A Manual for Creating Atheists

by Peter Boghossian

  Questions 6 and 7: Is there a way we can figure out which processes are good, and which are not? At this point, the foundation has been laid. Once we’ve discussed what we mean by “reliable,” “good,” and “bad,” very few people maintain a type of relativism in terms of processes that take one toward or away from reality.

  I ask students their ideas about how to discern good processes from bad processes. Regardless of their responses, I’ll ask them how they know the selection criteria they invoke will enable them to discern what’s a good process and what’s a bad process. With very little prodding, students will come to the conclusion that processes that rely on reason and evidence are good, while all other processes are bad.

  Suggestions

  Avoid leaving a stage until every student is in agreement. If there’s a student who does not understand, spend more time in that stage. Use questions as an opportunity to help students. If the concepts are still unclear,18 invite them to office hours to continue the discussion.

  During question 1, you may need to discuss objectivity versus subjectivity. As noted in chapter 2, I tell students to think about the distinction in terms of matters of taste—for example, red wine is better than white wine with lamb.

  In question 2, be sure to dole out praise when students generate examples of people misconstruing reality. Generally, praise is underused in advancing dialogue.

  Question 2 also presents an opportunity to help students understand that the number of people who lend their belief to a claim does not increase the likelihood that the claim is true. You can capture this idea by asking, “Does the number of people who misconstrue reality increase the likelihood that their beliefs are true? For example, if Joe thinks there’s an alien in the courtyard, and he convinces Betty that this is true, does this increase the odds of there being an actual alien in the courtyard?”

  INTERVENTIONS

  Intervention 1

  I never answer my office phone. The one time I did, I received a call from an upset parent (UP). His son was enrolled in my class, and he was upset that I questioned students’ faith. I told him to come in during office hours so we could talk about it. (For better or worse, putting the onus of action on someone usually ends the discourse, as most people won’t act beyond the initial contact.)

  He was in my office within thirty minutes. UP, who was in his mid-50s and rugged but with soft hands and dyed black hair, looked around suspiciously as he sat down. Frowning, he spoke with a sense of urgency.

  UP: I told you on the phone. You’ve crossed the line by asking questions about my son’s faith—

  PB: Okay, wait, please. First, what class is your son taking?

  UP: Critical Thinking.

  PB: Okay, thanks. And why do you think faith should be off the table?

  UP: Because it’s an abuse of your authority. You have no right to ask students. They’re young and they’ll believe what you tell them. [He went on for a few minutes, basically repeating himself. I listened.]

  PB: Okay, so what should I talk about in a critical thinking class?

  UP: Anything except that.

  PB: Algebra?

  UP: That’s ridiculous. You know yourself you shouldn’t talk about algebra.

  PB: True, but I’m trying to establish a baseline—things I should and shouldn’t talk about. Right? So I shouldn’t talk about algebra. But, what about other faiths? What about Islam? Should I talk about Islam?

  UP: No. There may be Islamics in the class. No. Definitely not.

  PB: Should I talk about how people come to knowledge?

  UP: Yes, yes, as long as you don’t talk about faith.

  PB: So just to be clear, I should talk about how people come to knowledge as long as it doesn’t relate to faith? Is that your view? I don’t want to put words in your mouth.

  UP: Yes. That’s correct.

  PB: And what about Noah’s Ark? Can I talk about that?

  UP: What? What about it?

  PB: Am I allowed to talk about how people know about the big boat and all of the species and such?

  UP: No. No.

  PB: What about the koala bear?

  UP: What about the koala bear?

  PB: Can I talk about how the koala bear went from the Ark to Australia?

  UP: What are you talking about? What koala bear?

  PB: You know those cute little fuzzy bears? They’re called koala bears. They live in Australia. Have you ever been to the zoo?

  UP: I know what I koala bear is, but why are you talking about koala bears?

  PB: Because I want to know how the koala bear got to Australia and I want to know if you think I can talk about this?

  UP: But, what does the koala bear have to do with anything?

  PB: Well, once the koala bear got off of the Ark, how did it get to Australia?

  UP: It migrated. Migrated. You know.

  PB: But it only eats eucalyptus leaves, and there’s no eucalyptus trees where the Ark allegedly landed. So how did the koala bear get to Australia?

  UP: It used to eat other things.

  PB: So it evolved?

  (Long pause)

  PB: So should I or shouldn’t I talk about the koala bear?

  UP: You shouldn’t talk about it because you’re really talking about faith and that’s beyond your authority—

  PB: Okay, so I’m just trying to clarify this for myself. I feel like I don’t get it, but I really do want to understand your position. I can—

  UP: The koala bear lives in Australia.

  PB: Is that a question?

  UP: No, I’m saying, the koala bear lives in Australia.

  PB: Okay.

  (Long pause)

  UP: So you’re saying that the koala bear couldn’t get to Australia without those leaves?

  PB: No, I’m not saying anything. I’m merely asking. How did the koala bear get to Australia if there’s no eucalyptus where the Ark crashed?

  (UP abruptly whips out his phone and makes a call. I sit back patiently. There’s no answer. He leaves a message for his religious leader and repeats the question: how did koala bears get to Australia after Noah’s Ark landed?)

  PB: Okay, so when you don’t know something you called someone to ask them, right?

  UP: Yeah …

  (UP then went into an unnecessary but confident explanation about the religious hierarchy in his church. I cut him off after two minutes.)

  PB: So maybe if these issues are raised in class, when your son comes home, or if he doesn’t live at home then when he sees you, maybe you could talk these questions over with him. Do you think that would help?

  UP: No.

  PB: No?

  UP: Well, yes, but he shouldn’t have questions.

  PB: Everyone has questions. You have questions. You just called your pastor with questions.

  UP: That’s different.

  PB: How come you’re allowed to have questions but he shouldn’t have questions?

  (Long pause)

  UP: He can have questions.

  PB: Now really think about this before you answer, please. We’re two dads in a room—I have two kids, and like you I love them very much and sincerely want the best for them. Do you really, really think your son’s better off having no questions? Is that really the type of life you want for your son? Truly?

  (Long pause)

  UP: No.

  PB: Agreed. I don’t want that for my kids either.

  (Pause)

  PB: In your son’s critical thinking class, that’s what we do. I ask students to question everything. Everything. I ask questions. Just like I asked you questions today. I never tell you what to think. I asked you questions.

  (We finished with a handshake and an understanding.)

  Intervention 2

  I had the following discussion with a female colleague. She was a psychologist, in her early 50s, and a devoted Christian (DC). She initiated the conversation after she overheard me state that I was an atheist.

  DC: I just can’t
believe you reject Christ’s love. Why would you do that?

  PB: It’s ridiculous. Why do you believe your superstition is true?

  DC: The fool says in his heart there is no God.

  PB: That doesn’t answer my question. That’s like saying the number nine is my magic lucky number in numerology.

  DC: I really feel sorry for you. I really do. I—

  PB: That still doesn’t answer the question. Why is your superstition true?

  DC: Well, there are so, so many reasons.

  PB: Just gimme the top three. Better yet, just one.

  DC: God loves you. Without Christ’s love you’ll be eternally damned.

  PB: Okay, do you teach any students who are Jewish?

  DC: I’d never ask a student about that, but I’m sure I have, after all I’ve been teaching a lot longer than you.

  PB: How does it make you feel to teach a student who doesn’t share your faith, knowing that they’ll be eternally damned? After all, Christianity is not a religion that allows people from different faith traditions eternal reward.

  DC: What do you mean?

  PB: Well, if you’re a Hindu, they believe that no faith tradition is exclusive, but that every person of faith deserves tolerance and can achieve salvation.

  DC: I go beyond tolerance. I nurture all of my students. I wouldn’t even be talking to you if I didn’t care about you—your salvation.

  PB: Is it more important to nurture your students or to teach them more reliable ways of thinking?

  DC: I do both.

  PB: But if you had to pick one?

  DC: But I don’t.

  PB: Okay, is it more important to have a reliable way to come to truth, or to hold beliefs you’re sure are true?

  DC: My beliefs are true.

  PB: How do you know that?

  DC: I see it in my life everyday.

  PB: Can you give me an example?

  DC: It’s all around us, everyday, all the time.

  PB: What’s all around you? You mean like trees and stuff?

  DC: Yes, trees, but everything is God’s creation. I see Him in my life everyday.

  PB: Well, what do you mean by that?

  DC: Your problem is that you won’t open your heart and give God’s love a chance to enter your heart.

  PB: If one were willing to open one’s heart to Jesus, would you be willing to become a Hindu? You’d still get to heaven.

  DC: No. I wouldn’t feel comfortable with any other religion.

  PB: What does comfort have to do with it?

  DC: I’ve given my life to Christ. I know His love and I know the feeling I have.

  PB: Just so I understand, you’ve come to the truths of your beliefs because of the way they make you feel? Is that right?

  DC: Yes, I feel His love everyday and it’s made me a better person.

  PB: Okay, but we were talking about truth, and the conversation shifted to the consequences of having faith, like making you feel a certain way. You said that there were so, so many reasons you know it’s true, and I’ve yet to hear one.

  DC: I just know it’s true.

  PB: Isn’t it more honest to say: I really don’t know if it’s true or not, but I know it makes me feel good? Wouldn’t that be a more genuine way to live your life?

  DC: Possibly, but only if I didn’t think it was true.

  PB: But you can’t provide any reasons for why you think your beliefs are true. About matters of fact, your feeling states don’t make your beliefs true. If nothing else, then as a psychologist you can draw upon your years of professional experience and acknowledge that, right?

  (Silence)

  DIG DEEPER

  Article

  Peter Boghossian, “Should We Challenge Student Beliefs?” (Boghossian, 2011c)

  Books

  Paul Boghossian, Fear of Knowledge: Against Relativism and Constructivism (Boghossian, 2006c)19

  Austin Dacey, The Future of Blasphemy: Speaking of the Sacred in an Age of Human Rights (Dacey, 2012)

  Greg Lukianoff, Unlearning Liberty: Campus Censorship and the End of American Debate (Lukianoff, 2012)

  Hemant Mehta, The Young Atheist’s Survival Guide: Helping Secular Students Thrive (Mehta, 2012)

  Alan Ryan, The Making of Modern Liberalism (Ryan 2012)

  Online Resources

  The James Randi Educational Foundation (JREF; http://www.randi.org/site/): “The James Randi Educational Foundation was founded in 1996 to help people defend themselves from paranormal and pseudoscientific claims. The JREF offers a still-unclaimed milliondollar reward for anyone who can produce evidence of paranormal abilities under controlled conditions. Through scholarships, workshops, and innovative resources for educators, the JREF works to inspire this investigative spirit in a new generation of critical thinkers.”

  FIRE (Foundation for Individual Rights in Education; http://thefire.org/): “The mission of FIRE is to defend and sustain individual rights at America’s colleges and universities. These rights include freedom of speech, legal equality, due process, religious liberty, and sanctity of conscience—the essential qualities of individual liberty and dignity. FIRE’s core mission is to protect the unprotected and to educate the public and communities of concerned Americans about the threats to these rights on our campuses and about the means to preserve them.”

  Secular Coalition for America (SCA; http://www.secular.org): “The Secular Coalition for America is a 501(c)(4) advocacy organization whose purpose is to amplify the diverse and growing voice of the nontheistic community in the United States. We are located in Washington, D.C. for ready access to government, activist partners and the media. Our staff lobbies U.S. Congress on issues of special concern to our constituency.”

  The Skeptics Society’s Skeptical Studies Curriculum Resource Center (http://www.skeptic.com/skepticism-101/): “A comprehensive, free repository of resources for teaching students how to think skeptically. This Center contains an ever-growing selection of books, reading lists, course syllabi, in-class exercises, PowerPoint presentations, student projects, papers, and videos that you may download and use in your own classes.” (My “Atheism,” “Critical Thinking,” and “Knowledge, Value and Rationality” course syllabi are also available here.)

  NOTES

  While classical liberalism emphasized freedom, social liberalism acknowledged that freedom is curtailed not only by authority but also by circumstance. In other words, social liberalism recognized that certain factors (race, gender, sexual orientation, religion) limit freedom, and thus many social liberals argued for government intervention (e.g., Civil Rights Act of 1964). Social liberals argued that an activist society is necessary to ensure a level playing field and implement the principles of classical liberalism. Contemporary academic leftism recognizes that another limitation to freedom is social attitude. Attitudes keep certain individuals from opportunities simply because they belong to a particular group. It’s legitimate to request that others be aware of a social consensus that limits people’s opportunities, and to attempt to break up that consensus. There is a difference, however, between prejudice against individuals on the basis of their social group (which is bad because this prejudice is directed at people) and cultural criticism (which is good because it is directed at ideas). American philosopher Austin Dacey (1972–) speaks eloquently about doing people a disservice when we don’t speak up for them when they’re being victimized by their own groups, and as an example he discusses suppression of free speech by Muslims against other Muslims.

  These terms started out as insights of critical reflection—uncovering privilege where no one dared look before—but in their current mutated form they erode the ability for critical reflection and rational analysis by placing a stranglehold on the values they should represent.

  Historically, philosophy has focused on truth. Contemporary philosophy instead focuses on meaning. Meaning is subjective—it’s a turning away from the world and a turning toward our experience in the world and to the la
nguage we use to describe that experience. This is a radical change, a shift, a turn in our thinking—a turn away from objectivity, truth, mindindependent metaphysics, and toward narratives, personal experience, meaning, and subjectivity (Tassi, 1982). In this interpretive framework, individual experience is privileged over a world that exists independently of the knower (Boghossian, 2011a, pp. 714–715). Interpreted through the primacy of subjectivity there can be no doxastic errors (errors of belief). This is because it is impossible to adjudicate a proposition’s truth or falsity in the absence of an objective world. Without a world that exists apart from a subject, as British philosopher and scientist Francis Bacon (1561–1626) famously stated, it’s impossible to “put nature to the question.” That is, without an independent, objective world, there can be no corrective mechanism that would allow for a proposition to be either true or false. And because the world cannot referee a proposition’s truth or falsity, all propositions acquire the status of matters of taste, even demonstrably empirical propositions like, “Men have one fewer rib than women” or “The Holocaust never happened.”

  Every proposition thus has the same epistemic status as propositions about personal preference, such as, “Cherry pie is disgusting” or “Led Zeppelin’s ‘Stairway to Heaven’ is a beautiful song.” Interpreted through a subjective lens, propositions may be true for one knower and false for another (Boghossian, under review).