The Antichristian Phenomenon

Slightly lost, I arrived at Chapmans Torg and was expecting some gathering or sign to point the way as to where to go. I knew the address, but there was nothing. Eventually I figured out that the entrance in fact was a vegetarian/vegan restaurant, and I saw some of my classmates already sitting inside. We were welcomed by our “lecturer”, whose name I never caught, but he was a pretty short, very considerate Indian man. He reminded me much of my Russian friend in personality and manners. There was a room further inside the restaurant where he had placed some cushions on the floor so we could all sit down. He started by introducing the Hare Krishna movement and the cosmology revolving it. Although I study Social Anthropology as my main field, I know shamefully little about Hinduism and Hare Krishna. For me Hare Krishna is a name only, and I had a loose idea of there being some scandals where group members were involved, but I didn’t know what it was, and I still don’t, and no one ever bothered to ask. Suffice to say, I arrived with a very open mind, although slightly disappointed over that I had mixed up the dates and thought we were originally supposed to visit the local Scientology church instead of Hare Krishna. In a very typical manner, I started to lead the “conversation” with a few others. It turned out to be one of the best spent two hours ever in my life actually, and it made me realize why I am educating myself in the field I am actually doing, and that I would have no problem spending days, months, maybe even years with people so different to me and just learn their ways of living. I have the outmost respect of our “lecturer” that he took the time to answer our questions and explain the movement for free I should add, and to me he seemed like a pretty simple man very satisfied with his life and his religious beliefs. He wasn’t one of the most faithful, as he was just a normal member of the movement, and thus didn’t follow many of the more extreme ascetic values such as fasting, which he said he had tried once but it was too hard for him or refraining from having sex, and I think that presentation worked very well. He could explain the religion from a point of view everyone could understand, and he was really good at explaining, often using different kind of metaphors to get a point across.
Being the person that I am, of course I questioned him many, many times. I sure hope he didn’t find me offensive, and I very much appreciated the time he took with me, especially considering that I know so little about Hare Krishna. Having to attend my grandfather’s funeral last week made me miss out the presentation of the group unfortunately, but now in retrospect it might actually have been the better choice. In Social Anthropology, one of the biggest fears is to trying to fit certain ideas or groups of people into a box either because of lack of understanding or prejudice. I felt this wasn’t the case today, and I really see it as one of the first examples I had at “working in the field”. More or less all studies in Social Anthropology today are done in the forms of fieldwork studies. Other types of studies are possible but generally frowned upon because of the lack of an emic (inside) perspective. Having little to no foreknowledge thus allowed me to be there with without prejudice, and I got to take part of how our “lecturer” viewed the Hare Krishna movement and his journey from warm India to cold Sweden. In a way, having him telling about his religious beliefs and the religion he practices was some kind of lifestory. He grew up in middleclass India, and professed to be some kind of atheist, studying as an engineer at some Indian university. (At this point I also realize how bad it was of me to not take any notes when he was talking! I thought he would actually lecture in the actual sense, so I didn’t think I would need any… Hence the citation marks.) One of his roommates from the UK or Australia had left some tapes (this was in the 80s) and he (our “lecturer”) decided to give them some listens before tossing them away, and it turns out they are records of some Hare Krishna lectures. The tapes intrigued him, and I can recognize my own curiosity in his own, now that I am sitting home at my computer writing down my two hour encounter, because regardless of scandals and mystery, Hare Krishna is a religion that fascinates and captures.

He explained that Hare Krishna worships Krishna, the one god. Krishna is generally referred to as “lord”. He said that Vishnu is a great god as well, if I remember correctly an avatar or aspect of Krishna, but according to some Sanskrit interpretations (there are obviously over 600 of them!), Krishna himself said that he is the creator of everything, as well as the end. One thing which surprised me was that Hare Krishna had a great focus on the individual rather than being holistic, which I didn’t expect considering that it’s a sect (here used to refer a branch of a main religion) of Hinduism, and I know that Hinduism puts a great focus on a holistic cosmology. He explained that Hare Krishna has a holistic view too, but the main goal is to create your own individuality so you can finally meet Krishna as a person. There are thus different kinds of stages that occur in the afterlife where you will either retain your individuality or you won’t. Retaining your individuality was thus greater than becoming a part of Krishna, whereas I had thought it to be the opposite. In this regard Hare Krishna thus sounds very similar to Christianity in the personal relationship you are supposed to have with god, or at least attempt to have. Such activities as prayers (repeating certain phrases constantly for a certain amount of time) and performing yoga are all means to get closer to god or create a communication with god. I also asked our “lecturer” about who the first guru was (prophet/apostle in some kind of sense, although the term “guru” just means “teacher”), since Hare Krishna was started by a guru who taught created the Krishna movement in the West. In Hare Krishna, and other forms of Hinduism, there must be some kind of teacher because humans are imperfect and it is thus impossible for a human to suddenly one day just realize all the great mysteries of god. Here too I notice a similarity with Christianity. Gurus are thus needed to spread the knowledge and messages further to the coming generations. Here I had to ask him who the first guru was, since it’s an interesting question. I actually think they solved the problem pretty well, at least when comparing to Christianity. Our “lecturer” explained that the very first guru was Brahma (sp?), and he taught the humans about Krishna. Of course the disconnection is still there, as Brahma is considered a divine being, even though he has a material body. In such a sense Brahma is in fact very similar to Jesus, who too, was sent to Earth to teach the word of god but at the same time being god in flesh. Now that I am writing about it, I forgot to ask if Hare Krishna consider all other deities to be mere parts of Krishna or whether they are entities of their own, but this is certainly an interesting aspect which should be explored further, although maybe not today. I do however know that there is some dispute among the academics whether Hinduism as an official religion should be considered polytheistic or monotheistic. At least the Brahma solution is better than “being inspired by god” or such nonsense. Even if god inspires us, and there is certainly proof that our beliefs in god at least can, it still doesn’t solve the problem that humans are imperfect and thus everything we do will be imperfect. Our “lecturer” did however seem to believe in some kind of perfect spirituality, where one reaches such a spiritual insight that it can be considered perfect to those who do not understand it. The guru who started the Hare Krishna movement was considered such a person for example. Therefore I suppose that it is logical in such a sense that a being such as Brahma can teach humans to reach such spiritual state of perfection that they too can become gurus.

As the “conversation” continued, it was unavoidable that we would eventually be touching such subjects as women’s rights and how women are treated in India and inside the Hare Krishna movement. It was explained that there have been female gurus, but they were no modern ones that our “lecturer” knew of that existed today, and not within the Hare Krishna movement, but there had been one 400 years ago. He further explained that women were never asked to take upon such a position, but when they wanted to no one stopped them. This was slightly surprising as well considering how patriarchal India is still today, even though it’s changing and has been changing rather rapidly throughout the past years. Within the Catholic Church female priests are forbidden and even in Sweden which is considered one of the most equal countries in the world, some male priests frown upon female priests. The “conversation” then went onto discussing the polygamy versus monogamy issue, and what view the Hare Krishna movement has on taking many wives. Our “lecturer” explained that it’s very uncommon for men to marry more than one woman today, but it happens often in the more rural parts of India, where having many wives might even symbolize a man’s social status. The more wives a man can afford to sustain the higher social status he has. Generally speaking though, no one’s looking down upon a man if he takes more than one wife, but the question is whether he can afford to be married to more than one. Naturally children were brought up after that. Hare Krishna believes that a parent should teach their children to be as good citizens as possible, and this is in fact the only reason why a member of Hare Krishna would have children, and thus didn’t fit too well with me. While I can understand that a member of Hare Krishna may consider their way of life to be the best one, and there are certainly aspects that I don’t mind at least, I do not agree with teaching a child that their way of living would naturally be the best one. However, our “lecturer” also said that it is not a failure for a parent if the child doesn’t follow the way of Krishna but takes a different path, and almost retorted to something like “god’s way is mysterious”. He didn’t express it in such a sense, but that our consciousness together with karma can more or less influence our lives both directly and indirectly. This also includes the religion or lack thereof we may follow.

At this point I had to ask what he thought about other religious beliefs or even making up your own, or what it meant to lead a “pious” life but yet not worship any god. To that he retorted, loosely quoted from memory, “that it’s like a road with many mailboxes, where some never received any mail to pick up”. He thus seemed to believe that some religions (most probably the ones he knew of and which shared similar ideas to his own) have more legitimacy than others. Some religions don’t worship any gods, Shinto being a more well-known example, but on the other hand, is it important if there would be some “answer” on the other side if you aren’t expecting any? Atheism and humanism comes to mind. I wasn’t asking it straight out because I didn’t think of formulating it in such a way, but I was of course thinking of the morality issue that many Christians throw around with in atheist/Christian discussions. I do think that he did believe that people can still lead pious lives though, without actually believing. There was no patronizing or threats such as “…but this will happen when you die!” sort of deal, just a simple answer that if you aren’t expecting anything of the religious or metaphysical nature, then probably nothing will happen. I think this is very interesting because it shows how important it may be for us to actually believe without there being anything to necessarily believe in. The belief itself is somehow more important than the worship, and I do believe it still boils down to what ways that works for each individuals that can help them to their self-empowerment, which I wrote about in a previous article here at the ACP. One of my classmates asked him whether he would’ve picked another religion, would it have been introduced to him in another environment, but she also said that he had answered it already in that he thought that Hare Krishna had all the right answers (that fit with him). But what I disagreed with here is that ultimately he believed that there must be some great divine authority that carries the knowledge over to humanity. We are ourselves unable to form our own answers to our existence. I do not believe in authorities, and people who know me well will probably also know that I like to form my own answers, not be given any. This is very true when it comes to my “spiritual” beliefs as well, as I do not share any ideas that move into the metaphysical and even if metaphysics would be true, I also ultimately believe that metaphysics is merely physics. I also do not share the sentiment that there would be a great divine being that controls all. I suppose that for some people it might give them relief knowing that they are not in control of everything and thus the cause of every action they take, in a way becomes some kind of excuse or crutch to say that “well, at least it wasn’t my fault it happened this way it happened”. I believe I am in control of my own life in that I can directly affect the world around me according the actions I take, or for the actions I choose not to for the matter. The free will versus causality is a tricky question. While I believe in free will in such a sense that I believe that we are free to decide our actions to a certain extent by becoming aware of our options, we are also controlled by causality because we are all part of a causal flow. When I feel hungry I feel hungry because my stomach just sent information to my brain that it’s empty, so my brain generates some signal substances that makes me feel hungry, but I at that moment I also got the option to eat and not eat, or if looking back into a previous moment in time, I could’ve eaten later to avoid becoming hungry, since I can calculate the causal flow that I will become hungry at a certain point. Eating before that point will thus change the causal flow. However, I am digressing; this is about my study visit at the Hare Krishna, not about the problems with Cartesian dualism.

Since I am already on the free will versus causality, Hare Krishna shares some peculiar ideas on the subject matter. First of all, every human being has a consciousness. It is something we can learn to control with increasing spiritual awareness. Our consciousness is thus similar to our normal mental processes and Descartes’ formulation “cogito, ergo sum” comes to mind, in a very literary sense. This is an idea strongly shared within Hare Krishna, and is also reflected in such terms as “civilized animals”. I can either learn to control my consciousness and become closer to god by doing so (read leading an ascetic and pious life) or I can be like an animal and merely act on my instincts. Consciousness is thus something that we can control with our “free wills”, and it may even be able to affect the environment around us. An example was when one of my classmates asked if our “lecturer” believed in Astrology, and he said he did, although “99% are fake”. He told us a story about one of his father’s coworkers who got his fate read by a local Astrologist whom he claimed was good at reading when people had bad luck. So this coworker got his fate read, and the Astrologist said that on a certain Monday he would be hurt by a very sharp object. So the coworker refused to go outside on that Monday, hoping that by limiting his movement that day he would reduce the risk of getting hurt. However, he had forgotten the antlers of a deer that hang on the wall above the sofa he had decided to sit in, and the antlers fell down and penetrated his chest. To this my classmate retorted that it could’ve as well actually been his consciousness that had been so focused on not getting hurt by this sharp object this very day that he actually got hurt. So in a way it’s like cognitive psychology where they speak about self-fulfilling prophecies. If you think something bad will happen, something bad will in fact happen because you will unconsciously expose yourself to such risks and may even cause them yourself without being aware that you are doing so. Then lastly there is karma. Most people are probably accustomed with the term that if we do good actions, we get good karma and if we do bad actions then we get bad karma. Depending on what kind of karma we have, it will also affect the environment around us. Karma also accumulates among a group of people so if a group of people do a lot of bad actions, the karma within that group will be generally bad. Karma is some kind of higher power of justice. If a person leads a very pious life but goes through many struggles, he or she may ultimately be rewarded thanks to karma; similarly, a person who leads a bad life might get punished. At this point asking about Haiti felt very natural, knowing that some Christian groups are so avid exclaiming that the earthquake in fact was caused by the god as punishment because of the Haiti people being so sinless or some equally silly nonsense. To this our “lecturer” explained that there are two things that can cause an earthquake. There are some demigods that control such things as the weather, and thus naturally also earthquakes, but earthquakes can also be caused by too much accumulated bad karma. I do not know which answer he believed was the right one here, but I felt he was treading very carefully in this matter considering how touchy the subject is, hence the vague answer.

At this point however, my two hours were up and we had to leave. It had been an interesting evening and I am really looking forward to the Scientology study visit in two weeks.

Agnosticism seems very popular at the moment. I think it is mostly so for the wrong reasons. I get the feeling that a lot of people who identify themselves as agnostics are doing so only to take a kind of moral high ground that, to them, equivocates with a neutral position on the issue at hand. I have seen many agnostics say something like this:

You can’t prove that God exists, nor that God doesn’t exist, therefore both theism and atheism are wrong and you should be agnostic

I find three things at fault with this position,  which I will elaborate on in the following paragraphs. I will sometimes refer to above position as “popular agnosticism” to distinguish it from actual agnosticism. I will end with what a proper application of agnosticism might be, but also argue why I think it’s pretty useless all-round.

• Agnosticism is not a position on the existence of God

It seems that agnosticism has been snuck in to form a trilemma on the issue of God’s existence. To many people, the possible positions on this issue are either atheism, theism, or agnosticism. This is a false trilemma for two reasons. Firstly, because no ground is left over for agnosticism. You either believe God exists (theism), or you don’t (a-theism – I emphasize on purpose). So what is left over? Nothing! This has to do with the second reason that it is a false trilemma, namely the untrue notion that agnosticism even is a position on the existence of God. It simply isn’t, as it is a position on what knowledge is attainable. Going a little bit into etymology, “gnosis” means “knowledge” which means that “agnosticism” can be roughly translated to the position that something is not knowable. Agnosticism can be compatible with both atheism and theism – I don’t accept theism but I don’t claim to know that theism is false: I am an agnostic atheist.

Agnosticism isn’t somewhere in the middle on the spectrum between atheism and theism. I would even argue that there isn’t a spectrum at all on this level of the issue. There is a simple proposition: “God exists”, and you can either agree (theism) or not (atheism). There are no other positions, by virtue of the logical principle of the excluded middle. Both theism and atheism are positions that one can have, and it doesn’t matter how good or bad the reasons are for you having them.

• Popular agnosticism is used for dodging the question

So now that we have established that agnosticism isn’t even a tenable position in regards to the existence of God, it will become increasingly difficult to critique the position because the original paraphrase I gave is making less and less sense. At the moment, we can substitute the definition of agnosticism into the citation and read:

You can’t prove that God exists, nor that God doesn’t exist, therefore both theism and atheism are wrong and you should have the position that it is unknowable whether God exists or not

But that shows another flaw, because (a)theism isn’t necessarily the belief that God’s existence is (dis)proven. It thus misrepresents the positions of theism and atheism, and shows perhaps a reluctance to commit to either theism or atheism. I do not believe anyone can be exactly on the fence between the two possible positions. Even if it is just a gut feeling, you can choose between the two. It is childish to say “no, I won’t choose either of the possibilities”. And of course there is no proof, as I have previously written and explained that proofs only exist in formal systems. Personally, I think a lot of people who identify themselves as agnostics because they are reluctant to bear the stigma of the atheist. Though I understand this, I still think it is a form of cowardice.

• Popular agnosticism is special pleading

Popular agnosticism is also a form of special pleading, as it is only used with reference to the issue of God’s existence. You don’t hear about faerie agnostics, or Santa Clause agnostics. Popular agnosticism is used uniquely for the God-question. But why is it so? There are no grounds on which the question “Does God exist?” is different from the question “Does Santa Clause exist?” other than the subject of the inquiry. You can’t prove Santa Clause exists, or that he doesn’t exist any more than it is the case with God. Why then still reserve this for God? It is blatantly a case of special pleading.

Proper agnosticism

So when is it useful to have a position of agnosticism? First of all, we have to have a decent definition of when something is considered knowledge - before we can say whether something is possible to be an item in what we consider knowledge. What is knowledge is is a question home to the philosophical field of epistemology, and very briefly I can ambiguously suggest that knowledge is the product of empirical investigation and rational discourse of the empirical results. Knowledge doesn’t even have to be complete – as long the knowledge fits whatever observations have been made so far, and are reasonably not the antithesis of other knowledge that is “better established” – and it can even turn out after more observation that prior knowledge is false and that it requires to be superseded with new knowledge: a new set of ideas, rules, or paradigm (knowledge isn’t necessarily true). It is perhaps shortest to say that knowledge is produced by science, the best application of the aforementioned methodology.

This is different from the stricter requirement in the original paraphrase, which demanded proof and not mere evidence. If we were to say that knowledge needs proof to be established, then we are agnostic about everything outside of formal systems. To me, such a requirement of knowledge renders agnosticism as a useless term that communicates nothing because it can be applied to (almost) everything. So if we were to take my understanding of knowledge, we can say that agnosticism can apply only to things that fall outside of the scope of science: outside of empirical investigation. If we can not empirically pursue a question then we can’t produce knowledge about it: we are agnostic about it.

An example of proper agnosticism is when “God” is defined as something that would prohibit scientific inquiry. If God is a being who is omnipotent, it is immediately outside the scope of science, because this God can play with the empirical evidence all it wants. Anything and nothing can be indicative of the existence of such a being. Hence, we are inherently agnostic about it. Parallel to agnosticism about this, I have never heard any argument that would make such a being logically necessary to exist, hence I am also atheistic towards it. But when you would suggest that “God” is a bearded man living on clouds in the sky, it is open to scientific inquiry. There has never been seen such a man, thus I am a gnostic atheist about this particular concept.

First of all, Happy/Merry whatever-holiday-you-celebrate. Hopefully everyone is enjoying the day off work and school and putting on a few pounds with tasty cookies.

Full article below the jump: Read the rest of this entry »

That’s all folks.

Preface

This article will deal with the ideology of positivism, rationalism and Karl Popper’s idea of good science. It will also further deal with why “Praying for person X made person X well from ailment Y” is not being a good form of science, but pseudoscience at best, particularly when presented in a scientific manner.

Definitions

Postivism is a scientific idelogy that we can only produce good science with the help of empirical data, most notably, by gathering facts. Is something not a fact, then we cannot consider it to be a positivist claim. So if I make a statement that the earth is flat when we have clearly observed that the earth isn’t, it is a false statement simply because it is not based on empirical evidence and because it is not a given fact. If I however say that the earth is round, it is a good positivt claim because we have good supoprting evidence that the earth is round and people have observed it as such, we can thus consider it a fact and the statement to be true.

Rationalism is a specific scientific ideology in turn developed by Karl Popper, stemming from the idea of positivism. Karl Popper’s goal with developing rationalism was to first of all debunk pseudoscience, secondly to set up a border when something can be considered good science and when it isn’t. Karl Popper defined good rationalist science as “finding faults in the problemsolving”* and “by speaking to thinking and experience rather than to moods and emotion”*.1

So the biggest difference between positivism and rationalism lies in that positivism does not necessarily change a theory when the empirical data does not fully support it, but may use help-theses, something Karl Popper despised. Rationalism then, is the complete reforming of a theory when new data is found, or when the theory is incapable of explaining the current data properly without using help-theses which are applied ad hoc.

The good positivist or rationalist science

Then how would positivist or rationalist science look like? A positivist would try to study the empirical data as good as possible and then make factual statements about those, a rationalist would look at the same empirical data but is more interested in being critical to how to explain the data and finding faults in this explanation while at the same time trying to appeal to logic and experience rather than that of emotion. This brings us to the main point, namely why praying, as evidence for the existence of god, is not evidence and why it is not scientific.

Example

One of the most common stories you hear from Christians as evidence for god is when they make a statement that praying works and they’ve seen it. Now, let’s assume ourselves in the role of a Christian practioneer who is praying for a relative being seriously ill, to the point where this illness is endangering this person’s life. As a good Christian, we are praying every day for this relative to become better, but the doctor’s treatment seems to be negative. Instead this person seems to become more ill than well. Suddenly though, there is a turn of events, without any seemingly explainable cause, the relative is cured from the illness and our conclusion must be that it was the work of god. Or wait, is it really?

A positivist would not accept this explaination, because obviously the empirical data has not been studied enough. The primary data here being our now cured relative, and why this relative all of sudden became better when it seemed that the medication made no difference. There are many factors to consider, such as our relative’s physiology. Maybe our relative really didn’t need any medication, because this person’s physiology worked in such a way that this person was supposed to overcome this illness regardless. Maybe the doctors gave this person the wrong medication. This cannot be outruled either. Doctors are human and humans make errors. The doctors gave our relative the wrong diagnosis and thus also the wrong treatment. A variant of the previous point, but happens all the time as well. A positivist would then start to debunk these theses by investigating the empirical data related to them, such as taking blood samples from the relative and studying them, or asking the doctors whether they changed the medication or if they believe they missdiagnosed the relative.

A rationalist would of course also do the above, but would be even more interested to see if we can trace any fault of logic in the original reasoning. It seems we can find quite a few of them. First of all, we cannot be certain god exists, as we have no evidence for this. Not necessarily using Occham’s Razor here, but a rationalist would examine the claim how probable it would be that god intervened and did so because of our prayers. Secondly, we also have the issue of prayers themselves. In the Bible it states that god knows everything, god is omniscient. Would it not be enough then to just think that we want to save our relative for god to respond to such a need? God would know even without having us praying, thus, it actually seems more logical that it was not the praying that was the actual cause. Thirdly though, and probably the greatest issue with this example is the emotional part of the argument. A religious person would of course want to believe it was god, it speaks that the religious person’s needs. It has thus an emotional appeal, rather than it being rational. So while a religious person may be overlooking some logical inconsistencies in their problemsolving when it comes to such statements as “My prayers saved my relative from dying”, the reason why they would believe such a statement is more because of the emotional appeal, they want it to be true, not necessarily because it is true. So when Christians make statements like these, they are not scientific in their approach, because they overlook great many faults in their reasoning.

Legend
* – My translation

Sources
Vår Tids Filosofi, Part 2

Recently there has been a bit of a stir over the latest Mr. Deity: “Mr. Deity and the Woman”, in which Mr. Deity meets his latest creation, the rib-woman Eve.  After being posted to RichardDawkins.net and Pharyngula, its been stirring up debate over whether or not it is derogatory by negatively stereotyping women.  The short answer: No.  The long answer is below the jump.  I expect it will be largely unpopular, so don’t waste your time if you aren’t going to actually engage potentially uncomfortable ideas.

Read the rest of this entry »

It appears to be more important to rail against a preconceived notion of a concept rather than engage the idea itself.  What do you think this ad is saying about those children in the image?  Why are they so happy?  Is the message based on who the children are?

No, its not.  It doesn’t matter who those kids are, the point is that they’re kids.  They could be happy, sad, cute, or ugly, and the message would stay the same.  It also stays the same regardless of what religion their parents are members of… which happens to be Christianity.

The  idea that somehow the fact that these kid’s parents are Christian undermines the message of the advertisement is absolute nonsense.  It wouldn’t be reinforced if their parents were atheists.  The fact is, those kids are way too young to really choose whether or not they believe in any religion, so as the ad says, DON’T LABEL THEM.  They are not “Christian children”, they are children of Christian parents.  It is not ironic in any way that their parents are Christians.  This ad is not about their parents, its about them.

Additionally, they probably chose happy looking kids not to make any statement on religion itself, but because a picture of a smiling person is better suited to advertising.  Why do you think soap and underwear and laxative advertisements have “smiling” people?  Same reason this ad does, it grabs attention.  Also, look closely at their faces, they’re not *really* smiling and happy–just like every other lame ad photo, they’re being told to smile for the camera.  Their smiles are insincere zygomatic-only smiles, not the sincere Ducenne smile, which also entails the involuntary contraction of the orbicularis oculi, which creates “crow’s feet” at the corners of the eye. Due to the fact this muscle contraction is completely involuntary and unable to be recreated at will (short of artificial stimulation with electricity) when people are genuinely happy, they can’t help showing it, and they can’t force themselves to appear happy when they’re really not.

So they didn’t REALLY choose genuinely “happy and free” children.  They chose children who LOOKED “happy and free” because they possess the ability to “smile” on command… just like every other model in advertising.  Look closely at the next few ads and magazine covers you see with “smiling” models, you’ll find this phenomenon of not-really-smiling universal.

(And before the inevitable accusation–it would be exactly the same if the parents were Muslim.)

We’re used to Hollywood portraying Atheists as cynical and bitter personalities who only need the slightest push to see the light as part of their redemption (or alternatively serve as a handy character to kill for being too rational.) Usually we can point out and avoid movies which play on those ridiculous archetypes but sometimes this nonsense comes at you from where you least expect it.

Such was my experience with Dragon Age, which after my recent escapades during its procurement, now gives me another reason to blog in relation to it. You see, this game not only features de-facto atheists as part of your band of “heroes”, not only does it feature them in a profoundly Holywood way but it goes at that extra step to make sure we get the point.

As far as I’ve progressed in the game, I’ve encountered two characters who can be rightly proclaimed as atheists. One of them is the Wild Witch Morrigan which even though is a mage shows a strong disbelief to “The Maker” (A monotheistic deity whose religion is similar to the Christian one) and the other is Shale, a stone Golem which I’ve only had with me for a bit and speaks like an agnostic but already shows strong tendencies towards atheism.

You get the religious views of those two characters mainly by having them in your party at the same time as you have the ultra religious Leliana which then strikes up casual dialogue with either of them on this topic while you’re walking in cities. From those ambient discussions, you quickly realize the beliefs of the two atheists while also getting the classic Holywood trope about atheism. Even though the discussions are quite humorous at times and entertaining in their own right, especially at the parts where Morrigan wonders why she should believe in anything without proof, they quickly turn annoying when instead of showing a person who has a solid basis in their worldview, they paint those characters as insecure and afraid (deep down).

“I’m feel sorry for how isolated and alone you must feel in your life” Leliene says at the end of an exasperating discussion with Morrigan. “Er…I…none of your business.” retorts Morrigan, making obvious to all that she does indeed feel isolated and lonely. I couldn’t help but feel why she couldn’t answer like I would.  “You’re mistaken, I’m far from lonely” or even “I like it that way.” In short, any kind of retort that an atheist who is not insecure in his life would give.

But that’s not the worst of it, far from it in fact, if that was all I wouldn’t really mind it. What really annoys me is not simply that those two are cynical, bitter or whatever but that they’re both downright evil! And this is quite the explicit kind of evil mind you, not the vague moral choices that seen from the right perspective might lead to some interesting ethical questions, but the “who cares for suffering, just give me unlimited power no matter the costs” kind of evil that only exist in the cartoonish villains of Hollywood. Morrigan is by far the worse of course, abundantly disproving when I even think of helping the downtrodden and blatantly approving of only the most vile acts (examples: -5 approval for simply convincing a merchant not to exploit the desperate refugees. +7 approval for opting to allow the evil demon to possess a child.)

Shale on the other hand openly admits in disliking humans, consider itself a far superior being, has no issue with wanton violence and is of course, quite hearless about it. This wouldn’t be an issue in itself but when coupled with it openly promoting rationalism and critical thinking, once more one tends to say “Now hold on a goddamn minute!”

Now let me here point out that I have no problem with there being evil Atheists in games. Not at all. However I’d like some basis on this evil which here simply doesn’t exist. Morrigan seems to be wishing the evil options for the sake of being evil. The excuses for the disapproval the character gives are laughable only only serve to point out the shallowness of her worldview which makes the fact that she ignores the obvious result of doing the good thing as benefiting our own mission even more annoying. For example, during a mission where I had to convince a king to help me, I reached his castle only to find that undead were pouring out of it and attacking a nearby village. It made perfect sense to protect the village during the attack and then once the undead were destroyed or lessened, I would go in the castle. Then the obviously thankful King would be more willing to help me out. However for Morrigan helping the village was a big no-no so I got penalized for doing the sensible thing.

So evil atheists are not a problem but when you have only the (blatant) Atheists as goddamn evil bastards while the theists are all little goody-two-shoes angels who approve of all the good stuff (and of course the game doesn’t give any proper moral choices, only caricaturish black&white options) and only care for helping the poor, then one can’t help but make the appropriate assumptions.

While the game could have put a nice perspective into the oppression of organized religion in the form of the templars, we’re rather told that they’re in fact right for being so oppressive since all those people they oppress are kind obviously powerhungry fucks. So again religion + authority + strict rules  = good while individualism + atheism + freethought = bad.

For me thus, the problem does not simply simply lie in the fact that some Atheists are portrayed as powerhungry bastards, it lies in the fact that all atheists are such while all the theists are, quite explicitly, good. Would it hurt to have some of the theist heroes be intolerant of, say elves and dwarves (maybe some are, I haven’t seen all of them yet). Would it hurt to have some of them disproving of alternate sexualities? And on the same track, it wouldn’t hurt if some of the atheists weren’t total bastards all the time. It really pokes me in the wrong way where either I have to make total dickish choices with my character (eat babies!) or to lose the only two characters I like since they will disapprove of me so much.

Unfortunately this is a perfect example of the Hollywood-type worldview, on games which enter the same mainstream as movies. When the budgets and risks get into the same range, only the same safe bets in displayed morals and ideas can be played and thus culture might just as well go down the same shallow drain. I’m afraid that as long as profits are on the line, morality will always remain black and white and cuddle the theists who wish to claim the moral high ground. After all, in aggregate, they have the most money don’t they?

I often come across statements like the following: “Prove x” or “Prove not x” – most often in the form “Prove God exists” or “Prove God doesn’t exist” (I will be using this example throughout the article). I get a bit tired about this because people do not seem to understand when something can be proven, when it can’t be, what the restrictions of evidence are and when something is a scientific question or not.

Proof yields certainty within a formal system

There is no such thing as proof in the context of every-day life. A proof is something by which we can say something is definitely so, or definitely not so. This means 100% certainty. So how does one get 100% certainty? The history of epistemology, the philosophy of knowledge, seems to indicate that such a thing is impossible with one exception (See Descartes’ meditations) and that in all other cases there is always room for doubt. If that is the case, how can proofs exist, as they should be things by which we attain absolute certainty?

Proofs do exist, but you have to keep in mind that these proofs are derived in the context of a certain framework. Such a framework assumes basic rules and basic truths, from which more truths are derived. We call this framework a formal system (or a logic(al) system). More formally, we say that a formal system has a deductive system, consisting of the basic truths (axioms) and the basic rules (rules of inference). The formal system also has a formal language.

Mathematics as an example of a formal system

This may sound vague, so let’s just take the best example: mathematics. Mathematics is a formal system. Mathematics has a language: it has symbols (e.g. x), numbers (e.g. 1), and operators (e.g. +) and grammar in which these components can occur (e.g. 1+2=3, but not =12+=). Note that 1+4=6 is a mathematical statement, even though it is untrue (which can be proven!) – analogous to this is that “I eat ideas until I am born.” is a grammatically correct sentence, even though a non-sensical one. Mathematics also has a deductive system. This deductive system has axioms (ground truths) such as Peano’s axioms, which describe the ground truths for arithmetic. The deductive system also has inference rules; rules by which other truths can be derived from the ground truths. Note that the ground truths are assumed to be true; they can not be proven within the formal system.

Chess as an example of a formal system

A different and perhaps more appreciable example of a formal system is a game like chess. Chess has a language: these are not symbols like in mathematics, but the chess pieces themselves, and the playing board. The axioms correspond to the starting positions of the pieces. It also has rules for what movements are allowed for what pieces. A configuration of chess pieces can be said to be “grammatically correct” if it can be reached using the movement rules for the various chess pieces. If a configuration is found that can not be reached using the rules for chess, you can say that it is not a chess configuration, just like we can say that =12+= is not a mathematical statement. In this regard chess puzzles are completely equivalent to mathematical problems. Chess being a formal system is the reason a chess game can be described with a string of coded chess notations, and the reason why computers can play chess.

Back to the weird statements people make. When you read that somebody has “proven that God (does not) exist(s)”, you should immediately think the following things:

1. This person is talking about proof, so this person is using a formal system.
2. In this formal system, “God” is a formally defined concept
3. In this formal system, “existence” is a formally defined concept or attribute for formally defined concepts
4. Using the deductive system of the formal system, this person has shown that “God” has the attribute “existence”

But of course, that is never the case. These people confuse the context of the formal system with the context every-day life: e.g. the “God” concept within the formal system with something that exists outside of that formal system. When you are not talking mathematics or logic, chances are small your use of the word ‘proof’ is correct. That also means that somebody who is trying to convince you that God exists, you must not ask him to “prove it”

Evidence never yields certainty, but does not require a formal system

Evidence is very different from proof. Whereas proof gives you certainty about something within a formal system, evidence can never give you any certainty. It only assigns more certainty of the truth to that which it is evidence of. If there is a lot of evidence in favour of a particular idea, and little or no evidence to suggest the opposite, we should assign a large certainty that that idea is true. David Hume communicates this idea concisely in An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding when he writes “A wise man proportions his belief to the evidence”.

Scientific evidence

In a pursuit of understanding the universe, we are quickly moved toward scientific evidence. Scientific evidence is evidence for a scientific concept, and which is in accordance with scientific requirement. Eyewitness testimony is considered important evidence in court, but it is of no value in the scientific community, for reasons of possible bias and the shortcomings of human perception. Therefore, eyewitness testimony is not scientific evidence. This is largely understood, but that it can only pertain to a scientific concept is often forgotten. How often have you heard atheists demand for scientific evidence for God? I even asked for this myself, until I better understood the concepts I am trying to explain in this article.

“Scientific evidence for God” implies that “God” is a scientific concept. This is certainly possible, but depends entirely on what “God” means. I have never seen a clear definition of God, but I do often encounter attributes of this “God”. One of these attributes is omnipotence: the ability to do everything. There are various degrees of omnipotence that are argued over by theologians, but I’ll overlook this for the sake of clarity. I ask you: if God can do anything, what then can count as scientific evidence of God? The answer is either everything or nothing. In both cases, we can learn nothing at all. Omnipotence is an attribute that the domain of science can not deal with. If God has this attribute, then there can exist no scientific evidence for God, and it is therefore ignorant to ask for it.

Recommendations

So what to do? In short, this article argues that if people want to prove God’s existence, they must first define what “God” and “existence” are within a particular formal system. You can safely disregard any so-called proofs that do not explicitly offer this information. I have also argued that there can exist no scientific evidence for any being that is omnipotent. You can safely disregard any so-called scientific evidence for omnipotent beings. What are we left with? That is something for theists to solve. It seems that “God” is such an obscure concept that, if it possibly exists, it bears little to no resemblance to the entities described in various holy books. Until new information is released, I shall remain an unimpressed non-theist.

Swedish political right extremist party Sverigedemokraterna (Sweden Democrats) have managed to give rise to more controversy more than gaining power among the voters. Their leader, Jimmie Åkesson, published a very controversial debate article yesterday in the Swedish newspaper Aftonbladet (The Evening Paper) where he makes various claims about Muslims being the new threat to the Swedish welfare system.

You can read the article on this site both as a Swedish extract and with a Google translation.

It is clear that Åkesson use sweeping statements and hyperboles, such as claiming that Europe will have the highest rape statistics in the world, and that Muslim men will be overrepresented. This is nothing new and basically just fear-mongering, the truth remains that most rapes today are done by white middle-class men no one would expect to be rapists, and neither do they, hence the as usual complete denial. A lot of men who are white and belong to the middle-class are never convicted simply because the judges believed them more, only for the pure reasons that they were white middle-class men. We do not perceive them of being capable of raping, even when there is overwhelming evidence presented. The reason why is simply of what Åkesson just expressed; we rather believe in the dark ambusher coming from an Arab country, spying on lone women at night hiding in a bush near a parkway, just ready to attack.

I live in a pretty Muslim-dense part of my town, and there is a local store that sell Halal meat. I can’t really say it bothered me more than I think it is unethical to drain an animal of blood while it is still alive, as I consider it a form of animal cruelty. Neither have I never felt unsafe when walking alone at night in my area. A lot of children’s families live here, the worst thing I usually experience are teenagers who drive around with their vespas in the middle of the night. I have also yet to meet a person who was clearly mean to me. All of the people I’ve spoken to are nice, such as the guy who sits at the counter in the previously mentioned store that sell Halal meat.

Instead of actually explaining how he would like to proceed to solve the issues with identitiy crisis among second- and third generation immigrants, Åkesson retorts to fear-mongering tactics. What’s worse is the huge support SD have started to gain among the general population, so obviously it is working. I wish people were less blind and could actually see that Åkesson offers NOTHING to solve the problem, he just makes statement after statement of what is wrong. That is not a solution, just empty promises. So what is Åkesson going to do once he get to power? Kick out all immigrants from Sweden? That is obviously not going to work, no matter how you look at it. One reason is that the Swedish birthrate is too low.

I should add that sually any identity to the grandparents’ country is lost at the third generation as they become completely immersed within their “host” country, so I am not sure what kind of statistics Åkesson took part of, but it’s very contradictory to what I’ve learnt as an anthropology student. So I don’t see why Åkesson is quite worried. Yes, angsty teenagers in the surburbs are a problem, but they aren’t angsty because they are Muslims, they are angsty because the politicians do nothing to improve their situation and ultimately the become marginalized from society! One would expect our politicians to learn that it doesn’t work to dump immigrants on one dense place. Philipe Burgois’ book In Search of Respect is a perfect example of what will happen in Sweden in the future if we don’t try to spend money to improve the situation.

Lastly, there are a lot of claims made about what is Swedish, but Åkesson nor anyone from SD never offer any form of explanation of what they mean what being Swedish is. Am I Swedish for having a Swedish name and a Swedish personal number and for considering myself part Swedish? Or am I too, an evil immigrant here to poison the country and the so called Swedish culture because of my Korean heritage? I do not deny my Korean heritage and I consider myself just as much Korean as I consider myself Swedish. I just so happened to have a Swedish name that people mention me as and to speak Swedish fluently. It should be said that my Korean name is actually a part of my whole name, only the surname is left out for reasons I don’t know, but I think it was inconvenient for my parents to name me Fridh Kim or any variant of it, since they were married and it would be troublesome legally I suppose.

If there is anything that worries me right now when it comes to Swedish politics it’s if SD would get into the parliament. I am very worried over what will happen with the current Swedish democracy and freedom of speech. I do not deny Åkesson’s right to voice his opinions, but I do deny him the right to get into the Swedish parliament and I will actively do so by refusing to vote for him and his party. Any person who only argues for the right for his own freedom of speech and his own social rights only fool himself if he claims to support a democratic society where everybody is equal.

I do agree with Åkesson that our current immigration is a huge issue and that we have yet to learn how to manage to deal with all the angsty teenagers living in the suburbs. Clearly what our politicans are currently doing isn’t working, but this also includes Åkesson and his SD! I admit that one of the reasons why I want to become a scientist within the anthropological field is so I can go out in the field and actually gather FACTS so maybe they’ll start doing something USEFUL and TANGIBLE. I do want to be able to influence our politicians on a greater scale than what I am currently able of just being a normal citizen with an opinion.

It should also be noted that SD got strong Christian roots (hahahahahahaha!), as if I’d ever cast my vote for such a retarded party that make claims of how dangerous Islam is and that the Koran is so dogmatic and then come running making such weak claims that “but at least we got the NT who make claims about turning the other cheek!”. Yeah, right, like that’s exactly what you are doing Åkesson? Like referring to the NT ever stopped Christianity from still oppressing our society and still does here in the West. Cherrypicking, cherrypicking. Of course, Åkesson wouldn’t define his homophobia as much as oppressing, just that the Bible says so and therefore it is right. Now, maybe Åkesson should start looking at himself first and the claims he and his party make regarding domatism, then maybe they got the right to critize Islam properly.

Such fucking idiocy. I wish people could actually see that Åkesson is just a big fucking hypocrite and if I could, I would smother him where he stands with my soceress’ fire ball. In fact, I wish we could tear down our whole current political system and abdicate all our active politicians. They are very good at talking and avoiding questions, very bad at actually making the changes they always claim they are aiming for.