No Sacred Cows

by David G. McAfee

  Questioning information you’re provided, as Carlin suggested, is critically important. But deeper questions, those that make you rethink your preconceived notions and reconsider why you believe something, can be even more powerful. And if you ask reasonable questions in a friendly manner, other participants in the conversation may be forced to think through their positions logically, instead of simply reacting based on emotional impulses. The best way to do this, in my opinion, is to model your line of questioning after the Socratic Method, which has been proven to work over thousands of years.

  If you’ve ever taken a university-level philosophy class, you’ve probably heard of the Socratic Method. This process, named after the classical Greek philosopher Socrates, is a question-based system for promoting critical thinking and reaching conclusions in a debate. While it has been interpreted and modified in many ways, the method itself is simple: you ask a number of questions and follow-ups in an attempt to expose a potential contradiction in another participant’s thinking, and then you work together to come up with a tenable solution. This is often used in teaching as a means to help students think for themselves,11 but it works incredibly well in general discussions, as well.

  My advice is to use this method in the least abrasive way possible, allowing questions to guide the discussion and stimulate learning on all sides. At times, it may even be acceptable to answer a question with another (hopefully thought-provoking) question when responding to someone else. Like Socrates and others before me, I think good questions can lead to internal answers, which are often the most rewarding ones.

  STAY ON POINT

  This recommendation is fairly simple and it applies to every debate, regardless of the subjects being discussed: stick to the topic at hand. If you’re talking about whether or not petitionary prayer yields legitimate, measurable, observable results, then don’t allow the dialogue to be shifted toward evolution, Young Earth creationism, morality, or jihad. And if you’re debating the existence of peer-reviewed scientific evidence for some ancient mystical force, don’t let the other party base their argument solely on anecdotal accounts. When people feel like they are losing a particular debate, it is not uncommon for them to attempt to shift the conversation in progress in search of a more comfortable topic where they feel they will have more footing. They may even change the standards of deciding the argument currently in progress, instead of switching topics entirely, which is called moving the goalposts.12 However, by simply ignoring that behavior and sticking to the original discussion, the other party is forced to participate in the predetermined issue (or abandon the debate altogether). I also recommended familiarizing yourself with other logical fallacies, both formal and informal, to avoid distractions resulting from all sorts of faulty argument patterns.

  Just as it is important to ignore any attempts to change the topic or move the goalposts, it’s equally crucial to not be distracted by argumentum ad hominem fallacies, personal attacks through which a person attempts to discredit another person’s argument,13 or general name-calling. Of course, before engaging in discussion, you probably want to ensure the other party is willing to have a friendly debate and accept new evidence. But if during the course of the talk, a participant resorts to insults, whether they are ad hominem character attacks in an attempt to undermine your argument or not, it is usually a sign that he or she has become flustered and is seeking a quick way out. By ignoring the insults completely, repeating unanswered questions or calls for evidence if necessary, and sticking to the actual issue, the name-caller will have no choice but to give up the immature behavior and/or surrender entirely.

  TREAT THOSE YOU DEBATE LIKE THEY’RE ON AN HONEST SEARCH FOR REALITY

  While it may not always be the case, friendly and effective debates are easier if you assume your counterpart is legitimately searching for the truth—and not simply seeking convenient lies. This ensures that the discussion remains informative and real, and that you don’t seem condescending or rude. It’s possible that, through this process, a party’s tendency to immediately dismiss any opposing view out of hand could be softened or destroyed entirely. By treating the individual with respect and ignoring behavior to the contrary, defenses are weakened, and new information is more easily shared.

  Even if you don’t think your debate partner is looking for truth, you should note that it’s not all about the person with whom you’re engaging—outsiders are often on their own journey toward the truth and it’s important to remember that. Whether you’re discussing sacred cows with your family, in an online forum, or in a professional debate hall, observers should be kept in mind. It’s possible that onlookers of your debates are on the fence about the topic at hand, and that they are seeking answers. Understanding this very basic concept ensures the discussion flows smoothly because it helps to eliminate feelings the participants may have for one another and forces the discussion to be centered on the facts.

  “A good leader can engage in a debate frankly and thoroughly, knowing that at the end he and the other side must be closer, and thus emerge stronger. You don’t have that idea when you are arrogant, superficial, and uninformed.”

  —Nelson Mandela

  NOTES

  1. Daniel C. Dennett, Intuition Pumps and Other Tools for Thinking (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2013).

  2. Ray Hyman, “Proper Criticism,” Skeptical Inquirer 25, no. 4 (2001): 5–55.

  3. Adrian Chen, “Conversion via Twitter,” New Yorker, November 23, 2015, www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/11/23/conversion-via-twitter-westboro-baptist-church-megan-phelps-roper.

  4. The only thing I enjoy more than reasonable, logical thinking is writing about that process and how to do it properly—sharing it with others. You can never go wrong when encouraging people to be rational and follow the evidence.

  5. “I never teach my pupils, I only attempt to provide the conditions in which they can learn.”—Albert Einstein

  6. Arthur Waldron, The Great Wall of China: From History to Myth (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990).

  7. Rachel C. Vreeman and Aaron E. Carroll, “Medical Myths,” British Medical Journal 335, no. 7633 (2007): 1288–1289.

  8. Frantz Fanon, Black Skin, White Masks (New York: Grove Press, 2008).

  9. Lee Warren and Derek Bok Center, “Managing Hot Moments in the Classroom,” Derek Bok Center for Teaching and Learning, 2006, isites.harvard.edu/fs/html/icb.topic58474/hotmoments.html.

  10. Richard Paul and Linda Elder, Critical Thinking Handbook: Basic Theory and Instructional Structures, 2nd ed. (Dillion Beach, CA: Foundation for Critical Thinking, 2000).

  11. Bob Brownhill, “The Socractic Method,” in The Theory and Practice of Teaching, ed. Peter Jarvis (London: Kogan Page, 2002), 70–78.

  12. Theo Clark and Jef Clark, Humbug! The Skeptic’s Field Guide to Spotting Fallacies in Thinking (Nifty Books, 2005), 101

  13. Michael C. LaBossiere, 42 Fallacies for Free (2002).

  3

  RELIGION IS ORGANIZED SUPERSTITION

  “The problem is that one man’s superstition is another man’s religion, and vice versa. Many Protestants today still see Catholicism as being rife with superstition … while atheists and agnostics would see bien-pensant Protestants as worshiping an equally absurd form of the supernatural.”

  —David Gibson

  Superstitions have historically helped people and groups feel more in control when they were actually powerless and, despite our many advancements, the modern era is no different. We still can’t control or know everything, but we will always want to, so we continue to create false answers—religious and nonreligious alike—to fill that void.

  Until now, most of my writings have been focused on exploring the fallacies, contradictions, and irrationality associated with one particular associate of superstition: religion.1 My first book, Disproving Christianity, was a critique of biblical literalism and an analysis of the world’s most followed religion from a secular perspective. My second, Mom, Dad, I’m
an Atheist, sought to help freethinkers of all backgrounds tread the dangerous landscape of public disbelief in a society largely dominated by religious and theistic assumptions, as well as to help debunk common myths about atheism itself. I also co-wrote The Belief Series, a trilogy of interactive study guides that seek to teach kids of all ages about the origins of beliefs, gods, and religions. But religion isn’t the only false belief system, and theism isn’t the only false belief. I want to do my best to encourage critical thinking and evidence-based worldviews for all, and criticism of the world’s religions is just one part of that goal.

  In the past, I emphasized my activism in favor of secularism and against the major religions because it is those traditions and their accompanying stagnant moral guides that breed much of the intolerance in the world, and are responsible for so many hindrances to humanity’s scientific advancement. While it is well established that religion itself is a cultural universal,2 and that it likely has or had evolutionary benefits,3 it is also becoming less and less necessary every day and is now (slowly) losing relevance in the age of information, at least in the West. In fact, one recent study showed that the Christian share of the population in the United States, by far the largest religious group in the country, fell from 78.4 percent to 70.6 percent between 2007 and 2014.4 And in another survey, researchers found that 38 percent of Harvard freshmen identified as atheist or agnostic while only 34 percent described themselves as Christian.5

  I think this notable decline in religious identification, sometimes referred to as the “rise of the nones,”6 is occurring partly because credible information is more widely available and—if given the chance—most people prefer to have facts over faith. However, it is also due to the fact that everyone with an Internet connection can see the damages religion causes or, at very least, justifies. These religions and their followers affect believers and nonbelievers alike all across the world and, when religion excuses violence, impedes scientific progress, and gives motivation to strip people of human rights, I understand why so many would distance themselves from it or even feel that excessive criticism is warranted and necessary. Let me be clear: I have no problem with people following a religion, but I also think it’s possible to take many life lessons from various religious philosophies without having to literally believe in the religions themselves. I further recognize that religions are most harmful when imposed on others, as opposed to when practiced at a personal and philosophical level, and I adjust my assessments accordingly.

  I DON’T HATE RELIGION

  My critiques of various world religions shouldn’t be confused with disdain for the belief systems themselves or for those who adhere to them. Pointing out the negative aspects of religious influences and inconsistencies within specific belief systems does not equate to persecution or hatred of those systems’ followers, and I maintain my lifelong passion for studying religions and their rich histories. That’s why I, for one, don’t hate believers or religion. It’s not that black and white for me—I don’t have to either endorse all actions done in the name of religion or condemn its practice entirely. I hate religious extremism, but I don’t hate meditation or meditative prayer; I hate that religious ideals have consistently impeded science and invaded secular governments, but I don’t hate church-run food drives and soup kitchens; I hate the God-is-on-our-side mentality and that millions of people think that religion is necessary to live a happy and moral life, but I don’t hate peaceful religious practices or people who happen to believe differently. So, no, I don’t hate religion. In fact, I love religion. I love learning about it. I love finding out how it came to be, and about the specific components of various religious traditions. I just hate how it is abused. I hate how it is taken out of its own original context and used to discriminate against people. I hate how it has infiltrated the governments of certain states and countries. The answer to that isn’t to end religion. It’s to end those abuses.

  I love the study of religion so much that I often find myself opposing fellow nonbelievers who say they dislike all religions, or that they want to ban it entirely, usually in reference to the more popular Abrahamic faiths. In my opinion, if you don’t hate ancient Greek myths, you shouldn’t hate modern religions.7 You might oppose that they are taken as reality in today’s times or that they are incorporated into legislation, but that doesn’t equate to a blanket hatred of the stories themselves. The myths wouldn’t have power without people who take them as literal truths. The fact is that religion is a human universal, and it isn’t something we could simply erase, even if we wanted to. It’s an integral part of our history and, for better or worse, it will likely help shape much of our future. Religion was one of our initial attempts to explain the unknown, long before the scientific process was developed, taught, and refined, so it’s not surprising that it is still important to so many people. As Christopher Hitchens once explained, religion was humanity’s “first—and is in some ways therefore the worst—chance to explain human nature and the natural order.”

  “It was our first attempt at philosophy, just as it was our first attempt at astronomy and biology. We embarked on it in a time of fearful infancy, when we didn’t know that we lived on a rounded planet in a tiny solar system which had a center around which we revolved,” Hitchens said.8 “We didn’t know that there were microorganisms that we couldn’t see, but that explained a lot about both our health and our ill-health. We were told we were given dominion over all animals and we were wrong, because there were no dinosaurs in that list, no marsupials, because the people who wrote this didn’t know they existed, and we were certainly never given dominion over microorganisms and we’ll never get that, because they rule!”

  Religion was our first attempt at a lot of things, and it continues to be an inspiration for major (charitable and horrific) acts around the world every day, so it’s reasonable to conclude it will likely exist for the foreseeable future. But does it have to exist in an essentially stagnant state as it has for thousands of years? Many people, whether they identify with a tradition or not, think we can change religion for the better. I tend to agree.

  I SUPPORT SECULARIZATION

  Unfortunately for me and many others, being a nonbeliever doesn’t exempt me from the damaging effects of institutionalized religion. And I advocate for secularism to push back against the encroachment of religion into the U.S. government, which is supposed to have a wall of separation between Church and State that would prevent these occurrences and place religion back into its proper position as a personal endeavor. The result of this much-needed separation—when properly enforced—is a nation in which those who wish to worship are allowed to do so freely of their own accord, and those of us who do not have or want religion in our lives can avoid being governed or limited by it.

  Religions are unique in that they are the only known superstition-based belief systems that have, historically and in modern times, retained a stranglehold on so many societies and governments. In the United States, for instance, there are some (of course not all) Christians who regularly attempt to force their religion into the legislation and public policy of a secular nation—and with some success. Whether it’s something as simple as “IN GOD WE TRUST” being printed on our currency or as damaging as teaching Young Earth creationism and other false sciences to our children in public schools, we are constantly being affected by religious influences. It has halted studies in life-saving fields of medicine like stem-cell research and has been used as the primary justification for stripping numerous groups of their civil rights, first for African Americans and women, and then for homosexuals. In other regions, especially in the war-torn Middle East, Islam has been at the root of similar but more violent and intrusive injustices when combined with government.

  Many people, believers and nonbelievers alike, are quick to point out that it’s just the extremists and fundamentalists of each religion who are at the root of the major issues, and that’s largely true, but it’s also important to note that to give t
he doctrines themselves leniency in criticism is to allow the fringe groups to use their faith to hold back the progress of others. Further, while fundamentalists themselves are undoubtedly problematic, there may be something wrong with a religion itself if those who strictly adhere to its most fundamental principles are violent bigots and sexists.

  I didn’t start out writing about secular issues because I give deities or religious claims any particular credence in relation to other supernatural beliefs, but because the depth to which theism and religiosity have permeated society has made them the most harmful, which is demonstrated by the fact that so many people are discriminated against (and much worse in some regions) for simply not believing in that which lacks proof. That standard doesn’t exist for any other superstition or paranormal assertion. For perspective: in modern America, believing in an invisible person-like creature would likely be considered unhealthy, but believing it hears your thoughts and takes human form is actually the norm. And while most Americans today find comfort in the fact that their elected officials pray and get guidance from clergymen, they might be appalled if those same politicians used a crystal ball and consulted psychics. In fact, even as far back as the 1980s, there was public controversy over the fact that President Ronald Reagan and his wife were “deeply interested in astrology.” There was a media frenzy when people discovered that Nancy Reagan not only had an astrologer on call, but also used astrology to time her husband’s events in an attempt to keep him safe. She even credited her astrologer with predicting an assassination attempt on the president in 1981, though the seer only said “there was going to be an incident on that day,” according to news reports at the time.9 In this way, through a double standard and only in the minds of those who give them such reverence, religions are separate from other superstitions.