Joss Whedon on faith

I feel ever more and more these days that faith is a well-camouflaged parasite among virtues. It sits enthroned as one of most religions' cherished commandments, yet to me it always just looks like fear in a pretty mask and is therefore wholly undeserving of the adulation it receives. Yet maybe I don't really understand. Joss Whedon made me think I probably don't.

Joss says humanists have more faith than the religious, because while religions advocate faith in gods despite a lack of evidence, humanism advocates faith in humanity's worth despite mountains of evidence to the contrary. I'm trying to decide what I think about this statement.

I would actually adjust his statement a bit, because I do feel there is evidence against the existence of the gods the major religions posit. But still that would only put humanists on even footing with theists in the faith department. So do we have faith?

At first I was surprised that I was not immediately repulsed by sound of a man I respect telling me I have more faith than a religious person--especially given my continual struggle to figure out if faith is a word or concept with any merit. Hearing him say that made me uneasy, but I also felt a swell of pride. Was it the tortured remnant of my religious upbringing that I heard, crying triumphantly from exile in my mental dungeon? I once cherished belief despite evidence because I had been taught it was a noble method of attaining truth. Then I rejected it because I came to believe that it is unreliable and dishonest, and now Joss Whedon is telling me it is actually noble, and that I practice it after all...and I rejoice?! How can this inexplicable sense of victory at his words well from somewhere deep inside this staunchly agnostic brain?

Perhaps he's right that I "have faith" in humanity despite the obvious truth that a large sampling of the members of my species are either contemptibly incurious (if not downright stupid), or disgustingly mean-spirited and violent, or both. And maybe he's even right that this is a Good Thing.
I've been learning a bit about World War II lately. I particularly enjoyed Dan Carlin's series of podcasts on the German/Soviet conflicts and the incredible, unfathomable destruction of human life by human idiocy that took place at St. Petersburg. If I am really capable of knowing that my race routinely executes perversions of this nature, yet persist in believing that humanity can succeed and overcome its bad habits and maybe end up seeding futuristic Wild West colonies on habitable planets, surely I practice some degree of faith?

Nihilists and cynics might conclude that there is no hope for our race, but I must admit I fervently nurture a kernel of hope that we'll one day achieve Roddenberry-style peace and unity. It's probably irrational to do so. I therefore feel disingenuous, as if I'm attempting to have it both ways. Belief in something despite evidence against it in hopes of making it real is either a corrupt falsehood of a notion, or it is one with some value. If I insist (as humanism seems to) that dogged belief in humanity's worth is a vital part of ensuring it eventually comes to deserve preserving, then I must admit the latter.

I want to have a rational basis for everything I believe, and my inclination lately has been to dismiss what I see as theistic fabrications about life after death as the blind gropings of minds that feel they have no other option. But is their desperate grab at personal meaning any less grounded than the humanistic axiom that humanity is worth saving? The alternative of either belief to its holder is seen as too depressing to be useful, and so it is rejected without question in order to make true its opposite. For a religious believer that is faith. For a humanist, maybe that is faith also.

If that's the case, then faith isn't an intrinsically useless endeavor, and if I wish to be a humanist instead of a nihilist I need to find some other criterion by which to judge the worth of a faith-belief.

Control

Our four-year-old daughter has really begun to display her stubborn streak. We hope it's temporary and not a fundamental part of her nature, but currently all signs indicate we've got one defiant little blonde goblin on our hands.

She decides what she wants (according to some arcane logic, perhaps involving wind speeds, moon phases and I think she might have a d20 hidden somewhere) and fights for it, despite all rationality, tooth and nail.

Tooth: it took an epic struggle involving at least four round trips and several nightmares' worth of banshee-grade screams to finally convince her to permit a dentist a look inside her mouth. He discovered four cavities that probably partially result from the fact that that inner oral sanctum was a longtime No Toothbrushing Zone for us as well.

Nail: she slashed her finger on her friend's door. After the trauma and melodrama of the stitches (the noise of which I'm sure requires no description) the wound healed and then the real war began. Any suggestion that it might be time to remove the decrepit bandage covering the stitches, let alone the stitches themselves, was met with a kind of furious contempt reminiscent of caged starving dogs. We ended up conducting two midnight stealth campaigns and finally succeeded at the delicate labor of cutting the stitches out while she slept.

The dentist surmised that she seems to be motivated by extreme distaste for feeling like she's not in control. Even an irrational choice that works to her detriment but puts her back in control may often seem the better option to her. It shouldn't be surprising that she's this way; if this kind of predisposition is transmissible by gene then I'm surely the source.

My company holds a campaign every October to get employees to contribute to United Way (with one of their incentives being a very impressive contribution match). I'd been planning on contributing, but when a coworker all but crowned himself Charity Czar and made the rounds informing us that he wanted 100% people contributing from the department, I bristled and almost didn't contribute, purely out of rage at being pressured into it.

I guess it's true that I too hate being pressured or forced into circumstances, even when they are clearly ones that I should accept. Luckily for our little imp of a girl, it appears this tendency can be overcome; eventually I decided that my indignation did no good for the needy people who could have used my dollars instead, and I sent them along.

But I won't claim I wasn't pleased to learn that, even with my contribution, he still didn't meet his extortionary goal of universal compliance.

I believe I know what you believe I believe I know

My dad once asked if I'm an atheist. He hoped, I think, that I would deny the horrible accusation and claim the label "agnostic" instead (since in his mind it implies only questioning and a lack of willingness to commit to a viewpoint he cannot approve).

I do fit "agnostic" as Huxley originally intended it, because I don't claim to know (gnos) anything on the topic of gods. But I don't accept it as a standalone descriptor for my viewpoint. (Perhaps I'm wary of the word "know" because of decades spent seeing it misused and abused by people willing to do almost anything to keep believing what they want to believe.) I'm aware that to the general populace, "agnostic" implies a reluctance to answer yes or no on the question; this is a reluctance that I just don't suffer. I think the truth on most matters is ultimately knowable, and I think I have a chance of knowing it piece by piece (rather than as all or nothing). I don't have a problem claiming a provisional position on any question once I have a reasonable grasp on the available evidence pertaining to it.

I told my dad to define the word "atheist" first. There's so much confusion over the meaning of the term, even in the minds of non-believers and dictionary writers, that I've long been reluctant to use it until the definitions are all made clear.

Imagine a box representing all people. This is box A.

Now imagine that box A is split in two sections, B and C. B represents people who can honestly claim to believe in the existence of one or more deities. C, obviously, is all people in A who aren't also in B, or in other words people who cannot honestly make that claim.

Box C is further split in two, containing box D which represents people willing to claim, "I believe there is no god", and box E (everyone in C who is not willing to make that claim).

And within D, imagine box F which represents, "I know there is no god."

Now, I think if you ask most religious people to define "atheist", they'll probably offer a definition looking a lot like box F. There is a widespread and often ironic misconception among the supernaturally-inclined that atheism involves an inappropriate level of surety and pride. "The atheist says 'I know there is no god,'" goes the argument, "but can't prove there isn't so his position is untenable." Usually the implication is that he should stop being arrogant and fall back to agnosticism.

This is just wrong. I know of no atheist who claims to know there is no god. In fact, most people like me are incredibly wary of the word "know" when it comes to matters theological. Doubtless there are some who would claim to know, but I would fault such an unbeliever for harboring a level of surety just an undeserved as that displayed by the believer who claims he knows a god exists. (And I'm sure we all know several of those.)

Atheism actually resides in box D or even box C, though I'm never sure which. The definition most accepted by atheists these days seems to be simply "lacking belief in a god"; this is box C and implies that everyone starts out atheist as a baby and remains so until they are either indoctrinated with a particular religion or create one of their own. By this definition, the countless throngs who never spend even a minute per year thinking about theology also qualify (though most of them would be surprised to find out such).

Some don't accept this claim, and insist that not until you enter box D and are willing to claim that evidence points to the complete lack of gods do you really deserve the label.

I don't really have a strong opinion on the D/C debate. It's often just a semantics argument. There have been attempts to introduce qualifiers like "positive/negative" or "hard/soft" to separate the more conviction-based atheistic viewpoints from the more passive. I haven't found any of these truly useful. Mostly I've just fondly wished we could all agree on a terminology so I know what to call myself.

But in the meantime, I've come to realize that I should just accept the label "atheist" into my label collection, because I actually do feel the evidence points to a lack of any meaningful gods in the universe. I reside in box D, so either way I fit the description, even though I see that fact as more as a byproduct of what I believe than the focus thereof. If you ask if I believe in ghosts, the answer might be "no, I believe in a naturalistic universe and am therefore aghostist." Ask the same about gods, and I'll reply that no, because of that same naturalistic viewpoint, on this question I am an atheist.

The box D atheist doesn't have to say, "I know there's no god," although he may say so if he desires (and it would put him box F as well). All he claims is that he has examined and found unbelievable enough god-claims that, for now, he feels warranted in approaching life as if there is no god looking down. I feel this is one of those questions in life for which the evidence is always piling up, and while it may never be complete, at some point there is enough to justify a change in direction toward what looks like the more likely outcome. There is no claim that the question is closed, or that he has come to know anything for certain.

If everyone understood these points, I'd have no problem answering yes to the question, "Are you an atheist?" As it stands, I still find in myself a reluctance to claim it, even though I know the only way to change the public's perception is for people like me to boldly do so.

So I suppose I should do so. Yes, world, I'm here. I'm mostly happy, mostly ethical. I love asking questions honestly. I have done a fair bit of research, and currently I do not feel the evidence points to the existence of any god ever proposed to me. I don't claim to know it, but I do reserve the right to some degree of earned confidence in my position. Given the obscene degree of confidence most believers place in their own worldviews, they should be willing to afford me some paltry allowance of pride in mine. Especially since (unlike most of them) I also reserve the right to change that position, should evidence require.

Yeah Dad, I'm agnostic. But I'm deeply interested in Big Questions approached from a rational, naturalistic, evidence-based viewpoint, and therefore am also an atheist, no matter how you may hate the word. There are millions more like me and our numbers are growing. Get used to it.

Fatherhood as it goes

I worry constantly about how to be a good father. I'm sure most fathers are concerned to some degree with the amount of undeserved control they have over the kind of monstrous or magnificent people their children will become; however, I reckon I take the art of paternal hand-wringing more seriously than the majority of even the non-deadbeat dads out there.

I have very specific ideas on the thinking abilities I want to engender in my offspring, and I obsess daily over whether my current approach is the right one. I want them to be naturally skeptical so they can be insulated from all the stupid crap the brainwashed will try to sell them. I want them deeply ethical and fiercely compassionate, two droplets in the bucket that will tip humanity away from deserving its own destruction. I want curiosity and integrity to power them, yet somehow I have to resist the urge to get in and build that beautiful machine by my own tinkering. It has to build itself.

Impossible task? It gets worse. I want to teach them to be shamelessly unbending in their devotion to honoring the truth, yet also humble about their own fallibility in understanding it. Take a moment to digest that: Kimberly and I must teach our children to be both proud and humble. What kind of precarious tight-rope act is this?!

So you see, I worry. The worry expresses itself in many ways: I read, I write, I teach, I yell. I give up, I recommit. One thing I ponder is that not only do we have to influence them positively, we must try also as much as possible to keep ourselves from influencing them negatively. I am a lazy and impatient man trying to defeat laziness and impatience in two children.

Yet, I suspect that despite all we do or attempt to do or mean to do, eventually they'll mostly just be some version of who they basically are, colored to some degree by our unwitting examples for good or bad...with maybe a bit of our valiant efforts thrown in for flavor. I probably need to learn to be content to work on improving that little bit over which I have control. In the end, I think the hard truth is that the best way to make your children better people is to improve the environment in which the person grows, and unfortunately that environment is more than just your house. Your children spend hours each day steeping in the alternately noxious and nourishing morass of your own personality.

Yesterday I realized that for all my worrying over how to raise my son to be a skeptical, confident, adaptable and functional lover of life, I have forgotten to teach him how to throw a ball. We went outside and practiced throwing and catching. At first, I caught myself trying to meddle him into not throwing "like a girl", attempting to remember how I learned to throw and find a way to instruct him into compliance. But then something told me to just let it go, turn on my best self up to full power and let simmer. And meanwhile, simply enjoy the time. Probably, that's a cog in his machine best left to grow itself, with nothing needed from his father but an example to follow.

It's hard to express the kind of fervent hope-charged devotion I feel for him in any kind of muted manner, but I resolve to try more often. Just shut up, and throw, and catch. Spend less time fathering and more time being a father. I suspect that half-hour was truly nourishing for the unseen roots of his nascent personality, and more beneficial than days of pruning away on the parts of his makeup I can see--those parts I delude myself into believing I can control. And if he doesn't turn out exactly like I hoped...well, what kind of fool of a parent would expect that anyway?

Dream

A week ago I had a dream (whose details have now mostly gone fuzzy) wherein I discovered that ghosts actually exist. I saw one myself (he was blue like Obi-wan), and I remember my reaction. It included surprise, but was mostly curiousity and wonder and featured no shame. I didn't entertain any thought of hiding from the truth or covering up the fact that I'd been wrong in my skepticism. What mostly consumed my musing was the overriding knowledge that my worldview must now change to support the new personal experience.

Granted, people don't always act like themselves in dreams. But sometimes they do, and I like to think that this would be my approximate reaction if something similar were to occur in real life. If I did discover irrefutable proof that somehow, despite all my study on religion, I had come to the wrong conclusion about spirits and their non-existence, I hope my reaction would still be a scientifically-minded one despite the apparent contradiction to the scientific worldview that the discovery would entail. I hope I would be curious, humble and elated at the addition of such meaningful knowledge to my life, with minimal concern for the fact that I had been proven wrong (and so much religious arrogance finally vindicated).

I would, of course, be constrained by skepticism to weed out all the possible explanations that make naturalistic sense. I would probably even doubt my own sanity, and would seek a corroborating opinion from someone else. But in the end, with doubts removed and spectral evidence still staring me smugly in the face, I hope that I would waste no time in trying to create apologetics to protect years of mental investment in my erstwhile opinion. Library upon sorry library of theological musings exist as the result of centuries of human slavery for that foolish master.

No matter how sure I am of my convictions I will always leave room for the idea that I am completely mistaken.

Misconceptions III

Once Steve told me that there must be a soul inside us, because our emotions cannot possibly be explained purely by processes that occur in the brain. I guess he's fine with memory and motor function taking place in our neurons, but he seemed to be unwilling to accept that the love he feels for his family is also the effect of the interplay of electrons in brain cells.

This assertion was made in the context of another conversation wherein he attempted to understand my conversion to a completely naturalistic worldview. He had given the love he feels for his children as proof that there must be something more than what we can observe with science. I was confused by this claim, and as we dug down it became clear that my understanding of neurology differed drastically from his; while I am no expert, I'm convinced that the brain (the most complex object we're aware of in the universe) is sufficient hardware to encompass everything we do as software.

He assumes that, because it's so difficult to conceive of a machine (for that's really what the brain is when looked at this way) thinking and feeling the things we do, there must be a further component to who we are that is hidden from us, created by a higher power, and therefore he takes the easily proven spirit as proof of its creator.

I call that an argument from ignorance. "I can't understand how this might work, therefore it cannot work." But examine the way the brain behaves when it is injured, whether by old age or physical trauma. Often there ensue drastic changes the personality of the person it defines. Memory and motor skills, yes, but also emotions. A stroke can severely alter the emotional well-being of its victim. In order to permit this in the theory that emotions live in spirit, you must posit some mechanism whereby the expression of the spirit is somehow inhibited by the injured brain.

Luckily for him and his religious proclivities, science has so far been unable to find any physical means by which the brain might be interfacing with this unapproachable spirit. Science is still incomplete, which leaves a gap for the spirit to hide in. But I find the very claim that a stroke sufferer's spirit is hindered by his brain an ironic bit of evidence that a person's physiology (in this case a blood clot) actually can influence the way he acts. People's emotions come from their spirits, except when the injured brain gets in the way and changes those emotions? Then why can't the emotions just be coming from the brain in the first place?

To admit that the changes in the brain produced by a stroke or chemical imbalance can create new aspects of personality, while insisting that the personality itself cannot ultimately seated in that physiology, seems to me to involve an unwarranted leap of logic.

Since spirit is in the realm of the supernatural, it is by definition outside the reach of science. But the brain is describable by science. So this must mean that, as our knowledge of the brain's inner workings improves, if there really are spirits we're going to run into them at some point. Some apparatus or organ or some pathway for spiritual/physical interfacing must exist in the brain, just as a tunnel between two caves must manifest itself as a hole of some kind in both caves.

If we do find such a thing, it will be an incredible discovery and a wonderful boon to both science and religion. But what if we never do? What if we close all the gaps and find nothing but busy neurons...just ganglia coursing with the great amazing wonder that is a person's self? By that time will people mostly be willing to accept that it's not so bad if there's not some part of them that exists outside the universe and therefore outside the grasp of death? Or will people still cling to fading irrational hope and wanton disdain for the growing and ever more accessible truth?

Or by then will we have made ourselves immortal and the question mostly moot?

When an Angry Gorilla cries

Proof that libruls are wrong about health care being an unalienable right, as expressed by Angry Gorilla Glenn Beck on AM radio yesterday, August 13 (my commentary in parentheses):

1) As everyone knows (duh) unalienable rights come from GOD!

2) If healthcare was a GOD!-given right, we'd see Jesus down here healing people.
(Remember Jesus, the guy who supposedly said "do it to the least of these poor suckers, do it to me" and all that hippie librul crap?)

3) We don't see Jesus healing people. (Well, most of us don't.)

4) Therefore healthcare is not a right from GOD! (At least we agree on something.)

5) Therefore healthcare is not an unalienable right. (Q.E.D.)

6) Also, Obama is a racist.

Proof by god-stick to the head. Religion at its worst is visible in Glenn Beck. It subverts his reason and fuels his hate.