Lack of Faith: the Atheist Credo, concl.page 4
Supporting Science and Its Proofs
Atheists know that knowledge in the present isn’t built on speculation about possible discoveries in the future. We live in the present, with a base of knowledge that has been tested in the past and the present. Scientists test assumptions about what we think we know and what people have always taken as unquestioned fact. Designers of commercial technology and medicine also test assumptions.
A misconceived experiment and hypothesis in one regard does not constitute evidence either of God or that all science is potentially wrong. Rarely is every fact related to a scientific discovery debunked, but new facts revise the conditions of discovered knowledge. Because new evidence and better testing and more accurate measuring devices, and more creative thinking in the future may change what scientists consider to be knowledge in a certain discipline, doesn’t necessarily mean that new ways of measuring will definitely be found or that the new measure will constitute a substantive change in understanding. The possibility that a change in our understanding can be made doesn’t specify “what” change to “what” specific scientific tenet among all of them or to “what” degree will be altered by a new way of measuring data.
It’s irrational to discount all current knowledge based on the possibility of future contrary evidence.
Possibilities don’t exist until they are made reality.
Opinions by the best-qualified experts, supported by a preponderance of the evidence and by the soundest of reasoning, are regarded by scientists as true, for the time being.
I wish I could make atheism seem as cool as science. But there are no fantastical stories, unless you're fascinated by explanations of the real world, and physics, and biological nature in action. There are no imaginative tales or moral tales.
Science works differently than belief and faith. The truth we attribute to scientists isn’t faith but trust in reported test results because they have been submitted for peer review to uncover flaws in methodology, experiment construction, bias, test subject sample size, hypothesis construction, interpretive conclusions, and generalization applicable to other areas not directly tested in the experiment. We trust in science because raw data is available for all to review, because full descriptions of the method exist, and because the tests are repeatable by others to ensure consistency of results. We trust the specialized knowledge of trained, educated, experienced, experts and their supervisors to tell the truth about their findings. Science demands arguments based on objective and reliable evidence. Because our individual resources and training and senses are limited, we cannot directly perceive some things that scientists who are closer to the source and make specific revelations can, and so we must rely on their reports of how they sensed results and the sense they made of them.
We rely on people who have taken action to create evidence, not people who tell us they have heard god and spirits talking to them.
Scientific conclusions are based on research, analysis of observations about the results of the research, and reasoned interpretation of the results. Scientists in search of truth ask “Why.” They deal not with the “what ifs,” but the “what ares,” to paraphrase Dr. Laura. Controlled experimentation and observation lead scientists to the truth of reality. They “discover” physical laws, having started from hypotheses, or “theories” about the hows and whys and whats. Until people looked beyond conventional, provincial wisdom, a lot of people thought the earth was flat and that the sun revolved around it. Fortunately, today we have much more precise observing and measuring tools.
It is obvious from daily reports of advances and discoveries in a number of fields, that we don’t know today all that we are going to know. This doesn’t mean that all that is impossible today will be possible tomorrow. The phrase, “anything is possible,” is untrue. The sun cannot become a batch of dandelions. Applesauce cannot be pieced together to form the original apples used to make the sauce. People cannot be simultaneously both people and mosquitoes. Can the sun be destroyed by humans? I expect that if someone worked hard enough on it, they could devise a sufficient heat shield and a sufficiently sized explosive to do it, but it’s not very probable that anyone would want to try or could conduct such construction activities without detection by pro-sun federal agencies.
Many powers, what we call laws of nature, such as gravity, in the universe exert limitations on pathetic human activity, keeping us challenged to overcome them to a certain extent if we want to expand our horizons. That’s why we thought up boats to go over the oceans, jet planes to go through the air, dams to irrigate arid deserts, and ways to use radio waves and microwaves that let us communicate without wires.
Scientists have determined that the factual process of evolution that brought humans into existence is natural selection. Author Bruce Hood is brief in his explanation of this process: the “world is continually changing. Life on earth has to adapt to those changes in order to survive. Adaptation occurs because each generation of life inherits slight random variations in its genetic makeup from the previous generation, and these variations produce slight differences between individuals. This means that some individuals and not others are better equipped to deal with the pressures of the environment where there is competition to breed. The selection occurs because these individuals are more likely to survive and pass on to their offspring the genes that gave them the advantage. Over time—a lot of time—this gradual process of selection by nature accumulates to produce significant changes and diversity.” (Hood, p. 57)
“The problem is that the majority of U.S. adults believe that a supreme being, namely God, guided the origin and diversity of life on earth. This creationist view contrasts with the scientific theory of evolution, which states that life on earth is constantly changing to produce new life forms and that this process continues without purpose, guidance, or design.” (Hood, p. 56) “[C]reationism was created by the human mind, whereas evolution by natural selection is a fact that was discovered.” (Hood, p. 60)
It was Herbert Spencer, Darwin’s contemporary, who coined the phrase “survival of the fittest,” which means the ability of the individual to survive within a given environment, and not the individual with the most physical brute strength as a single prominent asset having the greatest chance at survival.
Books are written on the process of human, animal, insect and plant evolution. Our ability to manipulate changes in physical and genetic structures in laboratories, and carry those changes into the fields in our crops and have records that those changes propagate in surviving generations shows that evolution exists as fact, and no longer as theory. Science and technology have done their job of elucidating, firming, and communicating knowledge. More people need to fully appreciate the wonderfully enlightening works of Carl Sagan (the earth rest his body) for his contributions in popularizing scientific study.
A summary of logic regarding scientific discovery would include the following rules:
RULE: That science is sometimes wrong doesn’t invalidate all that science has proven right.
RULE: That science is sometimes proven wrong in the future doesn’t mean that all of the facts that science has proven will be disproven in the future.
RULE: That scientists sometimes wrongly interpret results of experiments or construct poor experiments doesn’t invalidate any of the correct interpretations from correctly constructed experiments.
RULE: That all facts aren’t known by science doesn’t invalidate any of the facts that are known.
RULE: All evidence of the supernatural is anecdotal, reportorial, or staged.
Who Believes What
A poll in the mid-80s showed that 95% of the American population believed in an active god. This statistic is supported by a 1996 poll that found that 95% of people believed in nonexistent higher powers. While 79 percent of Americans believed there is a God, only 66 percent were absolutely certain of it. Nine percent did not believe in God and 12 percent weren’t sure. And weirdly, not everyone who called himself a Christian or a Jew actually believed in God. Ten percent of Protestants, 21 percent of Roman Catholics, and 52 percent of Jews do NOT believe in God, according to a recent Harris Interactive survey of 2,306 adults.
Just over half of Americans (55 percent) attended a religious service a few times a year or more. Thirty-six percent attended once a month or more often, and just 26 percent said they attended every week. Forty-one percent of women and 31 percent of men attended once a month or more. Protestants (47 percent) were more likely to go to church once a month or more often than were Roman Catholics (35 percent). Jews were least likely to go with 16 percent saying they go to synagogue once a month or more. Church attendance was highest in the Midwest and lowest in the West.
Eighty-two percent of Midwesterners and Southerners believed in God, compared with 75 percent in the East and West. The poll seemed to suggest that our beliefs get stronger as we age. Of those 25 to 29 years old, 71 percent believed in God. That number jumped to 80 percent for people over 40, and hit 83 percent for those 65 and over.
Other fascinating facts about who believed in God include:
--84 percent of women believed in God, compared with 73 percent of men.
--91 percent of African Americans believed in God, compared with 81 percent of Hispanics and 78 percent of whites.
--87 percent of Republicans believed in God, compared with 78 percent of Democrats and 75 percent of Independents.
--82 percent of those with no college education believed in God, compared with 73 percent who went to college.
Of course, these are polls, so the results are complete crap.
My parents are religious, but they seem to accept my atheism (probably because I don’t preach it!) My sister praises God frequently on her FaceBook page, but I don’t bother correcting her. Reminding family members that I’m an atheist has tended to have a negative effect on my relationships. They try to find reasons for my atheism, and one sister even suggested that I wouldn’t be an atheist if I had children, since children so profoundly affect a parent’s outlook–but I know that procreation wouldn’t be sufficient impetus to deny intellectual advances I’ve made, and that procreation and atheism aren’t incompatible exclusives.
I once had an extremely religious colleague who, were she socially adept, would have seen my evasion of her comments on religion as a true indication of my beliefs. She cited her lack of training in science every time I brought up an interesting science question. It’s depressing how stupid college graduates can be.
I have yet to figure out what people mean when they refer to spirituality. Sometimes they refer to coincidences that they then attribute to mysticism. Sometimes they refer to correlations of things in the present with events of the past, having forgotten the circumstances of the past and how those circumstances impinge upon the present. Sometimes, they simply mean connection to other people.
I don’t find the mystique of spirituality satisfying. Though people realize that the unknown can’t be understood and can’t be explained except through baseless speculation, they categorize the unknown as being spiritual in nature. Sometimes, unethical exploiters ask others to speculate, and then to buy something based on the speculation. Since there’s no proof for what isn’t currently known (because negatives cannot be disproven), frauds cash in by commercializing the unknown. Some people buy for entertainment value, thinking it’s all just farts and giggles, basing decisions on unfounded speculation for the adventure and fun and excitement of not knowing what will happen. I don’t buy into fraud, which would drain my savings account.
I don’t try to understand what isn’t generally known. It doesn’t make sense to me to guess about what isn’t known when so much IS known, when irrefutable and reliable evidence exists for so much in reality, when there’s so much certainty. I don’t feel less significant in this world because science and physical laws are able to explain everyday occurrences like coincidence, human accidents, weather patterns, and death.
I read an article in a recent Psychology Today (Madonna was on the cover, so I had to find out what her thoughts were) about addressing the spiritual needs of clients in psychotherapy. It was interesting. I wrote a rebuttal editorial that wasn’t published. It advocated a reality-based, rather than a customer-based approach, my biased premise being that the purpose of psychotherapy is to aid patients in coping with reality, to bring clients to a better understanding and acceptance of reality, not reinforcing their misconceptions or boosting self-esteem. The reality-based therapist has two choices when confronted with a patient who wants spiritual-based therapy: convince them otherwise, or refer them.
But females flock to spirituality seminars, which is why I sign up and pack my SPF lotion when they’re held at a beach resort. Looney star gazers crack me up. Most of their views of life are skewed. And they’re so earnest about what a joy it is not to know what exists outside themselves, though they like to imagine spirits and souls and levels of consciousness on multiple plains.
A recent movie emphasized the importance of spirituality in the life of its main character. In Eat Pray Love, Julie Roberts prefers to end the very real relationship with her husband for little other reason than she feels she can be happier chasing a spiritual fantasy around the world, embracing the idiocy of another culture’s silly superstitious beliefs in addition to her own. She prays for guidance, but anyone who’s honest knows she’s just thinking hard about how she can rationalize what she wants to do and reconcile her choice with her religious beliefs. She simply wants something novel to happen in her life, and she searches for something ephemeral that will give her life more meaning than she gets from the routine of her work and her marriage. Spirituality is the result of surrendered reason, and spirits are what they make in distilleries.
I ask myself several questions before accepting the reality of a supposition:
--does the belief defy well-understood, tested, and documented laws of physics, science, psychology, biology, and medicine?
--does the scientific community dispute the existence of the object of a belief?
--has the scientific community determined that there is no degree of significant efficacy from an alleged medical practice/elixir?
--can the belief/theory be tested to confirm the existence of the subject of the belief/theory, and therefore vulnerable to having factual value?
--who expects to prosper from general acceptance within a population of an unconfirmed claim, which may help determine that the claim is invalid?
--are the majority of those who believe a proposed truth political party members and philosophical think tanks that are not composed of non-partisan scientists?
--does a more plausible, scientifically supportable explanation exist for the cause of something claimed to be divine or spiritually inspired?
I am hopeful of broader success in putting people on the path to enlightenment. Technical experts explain how communication works, take the magic out of cell tower radio waves and wireless technology, and bring this formerly mystical service to all, removing the mystery, removing some of the resistance against man’s progress through the availability of information. Computer-generated graphics (CGI) shows people the possibility of creating unreality, instilling the knowledge that multiple unrealities can exist and that audiences have the capacity to know that CGI stunts aren’t real, but simply entertainment. Many don’t understand the wizardry of it all, but they accept that humans created the ability to talk to one another over distances and to create computerized worlds, and that acceptance is one step closer to bringing people into the light.