Well, all this is interesting to me, anyway, and that's what matters here. The Internet is a terrible thing for someone like me, who finds almost everything interesting.
Sunday, April 22, 2012
The Atheist Experience: skepticism
This is an excerpt from the Atheist Experience TV show, episode #692, with hosts Matt Dillahunty and Don Baker.
This is my perspective, too. First and foremost, I'm a skeptic. I think that the truth matters, and that it's a good idea to have evidence backing up your beliefs (and no, that thought is not original with me, either).
I come by my atheism because of my skepticism, because no religion or religious belief seems to have real evidence backing it up. Well, religions are faith-based, not evidence-based, for good reason. It's not coincidence that Doubting Thomas wasn't presented as a role-model in the Bible. (If you haven't read your Bible, the lesson was "believe as you're told.")
Now, it's not that every religious person is going to burn witches alive or fly planes into buildings, but when you believe by faith, anything is possible. And although a lack of skepticism is damaging in many areas of our society, religion seems to pose the biggest danger to civilized society these days.
Moderate and liberal believers are a lot easier to get along with than the fanatics, but they still end up supporting faith-based thinking. After all, when you believe by faith, how can you really say that anyone else is wrong when he uses the same method to determine the truth that you do - faith?
Evidence-based thinkers tend to come to a consensus on what's true and what isn't. Science doesn't depend on where you were born or what your parents thought. And that consensus is what allows science to progress, continually building on previous discoveries.
Skepticism is all about being evidence-based. (No, it's not the same as disbelief or denial.) We skeptics apportion our belief to the evidence. Well, we care about the truth. Even if we'd prefer a fantasy, we want to deal honestly - maybe even courageously - with reality.
We think that's a good thing - and we have evidence to back that up. :)
2 comments:
Jeff
said...
"Moderate and liberal believers are a lot easier to get along with than the fanatics..."
With that in mind, here's an article for your consideration:
It would appear that British Christians lean much further to the left than their American Christian counterparts (granted, they're still mired in faith-based thinking).
Looks like there was something to Robin Williams' joke about America being founded by the Puritans; a group of religious fanatics so anal-retentive that England KICKED THEM OUT!! :)
No, they weren't persecuted, England just said, "Get the f--k out. Take your pimp shoes and go." :D
But you know how American Christians are; they love playing the "victim" (pay no attention to all the money and political power they have).
Thanks for the link, Jeff. But I don't know what to think about it.
For one thing, I'm not sure who their 'non-religious' are (in that Demos report). Are these atheists, or just people who don't bother with church much? From what I hear, there's a lot of spiritualism and other woo in England, despite the widespread decline of Christian churches.
But it's also hard to compare Britain and America because we've got the separation of church and state. That makes Sharia Law a non-issue here - despite right-wing fantasies - but an actual concern there (so British atheists might be more sympathetic to Pat Condell, for example).
I don't know. I've heard that American evangelicals are turning to liberal political and economic views, but I've seen no sign of it myself. If it's true, are they acting on that?
I mean, officially, the Catholic Church is against capital punishment, but that doesn't keep them from supporting right-wingers every chance they get. There are beliefs, and then there are beliefs that you actually care about.
I'll gladly work with liberal believers on issues of mutual concern, but I guess I hope that American evangelicals stay fanatically right-wing and help drive young people away from religion entirely. :)
I'm a skeptic. I think it makes sense to have reasons for what I believe, so I apportion my belief to the evidence. You're welcome to disagree. Please, tell me I'm wrong. I probably don't agree with anyone about everything. Why should disagreement be a problem? Check the Pages section below for series posts and links to book reviews and game posts, as well as contact info. Unfortunately, I rarely blog at all, anymore. So don't expect new posts. - Bill
We've all heard that a million monkeys banging on a million typewriters will eventually reproduce the entire works of Shakespeare. Now, thanks to the Internet, we know this is not true. - Robert Wilensky
It doesn't matter how beautiful your theory is, it doesn't matter how smart you are. If it doesn't agree with experiment, it's wrong - Richard Feynman
The general root of superstition is that men observe when things hit, and not when they miss, and commit to memory the one, and pass over the other. - Sir Francis Bacon
When a whole nation is roaring Patriotism at the top of its voice, I am fain to explore the cleanness of its hands and purity of its heart. - Ralph Waldo Emerson
Speculation is perfectly all right, but if you stay there you've only founded a superstition. If you test it, you've started a science. - Hal Clement
No matter how many times a theory meets its tests successfully, there can be no certainty that it will not be overthrown by the next observation. This, then, is a cornerstone of modern natural philosophy. It makes no claim of attaining ultimate truth. In fact, the phrase "ultimate truth" becomes meaningless, because there is no way in which enough observations can be made to make truth certain and, therefore, "ultimate". - Isaac Asimov
The government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian Religion. - Treaty of Tripoli, passed unanimously by the U.S. Senate and signed by President John Adams (1797)
I don't doubt the sincerity of dowsers, but even after we've demonstrated that they can't produce results that are any better than chance they'll still go away believing in their abilities... It is like the mother whose son is caught shoplifting on tape. She wonders why someone would want to frame her child by producing a fake video. - James Randi
During many ages there were witches. The Bible said so. The Bible commanded that they should not be allowed to live. Therefore the Church ... imprisoned, tortured, hanged, and burned whole hordes and armies of witches, and washed the Christian world clean with their foul blood. Then it was discovered that there was no such thing as witches, and never had been. One does not know whether to laugh or to cry. - Mark Twain
Aristotle maintained that women have fewer teeth than men; although he was twice married, it never occurred to him to verify this statement by examining his wives' mouths. - Bertrand Russell
A casual stroll through the lunatic asylum shows that faith does not prove anything. - Friedrich Nietzsche
I have been thinking that I would make a proposition to my Republican friends... that if they will stop telling lies about the Democrats, we will stop telling the truth about them. - Adlai E. Stevenson, Jr.
This is not about proof. Science does not use proof. We favor evidence, and the work consists largely of the slow accumulation of evidence in support of ideas, not magically potent proofs that establish an idea as unassailable. - PZ Myers
No, people don't expect government to solve all their problems. But they sense, deep in their bones, that with just a slight change in priorities, we can make sure that every child in America has a decent shot at life, and that the doors of opportunity remain open to all. - President Barack Obama
The formula was very simple: build this really flexible, really open economy, tolerate creative destruction so dead capital is quickly redeployed to better ideas and companies, pour into it the most diverse, smart and energetic immigrants from every corner of the world and then stir and repeat, stir and repeat, stir and repeat, stir and repeat. - Shekhar Gupta
We are prodding, challenging, seeking contradictions or small, persistent residual errors, proposing alternative explanations, encouraging heresy. We give our highest rewards to those who convincingly disprove established beliefs. - Carl Sagan
We are all atheists about most of the gods that societies have ever believed in. Some of us just go one god further. - Richard Dawkins
120 million of us place the big bang 2,500 years after the Babylonians and Sumerians learned to brew beer. - Sam Harris
To kill a man is not to defend a doctrine, but to kill a man. - Michael Servetus, burned at the stake in 1553
Democracy is not about majority rule; it is about minority rights. If there is no culture of not simply tolerating minorities, but actually treating them with equal rights, real democracy can't take root. - Thomas L. Friedman
We cannot absolutely prove that those are in error who tell us that society has reached a turning point, that we have seen our best days. But so said all who came before us and with just as much apparent reason. - Thomas Macauley, 1830
It may be true that the law cannot make a man love me, but it can stop him from lynching me, and I think that's pretty important. - Martin Luther King, Jr.
We will not walk in fear, one of another. We will not be driven into an age of unreason if we dig deep into our history and remember we are not descended from fearful men. - Edward R. Murrow
The deepest sin against the human mind is to believe things without evidence. Science is simply common sense at its best - that is, rigidly accurate in observation, and merciless to fallacy in logic. - Thomas Huxley
There is no absurdity so obvious that it cannot be firmly planted in the human head if you only begin to impose it before the age of five, by constantly repeating it with an air of great solemnity. - Arthur Schopenhauer
Because religious belief, or non-belief, is such an important part of every person's life, freedom of religion affects every individual. ... Erecting the "wall of separation between church and state," therefore, is absolutely essential in a free society. - President Thomas Jefferson
To be elected in America, no matter from what party, the candidates have no choice but to year after year pledge to lower taxes further and further. We have become the nation of Ken and Barbie, looking good but very poor at the math. - Rack Jite
Invisible Pink Unicorns are beings of great spiritual power. We know this because they are capable of being invisible and pink at the same time. Like all religions, the Faith of the Invisible Pink Unicorns is based upon both logic and faith. We have faith that they are pink; we logically know that they are invisible because we can't see them. - Steve Eley
We have always known that heedless self-interest was bad morals; we know now that it is bad economics. - President Franklin D. Roosevelt
I have been attacked by Rush Limbaugh on the air, an experience somewhat akin to being gummed by a newt. It doesn't actually hurt, but it leaves you with slimy stuff on your ankle. - Molly Ivins
In this world of sin and sorrow there is always something to be thankful for; as for me, I rejoice that I am not a Republican. - H. L. Mencken
Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts. - Winston Churchill
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2 comments:
"Moderate and liberal believers are a lot easier to get along with than the fanatics..."
With that in mind, here's an article for your consideration:
http://www.inthesetimes.org/article/13079/contradiction_where_religion_and_american_politics_meet
It would appear that British Christians lean much further to the left than their American Christian counterparts (granted, they're still mired in faith-based thinking).
Looks like there was something to Robin Williams' joke about America being founded by the Puritans; a group of religious fanatics so anal-retentive that England KICKED THEM OUT!! :)
No, they weren't persecuted, England just said, "Get the f--k out. Take your pimp shoes and go." :D
But you know how American Christians are; they love playing the "victim" (pay no attention to all the money and political power they have).
Thanks for the link, Jeff. But I don't know what to think about it.
For one thing, I'm not sure who their 'non-religious' are (in that Demos report). Are these atheists, or just people who don't bother with church much? From what I hear, there's a lot of spiritualism and other woo in England, despite the widespread decline of Christian churches.
But it's also hard to compare Britain and America because we've got the separation of church and state. That makes Sharia Law a non-issue here - despite right-wing fantasies - but an actual concern there (so British atheists might be more sympathetic to Pat Condell, for example).
I don't know. I've heard that American evangelicals are turning to liberal political and economic views, but I've seen no sign of it myself. If it's true, are they acting on that?
I mean, officially, the Catholic Church is against capital punishment, but that doesn't keep them from supporting right-wingers every chance they get. There are beliefs, and then there are beliefs that you actually care about.
I'll gladly work with liberal believers on issues of mutual concern, but I guess I hope that American evangelicals stay fanatically right-wing and help drive young people away from religion entirely. :)
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