The Antichristian Phenomenon

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

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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.

Aristotle was one of the first philosophers to really try and tackle the field of causality. In Metaphysics, Aristotle proposes four different causes. These are the causa materialis, the material cause; causa formalis, the formal cause; causa efficiens, the efficient cause and the causa finalis, the final cause. For this essay, it is not important to go into the first two. Also note that our current, every-day use of the word “cause” is only one of these four, namely the efficient cause, which denotes the agent that brings something about. If A necessarily leads to B, A is the efficient cause of B. The remaining cause which is of importance in this essay is the final cause, which denotes the purpose or intended end of a certain action. If A is a necessary step to achieve B, B is the final cause for A.

It may be apparent that these causes are different, yet related. The most important aspect is the directionality these causes imply. It is this directional property that I will be focusing on a lot. One could say that the efficient cause looks from the past towards the present, whereas the final cause looks from the present towards the future. You could say that the efficient cause is the answer to the question “how”, and that the final cause is the answer to the question “why”. Another important aspect in which these two causes are different is intentionality. In case of the efficient cause, no goal is necessarily implied, whereas in the case of the final cause there is. A conscious entity is required for a final cause, as actions result from being a necessary step towards a goal.

Having said that, I assume bells have already started ringing. This description of two particular Aristotelian categories of causality will remind many of how the relationship between science and religion is often perceived: science answers the “how” questions whilst religions answers the “why” questions. In other words: science provides efficient causes, whilst religion provides final causes. The way science provides these answers is through the scientific inquiry: a method applied to a domain in which causal homogeneity and methodological naturalism are assumed. Therefore we find a directionality from past to future in science, as well as an absence of intentionality. This is why God can never scientifically be said to be a cause of anything, because an agent with a mind does not necessarily behave the same way the next time (this is also why creationism is inherently unscientific). Science is constrained, but progressive; assuming that the accumulation of information is higher than the loss of data, and assuming that there are people with novel ideas once in a while, we can expect more accurate models of reality emerge from science over time. In other words: For more accuracy, look later in the scientific archives.

Religion is different; as it (though not exclusively) provides answers to questions concerning final causes. The idea that religion is closely connected to this category of cause are supported by often invoked sayings such as “God has a plan for us all” or “God works in mysterious ways”; but also by concepts of “the greater good” and “God’s will”. The intentions of a deity for the future are the most important factor for providing an answer to the “why” of the events that occur in the present. Therefore we find a directionality from future to present in religion, as well as a clear presence of intentionality. The method that religion uses for discerning the answers it provides are wholly contingent upon interpretation of the “revealed truths” contained within “sacred books”. This means there is no epistemological basis for answers stemming from religions: they are wholly contingent upon an assumption of authority. Unlike science, religion is not progressive, but static. The prevailing method for one who wants to analyse religious answers is to look at the original texts. The earliest manuscripts are more authoritative than later ones, because these might contain alterations introduced by scribes. In other words: For more accuracy, look earlier in the religious archives.

There is also something else going on, because religious answers do not have to be constrained. Ideas spawned from religion do not even have to be consistent with logic. Such examples are abundant in theistic religions. Take for example the position of Descartes about the omnipotence paradox (“Can God create a rock which He cannot lift?”): he posits that God has absolute omnipotence, being above logic and able to do even that which is logically self-contradictory. The other attributes the Abrahamic god is often accredited with also result in logical paradoxes. These are the coexistence of God’s omniscience and free will, and the problem of evil (the coexistence of God’s omnibenevolence and suffering). Luckily, not all theologians are as drunk on God as Descartes was. They acknowledge logic as a constraint on God, as well as on the answers religion provide. As such, there exists room for debate, which is wholly absent with those who side with Descartes.

One has to wonder, though: if God is constrained by logic, is he then not also constrained by the natural laws that humans discovered through the application of logic and the epistemological toolbox we call the scientific method? And if that is so, why not recognize the basis to religious answers is logically fallacious to start with? This is one of the important questions in examining the relationship between religion and science. Though both give answers to different Aristotelian causes in principle, religion often moves beyond it’s turf. This may be evident in religiously inspired pseudo-science, such as creationism; but also in writings by philosophers who drank the God poison. On the other hand, science has been conquering land from religion on the battlefield of ideas. Questions that were previously unanswerable by science were answered by religion. In the light of the ever-improving scientific models of reality, ancient religious doctrine is approaching the absurd. Where the constrained light of science does not shine, religion stands rooted in it’s usual method: mere guesswork.

I preserved this thread on my personal blog, but I figure the visitors here would be more interested, since I don’t even attempt to generate traffic there.  I’ve also modified it into a single post.  Now that the fireworks have died down and the Creationist ran away officially, I would say the debate is officially over, and quite post-worthy.

A silly “All-Access Customer” was harassing Cleric on his Expelled review (which he also posted on the ACP), and putting forth statements he couldn’t answer, so I was called in for damage control.  If you want to read the original source, my first post is on page 27, All-Access’s comments start somewhere around 20, his complete idiocy is exposed on page 26, but I have condensed the posts here and edited basically nothing. (I may have fixed a few typos and names?)  I left out posts that weren’t by myself, Cleric, or All-Access as they did not contribute to the debate.  If you want to read them, the link is above…

All-Access got confused and a bit angry at my blatant exposure of his logical fallacies, then I smacked him around with some science and he disappeared for over a month, claiming he was “sleep deprived” and couldn’t think about it yet.  When he came back, he complained again that he was sleep deprived and continued to ignore my post.  It seems that most Creationists/ID proponents can not seem to argue outside those tired boxes already set up for them.

Warning: some of the responses are MASSIVE, and there is not much logic to be found.  Overall, it is a pretty typical debate with a supporter of ID.  Also, if you see that I have made a mistake or provided mis-information anywhere, please let me know so I do not repeat it next time.

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I will first provide definitions of the three words I used in the title. I will use Wikipedia as a source for the definitions, because I think the dictionary definitions I have seen are too short to encompass what they mean. I put more trust in the encyclopedic definition more or less agreed on by the collective conciousness that manifests itself on Wikipedia.

Religion:

A religion is a set of beliefs and practices, often centered upon specific supernatural and moral claims about reality, the cosmos, and human nature, and often codified as prayer, ritual, or religious law. Religion also encompasses ancestral or cultural traditions, writings, history, and mythology, as well as personal faith and religious experience.

(Source page)

Politics

Politics is the process by which groups of people make decisions.

(Source page

Science

Science (from the Latin scientia, meaning “knowledge”) is the effort to discover, understand, or to understand better, how the physical world works, with observable physical evidence as the basis of that understanding.

(Source page)

From their definitions alone one would not immediately suspect that these three come into contact with eachother. I need not remind you how the religionists (forgive my lack of a better word) have clashed with the scientists in deciding whether to teach creationism or intelligent design (which was ruled to be the same in this court case, so I will use the terms interchangeably) in public schools – which I will use as the primary example in this article, tiring as it may be. There are more interactions between these three than just collisions. There have been allegements, both explicit and implicit by the religious that I want to examine and, to be frank, tear down. Without going into the actual issue, I just want to make a few remarks about trends that I have seen.

First of all I want to talk about the religionists attempts to put the stamp of “science” on their ideas. This does not only concern creationism: rather a lot of Christians are trying to wedge in the idea that their claims about the bible, human nature and the universe are backed up by (scientific) evidence. These religionists’ reasons for this may be apparent: in convincing non-believers of their found “truth”, whacking them around the ears with a bible or qur’an does not work any more in these modern times. Rather than convincing people of the messages in their holy scriptures, they are convincing people that their supernatural claims are compatible with the world perspective science offers, or worse: that their supernatural claims are actually the product of science. Anyone who has ever really dealt with science would immediately remember that (in science) the bible and the qur’an are not accepted sources of information for reasons so plethoric I deem it unnecessary to mention any of them.

Secondly I want to talk about the religionists’ attempt to put the stamp of “religion” or “politics” on science. The argument that science is just another faith or religion is well-known. The question whether science is religion has been answered eloquently by Richard Dawkins (among others) in this article, concluding that science is “free of the main vice of religion, which is faith” and that even though nothing can epistemically be defended for a hundred percent, there is a “difference in the world between a belief that one is prepared to defend by quoting evidence and logic and a belief that is supported by nothing more than tradition, authority, or revelation.”

Science has also been bombarded as a political system with an agenda. Coined terms like “evolutionists” or “Darwinism” are the incarnations of these attacks. The terms don’t maky any sense at all, as the former merely seems to be a response to the term “creationists”. Calling someone an “evolutionist” accurately implies that that person accept evolution, but it is void of additional meaning when compared to “scientist”. Anyone who accepts science, automatically accepts all scientific concepts, including evolution. The word “evolutionists” would only make sense if there were people who do not accept science, but do accept evolution – which is silly.

The word “Darwinism” more explicit in it’s attempt to ascribe political load to the concept of evolution. More recently “Darwinism” has unapologetically been abused in the “documentary” Expelled as an inspiration for the Nazis, and subsequently, the holocaust. It is nasty blow below the belt and an unacceptable, blatantly misleading lie to the public. The line of reasoning involved in this conclusion hinges on basic misunderstandings of religion (a very illustrative one being that if Hitler was truly inspired by evolution, he would have needed to do nothing as evolution dictates that the better “race” prevails automatically). More importantly, it should be noted that there is no such thing is Darwinism. If there would be, then where is Einsteinism or Newtonism? “Darwinism”, like “evolutionist” is void.

It all seems like religionists are trying to divide science, putting the same scientific principles under different sounding categories, and then attacking these categories. They forget that science works under the assumptions that there is one universe (or “truth”) and that laws that describe that universe do not change with time or space. Therefore, science is a single, solid system. It is not at all like the macrocosmic variety of religions, varying (in time and space) from Zoroastrianism and Taoism to Christianity and the Norse pantheon, or the microcosm of one such religion such as Christianity, varying (again in time and space) from Mormonism and the Seventh Day Adventists to Catholicism and Protestantism).

I can only conclude that the religious are very desperately looking for measures to get what they want. It includes trying to level with the successful unity that is science and it’s foundation “reason”, either by trying to portray themselves as scientific or by making up sections of science which they attack with slanderous lies. Also resorting to claims that science has been infiltrated by the immoral godless who are purposely hiding the truth and demanding “equality” have luckily not had any legal support. I guess they also fail to realise that the high percentage of atheists in the scientific community is a product of the amounted knowledge and understanding of the universe that does not require a god.

I urge nobody to give into the usage of words like “evolutionist”, “Darwinist” or any other void description of what it is supposed to represent. We, as scientists, atheists, humanists, and freethinkers must keep an eye out for these kinds of religious political motives to safeguard the secular stronghold insofar it exists today and potentially exists tomorrow.

Recently, a member of the ACP audience has been tenaciously debating with some of the authors, including myself on our most recent author‘s introductory post. During this, quite intense, debate, he has gone on to claim all sorts of stuff. From quoting bible passages, to classic fallacies, to finally claiming that the bible is confirmed by Alien Abductions and…Equidistant letter sequence.

Now, everyone knows that extraordinary claims [1. like Aliens who are really Angels] require extraordinary evidence. But what most do not understand is that the place to present this evidence is not in a random Internet Blog or message board, especially if that place if skeptical of your claims.

Face it, even if you think that your brilliant theory on Equidistant letter sequences will abso-fucking-lutely prove the biblical inerrancy beyond the shadow of a doubt, and even if you’ve worded it in a way that you cannot see any obvious holes, you cannot expect random people on the internet to sit and read a subject that they’re pretty certain is wrong. This is because of two simple reasons.

• Our time is precious and sludging through bible passages or shady pictures is, frankly, a waste of our time.
• Even if we do read through your theory and do find a few holes to poke, it’s certain to escalate into a debate and it is quite possible that even then our opponent will claim a false victory.

For these reasons, it is quite improbable that you will convince a skeptic to take up your challenge to read some random sources online. Even though it can happen that one will take you up the challenge and then post his critique of the source (which will lead to point 2 above anyway).

However this is the wrong way to go about it. If come to discuss an article in a site, you should discuss the article and any errors or inconsistencies your find. If you start posting book links or quoting bible passages to us, we’ll just roll our eyes and ignore you.

If you do have some insightful evidence that you think no one in the last 2000 years has found before you, well, now is your chance to become famous. You see, even though we are skeptics, we are not skeptical of the scientific method or the scientific consensus. You know why? Becuase it has proven it works.

Thus, If you have done some kind of amazing research that really does prove that Aliens are Angels and whatnot, and you’re not just talking out of your arse, then take your research to a peer reviewed journal and see if it’s published. Then, people who are really knowledgeable on your subject (instead of random internet people) will review it and, if you are indeed correct, publish it. You will be instantly changing the world paradigm for not just a small internet message board, but everyone who is a skeptic.

If you’re looking for results, then there is no better place to go. And better yet, you have the knowledge that this can happen even if your research is controversial. I mean, they did accept Quantum Mechanics even though names like Einstein were opposing it.

It is, of course, quite probable that you won’t do this because you know you’re just wishful thinking. It is not surprising that the “New Age” movement has been left outside peer review and they only seem to work through anecdotal evidence. All these grandiose names of UFOlogist or Theologians seem capable of only preaching to the choir and cry persecution because their bad-research papers are not published.

If you are like these people, then please do not be surprised that we will not waste our time and energy to read any random book you have in mind. We know that humans are fallible and one can be convinced on something blatantly false just because of personal beliefs & experiences, we see it happening all the time with the Christians after all. And this is why on subject we do not know about, you will not find us in the middle of the road, so to speak, we will be sided with the scientific consensus by default.

If you wish to change our minds, try and change that.

In this article I will analyse the attempts to attain knowledge or “truth” of various systems who claim it. Afterwards, I will examine these systems for their merit and their danger. When it comes to truth, there are three systems who claim to have some of it. There is science, there is philosophy, and there is religion. Because this is an analysis, I will try not to favor any of these three and stay objective.

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