No Sacred Cows

by David G. McAfee

  Even on a more personal level, religion can be psychologically damaging when it should (in theory) be beneficial. For starters, afterlife-based religions take away from the power of the present by teaching that this life is only a test, and by transferring one’s focus from the only known world to an unknowable afterlife. Instead of living for now, people are often enticed with promises of Paradise or threatened with eternal torment in Hell. This emphasis on the supernatural can have other harmful effects, too. Religious belief and spirituality might emulate the feelings of contentment gained from traditional therapies, but in many instances, believers are merely shifting responsibility to some unknowable being and aren’t actually doing anything to solve their issues. Leaving everything up to some higher power is the same as relying solely on blind chance, so taking control over your own life choices generally provides better results.

  Sometimes chance is on the believer’s side and he or she does resolve the problems after praying or otherwise petitioning the supernatural, and that’s actually when the false connection between faith and good fortune (by definition a superstition) is fortified. The believer thanks their god or spiritual force of choice and thinks it can be counted on in the future. Furthermore, when someone credits their accomplishments to a god or other mystical force—whether it’s for helping them overcome an addiction or achieve something great—it pushes them further from reality. It not only takes away from the individual’s hard work that is likely responsible, but it also implies that person was somehow more important than anybody else who may have failed to accomplish the same feat. If you are considering expressing gratitude to an unseen and unproven force for positive developments in your life, remember that it can be equally (if not more so) rewarding to thank those who truly helped you accomplish whatever the positive action is. If it was your own hard work, acknowledge that. If it was someone else’s, let them know they are appreciated. If it was dumb luck, don’t count on it in the future but take advantage of it while it’s there. This is the beauty of reality.

  The concept of perceived (but often false) utility isn’t unique to religions or to Heaven and Hell. Other unfounded beliefs are similarly misunderstood at times as beneficial in whole or at least in part. Just as leaving religion takes away a person’s fear of “Hell,” naturalism in general can cure other fears. When you give up on all superstitions, you might not feel protected by good luck charms or saved by Jesus, but you also won’t irrationally fear black cats or Satan. Similarly, while some fantastic but unproven notions seem to provide an escape from what might be otherwise interpreted as harsh realities, I would argue it’s better to simply accept life as it truly is and work to improve it or to make the most of it within those confines. Shouldn’t we be strong enough to accept and face the truth—regardless of how it makes us feel?

  ESCAPES FROM REALITY

  Perhaps most importantly, an appreciation for reality need not stifle any individual’s creativity or ability to enjoy entertainment centered on the supernatural or unfathomable. After all, as the ancient Greek philosopher and scientist Aristotle said, “It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.” It’s interesting (but disheartening) how quickly some people go from “Oh, an intriguing idea,” to “This is definitely real and anyone who disagrees is evil!” It can be fun and educational to consider and learn about a variety of ideas, regardless of how implausible you may find them.

  Compartmentalization can help us separate ideas worth consideration from those designed to be merely entertaining. When I read a fictional book, I am in their world. I acknowledge at that time that, while gods or werewolves or alien invaders haven’t been shown to exist on our plane, they could be very real in that (fictional) realm. For that moment, I live inside that universe, which exempts the claims being presented from the skeptical scrutiny I apply to assertions within our own. But when people purport their claims to be reality, effectively duping millions into believing nonsense, it transcends “entertainment” from an ethical standpoint. Those who sell nontruths take more than money from their victims; they also take their right to reality.

  Even if you love some of the many television series and other mediums that (often dishonestly) portray a search for evidence of the supernatural, newfound skepticism shouldn’t necessarily destroy the ability to enjoy them. If you give up a belief, you could lose an affinity for shows based on that idea, but you may also find that, over time, you can learn to find them entertaining again—although you may have to adjust your perspective a bit. You might not enjoy them with the “perhaps they’ll find proof of ghosts/Bigfoot, etc.!” mentality, but discovering natural explanations, pointing out biases, and exposing frauds can sometimes be even more exciting.12 In that sense, skepticism isn’t a wet blanket—and rational thought doesn’t have to take all the fun out of the supernatural. If anything, they simply ensure that you are in on the joke—and not at the butt of it. You can use your reasoning skills to make the most out of a wide variety of experiences, including and especially those that involve your imagination. As Spanish painter Francisco de Goya said, “Fantasy, abandoned by reason, produces impossible monsters; united with it, she is the mother of the arts and the origin of marvels.”

  Some people are unable to merely enjoy a concept from a detached point of view, often becoming emotionally attached to its veracity, but these feelings can be a real burden in any attempt to separate fact from fiction. A person should analyze all ideas while keeping in mind that taking an interest in something does not make the notion valuable or supported by evidence, and that an idea’s entertainment value shouldn’t in itself be used to justify belief. Evidence should always be more important than fascination in that sense, but the latter is still incredibly crucial in prompting new scientific discoveries. Intrigue can be a great starting-off point for the initial stage of the scientific method because it helps create new questions.

  I wrote the following poem to help demonstrate my appreciation for reality:

  The Ode to Reality

  WE WALKED ON THE MOON, MINDS CANNOT BEND SPOONS;

  NO ONE CAN FORETELL WHETHER OR NOT THE END WILL COME SOON.

  PSYCHICS CAN’T READ MINDS, CROP CIRCLES AREN’T SIGNS;

  YOU CAN’T TELL A PERSON’S FUTURE BY LOOKING AT THEIR HAND OR ITS LINES.

  GODS DON’T TALK TO MEN OR OTHERWISE INTERVENE;

  NO ONE CAN TELL THE FUTURE, NOT EVEN IN DREAMS.

  CRYSTALS DON’T HEAL, BIGFOOT ISN’T REAL;

  PRAYER DOESN’T AFFECT OUTCOMES, REGARDLESS OF HOW IT MAKES YOU FEEL.

  PERSONALITY TYPES AREN’T DETERMINED BY MONTH OF BIRTH;

  ALIENS, IF THEY EXIST, HAVE LIKELY NEVER VISITED EARTH.

  THE REAL WORLD IS BEAUTIFUL, THERE’S NO NEED FOR MORE;

  DON’T CLING TO CONSPIRACIES OR RELIGION OR FOLKLORE.

  “Logic and proper empirical method is the only way the whole world can arrive at an agreement on the truth about anything.”

  —Richard Carrier

  NOTES

  1. Rene Descartes, Principia Philosophiae (Amstelodami: Ludovicum Elzevirium, 1644).

  2. Arjun Kharpal, “Tech Billionaires Think We Live in the Matrix and Have Asked Scientists to Get Us Out,” CNBC. October 7, 2016, www.cnbc.com/2016/10/07/tech-billionaires-think-we-live-in-the-matrix-and-have-asked-scientists-to-get-us-out.html.

  3. D. Hoffman, “The Interface Theory of Perception: Natural Selection Drives True Perception to Swift Extinction,” in Object Categorization: Computer and Human Vision Perspectives, ed. S. Dickinson, M. Tarr, A. Leonardis, B. Schiele (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009), 148–165.

  4. Phil Plait, “Phil Plait’s Bad Astronomy: Misconceptions: Astrology,” Phil Plait’s Bad Astronomy, 2008.

  5. Bertrand Russell, “Is There a God?” (1952), in The Collected Papers of Bertrand Russell, Volume 11: Last Philosophical Testament, 1943–68, ed. John G. Slater and Peter Köllner (London: Routledge, 1997), 543–48.

  6. Be
rtrand Russell, Mysticism and Logic, and Other Essays (New York: Rowman & Littlefield, 1981).

  7. Herbert Benson et al. “Study of the Therapeutic Effects of Intercessory Prayer (STEP) in Cardiac Bypass Patients: A Multicenter Randomized Trial of Uncertainty and Certainty of Receiving Intercessory Prayer,” American Heart Journal 151, no. 4 (2006): 934–942.

  8. Paul Zak, “How Stories Change the Brain,” Greater Good, December 17, 2013, greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/how_stories_change_brain.

  9. “We are, as a species, addicted to story. Even when the body goes to sleep, the mind stays up all night, telling itself stories.”—Jonathan Gottschall, The Storytelling Animal: How Stories Make Us Human

  10. I’ve been told that my heart has been “hardened,” that I should let Jesus (or any number of other religious figures) into my heart, and that I have to have an “open heart” to properly understand religious scripture and other spiritual matters. But there is no hidden power of the heart that deals with these issues; it just pumps blood.

  11. Arthur A. Joyce and Sarah B. Barber, “Ensoulment, Entrapment, and Political Centralization: A Comparative Study of Religion and Politics in Later Formative Oaxaca,” Current Anthropology 56, no. 6 (2015): 819–847.

  12. “If Passion drives, let Reason hold the Reins.”—Benjamin Franklin

  9

  “I KNOW WHAT I SAW!”

  “When someone looks at me and earnestly says, ‘I know what I saw,’ I am fond of replying, ‘No you don’t.’ You have a distorted and constructed memory of a distorted and constructed perception, both of which are subservient to whatever narrative your brain is operating under.”

  —Steven P. Novella

  Whether a person believes in ghosts, gods, psychics, or alien visitation, their purported proof often comes down to nothing more than one sentence: “I KNOW what I saw!” And when I hear this claim, I always feel obligated to ask, “Do you?” The fact is that our memories and sight (and all our other senses, for that matter) are imperfect and anecdotal testimonies, which can be explained by visual hallucinations, altered memories, deception, or fraud and are considered the lowest form of evidence in science—especially when dealing with something novel, such as the supernatural. In the end, saying you “know” what you saw isn’t persuasive for one simple reason: you don’t always know.

  Everybody tends to think their personal beliefs are correct—that’s usually why we hold them. But this is especially true when it comes to belief in religions and other supernatural concepts. In those cases, we often see believers who claim to know with absolute certainty that their unverifiable opinions are the only Truth—with a capital T.1 When asked about this level of confidence, believers tend to cite their own personal experiences as proof. But asserting an opinion isn’t the same as providing evidence and, unless you have something legitimate to back up your claims, scientific skeptics like myself simply won’t believe you. When I form my most important beliefs, I look for real evidence: solid, repeatable data that stretches beyond what mere faith and stories can provide. Personal experiences can be both unreliable and misleading partly because, as psychologist Barry Beyerstein said, “Anecdotal evidence leads us to conclusions that we wish to be true, not conclusions that actually are true.”

  STORIES AREN’T PROOF

  Anecdotal accounts, which are by definition flawed,2 simply aren’t impressive when we are looking for hard scientific evidence. In fact, these one-off accounts are the opposite of what scientists want when seeking reliable conclusions. While some may consider their stories “good enough” evidence for them to believe, from an objective viewpoint, they are still just stories.

  The human brain is an incredibly powerful tool—capable of deceiving itself and others—and, until a person has supporting evidence of a finding, an anecdotal experience can and should be written off as the logical fallacy it is. This form of so-called evidence is inherently unscientific for the purposes of providing proof of anything because it uses an isolated example instead of a logical argument or scientifically valid data.3 The biggest problem with anecdotal evidence is that, to many, it is convincing. Psychology professor Wayne Weiten, who has received distinguished teaching awards from Division 2 of the American Psychological Association, says personal stories can convince people because “they are often concrete, vivid, and memorable.”4

  “Indeed, people tend to be influenced by anecdotal information even when they are explicitly forewarned that the information is not representative,” Weiten wrote. “Many politicians are keenly aware of the power of anecdotes and they frequently rely on a single vivid story rather than on solid data to sway voters’ views. However, anecdotal evidence is fundamentally flawed.”

  No matter how many experiential tales you come up with, it will never be equal to verifiable data from a controlled and observed environment. And, as engineer and statistician W. Edwards Deming said, “Without data you’re just another person with an opinion.” That’s not to say anecdotes have no value, however. An individual’s experience or view is considered a weak form of evidence if there isn’t scientific data supporting it, placing it well below experimental and observational evidence on a scale of strength, but it does serve its purpose. Anecdotes are great to help launch new studies, pinpoint items for further research, or to entertain others in a storytelling environment; they just don’t prove anything to be true (or false). When I hear a personal anecdote, I see it as a starting point for an investigation—a possibility that could perhaps warrant additional research—but for many people that’s the end of their process. Their “proof” has been found and their mind has been made up.

  SUPERNATURAL ANECDOTES

  Eyewitness accounts in general are not scientific evidence and cannot be used as proof for anything—let alone so-called paranormal events. A personal story may be enough for you to believe simple things in your daily life, such as accepting your friend’s testimony about something he or she saw at the grocery store, but it isn’t a compelling argument for any brand of superstition because it’s the same argument used by believers in all others. If personal observations did count as valid proof of the supernatural, that same standard would apply to all similar claims. It would validate any delusional idea that a person or group of people buys into. If you accept one otherworldly claim on unconfirmed reports of alleged eyewitnesses alone—for instance, the resurrection of Jesus—then you should logically accept all other claims based on the same foundation, like extraterrestrial visitation, the existence of Bigfoot, the Loch Ness Monster, Allah, and reptile-human shape shifters. Each of these claims suffers from the exact same lack of scientific backing, but millions of well-meaning and often intelligent people around the world have personal stories supporting them all. Jonathan C. Smith explains that, if you think anecdotal evidence is definitive and you apply that rule consistently, you’ll end up believing in just about anything.

  “If you believe in ghosts, you must also believe in astrology, reincarnation, TV psychic superstars, prophetic pets, alien abductions, communication with the dead, fortune-telling, mental spoon-bending, and a Pandora’s box of other treasures,” Smith wrote. “Why? All have sincere, honest, sane, intelligent educated, articulate, famous, and passionate proponents. All are based on the same types of support.”

  It is not statistically probable that aliens have visited earth while remaining undetected, or that an undiscovered ape roams the American northwest, or that Jesus resurrected himself and others; so it’s justifiable to reject belief in all these extraordinary claims using the same standard. While accepting the possibility of these ideas can be good, to believe them without supporting evidence enters the realm of the irrational. Extraordinary personal experiences, such as many of those said to involve a so-called spirit realm or the “divine,” are necessarily subjective and entirely dependent upon the interpretation of the claimant. This makes using them as proof impossible, but that hasn’t stopped people from trying. Because of the unreliable nature of this experienc
e-based “proof,” any such claims may be dismissed until there is verifiable evidence to support them.

  It’s interesting to note that, with the onset of the era of modern camera and recording technology, we didn’t see a corresponding rise in physical evidence of aliens, ghosts, or Bigfoot. Likewise, we have seen significantly fewer instances of alleged divine intervention than have been reported throughout history. As a result, believers of all stripes have been forced to become increasingly reliant on anecdotes and pseudoscience. In each case, they cling to blind faith, tales from other believers, and personal experiences sometimes passed around as “news” articles. But I think the same thing about all these reports, regardless of their origin: they are just stories until proven to be more.

  We all have strange experiences that we might not be able to explain right away, but it’s how you interpret these events that’s important. Some people are simply more likely to believe in paranormal answers to these questions. You may have just been raised to believe strange coincidences are actually ghosts, but who you are as a person, as a member of your society, and as a participant in the culture around you can factor into these experiences and how you perceive them, too. Studies have shown, for instance, that the people who believe in the paranormal are more likely to have less education 5 and a poor understanding of the physical world.6 People who have issues with cognitive reasoning,7 along with those with high dopamine levels8 and those suffering from early trauma,9 also tend to be susceptible to paranormal thinking. Does this mean anyone who fits these descriptions must believe in the supernatural? Of course not. It only means that some people will have to fight harder than others to fend off false beliefs.