Forward: The Difficulty of Being Black and Secular
The conflict between religion and science used to be one of my favourite topics to blog about, but I haven’t touched upon the issue in quite some time now. After a while, I guess I got tired of it and I had moved on to other topics. But even when I was at the apex of my rationalist zeal, I was always frustrated by the absence of other blacks in the whole discussion. Indeed, the pioneers of the so-called “new atheist” movement that spawned my interest in rationalism – men like Dawkins, Hitchens, Dennett and Harris – are all white men. While I supported the philosophical underpinnings of the movement, and I experienced catharsis when reading these men’s frank and unapologetic indictments of religion, I felt slightly conflicted. The homogeneity of the group and its inevitable Eurocentric slant left me with a cognitive fracture that couldn’t be remedied by this all-white cast.
However, starting last week, I began coming across a series of blogs and news articles highlighting black skepticism, both contemporary and historic. I read about the recent African Americans for Humanism Conference which took place last May in Washington, DC. I also read that Richard Dawkins (who I always found to be the most socially progressive of the “four horsemen”) had recently participated in a panel discussion during a forum on faith and science in the Black Community held at Howard University, the most prestigious of America’s historically black colleges. I was most thrilled to read a Slate article by Christopher Hitchens in which he exalted the achievements of A. Phillip Randolph and Bayard Rustin, two black atheists who played major roles in the civil rights movement of the 60’s.
Black people are a spiritual bunch. Whether wholeheartedly embracing one of the major Abrahamic faiths or practicing one of the many religions that we’ve created on our own, as a group, black people tend to be very religious. Furthermore, a new U.S. study indicates that the percentage of blacks who self-identify as “agnostic” or “atheist” is far below the national average. For a black person, to proclaim his or her skepticism is to, in a sense, disavow ones black heritage and the rich religious tradition that is so intimately tied to it. Especially for a people whose history is so deeply rooted in hardship, it’s fairly obvious that our ancestors endured periods when faith was all they had to keep them going, and without it, many of us wouldn’t be here. The power of faith and spirituality in the context of the black experience is something that can’t be dismissed or trivialized.
But with that being said, there are other truths that must also be told. So with my passion for skepticism newly reinvigorated, here goes …
Act I – The Amputee Problem
While religion is a powerful force in some arenas, it is incredibly weak in others. As I’ve written many times, religion is worse than useless as a tool for uncovering truth, because it is actually counterproductive. Its ability to stand up to intellectual scrutiny is on par with that of an overcooked noodle. However, I plan to show that in addition its grotesque feebleness as a tool for inquiry, even among the various strains of “faith”, religious faith is by far the weakest in terms of the courage required by its adherents.
This flies on the face of conventional wisdom. After all it was the great Christian philosopher and theologian, Soren Kierkegaard, who first espoused the virtue of the so-called “leap of faith”. This was the idea that it was precisely the implausibility (read “absurdity”) of the religions teachings that made their believers so admirable. After all, anybody can believe in the heliocentric solar system, empirical evidence for which abounds, but to believe in something as improbable as the virgin birth, takes true courage and conviction.
In reality the opposite is true. The religious camp is divided into two categories. There are the moderates who generally don’t believe in the “truth” of most falsifiable claims contained within their own scriptures. (some Catholics even waver in their belief of transubstantiation, while many others don’t even know what it is.) The other camp is the fundamentalist camp, which believes everything contained within the scriptures. They cling to this belief even in the face of overwhelming and compelling evidence to the contrary.
In both cases, the strategy is to place ones beliefs safely outside the realm of falsifiability. For the fundamentalists, they simply bury their heads in the sand and pretend that the evidence doesn’t exist. In the case of the moderates, they achieve this goal by modifying their beliefs to subsume whatever scientific truths become too obvious to deny.
Far from being courageous, this is the most intellectually cowardly posture one can assume, because it guarantees that they will never be forced to relinquish their beliefs. By contrast, rationalists state their positions clearly and allow these positions to be tested under the rules of logic. This is why, for example, the scientific community undergoes a paradigm shift every several decades, and those who plant the revolutionary seed are canonized. By contrast, religious communities undergo a paradigm shift in their doctrines every several centuries (usually coinciding with the emergence of a new major religion, whose foothold was obtained by imperial, militaristic means), and the pioneers of such paradigm shifts are often put to death.
To demonstrate this concept, I have a thought experiment that I use to challenge any religious person who believes they are no more dogmatic in their beliefs than the average atheist. (Religious people often mistake strongly held views for dogmatism. This is a grave error.) The difference between the average atheist and the average “believer” is that the atheist can easily describe any number of scenarios which would cause them to immediately change their tune and join the ranks of the believers. The theist, on the other hand, can’t describe a scenario which would cause them to lose their faith in god. Indeed, any scenario that might cause any reasonable person to doubt the existence of an omnipotent, benevolent god has already happened on numerous occasions in human history. This is the true definition of dogmatism: an utter refusal to be swayed by all evidence.
My list of scenarios that would cause me to become religious starts out with the amputee problem. (This seems to be a popular one among skeptics). If god is all powerful, and he has the divine ability to heal us, why doesn’t he cause amputees to re-grow their severed limbs? For some reason god always chooses to tackle the easy cases, like sending someone’s cancer into remission. But if god cured an amputee in front of my eyes, I’d be a believer on the spot.
Act II – God Science to the Rescue!
There’s a Christian parable that was once told to me by a true believer. According to the story, a young man was out at sea on a solo fishing expedition when his boat sprung a leak. Based on the size of the leak and the boat’s distance from the shore, the man knew he had no chance to make it back in time. In his desperation, he prayed to god and asked for a miracle. God replied something to the effect of “I’ll take care of it.” Miraculously, within the next hour, two separate vessels happened to sail by and, noticing the young man’s predicament, offered to carry him safely back to shore. However, the young man was so confident that god was about to deliver a divine miracle, that he declined both rescue offers. Eventually, the young man’s boat sank causing him to drown to death. When he reached the pearly gates, he took this opportunity to confront his lord and ask why god had left him hanging. “You said you would save me,” cried the young man. “Why didn’t you?”
God replied, “You fool! I sent two rescue boats to come save you and both times you refused their help.”
This parable is intended to illustrate how the lord works in mysterious ways. In reality, it’s more like an attempt for believers to cover their asses. Deep down they know that the miracles that they attribute to god are never the type of science-shattering events that get depicted in movies. Rather, these so-called “miracles” are almost always naturally (as opposed to supernaturally) occurring phenomena, which they choose to attribute to the almighty.
For the average person of faith, if they find themselves trapped in a raging fire in a 12th floor apartment, they don’t pray for a soft, sofa-sized hand to swoop down from the clouds, scoop them up and gently place them on the sidewalk outside. No, generally the prayer is that god will send a rescuer who, upon arrival, carries out the rescue using conventional (i.e. non-magical) means. This is because humans are natural empiricists. We base our beliefs in experience and evidence. Most of us have never seen an angel fly down from heaven and save the day, therefore when we attempt to communicate with what we believe to be god, we neither envision nor request that his interventions take this supernatural form.
In the wake of yesterday’s rescue of 33 Chilean miners who had been trapped in a mine for 70 days, the churches of the trapped men all tried to claim god was the force behind their heroic rescue. This of course begs the question, “If it was god, why didn’t he just teleport them out of the mine in the first week?” Personally, I credit the brilliance and ingenuity of the psychologists, medical doctors, and engineers for the fact that all 33 men made it back to the surface with their health intact. If ever I was to find myself in an equally precarious situation, I know which one (god or science) I’d be relying on to come to my rescue.
That's an interesting point. If we are indeed living in a simulation then you could consider the creator of the simulation to be a god. But based on my understanding of the multiverse, it appears to weaken the argument for a creator. Theists have often claimed that the creator is the one who fine tuned the values of the physical constants. According to the multiverse model, there are an infinite number of universes and together they contain all possible combinations of all values of those constants.
In other words, there was no fine tuning necessary. We just happen to live in the universe that we find ourselves in.
Right. Because if a universe didn't happen to be suitable to our type of biology we wouldn't be there to see it anyway. So naturally we find that the physical constants are perfect for us...
Agreed. I'm just suggesting that the super intelligent computer is running an infinite number of universes with all possible combinations of the physical constants, and voila...here we are in one of them.
Even if a human could regrow a severed arm, I'm sure Science could explain why and how that happened.
I'm not sure there is a scenario I can think of that would make me believe the existence of God. There are plenty of phenomena that exist in nature and the universe that have yet to be explained, but that doesn't mean they won't be, and I doubt the answer will come from scripture.
The amputee scenario is flawed. If God had the ability to effect the regrowth of limbs, it does not necessarily follow that God would choose to exercise that ability. I have the physical ability to study for 5 hours a night, but sometimes I chose to watch TV or go to the gym.
Moreover, the lack of ability to regrow limbs in humans cannot be used as a rational argument against some form of intelligent creator. First, this lack of ability is species-specific: other organisms such as the starfish and a variety of lizards are able to regrow severed parts. Moreover, humans regrow severed parts as well; this is the basis of live-donor liver transplantation. There is clearly an "amputation limit" (whether body part and/or amount of part removed) beyond which this is not possible, and one such example is the loss of a leg. Perhaps there are local metabolic and genetic factors that are lost along with that limb. Who knows. That doesn't mean that some intelligent creator didn't create the lizard system to function as it does, has and will; and the human to function as it does, has and will. Evolution is only an argument against creationism when creationism explicitly puts forward an "unchanging species" view, which SOME do, and most do not.
Finally, some of the above comments imply that the ability to explain a phenomenon using rational thought is an argument in favour of atheism and against the existence of some sort of god. This is not the case, unless one believes that all actions of a god are necessarily inherently and forever incomprehensible.
@WB, The amputee scenario wasn't intended to prove that there is no god. In fact, I just conceded in an above comment that there could be an intelligent creator. I'm skeptical that one exists but I acknowledge there is a possibility. The amputee scenario shows that there are situations that would cause me to change my position. Out of curiosity, what evidence do you need to see that might convince you that there is probably no god? People who've decided already that they will never change their mind no matter what evidence presents itself, are practicing a form of dogmatism.
In response to C's comment, this raises a paradox. If science is merely the search to explain naturally occurring phenomena, then one could argue that anything we observe will eventually be explained by science thus eliminating the supernatural altogether. To some extent this is a faith position, although it is a reasonable one, not a Kierkegaardian one. This position is partly based on the fact that until now, just about every verifiable phenomenon that was once thought to be magic or supernatural (i.e. earthquakes) has eventually been explained by science. Therefore it's reasonable to assume that this will continue to be the case. But a true rationalist must allow for the possibility that there may be exceptions, although we haven't seen them yet.
The amputee scenario would require a couple things in order to qualify as a likely exception. If it happened fast, like in a matter of seconds (i.e. much too fast to be explained by the body's natural ability to regenerate tissue) and if there were multiple observers, to eliminate the possibility that one person's mind was simply playing tricks on him. If these and other criteria were satisfied, I'd have to reconsider my position on the existence of a god who tampers with the universe.
The amputee scenario is only meant as an example of the type of miraculous event I would need to start re-considering my beliefs. Religion makes extraordinary claims and as such requires extraordinary evidence. I'm not saying it's all the proof I need, but it would go a long way towards validating some of these "magic creator" ideas people put forth.
As for evolution vs creationism (or lets say intelligent design, to be charitable), evolution is always a more convincing argument because it is a testable hypothesis. All it would take to bring down centuries of evolutionary theory is an intermediary fossil in the wrong place/time. Fossils are notoriously difficult to make but we find lots everyday, and none are out of evolutionary order.
The most flexible intelligent design argument states that God created the rules and evolution of higher order organisms followed from that. But it's unnecessary to invoke God in the first place - the evidence suggests complexity is a natural consequence of the physical laws. So why bring God into the discussion unless your belief in a creator is not up for debate and therefore your model must incorporate it. It's ego-driven and is not good science.
But I do agree with WB that the ability to explain things with rational thought does not mean atheism is right. To be intellectually honest, we should be agnostic since we don't have conclusive evidence that God does not exist. But given that there's not even a hint of evidence he does exist, I'm not going to live my life by an arbitrary human-created set of rules pretending he does
At the end of the day, there will never be conclusive proof one way of the other. You can't prove that god doesn't exist because it's impossible to conclusive disprove an existential qualifier. Also, you can't conclusively prove that god exists for the reason that C brought up. But at the end of the day, the direction in which you lean is either based on evidence or it's not. For example, after the Holocaust, many Jews doubted the existence of god. This is a reasonable reaction. Others became more faithful. This is dogma.
I sincerely hope this isn't the final round as the title suggests. These arguments can be very informative.
"strategy is to place ones beliefs safely outside the realm of falsifiability"
Isn't it more like people don't have time or energy to do research, and a religious answer is good enough for their practical lives? As opposed to sticking their head in the sand or modifying beliefs to subsume scientific truths.
I haven't yet had time to do personal research to confirm the effectiveness of science on explaining the nature of the universe. For example, I don't know the details nor understand the physics behind creation of stars and planets. If I give physicists the "benefit of the doubt", without conducting my own research and experiments, am I making the same leap of faith that religious people make? Especially when physicists start citing unfathomable numbers like 1x10^9999, 1x10^-9999, or X number of dimensions (to most people, read each as "implausible", because they can't identify with such things in their daily lives).
I suppose this is how a lot of people feel. Science and God are equally incomprehensible and equally fantastic. A person ends up believing anything as long as it's sufficient to get him through the day. When asked, "How was the universe created?"
Person A responds, "I believe in Science. Big Bang created the universe(s). Although I don't understand the equations behind it."
Person B responds, "I believe in God. God created the universe. He works in mysterious ways."
Both persons are satisified by their answers, so they leave the matter to rest, and are off to do things more relevant to their lives. So maybe most religious people aren't actively resisting the scientific truth.
John...the difference is that Person A, if they want to, can, through rational methods and scientific rigor, understand the latest big bang theory. You can't provide an explanation of God by rational means. Man is God and reason is his ultimate weapon (shit...those were my Ayn Rand beliefs coming through again).
Rui, I agree, but you're just speaking about a potential too many people don't care about or will ever spend the time to realize. And I wouldn't interpret a person's unwillingness to devote time to discovering and proving universal truths as a position of intellectual cowardice...it just means they have other priorities in life, and abstract / generalized answers on how the universe is good enough for them.
If something works for people, and it's good enough for them, why waste energy changing it when they can apply that energy to soemthing else more important?
Great addition Kai. I love a good idiot religious joke as much as the next atheist, probably more, but what religion gives the human mind is certainty, something that a skeptical mind often rejects. To ask someone with drug addicted children working two jobs to support their grandchildren to face reality may be too much for them. Holding onto an absolute, even if that absolute doesn't make sense, can be a personal coping mechanism, a reason to get up and go to work day after day. Black people, like many other religious people, use religion as a pedestal: if I'm nothing else, I'm a child of God. This can't be taken from them and most older Black people understand most anything else can. I've given up on growing the atheist/agnostic population. I'd be happy if the religious will accept the fact their personal view of the world should remain personal, not within law or politics or anywhere else that requires rational thought. But the sad fact is, rationality can't solve all our problems. We are sentient beings and are always susceptible to our fear, greed, lust, or anger. And I don't know what to do about it, other than read pieces like Kai's and have discussions like this.
Thanks for the comment EJ. Very well said.
Amen! Though if physicists are correct in their assumption that the universe or mulit-verse is simply a simulation by a super intelligent computer, then wouldn't there indeed be a "creator" (albeit completely impartial)