“The supposedly immaterial soul, we now know, can be bisected with a knife, altered by chemicals, started or stopped by electricity, and extinguished by a sharp blow or by insufficient oxygen,” Pinker says.
While most people seem to use spirituality as a byproduct of belief in the soul or in other supernatural forces, others define it a little bit differently. Instead of basing spirituality on a separation from the worldly, others do the opposite and associate it with a feeling of connection to the natural universe itself, or to other people or animals in general. Carl Sagan was one of those people. He said that he “will feel free to use the word” spirituality.
“In its encounter with Nature, science invariably elicits a sense of reverence and awe. The very act of understanding is a celebration of joining, merging, even if on a very modest scale, with the magnificence of the Cosmos,” Sagan wrote. “Science is not only compatible with spirituality; it is a profound source of spirituality. When we recognize our place in an immensity of light years and in the passage of ages, when we grasp the intricacy, beauty and subtlety of life, then that soaring feeling, that sense of elation and humility combined, is surely spiritual.”
Sagan’s description of spirituality may not be accepted by everyone, but there is no doubt that he and others have overwhelming feelings often associated with it. This fact is in direct opposition to a claim made by Oprah Winfrey, who, in a 2013 interview with athlete, author, and motivational speaker Diana Nyad,9 said atheists aren’t atheists if they believe in “awe” and “wonder” and “mystery.” Regardless of what Winfrey and others may suggest, naturalists, including myself, are not devoid of the appreciation, awe, and wonderment that many consider to be other forms of so-called spirituality. In fact, I am genuinely amazed and intrigued by the many wonders and mysteries of the natural world, so much so that I see no need to invent the supernatural realm. I have found that being a scientific-minded person and looking for consistent results and data—only believing in exchange for solid evidence—has helped me ensure that my awe and wonder aren’t wasted on fallacies.
I think realizing and being appreciative of the natural beauty of the world around us—and the interconnectedness of every living and nonliving particle in the universe—is something that a scientific and naturalistic worldview fosters. We are all made up of the same materials. The carbon, nitrogen, and oxygen atoms that make up our bodies and all other organic matter were forged when ancient stars died. In fact, recent studies suggest stardust itself contains complex organic matter.10 We are a tiny part of the universe living this one life for which we make our own meaning and our own purpose. That is both beautiful and supported by the scientific consensus. As Neil deGrasse Tyson has said, “So you’re made of detritus [from exploded stars]. Get over it. Or better yet, celebrate it. After all, what nobler thought can one cherish than that the universe lives within us all?”
So, am I spiritual? If belief in spirits or the supernatural is a prerequisite for spirituality, then no I am not a spiritual person. However, if you define spirituality as having a sense of inspiration or connection when it comes to the natural world, then I am. I have all the same positive emotions as “spiritual” people have, and I, too, am filled with hope—another trait nonbelievers are often accused of lacking. I just do my best to separate those feelings and wishes from the facts. Theoretical physicist Richard P. Feynman explains how a scientific view of certain things doesn’t detract from their inherent beauty.
Poets say science takes away from the beauty of the stars—mere globs of gas atoms. Nothing is “mere.” I too can see the stars on a desert night, and feel them. But do I see less or more? The vastness of the heavens stretches my imagination—stuck on this carousel my little eye can catch one-million-year-old light. A vast pattern—of which I am a part … What is the pattern, or the meaning, or the why? It does not do harm to the mystery to know a little about it. For far more marvelous is the truth than any artists of the past imagined! Why do the poets of the present not speak of it? What men are poets who can speak of Jupiter if he were a man, but if he is an immense spinning sphere of methane and ammonia must be silent?11
This form of complex wonder and spirituality, which can be derived from the natural world and even the scientific method itself, is powerful enough to give some people a deep sense of purpose. It’s often said that naturalists don’t have a meaning of life, but why does meaning have to come from a god or afterlife or even spirituality?12 Can’t it be anything? The pursuit of love? Or, perhaps, the progression of one’s own bloodline? Shouldn’t it be a person’s individual responsibility to give life meaning, instead of having to rely on heavily flawed religious traditions and paranormal beliefs to provide the framework? Everyone’s meaning in life is different. For me, it’s accomplishing what I can in this short time we have on earth,13 caring for my loved ones, and making a difference in the lives of those around me. I just don’t see how supernatural beliefs are necessary for that. Australian writer, researcher, and science educator Lynne Kelly has addressed the common misconception that nonbelievers’ lives are somehow without meaning or devoid of happiness:
“Some believers accuse skeptics of having nothing left but a dull, cold, scientific world. I am only left with art, music, literature, theatre, the magnificence of nature, mathematics, the human spirit, sex, the cosmos, friendship, history, science, imagination, dreams, oceans, mountains, love and the wonder of birth,” she wrote.14 “That’ll do me.”
That’ll do for me, too.
THE CONSEQUENCES OF SKEPTICAL HYPOCRISY
While an atheist who bases his or her conclusion on evidence should logically apply that standard to other claims, that’s not always the case. And if an atheist does fall prey to some other supernatural or otherwise unfounded claims, he or she is not a “bad atheist”—that person is just failing to practice scientific skepticism. And that’s perfectly fine. But I’ll continue to write about those flawed beliefs and how they are based on faith and trickery and little else, as well as about the fact that there’s no scientific evidence that points to their validity, in the hopes that even one reader is able to apply some much-needed skeptical inquiry to beliefs that were previously unquestioned. It’s important to note that, just as some atheists have told me to “stick to religion!” to preserve their other faith-based pseudoscientific beliefs, some self-proclaimed skeptics have told me to avoid religious topics entirely as though they’re beyond reproach, usually out of blind reverence or childhood indoctrination. Those “skeptics” scoff at pseudoscience and nonreligious supernatural concepts, but often still believe Jesus walked on water or that Muhammad ascended to Heaven on a winged horse.15
By applying skepticism publically, and by drawing attention to commonly believed myths and superstitions of all kinds, we can demonstrate exactly why skepticism is a virtue—and why blind spiritual faith is a crutch. But let me be clear: religion and superstitions have their own evolutionary purposes and I don’t hate them. In fact, I treat faith-based religions and other similar supernatural claims the same way I treat all unfounded beliefs and ineffective cultural rituals: with curiosity and detachment. I do think, however, that eventually we could reach a major milestone in the evolution of the human race—a time in which we no longer rely on superstitions and dogma to explain the unknown.
Some people believe skepticism is merely about doubting certain claims, which is understandable as it is another common usage, but it can actually be much more than that. Doubt is not scary; we should embrace it. But doubt also isn’t enough … we need testing and problem solving to reach the right answers. Scientific skepticism, which utilizes all of these methods, can be an invaluable tool to help determine what is real and what is supported by data, without regard to prior beliefs. It is about not allowing personal biases, ideals, or faulty logic to persuade our beliefs. As Carl Sagan once said, “Skeptical scrutiny is the means, in both science and religion, by which deep thoughts can be winnowed from deep nonsense.”
“We live in a world where unfortunately the distinction between true and false appears to become increasingly blurred by manipulation of facts, by exploitation of uncritical minds, and by the pollution of the language.”
—Arne Tiselius
NOTES
1. An evidence-based mentality can be extremely rewarding, and it is for this reason that some of my favorite messages I get are from people who say they were already atheists but that my work helped with skepticism in other areas.
2. “Atheist,” Oxford Dictionaries, www.oxforddictionaries.com/us/definition/american_english/atheist.
3. “Agnostic,” Oxford Dictionaries, www.oxforddictionaries.com/us/definition/american_english/agnostic.
4. Because every single person is agnostic about a vague deity figure, despite what they believe, the label isn’t usually necessary.
5. There are of course certain people who may not fit fully into either category, but this point is relevant to the vast majority of people across the world.
6. David A. Weintraub, Religions and Extraterrestrial Life: How Will We Deal with It? (New York: Springer, 2014).
7. Troy Mathew, “Science or Sacrilege? Atheists and Agnostics Are 76% More Likely than Christians to Believe in the Existence of Extraterrestrial Life,” Survata Blog, September 19, 2013, www.survata.com/blog/science-or-sacrilege-atheists-and-agnostics-are-76-more-likely-than-christians-to-believe-in-the-existence-of-extraterrestrial-life/.
8. “One can’t write directly about the soul. Looked at, it vanishes.”—Virginia Woolf
9. “Soul to Soul with Diana Nyad: ‘I’m an Atheist Who’s in Awe,’” Oprah.com, www.oprah.com/own-super-soul-sunday/Soul-to-Soul-with-Diana-Nyad-Im-an-Atheist-Whos-In-Awe-Video.
10. Sun Kwok and Yong Zhang, “Mixed Aromatic-Aliphatic Organic Nanoparticles as Carriers of Unidentified Infrared Emission Features,” Nature 479, no. 7371 (2011): 80–83.
11. Richard P. Feynman, Robert B. Leighton, and Matthew L. Sands. Feynman Lectures on Physics (Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley, 1964).
12. In Mom, Dad, I’m an Atheist, I address the claim that those who don’t believe in god(s) have no meaning in their lives: “I don’t claim to know an over-arching ‘Meaning of Life,’ but I do operate under the understanding that life should not be lived under the pretense that it is simply a ‘test’ propagated by an invisible, intangible, Creator-God. And it should not be spent identifying with religious traditions and organized groups that, historically, have been at the root of a tremendous amount of oppression and violence.”
13. “The meaning of life is not to be discovered only after death in some hidden, mysterious realm; on the contrary, it can be found by eating the succulent fruit of the Tree of Life and by living in the here and now as fully and creatively as we can.”—Paul Kurtz
14. Lynne Kelly, The Skeptic’s Guide to the Paranormal (London: Allen & Unwin, 2004).
15. Qur’an, sura 17 (Al-Isra), ayah 1
5
WHAT’S THE HARM?
“I truly believe that claims of astrologers, psychics, spiritualists, mind-readers, spoon-benders, practitioners of complementary and alternative medicine, acupuncturists, faith healers, and creationists should be taken very seriously. Not because these claims may be true or false. Instead, I believe that extraordinary claims can have extraordinary consequences.”
—Jonathan C. Smith
It’s not gods, religion, psychics, alternative theories, or ghosts that bother me; it’s any lapse in critical thinking with the potential to harm. People sometimes have difficulty identifying the negative effects of superstitions and false beliefs, particularly if they are holding the beliefs, but the harm is almost always there. That’s because, while they may not always be used to directly justify slavery or war,1 any idea that unwittingly disconnects someone from reality can be bad in the long run. I’m a skeptic because I demand evidence and I’m an activist because I demand a world free from the harms of faulty and misleading information.
FAKE NEWS
The harmful effects of misinformation stole national attention during the 2016 U.S. presidential election, when people questioned whether faulty reports—sometimes referred to as “fake news”—influenced the results in favor of President Donald J. Trump.2 After the election, people finally started to see how propaganda and false beliefs could cause real damage,3 but the term fake news quickly backfired and began to mean something entirely different.
In what seemed like no time at all, “fake news” was nothing more than a buzzword used by all sides to write off anything they disagreed with. Defending his popularity, Trump himself even stated that “Any negative polls are fake news.”4 Alex Jones, a radio show host known for purveying false information and conspiracy theories through his Infowars.com website,5 also jumped on the fake news bandwagon, claiming former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is “notorious for #fakenews.”6 This is despite the fact that InfoWars itself has been added to lists of fake news sites to avoid.7 Now, I don’t know if they’re “FAKE NEWS,” but I do know sites like InfoWars and Breitbart News, formerly run by Trump’s chief strategist Stephen Bannon, have incredibly biased and poorly sourced content and opinions (see chapter 15).
ACTUAL MISINFORMATION (AND DISINFORMATION)
Identifying “real” fake news, and not that which has been written off as such, is of the utmost importance. Misinformation is necessarily bad because it isn’t real knowledge, and people’s faith-based notions impede scientific inquiry, provide false data upon which to base decisions, and discourage evidence-based thinking in general. So-called psychics, for instance, perpetuate false hopes and beliefs and provide inaccurate information on which some clients base their lives. This causes harm in the same way as homeopaths and other alleged faith healers, who encourage what are essentially placebos over real medicine, which can cause (and has caused) serious medical problems for many people. But proponents of psychics, ghosts, homeopathy, etc., don’t just offer nontruths, provide false hope, and substitute placebo for reality. These modern snake oil-peddlers harm others in numerous ways, including by conning them out of their hard-earned money.
I’m an activist against fundamentalist religion because of the harm it causes to society, and an activist against all unsubstantiated beliefs in general because of the harm they cause to the mind and the individual. I advocate for rational skepticism and evidence-based thinking because I think having verifiably true ideas, in general, is more useful than having false beliefs. For starters, what people believe directly influences how they behave and how they vote, which means those beliefs often end up affecting others.8 For example, a person who believes the Bible is divinely inspired might look at antigay passages contained within it and decide to fight against equal rights for same-sex couples. While this is not always the case and it’s just one example, it shows how false beliefs can cause real harm to other people.
When seeking out specific information on the harm caused by faulty thinking, there is no better resource than What’s the Harm?,9 a website created by Tim Farley that has catalogued stories of more than 670,000 people who have been injured or killed as a result of someone not thinking critically. From acupuncture and astral projection to vaccine denial and witchcraft, What’s the Harm? provides credible links to news articles showing how millions of people have lost billions of dollars—and sometimes their lives—in the pursuit or purveyance of false information.
WITCH HYSTERIA
One catalyst of great harm to humans throughout history has been the Bible’s antiwitchcraft writings, which give us important information about how many Christians, Muslims, and Jews believe they are supposed to treat people thought to be witches. These passages most notably contributed to the infamous Salem witch trials—a series of hangings of people accused of witchcraft in Massachusetts in the late 1600s. There were 20 people killed in Proctor’s Ledge in Salem as a result of these hearings,10 which were often initiated by minor transgressions such as unusual behavior, and dozens of others were jaile
d for months.11 Those killed during the trials included George Jacobs Sr., who was hanged on August 19, 1682. Jacobs was reportedly killed after failing to perfectly recite the Lord’s Prayer, according to the Salem Witch Museum12 and local historian David Goss.13 Today, in the United States, there are no more wide-scale witch hunts. The practice of witchcraft itself, however, has been revived there by the contemporary Wicca movement—and Salem remains a hotbed for those who practice Pagan Witchcraft.14
You may think this issue has been resolved, but the antiwitch sentiment inspired by the Hebrew Scriptures and the New Testament still causes enormous issues today throughout the world. In Saudi Arabia, for instance, religious police continue to pursue so-called magical crimes and alleged witches are often put to death.15 Accusations of witchcraft are also especially prominent in parts of Africa, where increasing allegations against kids actually “pushes children towards traffickers” in the region. Researchers at United Kingdom–based charity Stepping Stones Nigeria and the Child Rights and Rehabilitation Network (CRARN), which was formed in 2003 to shelter children who had been accused as part of a literal witch hunt that killed 120 people in six weeks, say the belief in child “witches” in Akwa Ibom State, Nigeria, affects people of all different backgrounds. That includes “the literate and illiterate, the wealthy and poor, the law enforcement agents, social welfare workers law makers and most specifically the leaders of revivalist Pentecostal churches,” according to a paper presented by Stepping Stones.16
“Such people believe that a mysterious, spiritual spell is given to a child through food and/or drink. The child who eats this spell, is then called out in the night where his soul will leave the body to be initiated in a gathering of witches and wizards,” Gary Foxcroft, the group’s program director, wrote in the report. He further noted that the initiated child “will then have the spiritual power to cause widespread destruction, such as murdering innocent people and causing diseases like HIV/AIDS, malaria, hepatitis, typhoid and cancer.”
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