Belief in Scripture and Belief in Alien Abductions – A Response to grumpypilgrim

I have to admit, when I read grumpypilgrim’s post that the evidence supporting Christianity is on par with the evidence supporting alien abduction, I got nervous.  It sounded so very harsh. I couldn’t help thinking of the many sincerely Christians who would be insulted by such a comparison.  I’m well aware that many Christians (including many of the people who regularly visit this site) are incredibly generous people who give much more back to this world than they take.  I truly admire their good works.  It is not my purpose (and I’m sure it’s not grumpypilgrim’s purpose) to insult them.  I’ve tried to make this clear as part of other posts.

On the other hand, grumpypilgrim’s post reminded me of some of the many questions Daniel Dennett raised in his recent book, Breaking the Spell (2006).  On page 210, for example, Dennett cited Richard Dawkins (from A Devil’s Chaplain):

We are all atheists about most of the gods that humanity has ever believed in.  Some of us just go one god further.

I have often criticized believers who are so absolutely certain of their own beliefs, all of which are based upon a personal “feeling” and apocryphal writings, that they take political steps to disparage the beliefs and doubts of all other people.  Jimmy Carter has termed such people “fundamentalists,”:

A fundamentalist believes, say, in religious circles, that I am close to God. Everything that I believe is absolutely right. Anyone who disagrees with me, in any case,

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The Bible: the greatest book rarely read carefully

Part I: What's really in the Bible? Although I have regularly picked up my King James Bible, I haven't had the stamina to plow all the way through.  Kudos to the authors of the "Skeptic's Annotated Bible."   We know they really made it to the end because they left proof…

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The dirty little secret about moral rules

Many people feel that to be moral is to follow a set of rules.  But there’s an implicit unwritten preamble to every set of rules or commandments: they don’t apply equally to everyone.

Consider “Do not injure or kill other people,” for example. Assume that two people have fallen off a ship and you’ve only got one lifesaver.  One of the people is a stranger and the other is your mother.  Should you consider throwing the lifesaver to the stranger instead of your mother?  Most people would say no.

A second example:  you might voluntarily put your life in danger to save members of your immediate family, but most of us wouldn’t offer our extra kidneys to people we’ve never met. We walk around simply assuming that having an extra kidney (when someone else desperately needs one) is not a moral act.

Here’s a third example:  You have $100.  You want to spend it on a fancy dinner for yourself and your significant other.  You are aware that if you sent that same $100 to your favorite African relief association you could save the lives of two starving people.  Are you allowed to spend the money on the fancy dinner knowing that doing so will condemn two people to certain deaths?  Most people would say yes. The same dollars that could be used to save human lives can also buy jewelry, souped-up car stereos and expensive tickets to sports events.  If you ever bring up this undeniable fact to a …

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Good Friday – Good Grief!

I was raised Roman Catholic. Many things about the church puzzled me, Good Friday perhaps being the most puzzling of Holy Days.   On the lighter side, the kids at Catholic school insisted that it always rained on Good Friday, usually in the afternoon while Jesus was dying on the cross.  Whenever it did rain this was seen as proof of something important.  When it didn’t rain on Good Friday, that lack of rain was merely an exception to the rule.

Throughout my life, I’ve found that Catholics are very skeptical about religious beliefs . . . well, as long as it isn’t their own beliefs that they are questioning.   Growing up Catholic, I always heard about those “bizarre” beliefs of other types of religions.  “How could anyone ever believe such silly things?” Catholics would often ask.  For reasons I still don’t understand, I found myself asking these same skeptical questions about my own church (and everyone else’s church).  I started asking these questions even as a young child.    Good Friday has always been the focus for many of my questions, for at least three reasons:

I.  False Suspense. 

The Good Friday church services were always dreary.  Tears were shed, incense was burned, and sad songs were sung.  Those attending the services went away from them thinking that all bordering on hopelessness, as though this might be the year that Jesus didn’t rise from the dead.  This was puzzling to me, given that Easter was already marked on everyone’s calendars.  The …

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The true importance of Diversity

. . .  To explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly go where no one has gone before.

Star Trek Mission Statement

When I hear the term “diversity” I become suspicious.  For many people, diversity refers to the mechanical process of gathering different-looking people and assuming that doing this creates a melting pot of ideas and character traits.  Used in this way, however, “diversity” is no less than a form of racism; the people who mechanically gather other people by their looks assume that people who look the same have the same character, intellect, and culture.  This is not my experience.  I have often found that groups of similar-looking people are often just as diverse (in character, intellect and culture) as groups of different-looking people.  Similarly, groups of different-looking people are often culturally homogenous.  You just shouldn’t judge a book by its cover.  For me, then, mixing people by looks is not a legitimate form of diversity.

Understood in a broader way, however, diversity is something to which we should still aspire with vigor.  To understand the importance of true diversity requires a short detour into the study of human cognition. 

Humans are both assisted by and shackled by the “availability” heuristic.   “Heuristics” are rules of thumb we constantly use, often unconsciously, to navigate our complex and often disorienting world.  The availability heuristic is the “strong disposition to make judgments or evaluations in light of the first thing that comes to mind (or …

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