Mon, 01 Mar 2010 16:35:16 +0000

Happy March, everyone!  And to you new bloggies in Rockville, Dexter, Vancouver, Bakersfield and McClean!  Hope you are all having the start of a Goodoodle-filled week! 

The sun is shining on Madrid (and on the magnificent El Escorial palace, below left)!  What a winter we’re all having on both sides of the Atlantic and beyond, and an oppressive summer you in the southern half are suffering through!  Yet, Spring and Fall are creeping ever closer.  Today, I took a long walk in the brisk morning sunshine in my challenge of renewing our Social Security Medical Cards here in Spain, where paperwork is always an adventure.  Last week, I went to present all the documentation and they informed me that I was, of course!, missing something they hadn’t previously mentioned.  The señora more or less told me where and how to get it.  This morning, I made the arrangements, got there, waited a half hour, only to be told that to get the form I needed with its necessary stamp, I first needed my husband’s signature on it.  Fortunately, the whole convoluted, ridiculous process made me laugh!  Last week, I was disgusted.  Today, amused.  Laughing it off helped restore my smile and, as I hiked back uphill the fifteen blocks to the parking lot I’d finally found a spot in, I was able to celebrate all my goodoodles.  The setback, in perspective, really wasn’t an important one in the scheme of things.  Laughter and putting things in perspective… goodoodles and onto today’s: 

1. Philosophers who help us understand ourselves and our society.  From Knowledge & Judgement, by Avi Nardia & Albert Timen, copyright © 2007 Kapap Academy:

There is old story a Zen teacher told me “In the Zen temple at the time of evening meditation the cat that used to live there made too much noise. So the Zen teacher asked a student to tie the cat up each time they would meditate. After years had gone by, the teacher and the student passed away and so did the cat. A new cat was brought to the temple and the tradition of tying the cat was maintained. 100 years later, many Zen philosophies were written around how important it is to tie a cat at evening meditation…” As you see, sometimes we do things and we don’t know the real reason we are doing it for.  

The importance of the field of philosophy is to clarify things, make sense out of it all so we needn’t blindly follow the guy ahead of us.  Who are our Modern Philosphers?  Certainly, many of us have studied Aristotle, Plato and Socrates.  Maybe some of us even remember what they believed??  However, who’s doing all that thinking now?  (If you’re interested in researching for yourself, check out the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy (http://www.iep.utm.edu/wittgens) and, if you have any good leads for the rest of us, please comment and share them.

One of the great philosophers of the 20th century I read about was John Dewey, an American from Burlington, Vermont who contributed in most fields of philosophy and psychology and was a major proponent of pragmatism (being practical).  Dewey, who believed that people get knowledge by interacting with things (e.g., experimental logic), helped shape much of 20th century education in America.  In School and Society, published in 1889, Dewey wrote, “Democracy has to be born anew every generation, and education is its midwife.” Now, I lived many years in Argentina, where public schools are pathetic and the poor masses uneducated, and have seen how democracy indeed suffers when public education is purposefully neglected.  Philosophers that help us understand ourselves and our society, Dewey and his hands-on approach to learning, and the imperativeness of creative, well-funded, sound, public education…all important Goodoodles.

 2.  On-line Brain Gain.  Internet resources to help keep us thinking, while we are in, or long past, our school days, are worth checking out when you feel your neurons need a work out.  Investigate the mental gym at www.luminosity.com for a good exercise session, a Goodoodle for your brain.

3.  Really good books for kids.  My kids are avid readers, thank goodness and all the hours and dollars, pesos and euros invested in bedtime reading!  For our family, finding good books can be a challenge, just because they are devoured so quickly.  So, I’m always on the lookout for researched reading lists.  Suggestions welcome!   One source I’ve come to depend upon is the fantastic recommended reading lists for fiction, non-fiction, history, fantasy, mystery, etc., for lower, middle and upper school at the Greenwich Country Day School library in Greenwich, CT, USA. (http://gcds-lib.gcds.net/cataloging/servlet/presentviewpubliclistsform.do?l2m=Resource%20Lists)    They have been kind enough to leave their reading lists open to public access, and while the school is private, the generosity of sharing their researched reading lists and the service they provide to their community and the internet community around the world to promote a more educated future is invaluable.  Thanks GCDS!   YOU are Goodoodles!

1. You can’t prove atheism. You can never prove a negative, so atheism requires as much faith as religion.

Atheists are frequently accosted with this accusation, suggesting that in order for non-belief to be reasonable, it must be founded on deductively certain grounds. Many atheists within the deductive atheology tradition have presented just those sorts of arguments, but those arguments are often ignored. But more importantly, the critic has invoked a standard of justification that almost none of our beliefs meet. If we demand that beliefs are not justified unless we have deductive proof, then all of us will have to throw out the vast majority of things we currently believe—oxygen exists, the Earth orbits the Sun, viruses cause disease, the 2008 summer Olympics were in China, and so on. The believer has invoked one set of abnormally stringent standards for the atheist while helping himself to countless beliefs of his own that cannot satisfy those standards. Deductive certainty is not required to draw a reasonable conclusion that a claim is true.

As for requiring faith, is the objection that no matter what, all positions require faith? Would that imply that one is free to just adopt any view they like? Religiousness and non-belief are on the same footing? (they aren’t). If so, then the believer can hardly criticize the non-believer for not believing. Is the objection that one should never believe anything on the basis of faith? Faith is a bad thing? That would be a surprising position for the believer to take, and, ironically, the atheist is in complete agreement.

2. The evidence shows that we should believe.

If in fact there is sufficient evidence to indicate that God exists, then a reasonable person should believe it. Surprisingly, very few people pursue this line as a criticism of atheism. But recently, modern versions of the design and cosmological arguments have been presented by believers that require serious consideration. Many atheists cite a range of reasons why they do not believe that these arguments are successful. If an atheist has reflected carefully on the best evidence presented for God’s existence and finds that evidence insufficient, then it’s implausible to fault them for irrationality, epistemic irresponsibility, or for being obviously mistaken. Given that atheists are so widely criticized, and that religious belief is so common and encouraged uncritically, the chances are good that any given atheist has reflected more carefully about the evidence.

3. You should have faith.

Appeals to faith also should not be construed as having prescriptive force the way appeals to evidence or arguments do. The general view is that when a person grasps that an argument is sound, that imposes an epistemic obligation of sorts on her to accept the conclusion. One person’s faith that God exists does not have this sort of inter-subjective implication. Failing to believe what is clearly supported by the evidence is ordinarily irrational. Failure to have faith that some claim is true is not similarly culpable. At the very least, having faith, where that means believing despite a lack of evidence or despite contrary evidence is highly suspect. Having faith is the questionable practice, not failing to have it.

4. Atheism is bleak, nihilistic, amoral, dehumanizing, or depressing.

These accusations have been dealt with countless times. But let’s suppose that they are correct. Would they be reasons to reject the truth of atheism? They might be unpleasant affects, but having negative emotions about a claim doesn’t provide us with any evidence that it is false. Imagine upon hearing news about the Americans dropping atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki someone steadfastly refused to believe it because it was bleak, nihilistic, amoral, dehumanizing, or depressing. Suppose we refused to believe that there is an AIDS epidemic that is killing hundreds of thousands of people in Africa on the same grounds.

5. Atheism is bad for you. Some studies in recent years have suggested that people who regularly attend church, pray, and participate in religious activities are happier, live longer, have better health, and less depression.

First, these results and the methodologies that produced them have been thoroughly criticized by experts in the field. Second, it would be foolish to conclude that even if these claims about quality of life were true, that somehow shows that there is theism is correct and atheism is mistaken. What would follow, perhaps, is that participating in social events like those in religious practices are good for you, nothing more. There are a number of obvious natural explanations. Third, it is difficult to know the direction of the causal arrow in these cases. Does being religious result in these positive effects, or are people who are happier, healthier, and not depressed more inclined to participate in religions for some other reasons? Fourth, in a number of studies atheistic societies like those in northern Europe scored higher on a wide range of society health measures than religious societies.

6. Atheists and atheist political regimes have committed horrible crimes against humanity. Josef Stalin, Chairman Mao, Pol Pot, perhaps Hitler, and their atheistic tyrannies tortured and murdered millions.

Given that atheists make up a tiny proportion of the world’s population, and that religious governments and ideals have held sway globally for thousands of years, believers will certainly lose in a contest over “who has done more harm,” or “which ideology has caused more human suffering.” It has not been atheism because atheists have been widely persecuted, tortured, and killed for centuries nearly to the point of extinction.

Sam Harris has argued that the problem with these regimes has been that they became too much like religions. “Such regimes are dogmatic to the core and generally give rise to personality cults that are indistinguishable from cults of religious hero worship. Auschwitz, the gulag, and the killing fields were not examples of what happens when human beings reject religious dogma; they are examples of political, racial and nationalistic dogma run amok. There is no society in human history that ever suffered because its people became too reasonable.”

7. Atheists are harsh, intolerant, and hateful of religion.

Sam Harris has advocated something he calls “conversational intolerance.” For too long, a confusion about religious tolerance has led people to look the other way and say nothing while people with dangerous religious agendas have undermined science, the public good, and the progress of the human race. There is no doubt that people are entitled to read what they choose, write and speak freely, and pursue the religions of their choice. But that entitlement does not guarantee that the rest of us must remain silent or not verbally criticize or object to their ideas and their practices, especially when they affect all of us. Religious beliefs have a direct affect on who a person votes for, what wars they fight, who they elect to the school board, what laws they pass, who they drop bombs on, what research they fund (and don’t), which social programs they fund (and don’t), and a long list of other vital, public matters. Atheists are under no obligation to remain silent about those beliefs and practices that urgently need to be brought into the light and reasonably evaluated.

Real respect for humanity will not be found by indulging your neighbor’s foolishness, or overlooking dangerous mistakes. Real respect is found in disagreement. The most important thing we can do for each other is disagree vigorously and thoughtfully so that we can all get closer to the truth.

8. Science is as much a religious ideology as religion is.

At their cores, religions and science have a profound difference. The essence of religion is sustaining belief in the face of doubts, obeying authority, and conforming to a fixed set of doctrines. By contrast, the most important discovery that humans have ever made is the scientific method. The essence of that method is diametrically opposed to religious ideals: actively seek out disconfirming evidence. The cardinal virtues of the scientific approach are to doubt, analyze, critique, be skeptical, and always be prepared to draw a different conclusion if the evidence demands it.