being willing to be wrong

[xenologer]

Greta Christina's new piece, "Can Atheism be Proven Wrong?"

Yes, atheists pretty much agree that no existing religion has a shred of decent evidence to support it. That's why we're atheists. If we thought any religion had supported itself with decent evidence, we'd accept that religion. That's not the game. The game isn't, "What religion that currently exists could convince you that it was right?" The game is, "What hypothetical made-up religion could convince you that it was right?"

Or, to put it another way: We're talking counter-factuals. We understand that the universe, as it is now, is overwhelming in its evidence for atheism and materialism, and against any kind of deity or supernatural realm. We get that. We're talking about alternative universes. We're asking, "What would the world look like if there were a god or gods?"

There is good stuff to be had in here about what would actually convince most atheists that a religion was presenting a reasonable and worthy picture of the world. There's also a link to this page, which gives a pretty good rundown. Where this really gets interesting is after Greta gets done stating for the millionth time that actually atheists are not dogmatic zealots who take their conclusion as an article of faith (that we do, in fact, have standards of evidence--that no religion has met despite ample opportunity). She takes the, "no religion has actually managed to present a hypothesis supportible by evidence," point one step further by cutting off those last three words.

Religions haven't just failed to support their assorted hypotheses with good, solid, carefully gathered, rigorously tested evidence. They've failed to come up with hypotheses that are even worth subjecting to testing. They've failed to come up with hypotheses that are worth the paper they're printed on.

Religions are notorious for vague definitions, unfalsifiable hypotheses, slippery arguments, shoddy excuses for why their supporting evidence is so crummy, and the incessant moving of goalposts. Many theologies are logically contradictory on the face of it -- the Trinity, for instance, or an all-powerful/all-knowing/all-good God who nevertheless permits and even creates evil and suffering -- and while entire books are filled with attempts to explain these contradictions, the conclusions always boil down to, "It's a mystery."

And the so-called "sophisticated modern theologies" define God so vaguely you can't reach any conclusions about what he's like, or what he would and wouldn't do, or how a world with him in it would be any different than a world without him. They define God so abstractly that he might as well not exist. (Either that, or they actually do define God as having specific effects on the world, such as interventions in the process of evolution -- effects that we have no reason whatsoever to think are real, and every reason to think are bunk.)

And when I ask religious believers who aren't theologians to define what exactly they believe, they almost evade the question. They point to the existence of "sophisticated modern theology," without actually explaining what any of this theology says, much less why they believe it. They resort to vagueness, equivocation, excuses for why they shouldn't have to answer the question. In some cases, they get outright hostile at my unmitigated temerity to ask.

It's too bad that lots of the so-called "moderate" religious people that I know personally are all so invested in seeming and feeling rational that they can't just admit that they're not religious because they actually believe its claims are true. It would save us all a lot of effort if they did. I'm tired of having religious people try to throw reasoned arguments and evidence at me and then eventually concede--only after we've both wasted a lot of time and effort--that they don't really find those things persuasive either.

I mean, ffs. If it was never about evidence to begin with, if it's all metaphor and "personal revelation," then why do religious people get so upset when somebody points out that their sermons and holy books are full of fairy tales? And why do they let me give them the benefit of the doubt and hope that THIS TIME, THIS ONE TIME maybe they'll present a reasonable case, if they're just going to switch gears later and admit that they lied about their worldview in the hopes of getting me to sit still and stfu while they practice the flimsy reassurances that allow them to sleep at night?

I think that's one major reason why lots of religious people don't like talking to atheists, or even about religion to each other. It's not that we're all hurtful and mean, or that we're all joyless zealots, or even that we're all oversexed radical liberal feminazi pinko commies. It's this: If Pascal's Wager (or insert your fav apologism here) is the only reason you can face your day, you need everybody around you to be reassuring you that it's sound. Every person who shrugs and finds it unconvincing is a reminder that you've built your life on terror of your life, and an unwillingness to live in the real world. That'd suck, and I guess it does make us sort of mean.

Comments

[virginia-fell.livejournal.com]

Just because the big aggressively-hegemonizing monotheist traditions are the worst about the fear-mongering, logical fallacies, and magical thinking doesn't mean they're the only ones who do it.

However, they do get a lot of attention when atheists are talking about religion, mainly because they're the ones who are doing the most oppressing of everybody... including us, and including Pagans.

If you would feel more included were I to talk about the problems I have with the Wiccan traditions I've come into contact with (such as with the Wiccan circle I've been part of for the past few years), I can do that. However, there are a couple of reasons I don't drag that particular group out and flog them on my various blogs. The first is that they're seriously not as heinous as the monotheist traditions that piss me off more, and they're not even as heinous as a lot of other Pagan traditions and communities. It's why when I talk about Christianity being homophobic I talk more about the RCC than the United Methodists. It's not that they don't both count as Christians, it's that the RCC provides the most numerous and clear-cut examples of common ways that the nasty stuff plays out.

So actually, in fact, I do have a problem with a lot of Pagan traditions. I'm not neglecting to mention them because I've never encountered them, and I'm not neglecting to mention them because they have never done anything worthy of mention. It's that there are so many worse traditions that so much better exemplify the problems I'm talking about. If I were talking about pseudoscience and quack medicine, I'd leave the Christians alone and start talking about Pagans, but that's more my partners pet issue than my own.

[elorie.livejournal.com]

The quote you quoted mentions an omnipotent all-knowing all-good deity who allows evil as a big problem that "religious people" can't justify. But I don't even believe in one of those. Quoting her statements and then expounding upon them without critiquing her certainly gives the impression that you DO agree with her. Changing the subject when I point out the problems in that reasoning is...well, what y'all accuse religious people of doing. The problem is not how included I feel. The problem is that it's wrong to talk about "religion" when you really mean specific ones...factually and logically wrong.

[virginia-fell.livejournal.com]

That's fair, and you're right that that particular example does exclude people who don't believe in that sort of god. In fact, that kind of deity is such an obvious theological trap and such an easy one to avoid, that it's still sort of baffling to me that anybody still does.

So yes, that example is not really addressing the particular kinds of deity that Pagans revere/interact with. I will say that the Achilles heel of the Pagan traditions I've interacted with is less their notion of deity than the whole idea of magic, and that would indeed have to be addressed separately.

However, just because the most obvious and gratuitous offenders are the dominating monotheisms and their apologists doesn't mean that nobody is familiar with Paganism or that nobody has managed to find any flaws with Pagan teachings. I know that with me personally... I do have problems, and questions that nobody has been able to answer (and I have asked people who, after damn near a lifetime of practicing and leading and teaching, should have at least been able to tell me how they answered them for themselves). However, my energy is better spent trying to chip away at the people who are not just wrong, but who have the will and the power to make my life shittier for saying so.

[elorie.livejournal.com]

In my experience, magic works, BUT...I don't insist on there being a supernatural force at work in order for it to do so. I think that we are capable of a lot more than we realize, and that the specific techniques of magic tap into that. One possible way that it works is that you teach your dreaming mind what to look for...you typically take in a lot more information than you can ever process consciously, and most of that you just filter out. But if you're looking for a job, for example, you might pick up very subtle cues that someone is hiring or knows someone who is, and might find yourself suddenly mentioning it in conversation. This is what produces those stories of "I did a spell and three days later got a job offer." That doesn't mean that it's not "really" magic or that the colors and symbols and candles and foofaraw are pointless. Quite the opposite.

[virginia-fell.livejournal.com]

See, I think magical practice is a really cool ritual, and I do think that ritual can be valuable and useful and important and great. It's all of those things because of how it functions as a symbolic framework--it changes what we think about and it can even change how we are thinking. Sometimes we all need that. I know I still do.

But being useful doesn't mean something must be happening there which isn't verifiable and requires wishful thinking to believe. I read tarot cards (both for myself and others) because I think it's a fantastic meditative tool that gets me to think of things and about things in ways I don't tend to do without it. There's a difference between doing this, and actively trying to petition the Great Will of the Universe for answers, isn't there? It's meditation as opposed to divination, and while I'll never dispute the usefulness and reality of the former, the latter just doesn't seem to sit on very strong evidence.