Belief in Belief

Daniel Dennett wrote a nice summary in a commentary about Jerry Coyne's book review/article "Seeing and Believing".

Dennett's reply can be found here.

Because Dennett's summary points are so well written, I just have to include them in my blog:

DANIEL C. DENNETT

Belief in Belief

Jerry Coyne nicely dissects the urge of many people to persuade themselves that their religion can coexist peacefully with science in general and evolutionary biology in particular. And he shows just how hopeless this quest is. The question remains: why is this urge so strong, even in some people who have devoted their careers to science? I can discern more than half a dozen plausible reasons for belief in belief in God, and in some people these reasons are no doubt additive, not exclusive. I list them more or less in order, ranging from abject through feckless to noble-if-misguided:

(1) The fallacy of sunk costs: "I've already invested fifty years of my life in this position, and it would be excruciatingly embarrassing to acknowledge my error. In fairness to myself, I was entrapped in this view when I was too young to know better, and I've never been able to find a face-saving exit strategy."

(2) Err on the side of prudence: "I can conjure up enough uncertainty about these issues to excuse myself from drawing the invited conclusions, which might be mistaken, after all, and could, I suppose, do some harm to somebody. Where it doesn't itch, don't scratch!"

(3) Religion for art's sake: "The only cost-effective way to preserve the great music, literature, and art of the world's religions is to encourage all people to support these magnificent living museums with their weekly offerings."

(4) What would my mother think? "People whom I hold dear, and who depend on me emotionally, would be heartbroken to learn of my defection. I'm going to carry this white lie to the grave, or at least until my parents are safely in their graves and my children and loved ones give me clear signs of being able to take such a confession with equanimity."

(5) Credal calisthenics: "It keeps me modest, and fosters a desirable habit of moral reflection that helps me do the right thing 'without even thinking'. It's a method of self-purification that keeps me morally fit."

(6) We must fend off moral chaos: "I myself don't need God to tell me how to live, but some people really do. Religious belief puts the fear of God into some who would otherwise behave reprehensibly."

(7) Don't make waves: "I have more than enough substantive controversies that I would rather spend my energies on. Why discard alliances, make enemies, lose the affection of powerful friends and associates by raining on their parade?"

(8) Dumbo's magic feather: "Religious belief is a moral prosthesis: it strengthens the resolve and courage of many who want to be good but don't have the true grit they need. If I recant, I contribute to the dissolution of an aspect of the world that they truly depend on. I have no right to take away their crutch."

The combination of any two or three of these is enough, apparently, to induce some very smart people to defend some very lame arguments. They would never tolerate such fuzzy and illogical thinking in their science–or, in the case of philosophers, in their analytic work in ethics or epistemology or metaphysics. They manage not to notice how they have transformed the object of their worship from the original Celestial Bio-engineer into a Divine Nudger of Randomness into an Omniscient Lawgiver into the (impersonal, but still somehow benign) Ground of All Being. Not only don't they notice this comical retreat; they applaud the deep sophistication of the theologians who have conducted it. (I haven't any idea what the Ground of All Being is, so I guess I don't have to be an atheist about that. Maybe the process of evolution by natural selection just is God! Now there's a way of reconciling evolution with religion! )

Each reason for belief in belief in Gd is defensible up to a point, but we need to weigh the indirect side effects of going along with tradition. First, there's the systematic hypocrisy that poisons discourse, and even more important, our vulnerability to those who abuse the "reverence" with which we are supposed to respond to their indulgences. We can continue to respect the good intentions of those who persist in professing belief in God, but we'll be doing them a favor if we stop pretending that we respect the arguments they use to sustain these fantasies.

Freedom to Think, Vital to Question

There were 2 excellent comments in Thursday's Straits Times that resonated with me. They were both on an article by Ngiam Tong Dow about fostering creative ideas in the Singapore culture.

Freedom to think

http://www.straitstimes.com/ST%2BForum/Story/STIStory_337151.html

'The model in the Bible is one of fear and submission. Look to Greek philosophers instead.'

In his otherwise excellent article on Tuesday, 'Fostering the freedom to think', Professor Ngiam Tong Dow offers the Bible as a model of free thinking, as opposed to the Chinese imperial examinations. I beg to disagree. The model of behaviour in the Bible is one of fear and uncritical submission to 'the will of God'. A prime example is the story of Abraham who followed 'the will of God' and tried to sacrifice his own son. This is not an example of 'fostering the freedom to think'. If Prof Ngiam is looking for a model of 'freedom to think', he could look to that provided by Greek philosophers instead. In the dialogues of Plato, participants search for answers through the critical examination of one another's claims. To say they 'plead and argue' with one another is not the best expression either, due to its legal connotations, which have nothing to do with freedom to think as practised by philosophers.

Dr Panagiotis Karras

The second comment is:

Vital to question

http://www.straitstimes.com/ST%2BForum/Story/STIStory_337136.html

I WAS delighted to read Professor Ngiam Tong Dow's article on Tuesday, 'Fostering the freedom to think'.

The Chinese equivalent of learning or scholarship means 'learn and question'. A school is usually seen as a place where one's questions are answered, when it should be a place where one learns to ask more questions. If a student leaves a school with fewer questions than when he enrolled, he should demand a refund. A teacher who cannot answer all his students' questions is a poor teacher, and one who can, has poor students.

The Chinese model of a great teacher is a famous teacher who produces top students. A lifelong teacher will have failed if he does not produce a single student more prominent than himself.

Shouldn't a good leader also foster creative thinking and encourage questioning? Isn't it a sign that a great leader should step down when he starts to believe that wisdom stops with him? I believe this: Do not crown yourself. Let others do it. Do not allow others to remove your crown. Do it yourself.

Ee Teck Ee

Both comments resonated with me. Dr Karras struck a truth vein about the inhibiting restrains of Christian thinking. The problem with Christian philosophy is that you first have to accept the dogma that every one is born a sinner, and that Jesus died for our sins. This is alien thinking for me. If every one born a sinner, it speaks more about the kind of deity that the Christians worships than about people in general. This is why I find Christianity to be intellectually deficient and unsatisfying, although the bible does make interesting fiction reading.

I like the phrases Ee Teck Ee wrote:

A teacher who cannot answer all his students' questions is a poor teacher, and one who can, has poor students.

The Chinese model of a great teacher is a famous teacher who produces top students. A lifelong teacher will have failed if he does not produce a single student more prominent than himself.

Do not crown yourself. Let others do it. Do not allow others to remove your crown. Do it yourself.

So many choice quotations in such a short commentary!

Atheist Universe

I've decided to write summaries about books that I have finished reading. Usually, I only add books that I have read into my Shelfari page (www.shelfari.com/njwong88). However, it seems such a waste not to comment on some of the better books that I have read. And Atheist Universe by David Mills is the book that spurred me to starting this.

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So what can I say? This book is fantastic. It is concise, direct, and written in simple language that most folks will understand. There are many books on atheism, but many of them are dry, or wordy, or may require a high level of vocabulary to understand (it is often very interruptive to call up a dictionary to look up words you don't understand while reading). David Mills uses just enough difficult words to present his case, and whenever he uses a difficult word, he will always give the definition immediately after the word, making trips to the dictionary unnecessary. I love this form of writing. It makes this this book highly readable, even for children.

Since I have already read many of the other atheist literature (primarily The God Delusion, God Is Not Great, The End of Faith, Letter to a Christian Nation), I already know many of the anti-theist arguments that have already been presented. However, I like one particular chapter in David Mills book: "Chapter 8: The Myth of Hell", which presents a new perspective on an old argument, but one that I have not read before.

In this chapter, Mills argues that normally, when a criminal is convicted and sent to prison, this banishment to prison is done mainly for 2 reasons: 

1. to separate the criminal from the public - so as to protect the public from being harmed by the criminal. However, depending on the severity of the crime, this separation is only temporarily for minor crimes. Only with major crimes is such separation permanent.

2. to rehabilitate the criminal - especially for criminals who commit minor crimes - and can be rehabilitated before being returned to the general populace.

However, in the Christian hell, no rehabilitation is possible as a person is banished to hell for eternity, and repeatedly tortured for ever and ever. And the "souls" sent to hell will be eternally separated from the ones sent to heaven regardless of the severity of the crime. And a minor crime such as "not accepting Jesus as the saviour", is a hell inducement route, guaranteeing the non-believer eternal damnation.

This conclusion means that God would rather torture humanity than to forgive humanity unconditionally. This conclusion carries the charge that God created Hell for no reason other than to inflict suffering. In this case, as Thomas Paine noted, the Bible could more accurately be called The Word of a Demon than The Word of God. 

In the Old Testament, Yahweh's punishment for people who displease him (such as non-Jews who worship other gods) is merely being massacred by the blessed Jews (the chosen ones). In the Old Testament, once you die, you die. In fact, only in the New Testament with Jesus arrival did he introduced the concept of eternal punishment in hell, and thus making hell become a place for eternal torment. 

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This book may not be as comprehensive as Richard Dawkins' The God Delusion, but it is still covered a lot of ground. David Mills does not claim to put forward any new ideas in his book. All the information in the book, he claims, are already in the public domain and that the book was meant as consolidation, to put these pieces together to "articulate why...all science and all logic indicate that we live in an Atheist Universe."

David Mills has a web site at http://www.davidmills.net/ where an extract from his book can be downloaded.

I highly recommend Atheist Universe.

Cyril Hanouna

The naked couple who strolled down Holland Village last week truly stirred a storm of discussion in the media here. If you were not aware of it, you can read the Straits Times report from:

http://www.asiaone.com/News/AsiaOne%2BNews/Singapore/Story/A1Story20090128-117672.html

There have also been several follow up articles in the newspapers since then about this couple.

Of course, Singapore is an ultra-conservative society (at least on the surface :-) ), so any news involving nudity is guaranteed to become hot media fodder. It is such a shame actually that many people are so prudish about seeing naked bodies. Personally, I think most people are interested - nay - exhilarated! - when they see bare skin. How else can you explain the extremely successful billion-dollar porn entertainment industry? However, because of our stiff upbringing, when we are accosted with such daring displays in public, we will immediately decry about sin, evil, morality etc when in actual fact, the naked couple had done nothing on their part other than to be in their au naturel!

In Europe (and in many other liberal countries), where the populace do not have such severe hang-ups about nudity, the sight of naked bodies in public will not evince such a rigorous reaction from the people. When I spent a few weeks in Germany last year (on a work project), I was impressed by PUBLIC TV showing full frontal nudity without any qualms or perturbations. Although I couldn't understand a word of the German narration or dialogue, I watched a science/health education program about the human body showing everything (no loincloths discreetly covering the naughty bits). There was a game show where participants played in the buff. Movies shown on the TV do not have sex segments censored. Etc. It was too bad I couldn't understand a single word of what I was seeing on the TV :-D . The liberalism was like a breath of fresh air.

My friend forwarded me a YouTube video of a TV program from France featuring a comedian called Cyril Hanouna. After you see this TV segment, you will know why I find amusing the ruckus from conservative Singaporeans who made such a big hoo-hah about the Holland Village couple.

Warning: Adult Content. Action begins at the 3:00 minute mark :-)

Cyril Hanouna: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZtjMrodgi6s