Cognitive Dissonance and the Problem of Evil

This article is a summary of a portion of an interview with Social Psychologist Carol Tavris on Point of Inquiry, the Podcast of the Center for Skeptical Inquiry. She and Social Psychologist Elliot Aronson are the authors of a book on Cognitive Dissonance called Mistakes Were Made (But Not By Me): Why We Justify Foolish Beliefs and how it affects us in everyday life. It covers the manifestation of Cognitive Dissonance in prosecuting attorneys, law enforcement officials, politicians, smokers etc. In the interview she was asked if Cognitive Dissonance is manifested in religious belief and this article summarizes her response.

In the beginning of the interview she talks about characteristics of Cognitive Dissonance and how it manifests itself in Attorneys that have discovered they have wrongly prosecuted someone, law enforcement officials that are trained to believe the person being questioned is just as good as guilty thereby justifying whatever means necessary to elicit a confession, and politicians that support policy that is shown over time to be wrong but will not change their position. She uses the resulting situation of the Iraq War and the position of the Bush Administration as an example of a manifestation of Cognitive Dissonance.

Q: There are religious people that don't demand proof for their beliefs, is this a way of relieving their cognitive dissonance?

A: The more important a particular belief is to us the more strongly we will ignore or reject evidence suggesting we are wrong. Religion is central to what gives many people meaning and purpose in life. This type of belief will be defended at all costs. Examples of dis-confirming evidence creating Cognitive Dissonance are Evolution, the Holocaust and disasters.
Most religious people are not threatened by evolution. They find a way to fit it into their beliefs, but some cannot fit it into their beliefs and they will go to great lengths to try to refute the dis-confirming evidence.
How do Jews deal with the Holocaust? The Jews believe they are the chosen people, and god is looking after them. How could a good loving god have permitted genocide? Students of Cognitive Dissonance Theory would predict that people would become more religious and their faith would be strengthened. What most people do is not lose their faith in God but reduce the dissonance by saying God is responsible for the Good in the world, human beings are responsible for the Evil or God is testing faith. The Christian response to the question of how Jesus could permit enormous suffering to happen is to believe that it is to test faith. Anything that is not consonant with a belief in God is reinterpreted to make it consonant. For example after a terrible disaster the survivors will say something like "god was looking after me" but discounting the fact that God was not looking out for other people that died.

Another interesting interview related to cognitive dissonance is from the radio show "All in the Mind". They interviewed Phillip Zambardo, the lead researcher involved with the Stanford Prison Experiment. The experiment had to be canceled because it got out of control. The participants started self-justifying doing terrible things to each other and it had to be stopped. He was the expert witness for the defendants in the Abu Ghraib trial, explaining how situational factors can make good people do bad things using cognitive dissonance to self-justify their actions. He talks about it in his book The Lucifer Effect.

It made me think about slavery, the crusades, Old Testament atrocities and Craigs defense of killing pregnant mothers with a sword. (thanks Steven Carr!)

REFERENCES
Point of Inquiry podcast with Carol Tavris interview.

Science Friday podcast interview with Elliot Aronson

Mistakes Were Made (But Not By Me): Why We Justify Foolish Beliefs

Wikipedia on Cognitive Dissonance

All in the Mind

Stanford Prison Experiment

The Lucifer Effect

Reasonable Doubt About "Adaption Theory"

Why didnt Jesus give us any NEW information before we discovered it ourselves? Using the History of Science this article demonstrates a reasonable doubt about the idea that Jesus adapted his teaching to suit humans. While I don't think there is actually a theory called "Adaption Theory", there should be to encapsulate this idea that the ancients were not sophisticated enough to handle the truth. All of the characters in the bible had contemporaries in science. This article lists the more famous ones, briefly describes what they did and provides a link to more information about them. I rushed to get this out in support of Johns article The Accomodation Theory of the Bible.

Did you ever wonder why there is no mention of any of the Ice Ages in the Bible? They took so much time to detail the parameters of the ark but didn't spend a word on "there was time when the world was frozen, and the melting ice caused the flood!". It would not have made it any more true, but it would have made it more plausible and hard to deny.

Did you ever wonder why a God on Earth wouldn't allot some time to write anything down?

Pythagoras, not a prophet, just a sinner, is reportedly to have said "numbers are the essence of things" at least 500 years before Jesus and a thousand years before Mohammad. This appears to be true since many discoveries about nature occurred through mathematics. If Jesus had given us a clue about the concept of Zero (discovered by Ptolemy about 130 ad, then rediscovered between 598 - 876) we may have been able to develop more quickly in terms of technology and intellect. Many medical, charitable, evangelical (etc..) organizations greatly benefit from technology enabled by mathematics that use zero. Jesus could have busted many incorrectly held beliefs that could have been empirically verified through the ages.

Jesus could have given us Ptolemies Tables before Ptolemy (140ce) or got the jump on Dioscorides (50ce) and wrote a little something about pharmacology. Jesus could have told us that the world is not flat and that the stars are not rooted in a dome over the earth. Eratosthenes (240 bc) proved the world was not flat and Tyco Brahe (1577) proved there were no domes around the earth. If these had come from divine revelation from a prophet, just think how much this fact would support a belief in Jesus.

Instead Zero came from the Hindus and Algebra came from the Muslims (generally speaking) and Jesus apparently erroneously predicted his return before all his apostles died (Mt. 16:28).

Jesus could have told us about the earths water cycle, precipitation, how to build better materials, how to improve sanitation, how to handle infections better, how to do agriculture better, that God doesn't live in the clouds, etc. Jesus should have come as the engineer/leader/politician type anticipated by the Jews. He could have changed the face of politics forever.

Jesus could have told us about the Fibonacci series in Nature, Quantum Mechanics (1900), the Chaos theory (1903) that there is energy stored in matter (1905), Jesus could have told us that randomness in a closed system, much like what can be demonstrated by running a 'chaos theory' program on a computer, is common in nature. Jesus could have told us about Evolution (1859).

Jesus could have prevented or corrected the errors in the old testament regarding the flat earth and the domed sky, or the fact that anything with wings (Lev.11:23), that is not mythical, does not have four legs or the Pi is not three, or all the other ones listed here at this site. Even Jesus philosophy of reciprocity or "the golden rule" first appeared in "The tale of the Eloquent Peasant" between 1670 - 1640s BC, a good four hundred years before it was attributed to Moses.

I know that scripture are not history or science treatise, but heck, even Dan Brown gets facts about the world he lives in correct and scientists make predictions that get verified all the time and they are just a human.

Here's a list of People that added new information to the world that were, more or less, contemporaries of Moses, Jesus and Mohammad

- BCE 3000 Astronomy Egyptians, Babylonians and Chinese
- BCE 530 Pythagorus - Pythagorean theorem
- BCE 350 Aristotle - Started biological classifications for animals, founded western philosophy.
- BCE 320 Theophrastus - Started botanical science
- BCE 300 Euclid - "Father of Geometry"
- BCE 260 Archimedes - Inventor and discoverer of Priciples of Density and Buonancy.
- BCE 240 Eratosthenes - Proved the world was round, first to calculate the size of it.
- BCE 134 Hipparchus - Developed accurate models of motion for sun and moon
- CE 50 Dioscorides - Wrote the first five books that started Pharmacology
- CE 140 Ptolemy - Discovered methods to model the solar system and map the Earth.
- CE 180 Galen - Set the standard for Modern medicine
- CE 876 Brahmagupta - Discovered Zero, the most important discovery in mathematics.

Why doesn't God give his religious leaders or scientists verifiable revelations?

There's no time like the present! Here's a list of past and present from Wikipedia but I'm sure you know some more that I missed.

- List of Christian Thinkers in Science
- List of Muslim Scientists

As far as I know, not one of them has said "God gave me a revelation when I was praying one day. It had nothing to do with dedicating a large portion of my life to research. Here's the proof, you can verify it for yourselves."

Anencephalic Babies and the Problem of Evil

This article is to narrow down the Problem of Evil to one type of situation that I have not seen Christians provide a rationale for. Maybe I missed it because I wasn't reading carefully enough. In any case here is the chance for Christians to resolve this once and for all, to provide something they can proudly point to on this blog as an unequivocal victory.

P1. God is Omnipresent, Omniscient, Omnipotent
P2. God is Good.
P3. God permits suffering because it creates a greater good
C. There should be no suffering that does not add value to the greater good.

Anencephaly is a lethal birth defect characterized by the absence of all or part of the skull and scalp and malformation of the brain. (answers.com)
Anencephaly from Wikipedia.

As far as I can tell, the couples that have had anencephalic babies were average people. Some of them appear to be persons of faith. They exercised their free will and they wanted to have children. The woman did nothing intentionally or inadvertently that would have caused this. The babies were carried to term and they typically live up to three to five days before they die. While it is true that there is no perceptible suffering on the babies part, there is suffering on the part of the parents and family. What value to the greater good could this possibly add? And if it is for "soul building", then why doesn't something similar happen to everyone? For most people I think it can be said that having a baby is a joyous time.

This webring is a tribute and place where people who have had this happen to them support each other.
Anencephalic Angels I provided the text of the first page as an appendix to this article.

As far as I can tell the only defense is to Appeal to Ignorance/Appeal to Mystery. It can be argued that we don't have enough information to say anything about Gods goodness. It can even be argued that God defines goodness, and our definition is flawed. But be careful when you do that because you are establishing a principle that can be used to show that it is impossible to know anything about God with any certainty. If the problem of Evil is the fault of Man, and started in the Garden of Eden by disobeying god, or if the story of A & E is metaphor for mans natural condition, then mans tendency to disobey God makes it impossible to know anything about God with any certainty.

If
P1. man caused his own fall through the exercise of freewill and disobeyed God,
P2. And as a result or initial condition man is prone to sin,
P3. And God wrote the bible through man,
P4. And The bible scriptures are the only accepted authority about God
P5. And Man is prone to mis-interpret the bible as evidenced by the multitude of theological disagreements,
P6. And There is no standard except Jesus by which to measure proper knowledge of God,
P7. And Because we only know anything about Jesus anecdotally and not from the source,

C. there is no way to know if the information in the Bible is accurate therefore no one can know anything with any certainty about God.

It appears to me that God has a problem with infinity. If God had boundaries, then it seems to me that most of the Atheistic arguments against God would go away.
I don't think the ancients thought it through very well. That is a characteristic of folklore.

If you say that God is not completely good, or God is not omnipotent then the problem of Evil/Suffering goes away or if Jesus had sat down and spent a month writing, then I suppose he could have explained it away.

And if this too easy to explain, heres another one
Police, shooting at snake, kill 5-year-old boy, officials say

APPENDIX

Here is a list of the First page of Links on the Anencephalic Angels web ring.

In Memory of Adam
In memory of our angel, Adam, who we lost due to anencephaly.

Matthew's Memorial
This site was made in memory of my sweet baby boy, Matthew, who was stillborn due to anencephaly.

Jessica's Journey
My Jessica's story, information about anencephaly, support groups, memorial links, and inspirational stories are all found within the pages of Jessica's Journey.

Nathan's Story
This is the story of our precious little boy, Nathan ,who lived for 25hrs and 2 minutes before returning to heaven.

MY ANGEL ARIEL
Memorial to my baby lost to anencephaly and a tribute to her sister lost to miscarriage at 12 weeks.

My Angel Lily Faith
Memorial to my baby born with anenchephaly after years of intertility & IVF treatment.

Memorial to Mary Elizabeth Karg
A short story with pictures about the happenings leading up to the birth of Mary Elizabeth, about her short life, and about saying goodbye.

IN Loving Memory of Annalise
The story of the my daughther Annalise from her diagnosis till eventual death.

Anouk's memorial
A memorial to my anencephalic daughter Anouk.

Michaela's Hope
A site created in memory of our daughter, Michaela Hope.

Calebs Memorial
A memorial site for our angel Caleb whom we lost to Anencephaly in March of 1999.

Faith Lynn
This site is dedicated to my daughter, Faith Lynn, who was born and died on 8-21-02 due to complications from anencephaly.

Heaven's Lullaby
A place where mommys, daddys, and families can find comfort and support after the loss of their baby.

Ryan and Jesse Angel Babies
This is a educational memorial dedicated to my angels Jesse who had anencephaly and Ryan had congential diaphragmatic hernia.

Anencephaly - Angel Meert's Memorial Site
This is a memorial site dedicated to our baby boy that we lost to Anencephaly on 7th October 1995.

Gabriel Aaron Meehan our child in heaven
Gabriel Aaron Meehan was born on April 15, 2003 to his loving parents Ben and Kelly, and to his adoring big brother and sister Zach and Emmarie.

Jasmine Faith, Our Treasure in Heaven
The story of my daughter, who passed away shortly after birth due to anencephaly.

My Angel Daniel
This is a website in memory of my sweet boy who i lost to Anencephaly in Jan 1992.

Our Precious daughter 'Angel'
Memorial to our baby lost to anencephaly on January 12th 2002.

Amanda Marie
In loving memory of my daughter, Amanda, who was born still because of anencephaly.

Podcast of Stephen Law Discussing The Problem of Evil

Since John turned me on to the Problem of Evil and Stephen Law, I have stumbled onto an interview with him, David Edmunds and Nigel Warburton discussing it. Stephen takes the problem of evil and turns it around and explores it as the Problem of Good to illustrate its shortcomings. I highly recommend it for everyone.
The picture is of an apologist bending over backwards to dodge some arguments in our recent debates on the Problem of Evil.

Here are several options for acquiring it.
- The MP3
- Philosophy bites on Learnoutloud.com
- Philosophy Bites Blog

The Identity Crisis of Deconversion

This is a tribute to some very brave commenters. Wrestling with God is one of the hardest things you will ever do. I don't care if you keep your faith or not. It doesn't matter to me. What does matter to me and actually gets me choked up is the situation you find yourself in now. I remember what it was like and it was a very sad time for me.

I have a similar story to you. I was the adult bible study teacher, led the singing every sunday, usually sang the lead in the Christmas Cantata, was the 'goto guy' and a pillar of the community, etc. But in the process of my deconversion, I had no one to talk to. No one wanted to hear it. Those that did said to pray about it. But how can they understand that praying doesn't fix it? Praying is part of the problem. They said during and afterwards that I wasn't working hard enough, or doing it right, but just have faith. In the speed of a thought, I went from being a good guy to a bad guy. When I wasn't a Christian anymore I became an Atheist. I went from being morally sound to immoral. I lost a part of myself. It was like losing a spouse or child or parent. I lost my Identity. And I lost the kind of friendships that I used to have. For me, everything changed. I had a library full of christian appologetics and commentaries, I had invested so much time in the church and studying the bible. I was forever going to be a different person. I miss the fellowship, and I guess that is one of main reasons I joined DC, to talk about it and share my experiences with people like you. Now I dabble in reasoning and philosophy. I don't want to get fooled again.
Take care and good luck.

Holy Spirit and the Analogy of the Flame

This article compares the Holy Spirit to a flame and attempts to weaken the claims found in the bible about the Holy Spirit. The flame informs in a way that the Holy Spirit does not.

If we say that
- God is real,
- the Holy Spirit is God,
- the Holy Spirit lives in every christian and that
- the requirements for the indwelling of the spirit are that the person must necessarily profess faith in Jesus Christ and
- the Holy Spirit gives guidance and understanding,
All Christians should understand the same thing. There should be no major disagreement. If we say that God loving Christians wouldn't think of disobeying God intentionally then in theological matters that they don't have any personal preference but state a belief anyway we can assume that they must have gotten guidance from somewhere. Lets say its the Holy Spirit since they should meet the criteria and Lord knows this influence wouldn't come from their geographical area or culture or any other persuasive factors. An example of Christians like this would be my Grandparents or Aunts and Uncles, parents, etc.

Peoples thoughts, attitudes and behavior can be manipulated by stimulating or changing parts of the brain, and it can be shown through fMRI how the brain reacts during thought processes. Behavior and attitudes can be manipulated and monitored through physical means. It can be inferred that if the Holy Spirit exists and has the ability to influence, then it has the ability to manipulate physical properties in the brain as well. If we say that the Holy Spirit is real and is able to influence, not force, then someday we should be able to see this effect in brain monitoring techniques. I would think that some force could be measured as it exerts influence in the brain. Using nano-technology, we can now break the blood brain barrier and research groups are trying to develop tiny sensors able to better monitor the brain from the inside. Recently, in animal research, scientists have mapped a memory, and documented the expanding web-like participation of neurons as an animal learned. In one human case, researchers were able to predict what a person was thinking (within the protocol) with about 80% reliability. I would like to see Christians investigate the hypothesis that the Holy Spirit may be able to be measured in the Lab. However, in my opinion, it's not likely that it would be distinguishable from natural processes and would generate more of that "can't test God" talk the way prayer studies do.

But failing that, if we stipulate that the Holy Spirit is real then maybe we can compare it to a flame. Since it appeared as a flame at Pentecost, it seems appropriate. If we think about a flame, we can safely assume that equally dispersed about the world is the belief that if we put our hand in it we will get burned. We can also safely assume that we all know enough about the properties of a flame to work with it. So if we were to tell someone something obvious about it such as "If you put your hand in the flame you will get burned" they will probably not argue with us. And if we tell them that paper exposed to a flame doesn't burn they would justifiably disagree. You could try this in China, Israel, Saudi Arabia, India and Italy and the results would all be the same. The reason is that it is a real phenomena and people have unmistakable experience with it. They can choose to deny it but the evidence will contradict them in the eyes of any rational person. The flame informs.

Now if we think about the Holy Spirit, and consider it real, and able to manipulate physical properties, then not only should we be able to measure it but we should find that God loving Christians of the sort that wouldn't think of disobeying God, should not have any theological disagreements between themselves and any other denomination which arguably would have thier own God loving Christians of the sort that wouldn't think of disobeying God either. But try this, do a google search for 'salvation AND baptism' and try to figure out if you need to be baptized or not to get into heaven. Since Salvation is what Christianity is all about, I would think it would be obvious how it happens.

The flame informs in a way that the Holy Spirit doesn't. A person can keep their hand in a flame, or not. It's their choice. They can use it wisely or foolishly, its their choice. Most of the time they behave in the manner which minimizes the risk of harm to themselves and others because they know through experience what it entails. They learn things about the flame by dealing with it. We can assume that if there really were a Holy Spirit that was distinguishable to them, Christians would all have been informed about the same things and chosen not to disregard its guidance.

For more of this sort of heresy, see my other Holy Spirit articles.

Adam and Eve and the Problem of Evil

This article explores one aspect of the relationship between the Problem of Evil and the Fall of Man. It is based on a reasoning scheme known as 'poisoning the well'. However, as with most reasoning schemes, its application determines whether it is a fallacy or not. Its intent is to weaken the Christian argument that we don't know enough about Gods intentions to say anything about Evil. I intend to show that we can't confidently say we know anything about God.

For the sake of this argument, I will stipulate the premise of Adam and Eve and the Fall of Man and the existence of God are true.

If Adam and Eve are related to the problem of evil then we have to accept the whole premise literally, the world is less than 10,000 years old, that evolution didn't occur and that the whole field of science is based on factors that are causing the sound principles of Logic and Inference to fail. That raises questions of uncertainty about the principles of Logic and Inference in general. If we accept the old earth creation then the world could be 4.5 billion years old, and we start getting into deciding which parts of the bible are metaphorical and which are not.

If we presume that humans have free will and choose to sin, then the introduction of personal bias is likely and
- The initial writers of the scripture should be suspect.
- Since we don't have the original text, the reproduction of the scripture should be suspect.
- any intepretations based on those scriptures should be suspect.

If we presume that humans cannot understand the mind of god, then those interpretations should be suspect.
- Teachings coming from someone who interprets the bible should be suspect.

Using this principle the phenomena of doctrinal differences between denominations becomes plausible. However, the principle that we can understand Gods word as it appears in the bible becomes implausible because our nature prevents us from interpreting the 'word' correctly. If we say that we receive guidance from the Holy Spirit, the nature of Human Beings prevents the Guidance from being accepted as it was given. Since the only information we have about the christian god comes from the bible and humans are not capable by nature to intrpret the word, then we cannot really trust what we should take to be metaphorical and what we shouldn't and we cannot confidently say we know anything about the Christian God.

Feelings as a Result of the Indwelling of the Holy Spirit

When I was a Christian I was convinced that I was getting emotional responses as a result of my 'indwelling spirit'. Eventually, through honest introspection, a lot of it done while praying, I reasoned that it was all natural. In fact, I would say that I probably spent too much time thinking about things during prayer which eventually led to "god" telling me that he was really a Euphemism for Luck. But this morning I got one of those feelings again while listening to a podcast and it reminded me of all those times I got them as a Christian....

This morning I was listening to a Science Magazine podcast and they expressed condolences to the family and friends one of the lead authors on the paper they were doing the story about. He died before it was published. I felt an instant of sadness, like a tingling or shock and misty eyes. I remembered the last time that happened was when I was reading about the WWF wrestler (Benoit) that is the subject of a murder suicide investigation. And before that the Virginia Tech tragedy. Then I remember how misty I got watching the Movie "United 93" and had to wipe the tears off my cheeks. I get misty eyed when I see information about tragedies and instances of sadness that I would describe as feelings of electric shocks. It happens out of happiness when I see acts of heroism on the news. It continues to this day. Sometimes, in other situations, it was not sadness but a feeling like my hair was standing on end. In fact, It just happened to me as I was writing this because I concentrated on it and it happened. It happened to me the first few times I published articles on this blog and was waiting for the fall out. Did any of you ever get yourself "Psyched up" for a game or track meet in High School or College? Remember how it felt? I am convinced, as you should be, that it is not the indwelling of the spirit. It is apparently a biological response to some hardwired morality/altruism/excitement that I have built in. Even former contributor DagoodS has those moments. He details one here on his blog.

So, Christians, what is it that convinces you of your spirit indwelling?

The Role of Persuasion in the Question of the Holy Spirit

This article takes one of the examples in the "Reasonable Doubts about the Holy Spirit" article and explores it further to show that there is no possible way for a person to come to an informed belief based on the guidance of the Holy Spirit, the alleged interference of Satan or the stubbornness of Humans and that the beliefs that we form about ambiguous subjects are results of factors of persuasion in our environment.

2b. If Tom has the potential to be influenced by the Holy Spirit when Evan tells him about Jesus, Tom should recognize the truth and accept Christ. Along the way he adopts the belief that the gifts of the Holy Spirit are valid today for everyone. Stipulating for a moment that the Gifts of the Spirit were ONLY valid in the time of the apostles, he lives happily ever after. His Spirit evidently did not pick up on the discrepancy. Is it possible that he made a conscious decision to disregard what the Holy Spirit was telling him and didn't know it?

In this situation at least three premises present themselves to Tom before he forms a belief one way or the other.
1. The Holy Spirits gifts are Valid today.
2. The Holy Spirits gifts are not valid today.
3. Maybe some are valid and some are not.

Stipulating for the sake of argument that the Gifts of the Holy Spirit were ONLY valid at the time of the Apostles I'll assign some claims to some entities.
1. Satan says that The Holy Spirits gifts are Valid today
2. The Holy Spirit says that The Holy Spirits gifts are not valid today.
3. Tom comes up with a compromise that some are valid and some are not.

So How does Tom decide between any of these claims. He is no expert. He stands alone with these thoughts. He can find scripture to support arguments for and against, but his cultural belief in fair play give him the idea that both may be right in certain circumstances. Usually when you have to make a decision or decide what you think about something, it is based on evidence and logical inference. This is true in the day to day interactions in the world. One can see evidence of certain things and one can see if it fits with what the claims are and one can make an informed decision. He knows people that speak in tongues, but he also has a feeling that it may be just a show for attention. However in this case, the evidence is in the Bible, and it seems to be ambiguous on the issue. Usually when one is faced with making a decision and one isn't qualified to make an informed decision, one has to rely on experts.

So now who is an expert? If both arguments have support in the Bible, then how does anyone, even an expert make an informed decision? If they make the decision on a feeling, then how does anyone know where the feeling came from? Holy Spirit, Satan, or the self? If both parties ascribing to different side of the issue make their decision on a feeling that they describe as the Holy Spirit, who can argue? How do they know it was the Holy Spirit? Does this "Holy Spirit Feeling" ever manifest itself in situations where you wouldn't expect any "Holy Spirit Guidance", like at the mall for example? This is where good old fashioned Persuasion and Rhetoric comes into play when you don't have enough information to make a decision about an issue that is ambiguous.

Some factors of Persuasion are in the incomplete list that follows.
- People are naturally terrible at estimating probability.
- People are naturally terrible at perceiving and interpreting probabilistic data.
- People "remember the hits and forget the misses"
- People like stories and are willing to give the teller of the story the benefit of the doubt about the truth of it.
- People are more likely to believe a story if it comes from someone they like.
- People are more likely to believe a story if it is believed by the larger group.
- People are more likely to believe a story if it comes from an authority.
- People will change their evidence based viewpoint if it contradicts the viewpoint of the group.
- People overestimate the degree of belief in others.
- People are more likely to believe a story if it fits with what they already believe or want to believe.
- People look for confirmation of what they already believe and disregard things that contradict.
- People are likely to use the precautionary principle as illustrated by Pascals Wager in minimizing risk.
- People fill in the gaps in information naturally, stories, blind spot in the eye, movies, music etc
- People will come to believe what they hear the more it is repeated to them.
- People are more likely to believe a story that is accompanied by symbols or imagery.

When there are good arguments on both sides and you don't have any evidence to make an inference based on Logic, then you always have your friends, family, church and culture to give you a feeling about the truth of an issue. This is the how the industry of marketing and advertising work as well as politics.

Does anyone just pick a church at random and make it their church home? No, they shop around, and visit other churches till they find one that 'feels' right. Why does it feel right? The Holy Spirit, Satan or self? How do they know? They decide from the factors listed above. The decide based on the influences in their environment.

To say that one follows the Holy Spirit based on a feeling is a case of special pleading. There is no way to validate it even for the person having the feeling. Therefore, the teachings in the Bible that are ambiguous, logically must not be important and can be disregarded until they can be substantiated in principle and evidence.

REFERENCES

- Cialdini, Robert. 2001. Influence: Science and Practice. Boston. Allyn and Bacon.
- Gilovich, Thomas. 1991. How We Know What Isn't So. New York. The Free Press: A division of Macmillan, Inc.
- Okeefe, Daniel J. 1990. Persuasion Theory and Research. Newbury Park, California. Sage Publications.
- Cialdini's Six weapons of influence
- Elaboration Likelihood Model of persuasion.
- Why Do Christians Believe?
- From an Atheists Perspective
- ChangingMinds.org

Persuasion Videos from Debate Central.
- Speaking to Persuade
- Objects of Persusion
- Theories of Persuasion
- Strategies of Persuasion

Reasonable Doubt About the Holy Spirit

This article is an exploration of some stated and less disputed characteristics of the Holy Spirit. I purposely tried to avoid claims about the Holy Spirit that were disputed between denominations and Churches. I use these relatively undisputed claims as my core premises to construct the argument in favor of the Holy Spirit in order to express doubt about it. By using commonly accepted claims about the Holy Spirit, and my experience as a former Christian I hope to avoid the charge of misrepresentation or "straw man".

P1a. The Holy Spirit is God
P1b. God is omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent, etc.
P2. The Holy Spirit informs the Unbeliever as to the truth of Jesus when being told about it.
P3a. The Holy Spirit is in every Christian
P3b. Every Christian Accepts Christ
P3c. Every Christian should be favorable to Holy Spirit Influence.
P4. The Holy Spirit helped write the scripture
P5. The Holy Spirit helps interpret the scripture
P6. The Holy Spirit gives understanding (informs).

Conclusion: The Holy Spirit is effectively God, it wrote about itself, it lives in every Christian giving guidance about what it helped write about itself therefore there should be no disagreement on any characteristic of the Holy Spirit or interpretation of Scripture.

Many of the claims about the Holy Spirit are not falsifiable, but premises P5 and P6 are. For example, some early pre-Nicean Christian Church leaders rejected the Trinity. They were closest to the source, which infers that if the principles regarding the Holy Spirit were valid, then they of all people would know if it was a proper way to describe God or not. Yet the validity of the Trinity as a proper description of God seems to be in doubt by some denominations. Additionally some other characteristics of God aka The Holy Spirit seem to be in doubt. Some Christians say the Holy Spirit is a female entity, and some say it is male. Some say it is a person and some say it isn't.

Why can't all Christians agree on any of this if they are all getting guidance from the Holy Spirit? But quite counter-intuitively one Christian in one church has their point of view and another Christian in another church has a different point of view. They both believe they have the Holy Spirit inside and are getting guidance (informed). But what is the manifestation of this guidance? Is it a feeling, or verbal thoughts, or images or something else? Its obviously something personal and individual.

You who are Christian, how does the Holy Spirit manifests its guidance to you? The next time you are in a disagreement with another Christian over some aspect of scripture, do a little introspection and have some humility. First, recognize that you may be wrong. Second, if you don't come to agree with the other person, do some introspection. Look for its manifestation and see if you are getting any guidance from the Holy Spirit. See if you can distinguish what your thoughts are from the guidance of the Holy Spirit. If you can distinguish, and you are certain you're expressing the point of view of the Holy Spirit, then the person you are having the discussion with should agree with you if they are a true Christian and have the Spirit indwelling. If you can't distinguish then, ask yourself, is this person getting guidance from the Holy Spirit and if so how do they distinguish? Maybe you should ask them, how the guidance of the Holy Spirit manifests itself to them because if they can distinguish their thoughts from the Holy Spirit, then you need to adopt their way of thinking right away. If they can't and you can't either, then maybe you should stop worrying about the initial disagreement and start worrying about why neither one of you are getting guidance from the Holy Spirit. If you are convinced you are getting guidance, and they are too, then you are at an impasse, and logically this should not be possible. One of you must be wrong about receiving guidance from the Holy Spirit. But why would you think you were getting guidance if you weren't? In any case you'll need to get another opinion, but how do you ultimately know who's interpretation of scripture is correct and who's isn't. Hopefully the Holy Spirit will let you know who you can trust. However that doesn't seem to be the case in some churches. Churches that have had Pastors such as Ted Haggard, or a community in Uganda, Africa are sorely missing that type of guidance.

If the Holy Spirit informs, and a true Christian has it living inside and it lives inside because the person should be favorable to its influence then how can there possibly be Christian on Christian crime? I Bet William Tyndale, who created the first English translation of the Bible and was subsequently charged with heresy was wondering something similar as he was praying "Oh Lord, open the King of England's eyes" shortly before being strangled and burned. If a person can't tell when the holy spirit is giving them guidance, what good is it? How is it supposed to work?

During my research for this article (hardly any of them scholarly or academic sources) I noticed that some web sites talked about the lack of good commentary on the Holy Spirit and one speculated that it was probably because people were afraid of Blasphemy against it. In my opinion, the lack of commentary is because they are afraid to take a position on it out of fear of criticism. Most of them just quoted scripture and never provided any mechanism for how it worked but did provide a lot of ambiguous Emotional Persuasion Dialogue aka Rhetoric with no way to validate it. This is an indication that it is not very well understood which is not what you'd expect if the principles written about it are true.

The following are some situations I created using the principles of the Holy Spirit to explore their implications. I purposely worded them redundantly so the impact of the argument would not get lost. In each case the presumption is that the Holy Spirit informs or gives guidance to facilitate a decision to accept or reject.

How it should happen.
1. If Tom has the potential to be influenced by the Holy Spirit when Evan tells him about Jesus, Tom should recognize the truth and accept Christ. He does and lives happily ever after.

How it should not happen.

Tom Believes the Gifts Were Only Valid For The Apostles:
2a. If Tom has the potential to be influenced by the Holy Spirit when Evan tells him about Jesus, Tom should recognize the truth and accept Christ. Along the way he adopts the belief that the gifts of the Holy Spirit were only valid for the Apostles. Stipulating for a moment that the Gifts of the Spirit are NOT only valid in the time of the apostles, he lives happily ever after. His Spirit evidently did not pick up on that discrepancy. Is it possible that he made a conscious decision to disregard what the Holy Spirit was telling him and didn't know it?

or the opposite situation happens

Tom Believes the Gifts Are Valid For Everyone Today:
2b. If Tom has the potential to be influenced by the Holy Spirit when Evan tells him about Jesus, Tom should recognize the truth and accept Christ. Along the way he adopts the belief that the gifts of the Holy Spirit are valid today for everyone. Stipulating for a moment that the Gifts of the Spirit were ONLY valid in the time of the apostles, he lives happily ever after. His Spirit evidently did not pick up on the discrepancy. Is it possible that he made a conscious decision to disregard what the Holy Spirit was telling him and didn't know it? This argument is discussed in detail here

Tom Becomes an Apostate:
3a. If Tom has the potential to be influenced by the Holy Spirit when Evan tells him about Jesus, Tom should recognize the truth and accept Christ. He does and learns more about the bible and Christianity. He has questions that are not resolved in his mind. He makes no conscious decision to disbelieve anything that he thought was rational. Everything that bothered him, bothered him exactly because he thought it didn't make sense. He becomes an apostate later in life, living happily ever after. Was the Holy Spirit giving him guidance to cause him to find fault in the Bible or Christianity? If not, then if the Holy Spirit was giving him guidance and it didn't make sense to him then is he culpable when he rejects Christianity on those grounds? On the other hand how do you love something you have doubts about? If he grudgingly keeps professing his faith, gods not going to be fooled and he's as good as an apostate.

or the opposite situation happens

Tom Hangs Onto His Belief Despite Doubts:
3b. If Tom has the potential to be influenced by the Holy Spirit when Evan tells him about Jesus, Tom should recognize the truth and accept Christ. He does and learns more about the bible and Christianity. He has questions that are not resolved in his mind and he makes no conscious decision to disbelieve anything that he thought made sense. Everything that bothered him, bothered him exactly because he thought it didn't make sense. He wrestles with these questions for the rest of his life professing his faith and NOT living happily ever after. Was the Holy Spirit giving him guidance to cause him to find fault in the Bible or Christianity? If not, how is it that the Holy Spirit didn't intervene on behalf of itself to the point that he would not have to make a choice to disregard conflicting information that he honestly believed was valid? Here is a link to a DC article called "Christians Who Struggle With Serious Doubts" that talks about this.

Tom Doesn't Accept Jesus At First Contact
4. If Tom has the potential to be influenced by the Holy Spirit when Evan tells him about Jesus, Tom should recognize the truth and accept Christ. But he doesn't because he is not convinced. What could be going on in inside Tom to cause that to happen? Doesn't Tom realize that the Holy Spirit is working on him to influence him to believe? How is Tom supposed to recognize the fact the he is being informed by the Holy Spirit? Is Tom consciously disregarding information that is informing him from the Holy Spirit? Can Tom distinguish between what are his thoughts and what is the guidance and understanding of the Holy Spirit?

Tom Accepts Jesus But Doesn't Become A True Christian:
5. If Tom has the potential to be influenced by the Holy Spirit when Evan tells him about Jesus, Tom should recognize the truth and accept Christ. Evan is in the Catholic Church, or Protestant, or Church of God, or Jehovah's Witness or Church of Latter Day Saints. Tom likes what he hears and accepts Christ. But the other Churches out there are saying that those churches aren't made up of real Christians, kind of like the Pope did on July 10, 2007. So if these are not real Christians, why didn't the Holy Spirit pick up on this and over time put Tom in a position to have to make a conscious decision to disregard information about itself that he new was valid and accept information that he did not know was valid? There was no informed decision possible.

Where are the real Christians? In what church?
* The Catholic Church? or any of the other versions of Catholicism?
* Protestant Evangelicals? or any of the many other protestant churches?
* Jehovah's Witnesses?
* Latter Day Saints?
* Church of God?

Since it seems apparent that the Holy Spirit does not help interpret scripture or give understanding, Reasonable Doubt about the Holy Spirit is justified.

For effect I listed the staggering number of Christian Denominations from Wikipedia and after that, the staggering number of theological disputes between them.

List of Christian Denominations from Wikipedia
1 Catholicism
1.1 The Catholic Church: Churches in communion with the Bishop of Rome
1.2 Other Churches that are Catholic, But Who Are Not In Communion With Rome

2 Eastern Churches
2.1 The (Eastern) Orthodox Church
2.2 Western-Rite Orthodox Churches
2.3 Other Eastern Orthodox Churches
2.3.1 Assyrian Church of the East
2.4 Oriental Orthodoxy
2.4.1 Oriental Orthodox Communion

3 Anglicanism
3.1 Anglican Communion (in communion with the Church of England)
3.2 Independent Anglican and Continuing Anglican Movement Churches

4 Protestant
4.1 Pre-Lutheran Protestants
4.2 Lutheranism
4.3.1 Presbyterianism
4.3.2 Congregationalist Churches
4.4 Anabaptists
4.5 Methodists
4.6 Pietists and Holiness Churches
4.7 Baptists
4.7.1 Spiritual Baptists
4.9 Apostolic Churches - Irvingites
4.10 Pentecostalism
4.11 Oneness Pentecostalism
4.12 Charismatics
4.12.1 Neo-Charismatic Churches
4.13 African Initiated Churches
4.14 United and uniting churches
4.15 Other Protestant Denominations
4.16 Religious Society of Friends (Quakers)

5 Messianic Judaism

6 Restorationism
6.1 Stone-Campbell Restoration Movement
6.2 Southcottites
6.3 Millerites and Comparable groups
6.3.1 Sabbath Keeping Churches, Adventist
6.3.2 Sabbath-Keeping Churches, Non-Adventist in north Pennsylvania
6.3.3 Sunday Adventists
6.3.4 Sacred Name Groups
6.3.5 Other Adventists
6.3.6 Bible Student Groups
6.4 Anglo-Israelism

7 Nontrinitarian Groups
7.1 Unitarianism and Universalism

8 Religious movements related to Christianity
8.1 Manichaeism
8.2 The New Church also called Swedenborgianism
8.2.1 Episcopal
8.2.2 Congregational
8.3 New Thought
8.4 Christian mystery movements

9 Ethnic or syncretic religions incorporating elements of Christianity

10 Christianism

With help from John, Prup, and an Ed Babinski article, here are a list of some disputed topics. I wanted to list as many items as possible to give a graphic representation of how unreliable the principles of the Holy Spirit are.

- Trinity or no?
- Arianism
- The disputes that drove the creation of Protestants.
- Denominations of Protestants
- Denominations of Catholics
- War between Catholics and protestants
- Holy Spirit male or female?
- Holy Spirit is a person or not?
- Salvation, faith or works
- Baptism
- Infant Baptism
- Hell is real and fiery or not?
- Purgatory
- Snake handling
- Once saved always saved?
- Where do Suicides go?
- Speaking in tongues
- Blasphemy of the Holy Spirit
- New covenant theology
- The 'two natures' in Christ.
- The Ordination of Women
- The attitude towards gays
- The various parts of the Bible that seem to be later additions, such as the 'story of the woman taken in adultery' and the 'Great Commission' that ends Matthew, etc.
- The Rapture
- Slavery
- Biblical inerrancy
- Christendom
- Papal Infallibility
- Double Predestination
- Just War Theory
- Penal Substitution
- God as a Male
- Sin
- Unforgivable Sin
- Second coming has already happened
- The point in time that the holy spirit indwells and fills you
- Gifts of the spirit given to everyone or different people at different times
- 'pre-Nicean' controversies

What Would You Do With $800,000.00 or 55,000 People for 12 Hours?

On July 7, 2007 55,000 people at a cost of $800,000.00 got together in Nashville for twelve hours of swaying, praying and fasting to influence God or other people or maybe it was just a pep talk to turn the country around. It was intentionally held on 7/7/07 because “Biblically, the number seven is the Lord's number," said Scott MacLeod, who helped organize The Call and is founder of Provision International, an inner-city ministry in Nashville. “All through the Bible, there are a series of sevens. So, when you get three sevens to line up at once, you know something's up.”

Can’t argue with logic like that. God knows there is more potential energy in those prayers than the combined effort of 110,000 hands laying on tools or brainstorming on different ways you could use $800,000.00 or 55,000 people to do something useful.

You Don't Need Faith to Believe The Principle of Evolution

Rev. 1. Added link to Evolution 101 podcast.
This is a recent comment in one of the previous articles. It is a frequently offered claim that I want to take a moment to address as an article instead of a comment.
"....when one considers the amount of atheist faith required to believe the scientific theories regarding evolution in light of the absence of any eyewitness, the sort of Christian faith regarding inspired writings shouldn't be all that bizarre....."

People don't need faith to believe the principle of evolution. Scientists are doing experiments using it in labs and observing it in real time in nature. Heres a link to TalkOrigins.org to explore it a little further. Our friend Benny highly recommends this site.

When you have a principle about how something works, you don't need faith, just logic and reasoning to make the inference that allows you to make reliable predictions about the outcome.

For example, I am sure you don't need faith to know that if you leave the bag in your cereal box open the cereal will get stale do you? No, because you know, in principle, that leaving the bag open will facilitate its going stale. In the case where you have a friend make a bowl of cereal for you and you find that it is stale, you can reasonably presume, based on principle, that the bag was left open. Furthermore, you don't need to believe god made them go stale because you know there is a natural mechanism that causes it. And you don't need to be able to describe in detail how the mechanism works to understand it, you just need to know the principle. In this way you can happily go about knowing this principle and using it to make decisions about other things like applying it to your triscuits or a birthday cake. It also helps you to understand with little extra information why you may find a little package of dessicant in something that is vulnerable to damage from moisture and you may even go so far as to properly infer that it is vulnerable to damage from moisture without anyone telling you. In this way you acquire knowledge and build on it to make decisions and acquire more knowledge. As you make inferences you need to watch to see if your inferences are correct, if they are then you can repeat the process of using them to make decisions and acquire more knowledge.

In my view this is just common sense, and basically, the scientific method is just common sense formalized.

If you use common sense on the Bible and try to make predictions or gain knowledge using the principles about God in the bible, or about the state of the world back in the day, there is a lot of room for doubt. If you don't believe it, just ask any theologian.

Recommended Resources
* Evolution 101 podcast, or you can find it in iTunes.

"Floods are judgement on society, say bishops"

This is shockingly ignorant.
This is a summary of a news article in the Telegraph. According to some senior Church of England bishops, recent storms and flooding that have left thousands homeless are due to “Gods Judgment”, whatever that is. He doesn’t come right out and say that God sent the storms to ravage innocent victims but he does say that he expresses his sympathy and that a problem with “environmental judgment is that it is indiscriminate". He asserts that moral decadence and lack of respect for the planet are the catalyst for the cause. He claims that western civilization is ignoring the teachings of the bible, cites homosexual friendly legislation as one example and describes “the Beast” in the bible as institutional power, a euphemism for Government, that sets itself up to control people and their morals.

Praise the Lord and bring on the Theocracy.

Homosexuality Is An Indicator Of Lack Of Divine Participation In The Creation Of Scripture

My presumption about the bible is that if it is to be called divinely inspired, then there must be some quality of divinity about it. I presume that if there were a holy spirit, and it can inhabit and influence all people who believe, then that spirit would be able to provide Quality Assurance to the writings that make up the Bible. This Quality Assurance about the internal consistency of the content of the Bible would be an indicator of aspects of its divinity.

And now, at the risk of "Political Incorrectness" I present my presumptions about homosexuality. I presume that it is like my heterosexuality. I presume that they didn't have any more choice about their sexual preference than I did. I presume that since most people are heterosexual, homosexuality is a deviation from the norm.

With these presumptions I intend to show that the treatment of Homosexuality in the bible most likely does not have any divine aspects about it. The following are some important passages regarding homosexuality in the Bible.

* Leviticus 18:22 (New American Standard Bible)
22 You shall not lie with a male as one lies with a female; it is an abomination.

* Leviticus 20:13 (New American Standard Bible)
13 If there is a man who lies with a male as those who lie with a woman, both of them have committed a detestable act; they shall surely be put to death. Their bloodguiltiness is upon them.

* 1 Corinthians 6:9 (New American Standard Bible)
9 Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived; neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor homosexuals,

In summary, it is an abomination, it is detestable and they shall be put to death, and they will not inherit the kingdom of God.

But research into human sexuality casts doubt on the 'Righteousness' of biblical principles regarding homosexuality. In the recent edition of Scientific American (June 2007) there is an article called "Going Beyond X and Y" by Sally Lehrman. Dr. Eric Vilain researches the phenomena of babies born with mixed sex organs. He has discovered new information that modifies traditional thinking about how developing babies sex is determined. He has discovered that it has genetic factors that are more complicated than previously thought. I am paraphrasing but he is researching the likelihood of competing genes that affect the organs, genitalia and brain development. He says that the gender effects in the brain happen before the organ effects. 1 in 4500 babies wind up with mixed sex organs. When this happens, the doctor makes a best guess on what the sex of the infant should be and performs surgery to facilitate it. Dr. Vilain has proposed that it be classified as DSD (Disorder of Sexual Development). In America, out of 300 million people, that comes out to be 66,666 people. It is a predictable rate. God is very consistent or he has nothing to do with it. Because of rushed gender assignment surgery to the infant, you will have cases where a woman is "trapped" in a mans body or vice versa.

Homosexuals shouldn't be considered an abomination, detestable or punishable by death and assignment to hell. Furthermore, we should be able to assume that some of that complex process will get mixed up to a lesser degree and result in a mans sexuality in a womans body and vice versa to include bi-sexuality.

Dr. Vilain recommends waiting on the sex assignment surgery, carrying out psychological counseling and classifying this as a clinical disorder. That seems pretty compassionate of him. He could just kill the baby in accordance with Leviticus if it weren't illegal by secular law, thank god [ ;-) ]

Does God do it on purpose or does it happen naturally? If he does it on purpose, then to what purpose? What value does it add? As a christian my justification that Homosexuality was an abomination was because logically, it would mean the end of the human race. But it doesn't happen enough to make this facet significant. As it stands, according to The Bible, it happens either naturally or divinely and then the subject should be killed or at least detested. If it happens naturally and God doesn't have anything to do with it, what is the principle by which Homosexuals are condemned? What is the principle in either case? Am I missing something? Where is the sense?

But homosexual behavior is exhibited in nature in other species. This means that it is not a specifically human trait. It spans species. This is the type of thing that is predicted by evolution. There is a museum exhibit in Norway that details the 1500 species that homosexual behavior has been observed in. I observed two camels doing something homosexual the last time I went to the zoo. One camel evidently was a cunning linguist. [ ;-) ]

I assert that the fact that there are biological determinants to human sexuality discredit the christian presumption that Homosexuality is a sin. It may be a disorder, but evil?
Is color blindness evil? Is dwarfism evil? Is a curved spine evil? Are they an abomination, detestable, punishable by death and assignment to hell?
No to all of the above. And neither is Homosexuality.

The attitude in the bible is simply an example of Bias against those that don't fit the standards for the group. It is human fear. Human Homophobia. Otherizing. It is obviously not very divine.

Note: Otherizing is
"(s)tereotyping…is part of the maintenance of social and symbolic order. It sets up a symbolic frontier between the ‘normal’ and the ‘deviant’, the ‘normal’ and the ‘pathological’, the ‘acceptable’ and the ‘unacceptable’, what ‘belongs’ and what does not or is “Other”, between ‘insiders’ and ‘outsiders’, Us and Them. It facilitates the ‘binding’ or bonding together of all of Us who are ‘normal’ into one ‘imagined community’; and it sends into symbolic exile all of Them —“the Others’—who are in some way different--- ‘beyond the pale” (Hall, 1997, 258).

Since Alfred C. Kinsey published his seminal research, Research into Human Sexuality has suffered setbacks due to the influence of the religious right. "Kinsey's research polarized a segment of society. Many in the Christian Right found their religious and socially conservative views in conflict with Kinsey's methods and underlying principles. They saw his supporters as dissolute libertines and his work as morally corrupting. Even today, Kinsey's name can elicit partisan rancor." Many of Kinseys general conclusions have been verified by other research and are now considered valid by the scientific community. (Wikipedia, Alfred Kinsey)

Further Reading/References:

This paper discusses problems in Education regarding "Otherizing".

Hall, Stuart. ed.(1997). Representation : Cultural Representations and Signifying Practices. London: Open University.

Here is a link to a story of one families effort to force a son to be a girl after a circumcision tragedy. It didn't turn out too well. He didn't seem to be able to willfully change his sexuality.

Here is a link to more information on Homosexuality
Alfred C. Kinsey
Some other DC articles that discuss Homosexuality:
Was Jesus Left Handed?
Homosexuality Bible vs Nature
Homosexuality and the Christian

Non-Atheistic Recommended Reading

As a contributor to DC, obviously, I am agnostic and, additionally, a former Bible study teacher and Born Again Evangelical Christian. I didn't get that way by reading content on sites like this. In fact, I didn't have any interest in anything atheists had to say until I stood alone with a lack of belief in a god that I acquired after a couple years of truth seeking. Not "God Truth", but "Practical Truth". The kind of truth you need to find before you purchase health products, or make decisions at work. When I applied that to my Christian beliefs, they didn't stand up very well...

At that point I wanted to see what 'the other side' had to say so I subscribed to the Infidel Guy and spent a year downloading and listening to debates and interviews. I also listened to a years worth of Robert Price's Bible Geek show. Then I listened to a Sam Harris Lecture promoting his book "The End of Faith" and got motivated to do something to help make the world a better place. A year ago I started a blog that was a last ditch effort to get God to participate in this relationship we were supposed to have and intervene. All I got was a madman posting a bunch of crap on it. Thats when I decided to Join DC and be part of a team and leave the moderation of loons up to someone else. My point in this increasingly blathering document is that applying the type of practical reasoning that people must necessarily use in every day life will in some cases weaken the perceived validity of the content of the Bible.

Along with the Atheistic books you see posted for sale on this blog, I recommend some books on the topic of reasoning and innoculation to persuasion. I am no teacher but I am a compulsive self-learner and I have read some text books that I want my children to read and I recommend to you. They are High School Senior level and above. I am sure there are better ones out there, and I have some of them unread on my shelf, but until I get to them, this is the best I can do. Maybe some of you out there are Educators and can suggest some others. In any case, reading these books will help you in other areas of your life such as dealing with the boss, coworkers, subordinates, your teens, tweens, kids, sales people and the news.

They fall into two categories; Reasoning and Persuasion. Some associated topics are Argumentation and Rhetoric, and while I am interested in both those topics, I won't recommend any of those books here because they fall outside the scope of this article. I include persuasion because people need to be aware of how people are 'hard-wired' to trust and believe things without much thought.

On the topic of Reasoning.
* Introduction to Reasoning by Stephen Toulmin, Richard Reike, Allan Janik
* How We Know What Isn't So by Thomas Gilgovich
* How to Think About Weird Things: Critical Thinking for a New Age by Theodore Schick and Lewis Vaughn
* Logical Self-defense by Ralph H. & J. Anthony Blair Johnson
* Informal Logic by Douglas Walton.
* Practical Reasoning by Douglas Walton.
* Abductive Reasoning by Douglas Walton.

A word about Douglas Walton. He is a philosophy professor and researcher that is heavily involved in research for artificial intelligence and is helping to derive algorithms for use in computers to simulate human reasoning.

On the topic of Persuasion.
* Influence. Science and Practice by Robert Cialdini.
* Persuasion by Daniel J. O'Keefe.
* The Art of Deception by Nicholas Capaldi

Study In "Journal of Religion and Society" Finds Societies Worse Off With Religion.

More morality news (albeit from Sep. 2005!), thanks to recent commenter "The Alpha".
"Societies worse off 'when they have God on their side'" from the online edition of The Times.
The original study is here. Thanks Prup!.

Enjoy.

[Revision 1. Placed another link to more news like this after the article]
An update on research into morality as an evolutionary adaptation. I'm just waiting for the old "God wrote it on our hearts..." rejoinder....

The problem with that claim is the following.

As a general principle, if god exists, then he wrote it on our hearts just as the bible says.
But the problems are
* there is no credible evidence that God had anything to do with the Bible
* there is no credible evidence that God exists
* it would suggest that if god did write it on our hearts, then he 'hedged' the freewill question
* and this type of morality is not sophisticated enough to be considered some type of divine manipulation.

Enjoy!

Science Daily

Humans hard-wired to be generous

WASHINGTON, May 28 (UPI) -- A study by government scientists in Washington indicates humans are hard-wired to be unselfish.

Neuroscientists Jorge Moll and Jordan Grafman of the National Institutes of Health say experiments they conducted have led them to conclude unselfishness is not a matter of morality, The Washington Post reports.

Rather, the two say altruism is something that makes people feel good, lighting up a primitive part of the human brain that usually responds to food or sex.

Grafman and Moll have been scanning the brains of volunteers who were asked to think about a scenario involving either donating a sum of money to charity or keeping it for themselves.

They are among scientists across the United States using imaging and psychological experiments to study whether the brain has a built-in moral compass.

The results are showing many aspects of morality appear to be hard-wired in the brain, opening up a new window on what it means to be good.

Copyright 2007 by United Press International. All Rights Reserved.

Here's another related link with more information on this type of research. On that page, on the right hand side are even more links to this type of research news.

Atheists Don't Believe in God Because They Think They Are So Smart They Don't Need Him

This is to a addresses a Frequently Asked Question/Frequently Offered Claim that Atheists don't believe in God because they think they are so smart they don't need him.

It may be true that some self-professed atheists equate intelligence with not believing in God, but I think a good argument can be made that this is a type of self delusion. The kind of un-belief that I experience is not something that I chose. It just happened. It happened as I started to question my beliefs instead of just taking them for granted. And as I gained more knowledge, especially about the Bible, my faith just went away. There was no choice about it. The thought of needing or not needing god never entered the equation. It was irrelevant.

In 1998 The Journal Nature reported that a larger portion of the National Academy of Sciences are unbelievers than believers. This correlates to what I experienced, and it infers that the more you know about the world, the less you believe in a God. But learning about the world is not the only thing that eroded my belief. Studying informal fallacies had a big part in it. It lead me into critical thinking, which led me into informal logic, which led me into the study of reasoning in general.

Learning how to determine the truth in a pragmatic way and applying that to my religious beliefs are what really eroded my belief. A love of truth. A desire to know the truth. A desire to know how to find the truth. A desire to make sense out of the world. A desire to be able to figure out when I am being lied to. A desire to protect myself from the wolves that Jesus said I had been thrown into the middle of. In order for a sheep to protect himself from a pack of wolves when everything happens in Gods time, he needs to be a little bit smarter than the wolves. And when I realized that I could increase my chances of a successful outcome by pre-planning and forethought, all that was left was just dumb luck and prayer. And we all know what they say about prayer, allow me to paraphrase "don't hold your breath".

While I can't speak for all atheists, the cause of my unbelief is not that I am so smart I don't need him, it is the fact that I did an honest search for the truth, and found it. To do that, I needed to find new information. Finding new information means getting smarter. I guess that sometimes when people get smarter, faith in a God just fades away.
My, my, hey, hey.

you will know the truth,
and the truth will make you free.

Should The Atheist Have to Prove There Is No God?

This is to addresses a Frequently Asked Question/Frequently Offered Claim that since the Atheist claims there is no God, they should prove it.

Should the Christian be required to prove there are no Hindu Gods? Should anyone have to prove that something does not exist? Proving a negative is problematic. To prove something is not there or proving a negative requires iterating through all possibilities and ensuring that if it were possible to prove it, it could be proved. For a closed system or a system where the parameters are well defined it would theoretically be possible, but not practical. For an open system or a system with parameters not defined, it should be impossible. In Informal Logic this is called an Argument from Ignorance.

Typically when someone is expected to prove something they are expected to prove a positive. Plaintiffs are expected to make a case and prove it in court. Citizens are usually considered innocent until proven guilty. Cases where citizens have been considered guilty and required to prove their innocence haven't turned out very well. The Salem Witch trials, McCarthyism and political mud-slinging are all examples of the problems with having to prove a negative.

So now how does one go about proving that God doesn't exist or that anything doesn't exist? One way to do it is to turn it around, inventory what you know and come up with some expectations and test for them. Find something that makes some positive claims and test them. In the case of God, the Bible makes many testable positive claims. Some of them have been verified and some of them have not. Some of them suggest something completely different and weaken those testable claims. Christians make a lot of claims about their experience. As these claims are iterated through, we can get a better idea of what is valid or not. As we go through this process, we gain knowledge and come to a point where we can come to a reasonably sound conclusion.

To assert that someone should prove a negative is to place an extraordinarily high burden on them and history has shown that the process does not have a high rate of success. This is one reason why it is not generally considered a reasonable demand to be placed on anyone. Since, if a thing exists, there should be evidence of its existence, it should be easier to find the evidence of its existence than the evidence of somethings lack of existence.

Since the Christian God is one of many throughout the ages, the default position should be neither for or against and the party making the positive claim should handle the burden of proof. In fact, Jesus reportedly did not tell his disciples to be convinced, he told them go convince (Matt. 28:16-20).

Does The Atheist Want God To Do Tricks?

This is Frequently Asked Question/Frequently Offered Claim. It seems to stem from the Atheist requirement for less subjective evidence of God.

Atheists have a more empirical criterion than Christians do. Generally an Atheist will not settle for any testimonial or subjective evidence while a Christian will. Since Atheists are not likely to accept anecdotal or subjective evidence for God, they prefer the kind of evidence that results from something like but not limited to a scientific style inquiry.

When faced with a conclusion that does not seem to follow from the evidence, isn't it normal to want more evidence which better supports the conclusion? Law, Law Enforcement, Medicine and Science are only a few fields that depend on having a conclusion as qualified as possible, as certain as possible. Arresting a person, sentencing a person to prison, performing surgery and showing results from scientific grants are actions that depend on a conclusion based on sound evidence. It just won't do to settle for "maybe". Since the prospect of a God has the potential to influence every part of our existence it follows that we should as sure as possible that God exists.

So if the Atheist is not convinced by the evidence presented, it should be expected that the Atheist would want more evidence. This evidence could be as dramatic as imaginable or it could be as subtle as something personal. If God is everything he is supposed to be he knows what it would take to convince us. If God wants a relationship with us, then he should be as present as necessary to create it and sustain it. Christians claim that he does and that Atheists refuse it. But I think a strong argument can be made that an all powerful being could, with a minimal amount of effort, be undeniable if it wanted to be.

What are our expectations for relationships with our friends, family, spouses, business acquaintances or strangers? What does it take to sustain those relationships? Most of the time, its not tricks, just a little understandable feedback.