Socrates earned the right to claim a conclusion from philosophical examination. The anonymous author of Hebrews writes instead that faith is the assurance of things hoped for, and the conviction or persuasion (elenchus) of things not seen. If Socrates were to hear this phrase, I imagine he’d say, “This may be conviction, but it is not an argument, not a crossexamination and test by scrutiny, but is a jump without any justification—without proof, and without earning it. Where is the virtue in this?”
For more, see American mathematician James A. Lindsay’s, “Defining Faith via Bayesian Reasoning” (Lindsay, 2012). Lindsay provides a cogent analysis of faith using Bayes’ theorem.
The exceptions to this are those people who are not pretending. These individuals are either delusional, or they’re victims of a wholesale lack of exposure to alternative ideas and different epistemologies. In the latter case, many people in the Islamic world fall into this category. For example, most of the people in Saudi Arabia are not pretending to know something they don’t know about the Koran. They’ve never encountered nor been given an opportunity to genuinely engage in competing ways of understanding reality. In a very real sense, they’re epistemological victims. Additionally, anyone reared by fundamentalist parents deserves credit for the exceptional struggle from indoctrination to enlightenment.
A recent move by apologists is to avoid the use of the word “faith” entirely, and instead to use the word “trust.” Given that the word “faith” is inherently problematic, I think this is an excellent strategy. The counter to this, however, is identical: “Without sufficient evidence how do you know what to trust?” If the response is, “There’s sufficient evidence,” then your reply should be, “Then you don’t need faith.”
In this vein, I’ve also heard faith defined as, “An attitude about things we don’t know.” When asked to spell out the nature of this attitude, it seems to be a kind of confidence or assurance or untroubled conviction, which in normal parlance is what we associate with the attitude of a person who has adequate justification for saying, “I know.” The problem with defining faith as “an attitude about things we don’t know” is that it functions in exactly the same way as an attitude about things we do know. From a critical perspective the question is, “How can an attitude that does not have sufficient justification to warrant belief work in the same way as an attitude that flows from actually having sufficient justification to warrant belief?” And the straightforward answer is: it cannot.
Because people adopt this kind of attitude it’s therefore fair game to call them on this and say, “You are not justified in this assurance or conviction that you have. And the fact that you are not worried about it shows that you have not aimed your intellectual honesty at this attitude—in fact, you seem to be afraid or unwilling to do this—when the honest thing would be to say, ‘My faith is not like knowledge, it is not justified, but is something else … maybe (charitably) a choice.’”
An alternative definition of “atheist” is: a person who doesn’t pretend to know things he doesn’t know with regard to the creation of the universe.
Some noted atheists, like American historian Richard Carrier, view atheism as an identity (Carrier, 2012). Others, like Horseman Sam Harris, do not. My opinion is that self-identification as an atheist is a personal choice. (Personally, I’m more interested in balancing my home and work lives, or in getting a full night of sleep.) I am frequently asked if atheism is part of my identity. My answer is always, “No.” As odd as it may seem, given this book, my career, and my speaking engagements, atheism is not a part of my identity. My lack of belief in leprechauns is also not part of my identity. I don’t define myself by what I don’t believe or what I don’t do. I don’t do a lot of things. I don’t practice tai chi. The lack of tai chi in my life is also not part of my identity.
I do not define myself in terms of opposition to other people: I don’t refer to myself as an atheist even though the vast majority of people do not consider themselves atheists.
When friends who are atheists come to our home, we don’t sit around talking about the fact that there’s insufficient evidence to warrant belief in God. We also don’t talk about the fact that we don’t do tai chi. I don’t identify as an atheist because nothing extra-epistemological is entailed by the fact that I do my best to believe on the basis of evidence. Neither my reasoning nor my conclusion about the probability of a divine creator means I’m a good guy, or I’m kind to my dog, or I’m a patient father, or I have an encyclopedic knowledge of science fiction, or I’m fun to have at a party, or I am good at jiu jitsu. If “good critical thinker” were to be substituted with “atheist,” then perhaps it would be clear that atheism entails nothing beyond the fact that one doesn’t believe there’s sufficient evidence to warrant belief in God.
Whether a person is an atheist or a believer is immaterial with respect to morality, and yet, moral ascriptions are frequently made to atheists and to the faithful. For example, currently there’s a (hopefully) short-lived movement called Atheism+. Among Atheism+’s tenets are social justice, support for women’s rights, protesting against racism, fighting homophobia and transphobia, critical thinking, and skepticism (McCreight, 2012). The problem with this is, as Massimo Pigliucci writes, “a-theism simply means that one lacks a belief in God(s)… . That lack of belief doesn’t come with any positive position because none is logically connected to it” (Pigliucci, 2012). Many people try to make atheism into something it’s not. Atheism is not about racism, homophobia, or not practicing tai chi; it’s simply about not having enough evidence to warrant a belief in God. Atheism is about epistemology, evidence, honesty, sincerity, reason, and inquiry.
Finally, perhaps because I don’t view atheism as an immutable characteristic, like eye color, I don’t consider it an identity. I’m willing to change my mind if I’m presented with compelling evidence for the existence of a God or gods. I can understand why many theists consider belief a part of their identity, as they often claim that they’re unwilling to change their minds. One may be more likely to consider something a part of one’s identity if it’s not subject to change.
In an e-mail I asked American physicist and best-selling author Dr. Victor Stenger where he places himself on the Dawkins’ God Scale. Vic replied, “8. It’s not a matter of belief. It’s a matter of knowledge. I have knowledge beyond a reasonable doubt that there is no God” (personal correspondence, August 15, 2012). For more on why he thinks this, see God: The Failed Hypothesis (Stenger, 2007).
Aquinas’ five proofs: (1) motion (as nothing moves itself there must be a first, unmoved mover), (2) efficient causes (something must exist that is not caused), (3) possibility and necessity (because everything that’s possible to exist must not have existed at some point, then there must be something that necessarily exists), (4) gradation of being (because gradation exists there must be something that occupies the highest rung, perfection) (5) design (because natural bodies work toward some end, an intelligent being exists to which natural things are directed). For more on Pascal’s Wager, see footnote 11 in chapter 4.
Anselm’s ontological argument, from Proslogion II: “Thus even the fool is convinced that something than which nothing greater can be conceived is in the understanding, since when he hears this, he understands it; and whatever is understood is in the understanding. And certainly that than which a greater cannot be conceived cannot be in the understanding alone. For if it is even in the understanding alone, it can be conceived to exist in reality also, which is greater. Thus if that than which a greater cannot be conceived is in the understanding alone, then that than which a greater cannot be conceived is itself that than which a greater can be conceived. But surely this cannot be. Thus without doubt something than which a greater cannot be conceived exists, both in the understanding and in reality.”
For more on the fine-tuning argument, see footnote 5 in chapter 7.
For more on the Kalm cosmological argument, see footnote 3 in chapter 7.
Historically, Kantians are yet another school. Their position is that both rationalism and empiricism are correct in different ways. For Kant, concepts without experience are empty but experience without concepts is blind; knowledge is a combination of the organizing function of the mind and sensory input.
Then there’s the pragmatist school, fallibilism, and also intuitionist positions that allow for different kinds of knowledge. All of these schools define knowledge slightly differently.
Faith is an epistemology because it is used as an epistemology. It is epistemology as use; people use faith as a way to know and interpret the world. For example, approximately a third of North Americans think the Bible is divinely inspired, and more than half think it’s the actual word of God (Jones, 2011). It’s a common belief among Americans that angels or spirits guided the hands (depicted by Caravaggio’s 1602 “Saint Matthew and the Angel”), or whispered in the ear (seen in Rembrandt’s 1661 “The Evangelist Matthew Inspired by an Angel,” Giovanni Girolamo Savoldo’s 1534 “Saint Matthew and the Angel,” and Guido Reni’s 1640 “St Matthew and the Angel”), of the Gospel writers. Consequently, the faithful root many of their beliefs in the authenticity of the Bible. That faith is unreliable, or discredited, only makes faith unreliable or discredited, it does not entail that faith is not an epistemology.
Part of the confusion on the part of those who don’t use faith to navigate reality is that they understand that faith is an obviously unreliable process of reasoning. Consequently, they either don’t view faith as an epistemology, or they don’t think others really use it as an epistemology. They view it as something else, something weird, something other, something personal, something malicious, perhaps even something redemptive.
But at its root, faith remains an epistemology. It is a process people use to understand, interpret, and know the world.
Faith produces knowledge claims. Claims that arise out of epistemologies unmoored to reason are exactly like other claims that arise out of other epistemologies—they are assertions of truth about the world. Faith claims may be endemically flawed, bizarre, or highly implausible, but they are still knowledge claims.
An exception is the so-called Satanic verses from the Koran. In his early suras, Muhammad made compromises with popular, preexisting goddess worship; later he revoked these verses—calling them Satanic verses—and created a new principle permitting newer revelations to supersede earlier revelations. Thus there is another way to figure out which claims about the world we should accept and which are likely false, though not through reason or evidence. The new principle is based upon the latest revelation. Later suras in the Koran supersede earlier suras. Unfortunately, many of the more militant suras are found later in the Koran.
I’ve never understood such claims of the faithful—in this example, Muslims who state that other Muslims do not have the correct interpretation of the Koran. Once one buys into a system of belief without evidence, it’s unclear on what basis one could make the claim that there’s a correct or incorrect interpretation of the Koran.
There are many ways we can rationally determine what’s in our own interest and what sort of communities we should construct. For example, in The Theory of Justice, American philosopher John Rawls offers us thought experiments to reason our way to an ideal political and economic system (Rawls, 2005). He details ways to create mutually agreed upon principles of justice.
One doesn’t have to look to the most extreme examples to find other instances of people misconstruing what’s good for them. Fad diets are a more pedestrian and close-to-home example. A few years ago I met someone at a local gym who ate pounds of watermelon everyday in the hope that this would help him lose weight and regain his health. He didn’t lose weight and he didn’t regain his health. He didn’t manage to do either because eating pounds of watermelon every day is almost certainly not an activity that will lead one to health or to sensible weight loss.
CHAPTER 3
DOXASTIC CLOSURE, BELIEF, AND EPISTEMOLOGY
“The call to an examined life is about changing the way people think.”
—Steven Brutus, Religion, Culture, History (2012)
“Change minds and hearts will follow.”
—Peter Boghossian
You’re almost ready to begin your work as a Street Epistemologist. However, before you start talking people out of their faith, you’ll need a primer on the following: (1) the reasoning away of unreasonable beliefs; (2) the forces that contribute to closed belief systems; (3) the factors that cause people to lend their beliefs to the preposterous; and (4) the likely reaction to treatment by individuals (they’ll be upset!). You’ll also need a crash course in epistemology.
“ALL MEN BY NATURE DESIRE TO KNOW”
In Book 1 of Metaphysics, Aristotle writes, “All men by nature desire to know.” Aristotle, while reflecting on the thoughts of Plato and Socrates, argues that for an examined life to emerge we need questions and a hunger to pursue those questions. Absent any desire to know one is either certain or indifferent.
Socrates said that a man doesn’t want what he doesn’t think he lacks. That is, if you believe you have the truth then why would you seek another truth? For example, if your unshakable starting condition is that the Ten Commandments are the final word on morality, or that the Koran is the perfect book that contains all the answers you’ll ever need, or that all human beings descended from Manu, you stop looking. Certainty is an enemy of truth: examination and reexamination are allies of truth.
In ancient Greece, Chaerephon went to the Oracle at Delphi and asked who was the wisest man in Greece. The Oracle said that no one is wiser than Socrates. Socrates thought perhaps the Oracle—The Pythia—was saying that all men are ignorant. On the surface this was what she was saying, but she was also saying that understanding that we’re ignorant, and having a desire to know, are virtues.
Aristotle is correct: all people by nature are driven to know. Humans have an inborn thirst for knowledge. When we speak to others we’re interested to know what they think and why they think the way they do. When we see a physical process at work in the world we’re curious about it—we want to know why the cream makes the design in the coffee it does, and why the leaf falls in the wind in a particular way. We have an inborn curiosity about people, natural phenomena, and our lives. Children in particular desire to know.
Faith taints or at worst removes our curiosity about the world, what we should value, and what type of life we should lead. Faith replaces wonder with epistemological arrogance disguised as false humility. Faith immutably alters the starting conditions for inquiry by uprooting a hunger to know and sowing a warrantless confidence.
If it’s true that the unexamined life is not worth living, then the realization of our own ignorance begins our intellectual and emotional work. Once we understand that we don’t possess knowledg
e, we have a basis to go forward in a life of examination, wonder, and critical reflection.
Among the goals of the Street Epistemologist are to instill a selfconsciousness of ignorance, a determination to challenge foundational beliefs, a relentless hunger for truth, and a desire to know. Wonder, curiosity, honest self-reflection, sincerity, and the desire to know are a solid basis for a life worth living.
The Street Epistemologist seeks to help others reclaim their curiosity and their sense of wonder—both of which were robbed by faith. A human being can live a life without questioning, but as British philosopher John Stuart Mill (1806–1873) wrote, “It is better to be a human being dissatisfied than a pig satisfied; better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied.” The sense of moving your intellectual life forward and feeding the hunger to know are a vital part of the human experience.1
Academicians frequently talk about confirmation bias and a hermeneutic circle—when interpreting something, our assumptions dictate what we feel, hear, see, and experience. For example, many years ago when I lived in New Mexico, I was in a doctor’s waiting room with three strangers and an oddly oversized painting on the wall. The painting depicted a scene in which settlers, who had just disembarked from a large a ship on the coastline, were peacefully greeted by Native Americans. The young woman to my left started a discussion about what a wonderful painting it was, mentioning that she was studying art in school. An older man to her left said that he found it to be offensive, and talked about his Native American heritage. The other man talked about how the ship in the painting was not historically accurate, and went on to speak about what the ships actually looked like. Each person brought her or his life experience to the interpretation of the painting.
A Manual for Creating Atheists Page 4
