ADVANCE PRAISE
“An informed, impressive, and personal survey of the skeptical field for the layperson and amateur skeptic alike. David G. McAfee has done his research, and it shows.”
—Benjamin Radford, M.Ed., author of Scientific Paranormal Investigation and Research Fellow for the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry
“David G. McAfee’s newest book should be on every skeptic’s bookshelf, and on every believer’s, too. It is a thorough treatment of a number of topics that inspire undue credulity—some much more harmful than others—but all requiring skepticism. Having interviewed hundreds of authors on these sorts of subjects over the years, and having read all of their books, I enthusiastically recommend No Sacred Cows. It is an important work of skepticism steeped in solid research, open-minded inquiry, and a humane interest in helping believers better understand and accept the world as it really is.”
—D. J. Grothe, editor, On The Beauty of Science, and director, Institute for Science and Human Values
“McAfee’s new book is important and deserves to be read widely. It is based on years of research and tackles all sorts of false but common and often dangerous beliefs, superstitions, and fallacies. It teaches us to challenge assumptions, look for evidence and think critically. To be able to do that seems today more important than ever. I recommend this well-written, fascinating book to anyone who feels that sacred cows should have no place in our lives.”
—Prof. Edzard Ernst, Emeritus Professor of Complementary Medicine at the Peninsula School of Medicine, University of Exeter, and author of A Scientist in Wonderland: A Memoir of Searching for Truth and Finding Trouble
“No Sacred Cows is a fascinating, insightful and most enjoyable read. McAfee’s evaluation of his thorough academic research is interwoven with anecdotes of personal experiences and an intriguing variety of interviews. This book should be read widely and discussed often.”
—Dr. Lynne Kelly, author of The Skeptic’s Guide to the Paranormal and The Memory Code
“With No Sacred Cows, which provides a bold and fresh look bringing solid research and consistently entertaining prose to the problem of irrational belief, McAfee has entered the strange worlds of true believers and come out alive. This remarkable book is a grand tour of fraud and delusion that everyone should read. Both irrational believers and seasoned skeptics will find much of value here.”
—Guy P. Harrison, author of Good Thinking and 50 Simple Questions for Every Christian
“If you’ve been waiting for a book that promotes atheism, skepticism and humanism without the chauvinistic snickering and intellectual snobbery that is all too common in this genre, then No Sacred Cows is your book. McAfee has successfully melded an array of academic research, anecdotes, and exhaustive interviews to present a thoroughly enjoyable, timely, and important read.”
—C. J. Werleman, author of The New Atheist Threat and Crucifying America: The Unholy Alliance Between the Christian Right and Wall Street
“This is a must read book. It goes beyond religious delusion, exploring a wide range of aspects that so many of us unwittingly get drawn into, unaware that we are equally deluded about them. McAfee has put several years of painstaking research, investigation, enquiry and interviews into this comprehensive work. The upshot is that we must learn to question everything and not be satisfied with anything less than verifiable evidence regarding all things in life. McAfee points out the uncomfortable truth that whatever we think may be the case, we all ‘believe’ in some things that are completely untrue—and he proves his point. He makes you want to be more vigilant in every area of life.”
—Jim Whitefield, author of The Bible Delusion and The Mormon Delusion series
Pitchstone Publishing
Durham, North Carolina
www.pitchstonepublishing.com
Copyright © 2017 David G. McAfee
All rights reserved.
Printed in the USA
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: McAfee, David G., author.
Title: No sacred cows : investigating myths, cults, and the supernatural / David G. McAfee ; foreword by Yvette d’Entremont.
Description: Durham, North Carolina : Pitchstone Publishing, 2017. | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2016052922| ISBN 9781634311182 (pbk. : alk. paper) | ISBN 9781634311205 (epdf) | ISBN 9781634311212 (mobi)
Subjects: LCSH: Supernatural. | Religion. | Parapsychology. | Occultism.
Classification: LCC BL100 .M27 2017 | DDC 130—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016052922
This book is dedicated to my wife and my parents for supporting me throughout all my endeavors, and to Mister Spock, Carl Sagan, and the Amazing James Randi, for leading the way in logical, evidence-based thinking.
CONTENTS
Foreword by Yvette d’Entremont
Introduction
1 No Sacred Cows
2 How to Effectively Discuss Sacred Cows
3 Religion Is Organized Superstition
4 Blurred Lines Between Atheism and Skepticism
5 What’s the Harm?
6 My Worldview
7 You Don’t Have to Be a Scientist to Think Like One
8 The Importance of Reality
9 “I Know What I Saw!”
10 Ghosts, Spirits, and Specters
11 Psychics and Other So-Called Seers
12 Predictions, Patterns, and (Unfulfilled) Prophecies
13 Afterlives and Near-Death Experiences
14 Alien Intervention
15 The Boy Who Cried Conspiracy
16 Faith Healing and “Alternative” Medicine
17 Cult Crisis
Conclusion: My Crystal Ball
About the Author
FOREWORD
In this burgeoning community percolating with critical thought, there exists a rationale of Internet bravado that the best way to get one’s point across is to be a caustic prick about every opinion that one can spew at top volume into the twitterverse.
And in that moment, instead of lurching forward, desperate to make his attack into the ether, David sits back. He thinks, and takes a moment to laugh and enjoy. He lets his cat curl up in his lap, invites people who agree with him and disagree with him to join him for a conversation, and he nudges.
Okay, maybe it’s more than a nudge. Sometimes it’s a jab. But the jabs are never angry, and they’re not at the people he disagrees with; they’re at the ideas. And at the core of what David does, there’s always a love of discourse. It’s apparent that he’s aiming to make his readers better-informed critical thinkers.
And it’s really hard to do that by being a hardened dick.
Wait, that’s not quite what I meant. But it’s what I meant.
(I’m the scientist who writes dick jokes; I can’t help myself).
Applying scientific thought to the world around you is not always easy to do without losing your sense of humor or balance. In No Sacred Cows, David manages to ask hard questions both of himself as a researcher and of an audience that, as rational as they may be, always comes in with personal biases, anecdotes, and experiences that have colored their worldview. He does this without being off-putting or backing down. David tackles some of my favorite subjects that are just outside the realm of religion but that are nonetheless superstitions—no matter how hard their proponents try to claim scientific credibility. Psychics, ghosts, and faith healing, oh my!
In this regard, some of our work overlaps. Every time, someone swears a loved one was really helped by the magical potion that a wizard sold them, they’re convinced that we’re delivering a cruelty for pointing out they might have been
swindled.
Or, they’re convinced that every critique David makes in this book is right except the one thing that they’re sure worked for them … and David and I and all other skeptics are wrong about that one thing. All the scientific data is right on everything except that one thing that they—or perhaps even you—love. Funny that.
Indeed, a lot of people reading this will have anecdotes of their own about one thing or another in here. That’s okay.
But David’s not doing this to pick on you. He’s doing this because, in the light of day, he’s giving your ideas a nudge. Maybe a jab.
And as Californians, the only sacred cows to us are served at In-N-Out, pending double-blind peer-reviewed study.
—Yvette d’Entremont, SciBabe.com
INTRODUCTION
“For the great enemy of the truth is very often not the lie—deliberate, contrived, and dishonest—but the myth—persistent, persuasive, and unrealistic. Too often we hold fast to the clichés of our forebears. We subject all facts to a prefabricated set of interpretations. We enjoy the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought.”
—John F. Kennedy
In the same way that a belief in magic isn’t necessary for a person to enjoy a good illusion, belief in supernatural forces or entities isn’t needed for one to be interested in the systems that propagate them. In fact, for as long as I can remember, religious traditions and rituals—specifically, what people believe and why—have been among my favorite topics to study, despite the fact that I was never actually a believer in deities and I didn’t associate with any faith. I, like noted magician Harry Houdini, am a skeptic who has always been “a great admirer of mystery and magic.”1 After attending a (mostly nondenominational) Christian church as a child with my family, I quickly realized Christianity wasn’t for me … but I still found myself fascinated by the tradition and the phenomenon of religion in general. Curious about what other groups believed, I began visiting houses of worship of various Christian denominations, as a silent observer, as early as 13 years old. Not long after that, I began studying other religions and the philosophies that inspired them.
My interest in religion grew over the years and, by the time I graduated high school, nobody was surprised that I decided to major in religious studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB). There I began to really delve into all religions from a phenomenological and historical approach with an academic lens, as opposed to learning about a particular faith from the point of view of an observer in a house of worship. The anthropological mentality that was encouraged in the context of my secular religious studies education, which is not to be confused with theology,2 was of the utmost importance. It taught me to treat myths as myths across all cultures, so that I rightfully learned about the Genesis creation narrative alongside the creation stories of Native American traditions and the ancient Greeks.3 After all, learning about ideas or belief systems solely from the perspective of a believer isn’t the way healthy, inquiring minds analyze what’s potentially true.
I continued to read about the origins and interactions of the major and minor belief systems, as well as to attend various religious ceremonies, throughout college. I concluded not only that the anthropological approach to the phenomenon of religion in my studies was fulfilling, but also that it could help put religion as a cultural construct into context for someone who may not understand that fact—for whatever reason. When one is raised in a particular faith, for instance, he or she is often ignorant of the realities that can be uncovered through an objective study of the many faiths around the world. I feel it is important to show people that religions come and go all the time, all without a trace of evidence supporting their supernatural claims, and that modern religions around today are no different from those that have gone extinct. The best way to do that is to educate them about all religions and show them that no faith is special or unique—that they are all creations of the human mind. By taking on this task, there’s no telling how many previously unaware people we could help. It is for this reason that I have a vision of a future in which the study of religion is a purely academic endeavor, with mega-churches converted into hospitals or perhaps even centers for secular education about various belief systems.
If a believer seeks out this education by reading an allegedly holy text and examining the history of the corresponding tradition from a modern and intellectual perspective, it’s not probable that he or she will have the powerful spiritual experience that’s often associated with hearing well-rehearsed sermons. Instead, the person is more likely to find the archaic principles put forth in the text to be devoid of much modern relevance and its supernatural claims to be without scientific support. This is part of why I actively encourage teaching religious studies from an objective approach in public schools, something that isn’t properly practiced in many countries and isn’t implemented almost at all in the United States.4 In such classes about religion, children can learn about the origins of myths and the histories (and indeed the importance) of various religious institutions, allowing them to see all religions as part of the same phenomenon. This prevents kids from falling into the trap of seeing one as inherently superior to all others, and is something I discuss in my children’s books on critical thinking, religion, and the origin of beliefs.5 It’s not just about religion, though. In all areas of life, good parents and teachers should educate the younger generations about how to analyze the evidence and reach conclusions, and not provide answers as absolute Truths, with a capital “T.”
SKEPTICAL ACTIVISM
It was at UCSB that my growing interest in religions sparked an entrance into the world of secular activism. I saw the harms that had been justified using religious ideologies and I sought to keep people in modern times from repeating one of humanity’s greatest mistakes: treating religion as something separate and divine—as opposed to using it as a tool to better understand ourselves. I wanted people to be able to learn lessons from religious tales without using the dogma itself as a basis for discrimination. After graduating from UCSB with a double major in English and Religious Studies, with an emphasis on Christianity and Mediterranean religions, I published two books: Disproving Christianity and Other Secular Writings and Mom, Dad, I’m an Atheist: The Guide to Coming Out as a Non-Believer.67 I continued to write and learn about religion, but my propensity toward skepticism of unfounded claims in general, along with my interest in the unknown and unknowable, led me to study other supernatural beliefs, too. I soon realized that, while it may not always be apparent, I have something in common with preachers, people who claim to be psychics, ghost hunters, etc. We’re all interested in the supernatural; I just don’t think it’s real.
I researched things like witchcraft, ghosts, and psychics, using the same anthropological and historical methods I was used to in my religious studies courses, and saw many similarities between these ideas and their cousins—the beliefs grounded in religious faith. I found that supernatural beliefs, including religions, were often passed from generation to generation—and that they all rely on the unknown. I also documented a number of psychological similarities between those who believe in all sorts of otherworldly claims. Through my studies, for instance, it quickly became clear to me that some people who substitute or complement their religious beliefs with other beliefs in the supernatural or paranormal are equally defensive of those nonreligious concepts. This tells me a lot of things, including that emotional reasoning is likely an important component of all these ideas. There are key differences, too. Organized religions are often more popular and receive more deference than nonreligious supernatural ideas, for example. But millions of people are still duped by nonreligious supernatural claims each year and, despite the cultural perceptions, I found more similarities than differences between them and their more organized counterparts.
How believers deal with events that they tie to their unfounded yet firmly held beliefs, whether they’re paranormal or religious or neither, is one n
early universal parallel in thinking between people with differing beliefs. Here’s a story that simply explains how preexisting biases make skepticism and objectivity almost impossible for many believers, and why one should always be wary of comfortable and convenient answers to the universe’s most complicated questions:
A BRIGHT LIGHT SHOWS UP IN THE SKY OUT OF NOWHERE, AND FOUR PEOPLE WITNESS THE EXTRAORDINARY EVENT, WHICH NONE OF THEM CAN EXPLAIN.
THE PARANORMAL INVESTIGATOR SAYS SPIRITS FROM THE AFTERLIFE ARE TRYING TO GET THEIR ATTENTION, THE PREACHER CLAIMS THE LIGHTS ARE JESUS SIGNALING THE END TIMES AS THE BIBLE FORETOLD, AND THE ALIEN VISITATION BELIEVER CALLS THE LIGHT PROOF THAT EXTRA-TERRESTRIALS ARE COMMUNICATING WITH THEIR HOME PLANET FROM EARTH.
BUT THE CURIOUS SKEPTIC RESERVES JUDGMENT, CONSIDERS ALL POSSIBLE SCENARIOS, AND LOOKS FOR THE MOST REASONABLE, LOGICAL, AND NATURAL EXPLANATION—WILLING TO FOLLOW THE EVIDENCE, NO MATTER THE RESULT.
BRANCHING OUT
After The Belief Book series, I knew I couldn’t just write another book debunking a different religion, because it’d be a step back in thinking.8 I decided to shift the topics of my writing so that it could be more easily applied to all sorts of false beliefs, and the processes by which we rid ourselves of those flawed ideas. I wanted to take the same anthropological approach that helped me to understand world religions and use it as a lens to view all unfounded and faith-based claims, as well as to investigate the origins and histories associated with all myths—popular and rare—and use that research as the basis for my writing.9 I wanted to experience and test as many of the claims as possible for myself and find out firsthand what they had to offer. When it comes to the supernatural, some people say, “Simply believe,” and others say, “Reject it all as nonsense,” but I say, “Let’s explore.” As philosopher Dr. Wayne W. Dyer cautioned, “The ultimate ignorance is the rejection of something you know nothing about yet refuse to investigate.”
No Sacred Cows Page 1
