Heaven or Hell?

My Twitter feed is full of the usual festive wishes from theists, either asserting outright or dropping heavy hints that I'd better get saved in order to spend eternity with their beloved despot rather than his mate downstairs. 

Aside from the embarrassingly obvious fact that neither of them exists, are the alternatives as disparate as their popularisers would have us think? Hell as depicted in theist literature doesn't sound terribly attractive, I grant, but like all lies made up to terrify children into submission, its advertised nastiness is inversely proportional to its likelihood of being true.

As for heaven, what's all that about? Singing the praises of the Dear Leader from dawn till dusk, for ever without end? As the late Christopher Hitchens put it so eloquently, it's one thing to be tapped on the shoulder and told that the party is going on but you have to leave. It's quite another to be told that the party is going on eternally, and you can't leave. What's more, the boss insists that you will have a good time. It's rather like a celestial North Korea, the difference being that at least you can die and leave North Korea.

Joking aside, surely eternity means that there will come a time when you have thought every possible thought, done every deed available within heaven's rather tame limitations, read every sonnet, played every tune, danced every dance and tasted every fruit. What then? All over again, with feeling?

Theists don't like the idea of being dead, so they cling to a story in which they can stay alive. The rest of us are quite cool with the idea that nothing's forever, and besides, every one of us knows what being dead is like. We have all been dead for fifteen billion years. As Samuel Langhorne Clemens put it, when we are dead we will be once again as we were at the time of the dinosaurs and of Mary Tudor, and that caused us not the slightest inconvenience. 

It is time to acknowledge publicly that this life is the only one we get, and mankind can ill afford the luxury enjoyed by those who would force change on others because of their belief in unsubstantiable nonsense. 

Paranormal Activity taken seriously in USA?

Inspired by a few days off and a new MacBook Pro, I fell to messing around with iMovie and came up with a short spoof remake of Paranormal Activity. Within a few minutes of sharing my creation on social media I had a handful of likes and favourable comments.

Thing is, not one of my several American social networking friends responded to my post. Several of them customarily Like my videos but this time they remained obdurately silent. Not a dicky bird.

Is this coincidence? I think not. Get onto Google and see what proportion of Americans believe demonic possession is real. Sources I've Googled tonight suggest over half. The true figure may be as high as 59%.

The problem isn't confined to the States. A Welsh friend, with a strong chapel background, when I texted that I was watching Paranormal Activity, texted back vehemently that it was FAKE! CRAP! FAKE! SHAM! etc.  It was as though the film had been marketed as genuine camcorder footage, showing the demise of a cohabiting Californian couple at the hands of an invisible, real demon.

Paranormal Activity is a work of fiction. It has never pretended to be anything else. Its Blair Witch-style 'found footage' genre lends an atmosphere of contemporary reality, but surely no-one believes that anyone actually claims to have experienced the events it depicts? Really!

I suspect that certain of my friends believe I have invited trouble. I think they believe that matters demonic are best left alone for fear of attracting the unwelcome interest of some lurking supernatural entity who might choose to cause us harm. Moreover, if it does, we are the architects of our own misfortune because we meddled with dangerous forces we cannot control.

What a load of utter balls. What childish, arrogant presumption. If these forces are beyond our ken and influence, then who the hell has the authority to comment on them? It's another example of the infantile fencing game (see earlier posts). Declare an area of potential knowledge 'off limits' - i.e., no-one is allowed to discuss, or, worse still, joke about demonic possession - and then proceed to make a series of specific claims about that very issue.

I will admit to one nightmare after watching Paranormal Activity and also Oculus, a film about a haunted antique mirror that houses another 'supernatural entity' and causes the deaths of everyone who interacts with it. (Note that in each of the Paranormal Activity episodes, a scattering of bumps, menacing guttural growls and occasional flying objects precedes a violent murder or two by an invisible being of superhuman strength, with at least one bestial snarl and blurry, fast-moving halloween mask thrown in for good measure.) In my nightmare, I was standing on a railway platform as an old train departed. The carriage next to me had those old narrow doors, opened by sliding the window down and turning the outside handle. The nearest window was closed, and through the glare I saw a demonic face staring out. The visage was female, unspeakably malevolent, with straight black hair on either side, and penetrating, dark eyes. The eyes flicked upward and caught mine. Foolishly, in my entranced, dreaming state, I stared back, and squared my shoulders toward the apparition, adopting a defiant stance. She acknowledged me, lowering her forehead and narrowing her eyes. She had accepted my implied challenge, with what consequences? I awoke shouting, and feel a shivery chill even while typing these words, two days later.

I checked the time when I awoke. It was exactly 3am.

The next morning, my daughter told me that she had awoken, inexplicably, at 3am, and had found it difficult to get back to sleep.

Am I suggesting that all this is real? Are the Americans right? Have I invoked a demonic stalker who will now torment me to the end of my days?

Not a fucking chance. I would consider it utter arrogance on my part to be able to summon - intentionally or otherwise - an invisible, physically undetectable entity that I could nevertheless describe in detail. I would be playing the fencing game. I would be defining my imaginary friend as supernatural and unknowable to science nor conventional wisdom, yet claiming certainty that it is a demon and that it is interested personally in me.

Whence, then, my vividly visualised apparition? The face of the figure in the carriage window was remarkably like that of the ghostly succubus in Oculus, that seduced the father of the sibling protagonists when they were children. She was glimpsed fleetingly (as are all the most chilling movie spectres) through a window, and later appeared in a hallucination that resulted in the principal character unwittingly slicing the jugular of her fiancé. She was conjured by my recollective imagination. Were she a true demon, perhaps she could have varied her appearance a little? Come to me as something I hadn't hitherto seen? By such provisos I claim no fencing-game-style privileged knowledge; rather I question the penchant of an intelligent, independent, malevolent entity to mimic so closely a made-up actor whom I had so recently glimpsed. Was she trying to fox me into thinking her a mere dream, and double-bluff me? I find myself worrying that my American friends might answer yes....

And my daughter's wakeful episode, temporally aligned with mine? Supernatural bi-presence, or demonic teamwork? I suggest neither. I recall crying out as I awoke, and it is entirely possible that my cry also woke my daughter in the room across the hallway. Neither is it beyond the realms of possibility that we both awoke for different reasons around the same time.

No, my American friends, I have not meddled in matters that I do not understand. I need no false wisdom; no I-told-you-so counsel. I will get over my nightmares, and I will do so by rational means. No impotent deities who let demons roam freely, terrorising children and violently murdering the innocent. No pathetic death-dreading pensioners who seek to unload their childish terror vicariously onto me and mine. Keep your infantile paranoid predilections to yourselves. Better still, divest yourselves of them, throw out your religious security blanket, put away childish things and get over it.

Boghossian and McGrew debate faith

A couple of Saturdays ago, Peter Boghossian and Tim McGrew took part in a discussion on Premier Christian Radio's Unbelievable programme, chaired as usual by Justin Brierley. The debate centred around definitions of the word faith, notably Peter Boghossian's secondary definition: 'pretending to know what you don't know'.

I was sent the link to the debate by a theist kind enough to reply to one of my tweets. He opined that I might find it interesting. I certainly did, but not because it in any way strengthens the Christian case. And before anyone accuses me of unwillingness to change my mind, let me repeat (as I have done so often before) that compelling evidence for the existence of god would cause me to change my mind on the spot. By evidence I mean information which is public, credible and repeatable. More on that later.

James Lindsay has already published a crystal-clear analysis of the discussion. My layperson's response to the debate has only one point of overlap with Dr Lindsay. I humbly concur with all of the other points he makes.

Definition of faith
The first part of the debate - a substantial chunk - was concerned with Boghossian's secondary definition of faith, quoted above. McGrew took issue with this, claiming that Boghossian's inaccurate definition invalidated everything predicated upon it in his book. After several exchanges, Chairman Justin Brierley stepped in and 'moved the debate on', effectively disallowing further discussion on the definition of faith. Ironically, after a break in which an advertisement for Biola University was aired, Brierley reintroduced the debate by quoting, as its subtitle, the very definition he'd told the protagonists not to discuss further. Such an action must of course be ethical and proper, because it was taken by Christians.

As for me, I prefer a slightly different definition of faith, which I attribute to the late Christopher Hitchens: claiming to know that which one cannot possibly know. If anything this might be more confrontational to Christians than Boghossian's definition. Nevertheless, I hereby assert that it is exactly what they do. Examples abound. Last Easter a Facebook friend posted the status update 'He is risen' on her timeline. I assumed she was not documenting her husband's getting out of bed, but asserting that Jesus had come back to life. How exactly does she know that? And if she doesn't know it, what business has she in stating it? (The same friend opined, after the dreadful Sandy Hook shooting, that the tragedy occurred as a direct consequence of the constitutional separation of church and state. I commented that I hoped the bereaved families would not be exposed to such stuff.)

Tim McGrew claimed that faith is 'trusting and holding on to and acting on what one has good reason to believe is true in the face of difficulties'. I am not sure he meant this. I think he meant what one would wish to be true in the face of evidence that it is almost certainly false. Is there evidence that Christianity is false? Yes, lots of it. The central doctrine of Christianity is self-contradictory and incompatible with reality. Moreover, its thesis of vicarious redemption is downright immoral and its empty promise of eternal life is mere childish wish-thinking.

When Boghossian asked if he had faith that Islam is false, McGrew attempted to dodge the question, asking, 'Why use the word faith if I'm venturing nothing?' As Dr Lindsay has pointed out, as a religious believer McGrew is venturing rather a lot by dismissing the existence of the divine Allah and denying that Muhammad (pbuh) is his messenger, conveyor of the final revelation to mankind and guide to the one true path to paradise. On his own terms, McGrew is risking an eternity of torment. It would suit McGrew's belief system if Islam were false - i.e. he would wish it to be false - and so he professes that it is false. I too think Islam is false, but I don't need faith to support my assertion, because I am not seeking to replace it with another, equally arbitrary set of beliefs.

McGrew asserted that evidence can be 'personal or internal'. No, not where truths that concern us all are involved. Evidence for matters of supreme importance - such as the existence, intentions and instructions of an omnipotent creator and dictator - needs to be publicly accessible and repeatable if it is to be taken seriously. Private revelation is OK regarding matters that concern oneself only, and as such it should be kept to oneself, if only because public disclosure renders it no longer private. The old claim that it's private (i.e. not open to question) but nonetheless public (i.e. admissible as a debating point) is typical of the playground tricks theists attempt to use in support of their assertions.

Chairman Justin Brierley attempted to play the offence card, asserting that Boghossian's secondary definition of faith is not part of a civil discussion. Underpinning this assertion is the assumption that questioning a set of ideas is the same as criticising the person or people holding those ideas. As a set of ideas, Christianity is ridiculous. It is something of a mystery to me as to how people can take Christianity's claims seriously having examined them critically, and I tend to assume that believers have made no such examination (at least not a rigorous one), but I do not see it as a personal insult when I decry someone's beliefs. Johann Hari put it well: 'I respect you as a person too much to respect your ridiculous beliefs.' As Boghossian was quick to point out, negative feelings are a by-product of engaging ideas. Being offended is something you have to expect if you wrap up your persona in a cloak of unfounded myths, and publicly claim those myths to be true. Personal offence is not a debating point. It is irrelevant. Get over it.

McGrew accused Boghossian of labelling people of faith as intellectually inferior. Boghossian does no such thing. Rather he seeks answers to the question: How can people go through life actually believing this stuff? It is a very important question and it demands inquiry, for the answer is far from obvious. My own suspicion is that the answer is wrapped up in human reproduction and the long-term dependence of children upon their parents, together with the importance of meme systems in aiding survival. And no, I am not claiming that a religious world view confers a survival advantage (although in some parts of the world it is still suicide to claim atheism or apostasy). I think that the human brain is wide open to religious infection, given the right conditions during childhood. But I digress (although McGrew's summary of his biography, declaimed early in the debate, makes this train of thought more than slightly relevant here).

Boghossian made the important point that apologetics is not a valid way of seeking truth. His point was that apologetics starts with the answers and seeks 'evidence' in their favour, ignoring anything contrary (confirmation bias). I would like to add this - why does science have no apologetics movement? Why are there no apologists for the history of the Spanish Armada? Because in both those cases a wealth of evidence is available. Apologetics is needed only to (attempt to) shore up baseless assertions.

Boghossian was thanked and dismissed from the discussion, and then McGrew was invited to make his closing comments. James Lindsay has dealt with the ethics of that in his response.

Theists have commented on social media that McGrew gave Boghossian 'a drubbing' and that Boghossian was no match for McGrew. That is true, if the aim is to convince oneself (and delight one's followers while doing so) that silly things are in fact the case. However, if clear thinking and intellectual honesty are the success criteria, the outcome is very different.

More than one model of not believing in fairies?

"...westerners energised by the ex-Muslim's fate need to see that there is more than one model of not believing in God." So ends @NesrineMalik 's recent piece in the Guardian.

As long as ex-Muslim atheists behave themselves and keep quiet, opines Ms Malik, they have nothing to worry about in Saudi Arabia, despite the fact that the government has officially equated atheists with terrorists. It is only when they voice their unbelief ('proselytize' according to Ms Malik) that they risk attracting the authorities' unwelcome attention. It is as though the persecution of atheists in Islamic states is the atheists' own fault.

Does the same apply to non-belief in fairies? Unicorns? Would a Saudi citizen who publicly declared his lack of belief in leprechauns have anything to worry about? Of course not.

I lived in Saudi Arabia for over a decade. Often I witnessed the religious police, sticks in hand, swagger through shopping malls escorted by their armed, uniformed police protectors, clearing the avenues from one end to the other as the steel shutters clattered down for prayer time. Twice each evening, precisely ninety minutes apart and shifting roughly 2 or 3 minutes per day depending on the exact time of sunset, this mediaeval ritual forced Muslims to clear out of the shops, and go and pray. Prayer is an ostentatious display of devotion to Allah, supplicating physically in the manner of an abject slave while wailing loudly to the world at large. Participation for Muslims is compulsory.

Ms Malik acknowledges that such rituals are a burden to the non-believer, but she makes the mistake of assuming that simple abstinence from ritual - religious police permitting - guarantees the atheist a trouble-free existence. This is not the case. It is highly likely that an atheist's family, co-workers or acquaintances will quickly notice their compatriot's absence from five-times-daily prayers and raise questions. The atheist's career, as well has his good relations with his peers and family, may be at risk if he fails to pander to authority by observing the expected behaviour patterns. The atheist is a victim of an Orwellian thought-police state, ever ready to convict him of thought-crime.

A religious policeman and his armed retinue of thugs marched up to a colleague of mine who was quietly browsing with his wife in a store. Raising his stick, invading my friend's personal space and leaning menacingly towards him, he asked, in a chillingly sinister tone, "Are you a religious man?"

"Oh yes," lied my colleague, doubtless to the approval of Ms Malik. 

The religious policeman leaned further into his face and hissed, "I can see it in your eyes." The gang of goons and bullies moved on, leaving their victims shaken and shaking. 

Ms Malik is right that a declaration of atheism in Saudi Arabia constitutes a challenge to authority. But no authority based on rigid curtailment of thoughts and opinions deserves the slightest respect. Sadly, Saudi Arabia's vast oil wealth makes it unlikely, for the time being, that the civilized world will unite in condemnation of the ludicrous barbarism that is Islam.

"To sin by silence when we should protest,
Makes cowards out of men."
-Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Ten Presuppositions of Theism

1. There is an omnipotent god who is invisible, inaudible and undetectable. 

2. The above-mentioned god happens to share my set of prejudices. 

3. The above-mentioned god listens to me and talks to me, even though he created and maintains the entire universe. BTW I am not at all arrogant. 

4. People who believe in gods slightly different from mine are wrong. I just know this. I am still not arrogant. 

5. I am cool with the idea that anyone who disagrees with 1-4 will spend eternity in hell. BTW like all theists I am a nice person. 

6. Atheists are arrogant because they believe that assertions like 1-4 need to be supported by evidence before being taken seriously.  

7. It is OK to claim to 'just know' stuff and expect no one to question me. 

8. It is a neat debating trick to claim that my assertions are 'outside science' and therefore safe from being questioned. 

9. If an atheist asks me a question I can't answer, I can claim to be offended and I don't have to answer. I win by default. 

10. Anything I say must be respected and cannot be questioned. Please note that the same does not apply to atheists, who are, as everyone knows, beneath contempt.  

Yes, Mr Knight, atheists know that slavery is wrong, and we can condemn slavery as immoral.

What is more, we don't need to fear the tantrums of a despotic deity to motivate us to do either of the above.  Today I am pleased to respond to Wintery Knight's recent piece on morality. 

I have no doubt that theists reading my title and first sentence will shake their heads in sanctimonious condescension and say something like, "Oh dear, another atheist who just doesn't get it. It's not fear of god that's the issue. It's the fact at there would BE no right and wrong if God didn't exist."

I am aware of that non-argument. I don't know why theists still bother with it as it was thrown overboard by Plato a couple of millennia ago.  I have dealt with it before too.

Morality comes from our ability to empathise with other conscious entities. We can imagine their pain and distress when offered violence or cruelty, and we can make a choice based upon that. No atheist known to me would wish to inflict pain or cause suffering without a very good reason. We do not need a set of arbitrary guidelines to help us decide.

The assertions that (a) a supernatural deity is necessary for right and wrong to exist (debunked by Plato) and (b) it is one group of theists' chosen god that did it, must be backed up by evidence if they are to be taken seriously. By evidence I mean incontrovertible empirical data or observations, available to us all, and capable of withstanding sceptical review. I do not mean ancient cherrypicked texts subject to wish-driven interpretations, and I do not mean unverifiable personal revelations. Simply to say, "Right and wrong exist because my favourite god made them," is to speak with unbridled arrogance.

Now to the detail of Mr Knight's post. He asserts that moral choices are simply preferences, like one's favourite flavour of ice-cream. He appears to be making this ridiculous claim in all seriousness. However, if we were to ask a dozen random people about their preferred ice-cream, we might get a dozen different answers. How many of those people are likely to enjoy losing their liberty and being forced to work as slaves? How many would refuse anaesthesia for a dental extraction, and how many would deny anaesthesia to others in the same situation? We can all feel pain and we can all imagine pain, and our decision to protect others from pain (as far as we can) is based on that empathy. No one needs to decree that empathy is right rather than wrong (no, seriously, I have heard theists try to argue the opposite). Empathy is an evolved skill that enables us to function in social groups. Without that skill our ancestors would have gone extinct on the African plains of the Pleistocene. That is not a baseless assertion; it is supported by oodles of evidence. Until Mr Knight can show us a significant number of atheists with a liking for imprisonment or agony, we do not need to consider his ludicrous 'personal preference' claim further. 

Next comes the old false dichotomy: either Mr Knight's favourite god created us all along with objective moral standards, or we are just bundles of atoms. Do theists really believe in this stuff or are they just accepting it because the rest of them say they do? We are bundles of atoms only in the same way that your smartphone and a rock are bundles of atoms. Everything is made of atoms (don't worry, chemists, I know about molecules and ions too) but if you try to tweet on a pebble you'll get none too many retweets. Your phone is an organised bundle of atoms that's very different from a rock. Sorry, creationists, living organisms are different again. We too are organised in a way that a rock isn't, but we didn't get our organisation from FoxConn or Samsung. We got it from evolution by natural selection. And that is true whether it suits one's chosen belief system or not.

No objective human rights on atheism? There are no natural objective rights, regardless of one's religious affiliation or lack of it. Rights are products of civilization, which is a product of minds, which come from brains, which are themselves products of evolution by natural selection. Slavery and racism were perpetuated by religion for centuries. Atheism has no more to say about slavery than has vegetarianism. Any thinking human being other than a psychopath is overwhelmingly likely to be opposed to slavery, unless their mind has been conditioned by religious indoctrination. Conduct a high street survey on forced labour in London and then repeat it in Riyadh and you will see my point. To connect atheism with morality you have to think that gods have some connection with morality, which means you are probably a theist. Atheists are more likely to know what atheists think than are theists. 

As for abortion, any thinking, caring human recognizes that each individual case merits attention and there can be no blanket rule covering all. Absolutism comes from the misplaced confidence that religion instils in its adherents. The one viewpoint that must be of zero value is the notion that abortion must not be carried out under any circumstances. What about ectopic pregnancy, when a doomed foetus with no chance of survival poses an urgent threat to the life of the mother? Closed-minded absolutism condemns both to certain death, whereas atheistic compassion at least saves one.

Click twice on the video clip of Richard Dawkins apparently advocating infanticide and you are linked to the full 43-minute dialogue. Dawkins is in conversation with philosopher Peter Singer on various moral issues. Round about minute 23, from which the out-of-context short clip is taken, the two explore the slippery-slope argument, and Dawkins shows that unless birth is allowed to be an emotionally-erected intuitive barrier to termination of foetal life, it becomes difficult to argue against infanticide in cases where continued survival would inevitably result in slow, painful death. He is defending certain cases of the slippery-slope argument, not advertising infanticide per se. Once again, absolutism is of no help at all. Richard Dawkins most definitely does not support killing infants. 

Adult pigs can certainly feel pain and distress.  Small bundles of human cells undoubtedly cannot.  Inhumanely slaughtering the former causes infinitely more suffering than does aborting the latter. Only the absolutist mind, blinded and stunted by religious bigotry, could possibly conclude otherwise. If you think Dawkins's pig/human tweet shows a lack of morality, you are part of the problem he is illustrating. 

I hope no-one derives their morality from the Bible, whether from the shamelessly and jealously self-interested murder and other violence perpetrated by Yahweh and his henchmen in the Old Testament, or the disgusting, reprehensible scapegoating followed by torture and human sacrifice depicted in the New Testament. Also let's not forget that the notion of eternal torment after death is advertised in the New Testament. Far from compensating for the moral bankruptcy of the OT, the NT actually makes things worse. 

Those best qualified to make moral judgments are those who, their minds free from religious shackles, are prepared to consider every living thing involved in the matters they seek to judge. Those least qualified are those who would impose an ancient set of Babylonian myths on us all because it makes them feel good.