Dumb is the new black
24May. 09
There is a great discussion going on in another post regarding textual discrepancies in the Bible. It certainly brings the theists out of their hidey-holes to stick up for the Big Guy. But it also makes me realise that there is an even bigger group out there that too often get ignored in blogs and podcasts. They are the airy-fairy spiritualists. These are the people who don’t believe in organised religion but believe in just about everything else if it fits their world view. This group like to think of themselves as somehow more ‘in the know’ than the churches, like they have evolved past the dogma and rely purely on their own (very special) personal experiences, opinions and intuition. But what does this say about us as a modern community? When did the phrase “everybody is entitled to their opinion” become a valid argument for establishing the fact of a thing? When it all comes out in the wash it is still a belief based on no evidence and a lack of critical thought on the subject. I’m reminded at this point that Charles Pierce has just released a new book titled Idiot America: How Stupidity Became a Virtue in the Land of the Free. In it he responds to this very thing -“You’re entitled to your own opinion but you are not entitled to your own facts”. His book highlights how it has become a frequent phenomena that “everybody is a historian, or a scientist, or a preacher, or a sage. And if everyone is an expert, then nobody is, and the worst thing you can be in a society where everybody is an expert is, well, an actual expert”.
If facts and evidence are viewed as being boring, and a direct threat to our sense of magic and wonder, what chance do we have in making any real progress in the big issue of the day like the environment and education.
Greta Christina in her blog ‘Not religious but spiritual’ sees this kind of spirituality as a gateway out of religious belief but I’m not so sure this applies to most Australians as we are already a much more secular people than Americans. I think the bigger question to tackle is why we believe rather than what we believe.
Here is a good example of a common belief that both theists and spiritualists share. The soul. It provides the perfect illustration of what I have been saying and how we as critical thinkers can tackle believers.
When arguing the existence of a soul with people, here is what I say -:
We know that the mind is what the brain does. Our personalities which are mainly hereditary (especially as we get older) are managed in the brain. Our memories are stored in the brain. We know that brain damage can effect personality, memory and IQ. We can say now with confidence that the brain does not require anything more than what we can measure for it to work (or not work).
We also know that the terms ‘energy’ and ‘force’ are quantifiable and measurable terms in science. We know that the soul is not something that can be measured or tested in any way and therefore those terms are not appropriate to use. Our previous definition of the soul is therefore entirely inappropriate because science has since filled those gaps of knowledge.
Then you can ask the person a simple question. So where does the soul sit? What does it do? Given it is not required by our brains to function and make us who we are, what is the definition of a soul? Where is the new gap it fits, now that we have filled so many previous gaps with knowledge?
We so want to fill our lives with magic and wonder that we make up these terms which are simple and comforting to help explain what we don’t know. But when we do this we miss the real mystery, the real magic: our brains.
Thanks for taking the time to read this post. I would love to hear about similar discussions you have had with this kind of believer. Here are some recommended readings and listenings for yourself and the spiritualists out there -:
- The Brain Science Podcast
– Genome & Nature Via Nurture by Matt Ridley
– How The Mind Works & The Blank Slate by Stephen Pinker
– http://www.ted.com/
– The Mechanism Of Mind by Edward de Bono
– http://brainrules.net/
Tags: belief, brain-science, gaps, Religion, spirituality
May 24th, 2009 at 5:58 pm
That arguement includes a hidden premise, which is that the soul is these things. Which makes it quite easy to wriggle out of, as they just say that yes, maybe those things are brain based, by X is not, and that is what the soul does.
I prefer to argue that the brain is what controls every facet of our lives. From what we see, our memories, our personality, our morality, everything. We know this because brain lesions can effect every aspect of us, and have done so. (for example, look up pheias gage, or HM, or the chick with no amygdala, thus cannot experience, or understand, fear.). Therefore, how is the soul, if it exists, anything but a parasite latching on to us, hoping to get its own afterlife.
May 25th, 2009 at 12:47 am
Soul is a belief, not a “fact.” Rather than believe in soul, perhaps we mean substance, such as atoms, molecules, or energy. When one dies, the light goes out of our eyes. Where does that light go? Can it be measured? Can it be tracked?
To my way of thinking, the energy that put light in our eyes, a beat to our hearts, a pattern to our breathing in and out, changes into a different kind of energy, much as a burning log changes into gas and smoke. The energy, the fire, changes and we do not have a way to explain that. This is where soul comes in … we have to explain the unexplainable, so we create a story that fits our understanding and that story will remain until and unless we have a new way of understanding.
May 25th, 2009 at 1:17 am
I plant a seed I believe to be a cabbage. The seed spouts, grows and forms new seeds, many new seeds. Low and behold, what I believed to be a cabbage seed is actually a wheat seed that became a wheat plant, producing wheat seeds. What happened in the process of sprouting, growing and developing?
I harvest the wheat seeds and the plant dies. I now have a dead seed which I grind into flour, mix with water and yeast and the mixture becomes alive, it grows, it doubles and triples in size, smells delightful, feels wonderful and looks energized. What happened in the process of dying, coming to life and growing?
I knead the dough, form it into buns, and bake it at a very high oven temperature; the dough dies. I now have a bun that is dead. I butter it, eat it and it becomes alive in me. What happened in the process of dying, coming to life in me, and providing me with nourishment?
I have energy from the substances in the bun and I plant a new “dead” seed. The process repeats and repeats and repeats. At some point, I die, my body turns to soil, my mind stops functioning, and my soul, if there is such a thing, changes into the stuff of stars and I dance in the universe.
May 25th, 2009 at 6:44 am
@Joan Denoo:
That’s very poetic, and I can see where you’re coming from, but the problem is that, by using the word “soul”, you’re confusing people who actually think it means “life after death in a conscious way”. I would think about using a different word for your meaning, not one that has obvious other meanings that are not what you’re talking about.
For example, I’m not going to call my cat a table, because people know what a table is, and it’s not a cat. I could be using the term in a poetic sense, but it still confuses people.
May 25th, 2009 at 9:42 am
Hi Joan, have you noticed you just used examples which all have natural, observable, quantifiable and measurable answers? Using the natural to confirm the supernatural isnt going to get you too far. You also co-opted the energy term quite often, did you not read all my post? As Naon said, its very poetic, but it is all based on an argument from incredulity. You have used the explainable to argue for the unexplainable.
I have posted a number of great sources to learn about what we ‘do’ know. Go check them out, learn from the experts, do lots of reading and personal research from sources that may not be so comfortable to begin with, it is what i did. Its a brave thing to do, to question your own beliefs (especially against people who base their life in understanding the things you are so sure about based on personal opinion) . Two years ago i would have agreed with everything you said because it sounded reasonable and poetic at the time. All i can tell you is by taking that leap into science, i learned there is poetry in learning and poetry in nature. You dont need to make stuff up to feel wonder. To quote Douglas Adams — “Isn’t it enough to see that a garden is beautiful without having to believe that there are fairies at the bottom of it too? “
Seeya
May 26th, 2009 at 1:15 pm
I think you’re possibly the first person to put this often ignored, almost invisible phenomenon in writing. I personally know of a few people who identify themselves as spiritualists. You know the type, they think the Bible and other religious texts are not to be taken so seriously. But just when you think they’re saying due to some form of critical thinking, it becomes clear that they say this only because their own religious texts are new age psycobabble books like The Secret or any of Eckhart Tolle’s “books”.
May 26th, 2009 at 3:11 pm
Thanks Stuntman although i cannot claim that particular honour. I do think that this group need a hell of a lot more attention put on to them. They seem to get away scott free from most atheist/skeptic blogs and podcasts.
I think i should ask the guys to post the question for their On The Street segment.
May 26th, 2009 at 5:32 pm
Thanks for the pointers. I think “You’re entitled to your own opinion, but not to your own facts.” will be my auto-reply from now on to the conspiracy theorists in my midst. In fact, I’m off to get that book now. The thing I like about the “Everyone’s entitled to their opinion,” stance is that it outs the crazy people like no other. It empowers them to expose themselves and once out in the open, we can challenge them and hopefully pull them into some reason and allow them to question themselves and their beliefs. Even if the individual never changes their opinion, someone else reading or listening may find the challenge worthy of pause in their own search for answers.
November 20th, 2009 at 4:33 pm
You guys are funny.
“Therefore, how is the soul, if it exists, anything but a parasite latching on to us, hoping to get its own afterlife.”
Thats great NiroZ. I love it.
Dunno if the brain controls every aspect of our lives either, but its close enough I spose.
“We know that the soul is not something that can be measured or tested in any way and therefore those terms are not appropriate to use.”
Do we?
Would you have said the same thing about gravity 1000 years ago?
And those terms are only inappropriate to use when talking or typing in a specific sense. Refering to scientific concepts defined by those terms. Really people can say whatever they like. You can criticise their accuracy tho. Thats fair enough.
But it does make it hard for you to even begin to approach making a meaningful comment on the subject.
“Thanks for taking the time to read this post. I would love to hear about similar discussions you have had with this kind of believer.”
I’d probably be what you’d describe as “this kind of believer”, (you’d be wrong incidently, but I’d bet money thats how you’d describe me. Lets go with it for the sake of discussion.) Thanks for writing it.
The main problem you are gonna have if you want to argue with “people like me” is that you won’t be arguing effectively.
Considerthe passion you feel about rational thought, obviously its fairly deep and powerful or you wouldn’t be taking the time to be involved here.
That same passion you feel is what drives the belief systems of the people you are criticising.
It comes from the same place. Its what gives them (and you) meaning. This comes for you guys cos in your life experience it works, right? It works to such an extent that it impresses you deeply?
Its the same thing for those people.
Logic won’t convince them cos it doesn’t engage them emotionally. It does for you guys, but not for them. Probably because the logic you push doesn’t account for the experiences that are meaningful to them.
What I really don’t understand tho is why it matters? (Well maybe I do but indulge me please.)
Also, what would you do if someone made a connection between part of the brain and the soul?
Cheers