrettably, the lower numbers of female orgasm.)
As to the utility of the "maidenhead" as proof, you gotta ask how many unfortunate girls ended up husbandless, stoned, or disowned through no fault of their own. They of course would not have been recorded. You do also realize that no study of what constitutes "normal" female genitalia was ever conducted until the 1980s? The medical profession assumed a standard, but no rigorous examination had ever been done to see if their assumptions matched reality.
That's why all this crap is so incredible. They are fairy tales. Every time you really examine what's being asserted, so much just falls apart.
Erich, Karl and Mark: The contentious back-and-forth debate above indicates all three of you are all missing an important point. The virgin birth of Jesus, within the teachings of the Catholic Church, falls under the heading of "miracle." As such, it is not falsifiable in the same way a scientific hypothesis is falsifiable through observation and experimentation.
So Karl believes in the "miracle" of a virgin birth by which Mary became impregnated through the agency of God and without any human male intervention. Karl probably believes in other miracles, of which Christianity abounds, especially the Catholic Church. And belief in miracles is a matter of faith, not scientific evidence.
Mark and Erich, however, reject religious miracles and other supernatural events. They want empirical proof, direct evidence, unbiased data.
So Karl is at an impasse with Mark and Erich. The discussions concerning female anatomy and sperm and definitions of virginity all seem beside the point.
Karl certainly isn't going to convince Mark and Erich to believe in miracles, and Mark and Erich probably won't convince Karl to disbelieve in them.
MikeFitz17: As annoying as this is to you (and probably all of us), declaring something an impasse doesn't lend understanding. It is the end of the journey, and often (in my opinion) a premature unsatisfactory end. What if it is possible to find out why we disagree? For instance, David Sloan Wilson's distinction between "factual realism" and "practical realism" appears to be a fruitful distinction. http://dangerousintersection.org/2011/03/04/david… I believe that this distinctions sheds light on the unprovable claims of religious believers, atheists, and all of us, some of the time (i.e., when we talk politics and even sometimes when we talk about science).
I know that my cross-examination of Karl has been tedious, but I want to make sure that the way you've described him is the way he would describe himself. If so, I believe that David Sloan Wilson's approach to this dispute (and, Jonathan Haidt's) is a worthy one. Human animals seem to be of two minds, one of them that provides great science and the other one that provides terrible science. Claims of virgins having babies is terrible science. And calling it a "miracle" doesn't make the problem go away since many or most of the people making this sort of claim insist that they are speaking of a fact that is as clear to them as the fact that the sun will come up tomorrow. I don't have any problem with those who admit that their supernatural claims are mere fantasies that have nothing to do with facts.
I have an addendum too. What if it is proven to everyone's satisfaction (I'm already half-convinced), that people's hopes and fears work as an intoxicant upon their ability to accurately perceive and remember, and that this hallucinogenic effect is absolutely undetectable by the perceivers themselves, but only by outsiders.
Further, what if scientists developed a remedy for these hallucinations: "Here . . . take this medicine or do these exercises and you will see REALITY–you will stop believing that you know there to be an invisible man in the sky and you will get annoyed whenever you hear anyone saying that a woman got pregnant even though sperm never entered her body? Assume that the side-effect of these remedies is that you will not feel any compulsion to run with the herd–you'll be happy being different than most other folks and when they go running off to start wars you'll see it as xenophobic. When your former herd attacks those who belong to other types of religion, you'll see it as pointless and, in fact, insane. What if another side effect is that you'll experience a deep sober curiosity to know how things really are, and you'll get annoyed with all people who insist on drawing the curves before they plot the data points?
Would you partake of the remedy? How would you make a meaningful choice as to whether you will take the remedy unless you first take the remedy?
Doesn't one need to first thoroughly live the life of a skeptic/scientist in order to voluntarily choose to live the life of one who believes that a virgin can have a baby?
Not very probable, but it is not impossible as to how an individusal can have a mainly male expresseed phenotype but genetically possess a female genotype.
Karl has a tendency to try to slide some of these assertions into the so-called real world and occasionally does an admirable job of, shall we say, gaming the rules of evidence to make a case that what is completely ineffable can have material aspects that if we would but recognize them…etc etc.
People learn, remember and act on their memories based upon three levels, and even on a fourth level sometimes when they realize what it is that has been directing both their memory and their behavior.
The first level is instinctive, that is the patterned and inbred manner by which an organism interacts with its environment. This requires little if any conscious thought as it relates to ways that not only the individual but also how collective members have somehow managed to pass along behavior patterns to their descendents.
The second level is through repetetion. Doing the same thing over and over again to inculcate or develop a degree of memory that can even withstand repeated attempts to un-learn or redirect learning in a new direction.
The third level is through strong emotions connected to physical experiences. The time when you were stung by a bee or had your first sexual experiences both leave you with not only memories, but meaning to those memories shaded by future desires one way or the other towards these initial experiences.
I've yet to meet a person who says they want to get stung once a day, but there sure are many people who want to repeat and even more intensely experience their sexual desires over and over as often as possible.
The fourth level is arrived at when one comes to understand how what they have learned or how they believe and act is related to one of these three ways in which our memories have been formed.
Some outright decide that now that they realize how outside influences and the environment have been factors in their memories that they will take steps to consciously see if they can reverse the effects of these memories upon both what they believe and what they chose to act upon.
I believe that a sign of memory health leaves the individual capable of discussing the strong emotions associated with the things thet have learned or have been taught, without showing hostility to how others have come to put their set of memories into an order that works for them.
No Karl, you seem like a nice guy, and you command respect for your kind demeanor. I don't mean to use you (and Tim) as punching bags either. I was referring to how (dislike the fact that) I need to bite my tongue in "real" life around certain people for fear of making them sad or pissing them off.
Everyone has memories filled with how they believe others have personally responded to them. More often than not, these people are also responding to the memories of how they believe others personally responded to them in the past as well. It is a viscious cycle.
These all stem back to historical events that specific people experienced. These people then saw a need to make sure others also knew how their involvment in some matter affected them personally as well. Divorce between your parents, estrangement between family members, or even frustrations between friends can all be examples of how cyclic memory formation influences what types of memories we pass onto others.
Some still can't grasp the fact that when Cain slew Able that Cain could not see how much God continued to care for, and even protect him from others taking vengence. God didn't make Cain an outcast from specific people, that was either Cain's choice, or the choice of those other specific people.
It seems all Cain cared about was his own memories from which he could not, or did not want to forgive himself, nor did he want to receive the forgivness of others.
I didn't say directly that a person must always be careful not to say or do something that another person might not agree with, although this usually is a reasonable approach to life. There are times when one must speak what is on one's mind and do what is legally within their power to do. However if one is speaking and acting upon a cycle of painful memories one should really try to figure out what they should do about it.
I consider an emotionally health persons to be one that will let offenses roll off their shoulders like water on a duck. They will not let offenses form a memory that prevents ongoing positive interactions from occurring.
We all have done things that have made others sad – frankly, we even make ourselves sad. We do not have to equate these feelings in others or ourselves to a conclusion that others are angry or upset with us.
I try to pin the anger upon the cycle of memory formation that we pass from one person to the other.
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Erich, you have to read Life of Pi
Xtech: Thanks for the rec. I just ordered a used copy at Amazon for "1 cent."
Erich, I don't understand your apparent pre-occupation with claims of fact versus claims of faith. Facts are not faith. Faith does not make claims of verifiable fact. You keep contemplating your navel lint, a minor irritation of little consequence, as though it were the be all and end all of existence.
Faith is the belief in the absense of fact. There are no verifiable facts in my faith. My faith does not make claims to factual issues. I wasn't there to see what my faith tells me nor may I objectively verify what my faith informs. I admit to the possibility of that my faith beliefs may be erroneous, ill-informed, appear to be delusional or the belief in invisible friends. So what?
What I wish for you (and your similary situated skeptical colleagues)is that you apply your considerable talents to something other than navel lint contemplation and set about solving one or more of the serious social problems of our time so that the world which you leave to your children is a better world. I would glady join you in such a quest!
Tim: You are being disingenuous. Regardless of your own Cafeteria Catholic version of religion (I'm not picking on you by this characterization–I just know that you are Catholic in a way that would not make the Pope completely happy), millions of Americans assert that their religious beliefs are matters of fact, and that they are actually a special unquestionable type of fact. They claim that these facts require no evidence. They claim that they "know" things that are even oxymoronic (that a virgin had a baby). They try to commandeer various aspects of my life based upon these facts (by prohibiting the teaching of real science in biology classrooms and preventing others from preventing pregnancy because it is is a "fact" that "God" disapproves of these pills and devices).
This is a critically important topic. From my perspective, people need to be woken up from many (if not most) of these delusions, especially to the extent that they lead people to stomp on the fundamental human rights of others. Some of these religious "facts" lead politicians to fight wars that kills thousands of people. Important enough for you?
Further, it is my position that there are many types of religion out there (most of them not taking the form of a traditional religions) and all of them involve "facts" that are not demonstrable in an objective way. Check out this "science" of Ms. Bolte-Taylor here: http://dangerousintersection.org/2008/04/15/can-s… She and those who lap up her "science" are massively lacking in self-critical thought. It is my belief that their inner social drives are clouding and deluding them to the extent that they lap up Bolte-Taylor's hopes and desires as "scientific fact."
Yes, I pick on religion, and I know that this doesn't make you comfortable, but the themes I am exploring apply to all of us, not just those who go to church on Sunday. I will be posting soon on an excellent series of articles written by David Sloan Wilson that make this clear. Religion and religious beliefs are ubiquitous, not simply in churches. The ideas I'm exploring should threaten all of us–all of our world views. Stay tuned.
Tim: To summarize, you claim this: "Faith does not make claims of verifiable fact." Then please tell that to the many millions of people who claim otherwise. When you convince them that you are correct, I'll stop writing about this huge problem, which is also a fascinating issue for cognitive scientists.
"Faith does not make claims of verifiable fact."
Unfortunately, faith-heads do this.
"set about solving one or more of the serious social problems of our time"
You, Karl, the Westboro Baptist Church, (and the rest of your ilk) are the biggest threat to me and my rational lifestyle. Your faith/lies shall be subject to challenge despite your delusion that faith-heads make no factual claims.
http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2011/03/nutjob…?
Ben,
I would like to know in what ways Christians in general are a threat to your rational life style.
There are some religious faiths that might clearly fit that mold, but I do not think they are considered to be threats only because they are in the minority in America.
Do you also consider the possibility that you think your rational life style is basically at odds with the irrational beliefs of Christians?
If a person of faith claims their beliefs are "fact," they are mistaken. If a skeptic critically keeps writing that people of faith claim faith as fact, they are correct to the degree which some persons of faith make claims of their faith as factual.
I am not uncomfortable that some, or you Erich, challenge people of faith who make claims as though their faith is fact, I just think that there are far more productive ways to spend time, like petting my cats or going upstairs and peeking in on my kids as they sleep or whatever. Hey, where's Hank, anyway?
Faith does not make claims of verifiable fact.
This is true in instances in which the matter under consideration is itself not assumed at present to be a simple scientific study of known variables.
Whether one decides to pursue verifiable facts or not is left to the perogative of the individual. In the cases in which the pursuit of verification fails the prerequisites of the the individual seeking scientific facts the matter of faith has been narrowed to only apply to that which science can adequately and accurately observe, measure and replicate.
Karl & Tim: There are millions of people out there who claim that they know certain facts to be true as a matter of faith, despite the lack of evidence. I've spoken to hundreds of them myself.
I use the term "rational" loosely when speaking about myself. I was referring more to my (non-religious) ideology than to the way I behave day to day.
The ways that religion infringes on my life vary. Some may be just perceptions I have, others are just things which conflict with my idea of what the future *should* be.
What got me started was (reading about) the textbook battles in southern states. Proposed legislation to ban science/evolution from textbooks seems like a bad idea to me. To me it is clear (and comforting) that evolution is indeed factual.
Then, I heard that (some) Christians would prohibit distribution of condoms based on ideas gleaned from ancient bible blurbs. (Seemingly ignorant that the bible is no more magical than an enchanted spell book from World of Warcraft.)
Then there is of course the deleterious religious theme that women shall be subservient, and not be allowed to have access to safe abortions.
And I'm alarmed by the all too common religious belief that the earth is created for them. That they are somehow entitled and righteous. And further that their chosen (imprinted by parents) religion is the correct one and should thus be propagated to all of humanity. The best ways to squelch the impending (already occurring) clash between Christianity and Islam without a bloody world war is to douse both sides with a scalding pot of atheism.
Oh, and I don't like pointy hats.
And I forgot to mention that I learned that homosexuality is a normal (though less common in some animals than heterosexual) NATURAL behavior. Did you ever learn that Karl?
Erich states
"There are millions of people out there who claim that they know certain facts to be true as a matter of faith, despite the lack of evidence."
Agreed.
Many people don't care what President Obama wants kept from the public concerning his past. Lack of evidence doesn't bother them, they will believe what they want to.
But an honest search to find/establish or even to discredit/eliminate physical evidence for or against one's beliefs is a biased matter to begin with.
Take macro-evolution for example. Some claim they have all the evidence they need to consider it fact.
I have all the evidence I need to say that it could be flat out wrong, and only a useful tool for eliminating other perspectives.
This is similar to how the atheist will say there is no know way to currently prove in a strictly physical manner that a creator exists.
I have as much lack of evidence if not more (in my thinking)to be able to believe by faith that unguided mutation induced and natural selection favored macro-evolution is not factual, only hopeful thinking.
There are millions of Americans, including Kark, who take if as an act of pure faith that Obama was not born in Hawaii. They take it on pure faith that animals do not morph into new species over time. Karl, you have a long history of being close-minded about evolutionary biology. Please go read a good biology book before further commenting, or consider visiting this site: http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolibrary/home.php
I have read plenty of books and scholarly articles on both evolution and intelligent design. Just because I am not convinced that macro-evolution morphs one species into another doesn't mean I haven't considered the possiblity. I simply find the mechanism and likelihood too improbable.
I have said before that if I had no inclination to believe in a creator, that would be the only clearly physical way of attempting to account for life and living things.
I could challenge you to carefully read the Bible and consider the implications but I know you only look for the errors when you read it.
In my estimation the actual number of significant historical errors published by those who believe in evolution greatly outweights what are the perceived errors found in the Bible.
Just my opinion.
I frankly don't care very much about where Obama was born. President Chester Author also lied about who his father (a British citizen) was. The nation survived that one as well.
Karl: Glad to hear that you've moved on from your birther days. I assume you'll get back into the swing of things as the next presidential election heats up.
"I am not uncomfortable that some, or you Erich, challenge people of faith who make claims as though their faith is fact, I just think that there are far more productive ways to spend time, like petting my cats or going upstairs and peeking in on my kids as they sleep or whatever."
Tim, the problem is that I/we cannot live and speak freely as atheists in public without scorn. Many people don't "get" atheism at all. We are here on the internet to try and soften the grip of fundamentalism, sans (high) risk of physical harm. Making a difference thanks to Erich and others.
I didn't say I didn't care. I said I didn't care much about where the 44th POTUS was born. The man who he claims is His father was born in Kenya and that made him under British Law a subject of the British Empire, the same as was true for Chester Arthur's father. Barack's mother, Stanley Ann Durham was under 18 when Barack was conceived and had just turned 19 when he was born.
Chester Arthur was a naturalized citizen, it is documented. He was not a natural born citizen. A natural born citizen of the United States, is a child born to parents that were both official citizens of the United States at the time of birth, and who properly requested and registered said birth. Following the birth there are also residency requirments of one manner or another.
Michelle Obama has already said that Barack's mother was both "very young and very single" when she gave birth to Barack. The actual birth records, that is what ever is to be found, will reveal lies about an assumed marriage that either never took place, or which was illegal by common American standards.
http://naturalborncitizen.wordpress.com/2008/12/0…
Ben,
I don't pronounce scorn or derision on anyone here at Dangerous Intersection. It appears to be just the opposite from how I see it. I express my point of view and try to be considerate of others beliefs.
Granted there are people who will mock anyone different than themselves, but that is not a proper way to handle differences.
If I have said anything that gives you the impression that you have to hide your views in public I am truly sorry.
There are even human ways for a virgin to conceive with out having sexual relations so I wouldn't totally discount every reported virgin birth.
Karl. You are absurd. Are you suggesting that Mary had in vitro?
I do not purport to know how the Spirit of God accomplished the incarnation so that Mary was found to be with child. I do know that Mary would have known if she was still a virgin or not.
I'm stating that not all women have gotten pregnant by having sexual intercourse, and that it is indeed possible or a young virgin to be with child without having "known" a man in a sexual way.
I did not suggest Mary was artificailly inseminated. However, the agency of her pregnancy was such that people have claimed it not possible. I believe it was possible.
Mark, virginity was something one used to be able to show proof of. If alcohol was involved nearly anyone may not remember what happened to them that resulted in their being with child. However, the proof of virginity was one not taken lightly by ancient people.
Mary aoparently had proof for herself that she "knew" no man until after the birth of Jesus.
Karl: Let me get this straight because I'm on the verge of concluding that you are so abjectly disconnected from reality that I will not need ever again to consider your attempts to communicate as meaningful. Here's what you wrote: "I’m stating that not all women have gotten pregnant by having sexual intercourse, and that it is indeed possible or a young virgin to be with child without having “known” a man in a sexual way."
Are you claiming that (without going into a laboratory and doing high tech cell manipulation) a woman can become pregnant without an egg combining with a sperm cell?
Or are you merely claiming (sorry to be so graphic but I truly want to understand) that perhaps Mary and some human man had some sort of sexual encounter but that the man didn't actually insert his penis into her vagina?
Please be absolutely specific in a highly detailed way. I want to know, in sum, whether you believe that a woman (and again, I not including high tech bio lab cell manipulation) who has never been within 10 feet of a human man's sperm can become pregnant. If so, please provide the link and explain in detail because if you are correct, you are about to be awarded a Nobel Prize.
Well, Karl, if Barrack's mom was single and gave birth in Hawaii (which has been amply established) then where daddy was born doesn't matter. What it then comes down to, I suppose, is whether a bastard can be POTUS and the law says nothing about that.
Karl,
Oh, please. Sperm is always involved. Some friends of mine, before they got married, thought she might be pregnant even though no penetration had occurred. But a load of ejaculate did get on her around the area and the doctor informed them that, yes, there was a not dismissable chance some of it got in. I wrote a story once involving something called "Spontaneous conception" which came out of WWII during the Blitz. Several women claimed they'd gotten pregnant after the severe trauma of having a building collapse around them. It was recorded as established fact in a couple of books I had on hand. I sent the story to a few places, they all rejected it, but once editor questioned the phenomenon mentioned and we had a little back and forth about it. The editor in question had been a doctor. By the end of our tete e tete she had dumped enough data on me that I was convinced this was just a lot of women who'd gotten "help" explaining a baby to their absent husbands. No such thing as spontaneous conception. In point of fact, just the opposite seems to be the case during high stress circumstances like war—menstruation tends to cease, depending on the continuity of the stress, and miscarriages are higher, as is the simple inability to conceive.
As to virginity. You do know there are women who never lose their hymen, don't you? A dozen men can "have them" and the damn thing doesn't break or, in some instances, it grows back. Likewise, the stories of girls losing it to the balance beam in high school gym class are not as apocryphal as some folks would like to believe. But also, there are some women who have extremely atrophied hymen, none at all, or have ruptured it through masturbation, all prior to any intercourse. (This may be one reason why girls are so much more severely disciplined to leave the crotch alone than boys and accounts for the disparate numbers of masturbation between male and female—and, regrettably, the lower numbers of female orgasm.)
As to the utility of the "maidenhead" as proof, you gotta ask how many unfortunate girls ended up husbandless, stoned, or disowned through no fault of their own. They of course would not have been recorded. You do also realize that no study of what constitutes "normal" female genitalia was ever conducted until the 1980s? The medical profession assumed a standard, but no rigorous examination had ever been done to see if their assumptions matched reality.
That's why all this crap is so incredible. They are fairy tales. Every time you really examine what's being asserted, so much just falls apart.
Erich, Karl and Mark: The contentious back-and-forth debate above indicates all three of you are all missing an important point. The virgin birth of Jesus, within the teachings of the Catholic Church, falls under the heading of "miracle." As such, it is not falsifiable in the same way a scientific hypothesis is falsifiable through observation and experimentation.
So Karl believes in the "miracle" of a virgin birth by which Mary became impregnated through the agency of God and without any human male intervention. Karl probably believes in other miracles, of which Christianity abounds, especially the Catholic Church. And belief in miracles is a matter of faith, not scientific evidence.
Mark and Erich, however, reject religious miracles and other supernatural events. They want empirical proof, direct evidence, unbiased data.
So Karl is at an impasse with Mark and Erich. The discussions concerning female anatomy and sperm and definitions of virginity all seem beside the point.
Karl certainly isn't going to convince Mark and Erich to believe in miracles, and Mark and Erich probably won't convince Karl to disbelieve in them.
So why not agree to disagree and move on?
MikeFitz17: As annoying as this is to you (and probably all of us), declaring something an impasse doesn't lend understanding. It is the end of the journey, and often (in my opinion) a premature unsatisfactory end. What if it is possible to find out why we disagree? For instance, David Sloan Wilson's distinction between "factual realism" and "practical realism" appears to be a fruitful distinction. http://dangerousintersection.org/2011/03/04/david… I believe that this distinctions sheds light on the unprovable claims of religious believers, atheists, and all of us, some of the time (i.e., when we talk politics and even sometimes when we talk about science).
I know that my cross-examination of Karl has been tedious, but I want to make sure that the way you've described him is the way he would describe himself. If so, I believe that David Sloan Wilson's approach to this dispute (and, Jonathan Haidt's) is a worthy one. Human animals seem to be of two minds, one of them that provides great science and the other one that provides terrible science. Claims of virgins having babies is terrible science. And calling it a "miracle" doesn't make the problem go away since many or most of the people making this sort of claim insist that they are speaking of a fact that is as clear to them as the fact that the sun will come up tomorrow. I don't have any problem with those who admit that their supernatural claims are mere fantasies that have nothing to do with facts.
I have an addendum too. What if it is proven to everyone's satisfaction (I'm already half-convinced), that people's hopes and fears work as an intoxicant upon their ability to accurately perceive and remember, and that this hallucinogenic effect is absolutely undetectable by the perceivers themselves, but only by outsiders.
Further, what if scientists developed a remedy for these hallucinations: "Here . . . take this medicine or do these exercises and you will see REALITY–you will stop believing that you know there to be an invisible man in the sky and you will get annoyed whenever you hear anyone saying that a woman got pregnant even though sperm never entered her body? Assume that the side-effect of these remedies is that you will not feel any compulsion to run with the herd–you'll be happy being different than most other folks and when they go running off to start wars you'll see it as xenophobic. When your former herd attacks those who belong to other types of religion, you'll see it as pointless and, in fact, insane. What if another side effect is that you'll experience a deep sober curiosity to know how things really are, and you'll get annoyed with all people who insist on drawing the curves before they plot the data points?
Would you partake of the remedy? How would you make a meaningful choice as to whether you will take the remedy unless you first take the remedy?
Doesn't one need to first thoroughly live the life of a skeptic/scientist in order to voluntarily choose to live the life of one who believes that a virgin can have a baby?
Not worthy of a Noble Prize.
http://www.slate.com/id/2179865/
Not very probable, but it is not impossible as to how an individusal can have a mainly male expresseed phenotype but genetically possess a female genotype.
Mike,
You're quite right. For me—and to a shrinking extent—all this constitutes exercise. Perhaps it is time for a new regimen.
Mike, an addendum,
Karl has a tendency to try to slide some of these assertions into the so-called real world and occasionally does an admirable job of, shall we say, gaming the rules of evidence to make a case that what is completely ineffable can have material aspects that if we would but recognize them…etc etc.
I'm disinclined to cut him the slack for this.
People learn, remember and act on their memories based upon three levels, and even on a fourth level sometimes when they realize what it is that has been directing both their memory and their behavior.
The first level is instinctive, that is the patterned and inbred manner by which an organism interacts with its environment. This requires little if any conscious thought as it relates to ways that not only the individual but also how collective members have somehow managed to pass along behavior patterns to their descendents.
The second level is through repetetion. Doing the same thing over and over again to inculcate or develop a degree of memory that can even withstand repeated attempts to un-learn or redirect learning in a new direction.
The third level is through strong emotions connected to physical experiences. The time when you were stung by a bee or had your first sexual experiences both leave you with not only memories, but meaning to those memories shaded by future desires one way or the other towards these initial experiences.
I've yet to meet a person who says they want to get stung once a day, but there sure are many people who want to repeat and even more intensely experience their sexual desires over and over as often as possible.
The fourth level is arrived at when one comes to understand how what they have learned or how they believe and act is related to one of these three ways in which our memories have been formed.
Some outright decide that now that they realize how outside influences and the environment have been factors in their memories that they will take steps to consciously see if they can reverse the effects of these memories upon both what they believe and what they chose to act upon.
I believe that a sign of memory health leaves the individual capable of discussing the strong emotions associated with the things thet have learned or have been taught, without showing hostility to how others have come to put their set of memories into an order that works for them.
No Karl, you seem like a nice guy, and you command respect for your kind demeanor. I don't mean to use you (and Tim) as punching bags either. I was referring to how (dislike the fact that) I need to bite my tongue in "real" life around certain people for fear of making them sad or pissing them off.
Ben,
Everyone has memories filled with how they believe others have personally responded to them. More often than not, these people are also responding to the memories of how they believe others personally responded to them in the past as well. It is a viscious cycle.
These all stem back to historical events that specific people experienced. These people then saw a need to make sure others also knew how their involvment in some matter affected them personally as well. Divorce between your parents, estrangement between family members, or even frustrations between friends can all be examples of how cyclic memory formation influences what types of memories we pass onto others.
Some still can't grasp the fact that when Cain slew Able that Cain could not see how much God continued to care for, and even protect him from others taking vengence. God didn't make Cain an outcast from specific people, that was either Cain's choice, or the choice of those other specific people.
It seems all Cain cared about was his own memories from which he could not, or did not want to forgive himself, nor did he want to receive the forgivness of others.
I didn't say directly that a person must always be careful not to say or do something that another person might not agree with, although this usually is a reasonable approach to life. There are times when one must speak what is on one's mind and do what is legally within their power to do. However if one is speaking and acting upon a cycle of painful memories one should really try to figure out what they should do about it.
I consider an emotionally health persons to be one that will let offenses roll off their shoulders like water on a duck. They will not let offenses form a memory that prevents ongoing positive interactions from occurring.
We all have done things that have made others sad – frankly, we even make ourselves sad. We do not have to equate these feelings in others or ourselves to a conclusion that others are angry or upset with us.
I try to pin the anger upon the cycle of memory formation that we pass from one person to the other.