Evangelical Realism

[Originally posted on August 21, 2007]

A commenter writes:

Belief in the existence of God or belief that there is no god requires faith.

Yes, and I’ll take it a step further: belief in reality requires a stronger and better faith than belief in superstition. And those who embrace the truth have a stronger and better faith than Christians do, because Christian faith is mere gullibility, whereas genuine faith is based on real-world truth.

Read the rest of this entry »

In response to “Our Unicorn Overlords,” ThatOtherGuy writes:

I do notice, DD, that you’ve moved away from the “both are equally UNjustified” stance a bit… though I think the usage of parsimony covers your bases on that one, don’t be surprised if SOMEONE mentions the shift.

It’s not actually a shift, per se. What I’m saying is that IF two theories predict exactly the same real-world consequences, then we are equally UNjustified in preferring one over the other. (We’re free to do so if we wish, there’s just no justification for it.) But if we take a step back, and take a critical look at that big IF, we find that, in fact, there is good reason to believe we’ll never have that problem.

A true hypothesis, by definition, is one that is consistent with the truth. A false hypothesis, by definition, is not consistent with the truth. That’s what “true” and “false” mean. Two hypotheses that contradict one another are not going to both be true, because truth is consistent with itself. At most one of them is going to be consistent with the truth. Thus, the only way two hypotheses can contradict each other AND both be equally consistent with the facts is if they’re both false and are equally INconsistent with the facts. Hence my remarks about why we are equally UNjustified in believing either one.

Read the rest of this entry »

[Update: I forgot to include the link back to Lifeguard's original comment; fixed now.]

Well, I’m back, sort of, and from the looks of things you guys didn’t miss me too much. I don’t suppose I’ll ever catch up on the comments backlog, but I’m sure you will let me know if there are any important points I’ve missed in my quick skim.

Meanwhile, I did notice this interesting comment (stuck in the moderation queue) from a commenter by the handle of “Lifeguard.”

I guess what I’m struggling with here is what the exact difference is between the Loser’s Compromise and simply acknowledging the very real possibility that despite the certainty of your beliefs you may be mistaken about which conclusion is the most justified, the best of the bunch, to say nothing of absolutely proven to be true?

That’s an excellent question, and I’m happy to have the opportunity to explain this further.

Read the rest of this entry »

In my post on “Victoria and Holmes,” I wrote the following:

There’s a particular approach to the truth that I call the Loser’s Compromise, and it goes like this: “We can’t know the truth about X, so let’s just agree that different people are equally justified in believing whatever they like about it.” Considered superficially, it sounds open-minded and fair, because it appeals to a certain live-and-let-live quality that avoids putting anyone in the wrong. In reality, though, it’s a deceptive rationalization, and an excuse for avoiding the truth instead of embracing it.

The rest of the post explained this and gave some illustrations, but there’s just a point or two more that I’d like to add to try and clarify why this is indeed a Loser’s Compromise.

Read the rest of this entry »

One advantage of comparing two hypotheses by measuring their consequences against real-world fact is that this approach allows us to make a clear, functional distinction between honest, unbiased inquiry and mere rationalization. The honest inquirer’s goal will be to zero in on the areas where the consequences are clearly and significantly different between the two hypotheses, maximizing the assurance with which we can draw conclusions about which hypothesis is more consistent with real-world truth. The rationalizer, by contrast, does not want the truth revealed, and so will have a contrary goal: to deprive us of the means of distinguishing the consequences of a true hypothesis from a false one, either by denying us access to the evidence or by obscuring the differences between the consequences each hypothesis would produce.

Commenter cl gives us a couple of scenarios, one hypothetical and one drawn from painful experience, that give us an excellent chance to exercise our reason, and gain some valuable experience of our own in understanding how to apply the techniques of valid hypothesizing to questions of real-world truth.

Read the rest of this entry »

In John 14:6, Jesus claimed to be The Truth. He lied, unfortunately. He was not the Truth, but was merely a Belief asserting the superiority of selfish perceptions over the harsh constraints of real life, and his legacy ever since has been one of confusion, self-contradiction, and self-righteousness.

What Jesus promised, however, Alethea fulfills. One of the great joys I experienced in converting from Christianity to Alethianism was the unexpectedly profound pleasure of discovering how exceedingly self-consistent She really is. Where before I had to work to create patterns of consistency in my beliefs, by harmonizing and rationalizing facts that resisted reconciliation, I now find that the puzzle pieces not slide together more easily, but that they are already assembled and interlocked, even before I became aware of them.

My experience as a Christian was “Amen” (i.e. “may it be so”), but my life as an Alethian is a continual and intellectually satisfying “of course!” The truth is consistent with itself in ways that not only fulfill my expectations, but anticipate them. And only Alethea can really offer this. Jesus cannot: he is dead and gone, and his followers are so divided that none of them can say confidently and authoritatively what his “truth” even is, since it is not based on observable reality. Only Alethea can rightly and truly claim to be the perfectly self-consistent and coherent Truth.

Read the rest of this entry »

I’d like to take some time over the next few days to look at the evidence against God’s existence—not just the negative evidence (i.e. the lack of supporting evidence), but actual, positive evidence against the existence of the Trinitarian, loving, almighty deity that Christians (and most other Westerners) mean when they say “God.” But before we get to that, I’d like to look at some of the foundations of rationalization vs. rational thinking, the thought patterns that produce and promote false conclusions with regards to God.

There are many ways to go astray, of course, so this will fall well short of being an exhaustive survey. Still, it’s useful as a preliminary to the main discussion to follow.

Read the rest of this entry »

Sorry, I don’t mean to belabor the point, but I got up this morning thinking of a much better way to illustrate why the “recapitation” scenario fails to give us a reasonable basis for assigning credit to any particular deity. Same situation as before: guy is suddenly decapitated and lies dead on the ground, and an hour later his head magically re-attaches itself to his neck, all his wounds are healed, his spilled blood is replenished, and he walks away unharmed. This time, however, a whole crowd of people shows up to pray for him. Some Catholics are there praying to various saints. The Buddhist monk is there praying to Buddha. Muslims show up and pray to Allah. Mormons show up and pray to a polytheistic Jesus. Pentecostals show up and pray to the Holy Spirit. Asians show up praying to their ancestors. There’s even a few neo-pagans praying to various members of the old pantheons.

Now, the guy gets up and walks away, and each of the pray-ers want to claim their God or god or saint or spirit is responsible. Which of them has a reasonable basis for claiming that it was their deity/entity, and no one else’s, that worked the miracle?

Read the rest of this entry »

Commenter cl has some questions for me.

[Y]ou say you’re not an atheist. So do you go the agnostic route? If so, how would you describe the effective differences? At any rate, I’m glad you can appreciate my questions. People are different. One person says a miracle of type X will do, others cannot be persuaded by any miracle of type X, Y or Z. You yourself argued that God needs to personally accompany the miracle – but even that has room for error, no? You could be hallucinating. You could be having a neurological misfire. Etc, etc. So, I’m left thinking that no miraculous event would or could convince DD. Is that a correct assumption?

I like the sneaky insinuation that I’m simply biased and unwilling to consider the evidence. It’s a subtle touch, but it’s not founded in reality. My most fundamental belief is that the truth is consistent with itself, and therefore all that’s really required to convince me is to show me that something is more consistent with the facts than other possibilities are. I believe I have already demonstrated this by my willingness to take a hard, honest look at my lifelong and deeply-cherished Christian faith. Though it pains me to this day to admit it, the things I believed and wanted to continue believing turned out to be less consistent with the truth than the simple observation that Christianity is a myth. Therefore I changed my beliefs to fit the facts.

Read the rest of this entry »

I’d like to follow up a bit on an earlier thread about respecting the opposition. I’ve been thinking about what makes people decide to convert—or not. Ideally, I think we’d like to have our disputes end with the other person changing their mind, and agreeing that we’re right.

The problem is that if we win the argument, the other person has to be the loser before they can agree we’re right, and that’s an ego thing. It comes back to our goal: are we working to convince, or working to conquer? Are we trying to make the other person a loser, or a winner?

Read the rest of this entry »