The Falsification Challenge

The philosopher Antony Flew adopted the scientific falsification principle in thinking about religious belief.  That principle asserts that for any hypothesis to have credence, it must be disprovable (or falsifiable), before it can become accepted as a scientific hypothesis or theory.  According to Flew, the same line of reasoning should apply to religious beliefs.  For any given statement of faith, one should not be expected to accept its truth unless that statement has a level of credence that is afforded by the ability to verify that it is consistent with observed reality.  Flew used a parable to illustrate his point:

On Mythicism

Nothing raises the hackles of Christians more than the suggestion the Jesus might not have actually existed.  It is likely to provoke an emotional response containing elements of dismissiveness, categorical rejection, derisiveness, or mocking and ridicule.  (What's that, you say?  Christians use mockery and ridicule?  Perish the thought.)  That's what we see in an article called Does Richard Carrier Exist? by apologist Glenn Peoples, for example.  OK, I know that it is intended to be humorous (and I agree his use of Bayesian inference is funny), but still it openly mocks the scholarly work of Richard Carrier, and includes ad hominem attacks that don't seem humorous at all, rather than presenting any reasoned argument against what Carrier says.  And this is coming from a guy who has this to say about his own approach to argumentation:

Although I am a Christian (something that will become obvious to regular readers and listeners), when it comes to the sorts of debates that Christians and non-Christians get into, while I am a participant and a commentator, I do not want to be a cheerleader. Fairness is one of the most important measures of integrity, and I certainly do not wish to give religion a “free pass.” I criticise the arguments of Christians as directly as I do the arguments of non-believers when I think that they go wrong, as I think that by doing so I am actually doing the Christian community a service. Christians – like atheists – are not helped by having their intellectual standards lowered by poor argumentation that is accepted because of a partisan spirit. The pursuit of excellence involves the willingness to reject bad arguments even when they are given in defence of “your side.” Peoples

The One-Dimensional Religionist

Joe Hinman has written a baffling piece of apologetic nonsense called One Dimensional-Church.  I say "baffling" because after reading it, I really don't know what he means by the phrase that is the title of that article.  One might expect to hear some explanation of it, but apart from the title itself, the word 'church' never even appears in the article.  The reader is left guessing what he means by it.  The article begins with a single sentence that criticizes the political right for co-opting the evangelical movement as a tool for the Republican Party.  So is this the "One Dimensional-Church" he's talking about?  It doesn't seem likely, because he is otherwise not critical of religion or the church, nor does he refer to them as one-dimensional, and this is never mentioned again.  But the article does criticize technological society (which produces the "one-dimensional man") and scientific thinking, so one might speculate that he is likening science to a kind of religion, although he never actually says that in the article.  Whatever Joe has in mind as the "one dimensional-church", it is not effectively communicated.  One can only guess.

Not Skeptical of Alexander the Great

Some time ago, I pointed out the Christian Blind Spot, which is an inability of many Christians to see glaring flaws in their own logical arguments for God, despite the fact that they would have no trouble at all identifying the very same flaws in another argument that applies to something other than God.  This is not an issue of Christians lacking intelligence or acumen in logical argumentation.  It's simply a lack of objectivity when it comes to matters that concern their religious beliefs.  They tend to have a huge blind spot when it comes to seeing the problems with their own arguments.  And this blind spot exists for more than just logical argumentation.  It is equally debilitating in their examination of evidence (or lack thereof) for their religious beliefs.  I have yet to encounter any Christian who is willing to admit that evidence to support his beliefs about the life of Jesus is anything less than rock solid.  Yet they can be oh so skeptical of other things in the historical record that enjoy far more substantial evidential support.

Argumentum ad Argument

It never ceases to amaze me how Christians will jump through intellectual hoops to justify their religious beliefs.  There is no end to the clever tricks and ploys they use in an effort to get around the simple truth that their belief isn't rational.  Have you ever heard the claim "I don't have enough faith to be an atheist"?  It's an obvious reversal of the truth - placing themselves in the position of the objective evaluator of facts, while the skeptical atheist supposedly abandons evidence in favor of some irrationally-motivated ideological position.  Clever.  But to a truly impartial judge, the tactic of the Christian in this ploy is obvious.  This is not an honest argument, nor is it any kind of argument at all.  It's an intellectual sham.  It's quite typical of the games we observe Christians playing to make themselves appear more intellectually competent than the facts would justify.

The Ghost In The Machine

David Chalmers has attained a degree of celebrity and earned the adoration of theists, with his philosophical argument against physicalism.  The argument is based on the conceivability of philosophical zombies (or p-zombies).  Before I get into the argument itself, I should explain what a p-zombie is.  This is not the fictional creature of movies that has returned from the dead, but rather a philosophical concept of something that is physically and behaviorally identical in every respect to a person, but that nevertheless lacks any conscious experience.  A p-zombie can't be distinguished from an ordinary person, because it behaves the same, reacts the same, and gives the same answers to any questions.  It would recoil from pain and say "ouch", for example, but not actually experience the feeling pain.  Another way of saying this is that the p-zombie has no subjective or first-person experience.

Small Mind, Closed Mind

Over at Shadow To Light, the militant theist Mikey is so obsessed with trying to find fault with everything said by any atheist, that he is completely closed to the possibility that they might be saying something reasonable.  And what is it that he is raving about now?  An atheist has concluded that there are no gods.  How outrageous.  But it's not merely that this atheist doesn't believe in Mikey's fantasy.  What has Mikey drooling and frothing is the notion that the atheist is being inconsistent with his own "Official Position".  If this sounds strange to you, I would have to agree.  But remember, this is Mikey, and his capacity for reasoning is clearly limited by his affliction.  I'll try to make this all a little more clear.

Bonnette on Brute Facts vs Sufficient Reason

Thomist philosopher Dennis Bonnette has written a number of articles that defend the tenets of Thomism in the face of modern science.  I previously addressed one of them here.  Bonnette places metaphysics above science, and explains away discrepancies between them by downplaying or ignoring the realities of physics.  In another article that focuses on the subject of brute facts and the Principle of Sufficient Reason, Bonnette presents a distorted view of science to make it seem compatible with his religious dogma.  This is precisely the kind propaganda that Thomists rely upon to justify the false belief that their Medieval philosophy is fully consistent with modern science.  But a more realistic view of science and reality would refute Bonnette's story.

Extraordinary Claims - Who Needs Evidence?

Most reasonable people understand what Carl Sagan meant by his expression: “Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.”  If someone tells me that an everyday event occurred, I have little or no reason to doubt the truth of that claim.  But if they tell me something occurred that rarely or never happens, it would be reasonable to doubt that claim unless they provide sufficient reason for me to believe it.  What is sufficient reason?  Obviously, it depends to some degree on the person who is being convinced.  Is that person credulous or skeptical?  Is there motivation to believe?  Sagan's expression assumes a person who isn't credulous or motivated by other factors to believe the claim.  Some people will believe anything.  Some are motivated to believe for reasons other than sufficient evidence.  In that case, they may try to deny the value of evidence in an effort to discredit skeptics.  Such is the case with Dean Meadows, Christian apologist at Apologia Institute.  Meadows presents three arguments against Sagan's epistemological rule of thumb.

What Is a Hyper-Skeptic?

The Christian blog run by apologist Bill Pratt is called Tough Questions Answered.  This blog appears to consist mainly of discussion and commentary about biblical matters - how to understand or interpret various biblical stories and passages, reconciliation of apparent discrepancies, etc.  While it's not unusual for sites like this to contain all manner of hare-brained religious apologia, I don't usually get too excited about such things.  But it also includes some articles that relate to science and skepticism.  And that tends to get my attention.  I like to see if the apologist takes an even-handed view of things that are based on facts and evidence.  One of his articles that might help me to answer that question is called You Might Be a Hyper-Skeptic of Christianity If ...  Pratt introduces it by noting that not all skeptics are alike.  A skeptic can be fair-minded, or he can be what Pratt calls a hyper-skeptic, "someone who will not ever consider any evidences, arguments, or reasoning given for Christianity". 

What Matters Is What's True

Richard Dawkins, discussing what motivates religious belief, famously said:

Who cares what you feel like?  Who cares what feels good?  Who cares what makes you feel comforted?  Who cares what helps you sleep at night?  What matters is what's true. - Richard Dawkins

Religionists don't care what motivates their belief, or perhaps it's the case that they willfully ignore it.  But they take great umbrage at the idea that a non-believer could lay any claim to caring about what is true, because their faith tells them that Truth™ belongs exclusively to themselves.  This is a dogmatic assertion.  Don't bother trying to bring facts to the table.  Facts have nothing to do with it.  Reality has nothing to do with it.  To a militant religionist like Mikey at Shadow To Light, an atheist's relationship with the truth is "slippery".  But his own relationship with the truth is taken for granted, because God.  Mikey speculates that the only reason an atheist would place any value on truth is because he comes from a culture with a religious history that values truth.  So the first lie in his article appears in the second sentence.

Chesterton On Miracles

Victor Reppert has posted a quotation from British apologist and philosopher GK Chesterton.  It is about the supposed incoherency of those who would argue against miracles.  Here is the quotation:

The historic case against miracles is also rather simple. It consists of calling miracles impossible, then saying that no one but a fool believes impossibilities: then declaring that there is no wise evidence on behalf of the miraculous. The whole trick is done by means of leaning alternately on the philosophical and historical objection. If we say miracles are theoretically possible, they say, “Yes, but there is no evidence for them.” When we take all the records of the human race and say, “Here is your evidence,” they say, “But these people were superstitious, they believed in impossible things." -G.K. Chesterton (quoted by Reppert)

This seems to be a typical example of of the style of argumentation that earned Chesterton the nickname "Prince of Paradox".  He famously asserted that paradox is “truth standing on its head to gain attention”.  And these snippets of paradox are much loved by his admirers, because of their snappy witticisms that point out the supposed illogic of those who don't buy Chesterton's "truth".

Being Brutally Honest

Let's face it.  The only truly honest Christians are those who lack a sophisticated philosophical understanding of their faith.  I noted in my previous post that faith, as practiced by ordinary believers, requires a resistance to any evidence that would subvert belief, and those ordinary believers who aren't philosophically-minded generally agree with that.  But it is the apologists who insist that faith is based on evidence.  The apologists are lying.  It is intellectually dishonest to say that their faith is based on evidence, and at the same time, steadfastly refuse to critically examine evidence that refutes belief.  But they have painted themselves into a philosophical corner, so to speak.  They can't honestly admit that they reject evidence and still claim the intellectual high ground.  So they take the path of intellectual dishonesty, in the hopes that most people aren't astute enough to see the truth about their philosophical stance.  And they even manage to fool themselves into believing their own lies, because, after all, faith really does trump reason.

Apologetic Vs. Actual Christian Faith

In his latest post at Debunking Christianity, John Loftus has pointed out the deluded nature of Christian apologists' definitions of religious faith, such as this one given by David Marshall:

holding firmly to and acting on what you have good reason to believe is true, in the face of difficulties - David Marshall and Tim McGrew, in True Reason

Or as apologist J. Warner Wallace says:

Conviction is the result of certainty, and certainty is the result of evidential confidence. We are called to be convinced by mastering the evidence that supports what we believe. The Christians life is not one of "wishful thinking" or "hope in the unreasonable". It is a life of certainty, grounded in the evidence. - Wallace

Loftus rightly notes that these definitions are disingenuous, because they try to make their faith sound reasonable, when in fact the objective evidence that would justify their belief is severely lacking.  It is only due to religious delusion that they could possibly think the evidence merits their beliefs.  But apologists must defend belief in the face of all critiques, and don't necessarily use honest tactics in pursuit of that goal.  You often hear them claiming that atheists just don't understand what faith means from the Christian perspective.  But if that's true, they might as well admit that most Christians don't understand faith, either.  It seems to me that apologists have their own special definitions, involving evidence, reason, and justified belief, that aren't shared by ordinary Christians.

The A Priori Gambit

     "Nothing is in the intellect that was not first in the senses" - Thomas Aquinas

This statement from Thomas Aquinas, known as the peripatetic axiom, expresses the basis of empiricism, and was adopted from Aristotle's teachings.  It became part of his Thomistic philosophy.  But Aquinas had a religious agenda.  He needed to justify his belief in something (namely God) that doesn't present itself to the senses.  So as he did with other parts of Aristotle's teachings, he modified it to fit his religious purpose.  Aquinas said that the intellect extends beyond what is evident to the senses, to reach a higher realm of understanding that is yet justified on the basis of perception.  His five ways are said to be a posteriori arguments for the existence of God because they are based on observation (as well as a system of metaphysics that assumes God from the outset).  So at least Aquinas pays lip service to the idea that knowledge of God is something that is derived from from the evidence of the senses.

Lee Strobel: Skeptic Believer

I read an old interview of Lee Strobel, in which he lays out his evidence-based case for belief in the Christian narrative.  Strobel says that he was an investigative journalist with a background in law, who was also an atheist and a skeptic.  And it was his regular practice to check out everything he was told - to seek out the evidence.  And that's what made him such a jerk, he says. 

we used to pride ourselves on being skeptical and actually had a sign in our newsroom that said, “If your mother says she loves you, check it out!” In other words, where are the facts? Where is the proof? Where is the evidence? - Strobel

It's a little unclear what message we should take from a statement like that.  Is he saying that being skeptical is what made him a jerk in the past, but he no longer has that problem?  Or is he saying that his skepticism is what gave solid justification for the belief that he adopted?  If his Christian faith is based on solid evidence, and skepticism is what brought him to that evidence, as well as his success as an investigative journalist, then why does he equate skepticism with being a jerk?  It's puzzling.  At any rate, Strobel uses his credentials as a skeptic to bolster his case that his conversion to Christianity is based on solid evidence. 

Albrecht Moritz: Theistic Scientist

Victor Reppert cited an article by Albrecht Moritz, called "Naturalism is true": A self-contradictory statement that is a variant of Alvin Plantinga' Evolutionary Argument Against Naturalism.  It makes the claim that rational thought can't be produced from natural processes (and specifically evolution) alone.  I would probably dismiss this article as yet another scientifically ignorant theistic argument, not worthy of the time it would take me to make a refutation.  But Albrecht Moritz is a scientist, and he believes in evolution.  As he says:

Let me be clear from the onset towards those who believe this turns into yet another anti-evolution argument: I fully subscribe to the science of evolution and reject the idea of biological so-called Intelligent Design. I even have written a review article on the origin of life by natural causes - Moritz

Moritz works in micro-biology, and his paper in TalkOrigins provides support for a scientific view of abiogenesis.  This doesn't seem like your standard theistic rejection of science in favor of superstitious beliefs.  I was intrigued.  So I decided to look at this article more closely.

The Proof Is In the Pudding

I have been arguing with Joe Hinman (again) over his "warrant for belief".  This is an issue that crops up over and over again in any discussion with Joe, whenever the topic turns to evidence, or reasons for belief.  Joe invariably cites his supposed "200 empirical studies" that he claims provide a scientific basis for his thesis that belief in God is empirically warranted.  And this is the thrust of his book, The Trace of God.  Ever the salesman for his book, Joe rarely misses an opportunity to drum up a few sales by bringing those 200 studies into the discussion, even when that was not the topic.  In the latest round of discussion, he makes this juvenile claim: "I have 200 studies and you have none." My response to that is that those 200 studies don't prove what Joe thinks they do.  But that brings up a whole new issue:  Is Joe actually trying to prove something with his empirical studies?  If so, what is it?

Flat Earth - Belief That Numbs the Mind

Everyone has heard of the Flat Earth Society.  These are people who supposedly think the earth is actually flat, much like prevailing view in ancient times, when the earth was thought to be a flat object the the center or bottom of the world, covered by a dome-shaped firmament to which the stars were affixed.  This is the way it's described in the bible.  But that belief died out long ago, didn't it?  Well, mostly, particularly among the educated classes.  But a modern pseudo-scientific version of the flat-earth theory of has been enjoying something of a comeback, especially in the past few years.

Science Education And Reality

Victor Reppert has produced yet another stunning blog piece, called The authoritarianism of science education, that caught my attention because of its sheer ignorance.  It attempts to denigrate educational methods in science as being "authoritarian", and not "following the argument where it leads".  Here is the article in its entirety:

Science education is NOT an example of following the argument where it leads. If you do a chem lab and your results differ from those prescribed in the textbook, you are not to ask whether you  have made a new scientific discovery. No, you are asked to figure out where you made a mistake. - Reppert

I think it is worth commenting on this, not just to point out its ignorance, but because it illustrates the huge rift between scientific thinking and religious thinking, in general.  I'll get to that, but first, I need to explain why Victor is 100% wrong.