Clashing

I don't process color well. When I was very small, my parents worried I might be color-blind, because I was very slow to learn the names of colors. When presented, for example, with a red triangle and a blue square, I would call all triangles "red" and all squares "blue." Eventually my parents realized that I was able to see the color, I was just more interested in the shapes. They bought me toy cars identical in all but color, and I was thus able to learn them better.

But I still see color differently than most. I cannot tell navy blue from black unless I can see both at once. Many shades of purple look blue to me, and a few shades of blue look purple. I rarely remember color, and when I do it is often obviously inaccurate color, such as a person being orange. I was in my twenties before I had a dream in color. And most important for our purposes today, I don't see clashing colors. Put purple and orange together, I just see purple and orange, nothing special or significant about the combination.

I don't consider any of this a handicap. Brains are interesting and color is boring, so I'd much rather have an interesting brain-quirk I can explore and compare to how other people's brains work than have "normal" color processing.*

If someone tells me a color looks good on me, I have to assume what they say is true. Likewise if someone tells me I can't wear two colors together: I add it to the list of colors not to combine, and make sure not to buy any clothes in at least one of the colors.

When I and my fiancee both look at a purple-and-orange pattern, we both see the same light arranged in the same way, but she sees clashing and I do not. The underlying material reality is identical, but our perceptions of it differ.

If she were to say, "You see, these colors clash because they generate oppositely charged color energy that interacts explosively to generate clash waves, which sadly you are blind to," I would require quite a bit of proof from her because she is making a claim about underlying material reality, not just her perceptions. Likewise if she said, "Oh, purple and orange are both living things that hate each other and fight all the time." But if she says, "These colors appear clashing to me," I accept that her perception is different from mine. Even if she says, "These colors clash," I know that she's talking about her personal perception.

I suppose, if I wanted to be an arrogant prick,** I could argue that my view of color is somehow more objective, because I don't see "clashing" where it "doesn't exist." As the great Terry Pratchett wrote in Hogfather: "Take the universe and grind it down to the finest powder, and sieve it through the finest sieve, and then show me one atom of justice, one molecule of mercy." We might add, "One particle of clashing." But that's irrelevent. Justice and mercy are human constructs; they don't exist out there but that makes them no less real when we create them in here. Clashing colors are a much more trivial example of the same principle: There might not be any material sense in which a purple object and an orange object clash, but in my fiancee's mind, the perception of purple and the perception of orange create the perception of clashing.

She is describing a real phenomenon. If we knew enough about the brain, we could doubtless pinpoint where and how clashing exists. More to the point, she could take a test on optics or the science of color, and there would not be a single question we could point to and say, "She got this wrong because she sees clashing colors." There is no meaningful sense in which seeing clashing can be said to be more or less objective than not seeing clashing; there is no independently testable question on which a person who sees clashing will reliably have a different answer than a person who does not.

This is why I don't--why I can't--agree with the so-called New Atheists. Yes, some people's religions lead them to believe demonstrably false statements, such as that the Earth is 6,000 years old, you can cure cancer with acupuncture, or prayer can change the path of a hurricane. These people are wrong and should be argued with, as well as pitied. And yes, some people use their religions to justify causing great harm and suffering. These people are assholes and should be opposed.

But most religious people, which is to say most people, don't. Nothing in their religion leads them to believe anything demonstrably false, or that ever could be demonstrably false. There is thus no meaningful sense in which atheism is more or less objective, or more or less correct, than any of a host of religious worldviews, and most of the arguments otherwise are strawmen. True, atheism is more parsimonious, but parsimony is a standard of the scientific method; there is no particular reason to insist on it in other endeavors.

I'm not an acommodationist:*** If someone says something I know to be demonstrably wrong, I will generally argue with them. If someone advocates evil, I will call them out on it, and I will not accept religion as a justification. But if somebody's religion doesn't cause them to spout falsehoods or advocate evil? I still don't accomodate them, because there's nothing to acommodate. They haven't said anything wrong--just provided another fascinating way in which others' perceptions differ from my own.


*For the record, I've been tested, and my color vision is entirely normal. Whatever is going on, it's in my brain.
**I know, I know. "Too late."
***I'm not sure there actually are any; it may well be another strawman.

--Froborr
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Comments

[Antigone]

I think I disagree, both with clashing being "just" a perception and that religious folks aren't making a testable claim. (For the record, I'm an agnostic atheist, not a New Atheist). In terms of clashing, it is like dissonance in musical- yes, there are some that can't perceive it, but it can measured. Colors opposite each other on a color wheel will be the most different, and therefore create the most visual difference. There are a number of dissonant chords and you can measure the frequency. The fact that a few can't perceive them as well as other does not create their non-existence any more than the presence of nose-blind people mean there is no smell.

In a somewhat similar fashion, if you're religious, you're making particular claims. In most cases, it means you are saying that there is a creator being. If that is the case, that is a testable claim (unless you're in the group that says by its very nature it is untestable, but in that case it's also unknowable, and of what value is it to you?) If you go one step beyond that, and make claims about the personality of that deity, then you have to provide even more evidence. If I say "God is good" I better have evidence demonstrating that goodness. There is something to accommodate- that they make claims that they have no factual evidence for. That's their right, but when I'm in a relationship with someone like that I do have to make concessions for it or challenge it.

[Deird, who is not your flunky]

If you go one step beyond that, and make claims about the personality of that deity, then you have to provide even more evidence.

Why?

I believe a lot of things about God's personality. Why am I suddenly obliged to give you evidence?

[Froth]

I disagree that "untestable" is equivalant to "unknowable". Not everything can be falsified. Not everything needs to be falsified. Not every truth is repeatable, because many truth involve persons, actors who can choose to do differently next time. You can't do scientific tests on God, because God is a person, not a law of physics.

[Deird, whose life is not purely data]

I disagree that "untestable" is equivalant to "unknowable". Not everything can be falsified. Not everything needs to be falsified.

*nods*

My housemate lost her temper with me this morning.

Want me to prove it? Because I've got nothing.

[Raj]

Deird,

I think Antigone might mean that if you are trying to convince others of the veracity of a claim you're making about the personality of your deity, then you need to provide evidence.

You're right that you are not obligated to provide evidence to justify holding a particular belief about God's personality.

[Ruby]

As a colorblind atheist, I agree with Antigone. (I've actually been mulling this double-peculiarity over for awhile now, and I think I've found the topic for my contribution.) In short, percetion is not necessarily reality. My perception of color most certainly isn't.

[truth is life]

Brains are interesting and color is boring, so I'd much rather have an interesting brain-quirk I can explore and compare to how other people's brains work than have "normal" color processing.

I find color interesting. :(

Particularly historical theories on how color was perceived, those are interesting (albeit almost uniformly wrong). But color theory itself is rather complicated, since color is (as you obviously realize) the result of mental processing of an objective object (the frequency components of a light ray), so it is at a deliciously fascinating intersection of neurology and physics. And obviously the visual arts and so forth, as well.

[Ruby]

@truth is life--Not only mental processes, but strictly visual processes. There's nothing wrong with my brain when it comes to color perception*, only my eyes, which are sending my brain faulty information.

*I'll leave open the question of what else might be wrong with my brain. ;)

[Morilore]

What is the definition of the term "New Atheist"? What is the claim of theirs with which you do not agree?

[Mad Latinist]

Well said, Froborr. But I'm pretty sure *most* people can't tell navy blue from black unless they can see both at once.

@truth is life: this is something I would love to discuss with you some time. My field is ancient languages, and you are almost certainly referring to some theories I've heard (and vacillated on a good deal).

[Ben E. Reis-Schmottguy]

(Coming over from what has been said to be the more...clashy...conversation space at Patheos, hoping not to cause any grievous injuries)

Antigone,

I (atheist by choice) disagree with you about the c/Creator(s) testability. It is simply not possible to conceive of evidence that would prove that an omnipotent creator did not, last week, create the world with a great clap of his (or her, or not) mighty, creative hands, leaving all evidence that we possess, including memory, records, fossils, light already in motion, etc, that the universe is ~15 billion years old. Such an omnipotent being could construct whatever evidence that being chose to, obscuring (or not, depending on who you ask) this creator's role in the origin of the universe circa last Thursday (perhaps this maker likes practical jokes?). Or perhaps the creator likes making stuff, and has long since moved on to the next project. Or perhaps the creator is actively involved in the affairs of the universe, and has been all along, but chooses to be discrete enough to allow for choice of belief.

Additionally, I must agree with Froth, "untestable" is not necessarily "unknowable."

[truth is life]

@truth is life: this is something I would love to discuss with you some time. My field is ancient languages, and you are almost certainly referring to some theories I've heard (and vacillated on a good deal).

Maybe, but mostly I'm thinking of ~17th century Europe views, probably because those are most at hand (we're working through the Leviathan right now in my poli theory class, and that starts with an extended description of Hobbes' supposed scientific grounding for his new political theory). I'd have to go dig out my Augustine to find "ancient" theories, or maybe hunt through what little Plato I have, otherwise I can't remember much. *embarrassed*

Well said, Froborr. But I'm pretty sure *most* people can't tell navy blue from black unless they can see both at once.

Well, when I go to the wikipedia page navy blue pretty clearly looks not-black, but that could just be because of the color settings on my screen.

@truth is life--Not only mental processes, but strictly visual processes. There's nothing wrong with my brain when it comes to color perception*, only my eyes, which are sending my brain faulty information.

Of course...I did intend to include purely "eye-level" processes (eg., pupil adjustments or cone vs. rod activation based on light intensity) in the "mental processing" bit (a somewhat expansive interpretation of "mental processing," true, but one I think warranted when it comes to sense data), but I should have explicitly included them.

[Literata]

This looks fascinating and I'm terribly sorry that I won't be at my computer for most of the day tomorrow. I'll try to catch up Friday morning and can't wait to see where the discussion goes. I just want to throw one thing out there first, though. I don't think it's true that "If we knew enough about the brain, we could doubtless pinpoint where and how clashing exists." It's more complex (which is more than complicated) than that, in this case.

Take a simpler analogy: there are some cases, such as color blindness, where we can "pinpoint," sort of, almost, a genetic cause. That is, we can look at the biology and then point to precisely (sort of) what chemistry causes it. We can specify the gene change(s) that, ceterus paribus, cause(s) color blindness. But in general, the ceterus aren't paribus, and things with single-gene controls are the exception, not the rule, and ten years on from the Human Genome Project's first success, we don't each have our own genome-specific drugs and cures. Biology is a whole level of complexity more than chemistry; chemistry is a whole level of complexity more than physics. I maintain that the mind is an emergent phenomenon which is, analogously, a whole level of complexity more than biology.

That's also how I take the Pratchett quote: human relationships and especially meaning-making processes are emergent phenomena that can't be explained solely by reductionist means. I think Froborr does himself and his point a disservice to say that clashing is reducible to the brain, because I think this is a great illustration of the underlying idea. Thanks, Froborr!

[Orion]

"New Atheist" here. I appreciate the distinction you're making between objective and nonobjective questions, but I don't think New Atheists in general are unaware of the distinction. Most of us simply disagree with your assertion that many or most religious people have no objectively wrong beliefs. I can certainly conceive of a religious faith that exists only in the realm of perception, and if you assert that yours is such, I have no choice but to accept your assertion.

But, literally without exception, every religious person with whom I've discussed religion seriously in "real life" has turned out to believe things I hold to be objectively mistaken. On the basis of my experience, I find it very difficult to believe that any significant number of people hold the kind of perception- and interpretation-based beliefs you're championing.

[Raj]

Literata,

Take just one letter from the Human Genome Project, and it becomes the Human Gnome Project.

[Mary Kaye]

Oliver Sacks' essay about the suddenly colorblind painter in _An Anthropologist on Mars_ is interesting reading in this context. It is, for me, existentially scary to realize that I could still be alive and sane and functional, and yet experience--as he did--the loss of a major aspect of my life not only from my current perceptions but *from my memories of them as well.* The color-blind painter had damage to something downstream from the opsins and cones and rods and all that--something involved in integrating the signals from those cells into the subjective perception of color, and (unexpectedly) clearly also involved in recovering the subjective perception of color from memories. He not only could not see colors anymore, he couldn't remember colors, though he could clearly remember that he had been able to see something that he no longer could--he did not have memory loss in that sense. The world looked awful to him, as if everything had been painted gray, and he knew this was wrong even though he couldn't recall what it had looked like when it was right.

I don't know what this says about the color/religion analogy, but it's fascinating in itself.

[Lunch Meat]

unless you're in the group that says by its very nature it is untestable, but in that case it's also unknowable, and of what value is it to you?

Other people have addressed the rest of your argument, but the question of "value" is interesting to me. I would never be able to "prove" that I love my husband. In fact, when I am/was dating people, I would get obsessive and over-analytical about my feelings ("I think I love him, but is this really love? Let's examine the feelings I get when I think about them and compare them to the feelings I think love should inspire. How many feelings are there on the love side and how many are there on the not-love side? Are these feelings easier to reconcile with liking instead of loving?") And as our relationship got more serious, I would continue to analyze whether I actually loved him or had just gotten used to him or thought he was cute, and whether it was going to ruin my life if we were married for fifty years and suddenly I realized that I hadn't actually loved him when we got engaged, and did that mean I didn't love him now? What if I didn't actually even "like" him when we started dating because I just wanted to try it out or was scared of being alone, did that invalidate the entire rest of our relationship? What if we were only dating because there was no reason not to?

I don't know what "love" really means, and even if I did I certainly couldn't prove, even to my own satisfaction (let alone anyone else's), that I actually do love my husband. But does that mean that love, or that relationship, has no value to me? Let me be as clear as I can...hell no.

[victoria]

i just want to say that i happen to like the way orange and purple look together (not all shades... but a warm, pumpkin orange and dark eggplant purple look very nice together--to me).

[kisekileia]

@Mary Kaye, the story of that painter makes me want to cry. I love colour and take great delight in it--my apartment is painted in a bright canary yellow with many other vivid colours in the decor, and my clothes practically look like a rainbow. It would break my heart to lose colour from my life, and even more to be unable to remember it fully!

[Hypocee]

"Orange and purple look unpleasant together" is an opinion. "The vast majority of people will find a combination of orange and purple less pleasant than other combinations" is a falsifiable prediction.

"Sometimes I feel, like, really good, man, y'know, yeah" is a qualium. "Part of every homo sapiens lives on forever after its body dies and is rewarded by a really big sentient being that holds my views on morality and definitely not the silly views of the millennia of previous supposed believers in the same being" takes some really awkward twisting - and a whole lot of silence - not to be testable.

"But most religious people...don't [believe demonstrably false statements like creationism]", "Using a wording designed to minimize potential stigma on evolution, Pew Research found that 42% of adult Americans were creationists in 2009" and "Pew Research found that 75% of adult Americans were Christian in 2007" are all falsifiable statements of fact. One of them is not like the others.

[Lunch Meat]

"Sometimes I feel, like, really good, man, y'know, yeah" is a qualium. "Part of every homo sapiens lives on forever after its body dies and is rewarded by a really big sentient being that holds my views on morality and definitely not the silly views of the millennia of previous supposed believers in the same being" takes some really awkward twisting - and a whole lot of silence - not to be testable.

You know, you don't have to phrase the views of people who disagree with you to make them sound as ridiculous as possible. Just a thought.

"But most religious people...don't [believe demonstrably false statements like creationism]", "Using a wording designed to minimize potential stigma on evolution, Pew Research found that 42% of adult Americans were creationists in 2009" and "Pew Research found that 75% of adult Americans were Christian in 2007" are all falsifiable statements of fact. One of them is not like the others.

Most religious people is not the same thing as most Christians, nor is it the same thing as most American religious people.

[Deird, who is wondering if you have some kind of detection ray]

Hypocee, please explain your plans for testing life-after-death in a quantifiable way. I'd be very interested to hear them.

Also, what Lunch Meat said.

[MadGastronomer]

Hypocee? This kind of crap is what we're talking about when we complain of the rudeness of New Atheists. You're being a jackass. Please either stop or go away.

Not all religious people are Christian, even in the US. Not everything that is described as Creationism is falsifiable. Young Earth Creationism (or most forms of it, excluding the "God created everything, including all our memories and all of history, last Wednesday" idea) is falsifiable, but "God created the universe and used the methods described by physics to do it" is not. To demonstrate that most religious people believe in a falsifiable form of Creationism, you would have to determine what forms of creationism are falsifiable, how many people believe in those forms, and how many religious people there are in the US, and then do the arithmetic. And that would still only be in the US, which has nothing to do with beliefs worldwide.

If you're going to be a pedantic ass, at least take the trouble to be a fucking accurate pedantic ass.

[MadGastronomer]

Damn. Sorry.

[Deird, who is good at this]

Italics begone!

...did it work?

[Antigone]

@Lunch Meat

I've heard that "prove that you love someone" thing, and honestly, I find it kind of insulting. If I wanted to demonstrate that my husband and I love each other, there is plenty of evidence. We support each other, we express it, we feel good around each other. I bet if you analyze our brain chemistry, there would be an increase in endorphines when we are around each other. There is evidence a plenty. Could you prove it 100%? Probably not, but you can't prove anything to 100%. Honestly, could people not tell the difference between the actions that a couple in love do versus the actions that couples that hate each other do? You can analyze emotions, and you can analyze where they come from- if someone is beating you, that's some pretty strong evidence they don't love you. If someone, on the other hand, demonstrates interest in your life and feelings, that's some pretty compelling evidence that they do.

When I say "Of what value would an unknowable deity be?" I mean exactly what I say. If I don't know anything about a deity, up to including being unable to prove her/his/its existence, then how could I possibly know what it wants from me? What is its nature? All of those things would be completely up for grabs. The difference between an untestable god and a non-existent god is functionally the same thing.

And yes, you could in fact test for a god. If that god showed up and told me so, and did some Dr. Who-like demonstrations, I'd find that some pretty compelling evidence. If I could invoke this god, and have my invocations happen in a repeatable fashion, I'd call that some pretty compelling evidence. Again, it wouldn't be 100%, but it would be pretty persuasive.

[Deird, who doesn't annoy her sister that much]

When I say "Of what value would an unknowable deity be?" I mean exactly what I say. If I don't know anything about a deity, up to including being unable to prove her/his/its existence, then how could I possibly know what it wants from me?

Again, unknowable and untestable are not the same thing.

If I could invoke this god, and have my invocations happen in a repeatable fashion, I'd call that some pretty compelling evidence.

If I ask my sister for chocolate, she'll shrug and give me chocolate.
If I ask my sister for chocolate again, she'll frown and say "get your own".
If I ask my sister for chocolate again, she'll say "STOP BUGGING ME, DEIRD".
If I ask my sister for chocolate to prove a point, she'll probably roll her eyes and walk off. Or maybe yell at me.

Repeated actions on my part; non-repeated actions on my sister's. Please explain to me how this proves that my sister is not real.

If I could invoke this god, and have my invocations happen in a repeatable fashion, I'd call that some pretty compelling evidence.

Compelling evidence that the god was a vending machine, maybe. My god would probably get pissed off at people trying to invoke him for science, and refuse to participate.

[Deird, who should use preview]

Just quoted the same sentence twice.

Damn.

[Nev]

Wonderful post, Froborr. I'm not sure if "accommodationists" really exist either.

I no longer think that the most important parts of religion (and what religion are we talking about, anyway?) are the kind of thing that could be testable. A lot of it seems to be a realm of experience that I simply don't have access to, partly because I've never experienced it myself, but mostly because it's an interior realm. I don't (and can't) know what's happening when a person is praying, any more than they could know what happens to me in a depressive episode.

It's kind of like someone telling a doctor they're in pain, and the doctor being unable to find a source for it. 1) It doesn't really matter whether the pain has a "physical" cause; it exists anyway. 2) The doctor might be able to measure, detect, or define pain—that's one kind of knowledge—but another kind of knowledge*, that particular pain itself, is off-limits to them. Only the patient has access to that. 3) Of course there are people in real life who think that if a doctor can't find a physical cause for pain, it must not be "real" and the patient shouldn't get treatment/is lying/can will it away. Those people are assholes!

__
* Qualia! More sophisticated than Hypocee makes them out to be.

[ZMiles]

Color clashing is ultimately a subjective thing. What one person perceives as clashing another may not, and there isn't anything inherent in the colors or the world that influences this.

Whether or not a god exists is objective, albeit possibly not fully knowable. If Christianity is true (or Islam, or Judaism), then God exists, in an objective sense. My lack of perception of this God wouldn't change God's existance anymore than my failure to perceive an animal, or a phone, or anything else. If Hinduism or another polytheistic religion is correct, then multiple gods objectively exist, with the characteristics deliniated in those religions. And if Dawkins-esque atheism is correct, then God objectively does not exist, and the apparently ability of some religious people to sense or feel God wouldn't change that.

As such, the New Atheists are (generally) not critiquing subjective claims. If a believer says that their beliefs make him or her happy or fulfilled, it's rare that someone would say "You're wrong." Sometimes someone will say "You're stupid for feeling like that," but even then it's not denied that the religious person genuinly feels those emotions. Some of the claims critiqued, like Young Earth Creationism, are directly rebutted by various facts (like earth strata, distant starlight reaching the earth now, etc). Other claims, like the existance of certain gods, aren't necessarily directly rebutted by facts, but that doesn't mean there is evidence (or, thus, reason) to believe in said gods.

As to the comment about not needing proof or evidence of absolutely everything -- this is certainly true, although I haven't seen anyone claiming otherwise. If someone recommends a movie, says they argued with a friend, or denounces a dish at a restaurant, I don't usually find it necessary to demand a careful and completely objective rationale, and I don't know of New Atheists who would disagree with me. But the distinction is that these things aren't all that relevant in the long run. A claim about god, in contrast, is nothing less than a claim about the fundamental nature of the universe, and thus, in order to be accepted by others, should require a large amount of evidence.

To look at it another way, if I'm told something that wouldn't affect me too much ("If you leave in two minutes, you'll arrive at the subway stop exactly when the train rolls up, so you won't have to wait at the cold station"), I wouldn't expect much evidence, because in the long run, it doesn't matter much. It wouldn't be worth the time it would take to gather data. Something more important ("If you choose Bank A over Bank B, you'll lose much more money in fees") I would want more evidence for. Something that could risk years of my life ("If you choose this college over that one, you'll be much less likely to get a job") I would demand even more. Shouldn't, then, something as long-lasting and important as my eternal disposition, as well as the efforts to which I should direct my life ("To God's Greater Glory" or elsewhere) be subject to the finest evidence and scrutiny? Shouldn't this decision be one only made after considering all the available evidence and after substantial deliberation? But religions instead ask me to take it on faith. To trust that I guess right, or that my feelings, which I wouldn't trust to choose a bank or a college, will be correct.

What the New Atheists are saying is that claims of this significance that would normally be rebuffed for lack of evidence are instead maintained when the claim is religious in nature. There is no evidence of a myriad of mythological creatures, and while such creatures cannot be conclusively disproven, society in general accepts that (for example) dragons do not exist. And it isn't a common or accepted position to say that dragons might exit, just with some way of remaining undetected. Rather, dragons are rejected. We New Atheists simply want the same level of scrutiny applied to the objective claim "There is a god" as we would apply to the objective claim "There is a dragon."

[Orion]

ZMiles,

I have to disagree with you there, unless I misunderstand what you mean by "fundamental nature of the universe." See, if you ask me, the "fundamental nature" question is basically the question of ethics. It's the question--what is my life about, what should I be doing, what is the standard of value by which actions and experiences are judged? And although natural law types will disagree, I don't think there is or can be evidence for such questions. So I have no fault with religious believers choosing the meaning of their lives without relying on evidence, because that's what *everyone* does.

My only trouble with religion is when religions spread falsehoods in the realm of the objective--a problem which I think is much more widespread than most religious progressive realize.

[Zanzanar]

There is no way to say with 100% certainty that no gods exist, but that doesn't mean that it isn't an empirical claim. A god could show up at my house and demonstrate some godly powers; that would be evidence. It could give everyone in the world a shared experience of its divine nature, or every living thing could be found to have a code embedded in its DNA identifying who it was made by.

If a god doesn't provide any evidence for its existence, that doesn't mean it doesn't exist, but it does mean that it is in the same boat with all the other entities for which no evidence has been provided. If no evidence has been provided for the existence of something, I think the most rational thing to do is to disbelieve in its existence, especially if you would expect to have found evidence of it already if it did exist.

Sorry if this sounds weird. It's late here and I'm about to go to bed, but I wanted to add my opinion before the topic changed to something else.

[Antigone]

Deird-

What is the difference between unknowable and untestable then? People keep saying this, but the assertion doesn't make it so. If I know something, I can provide evidence for it. If it's untestable, then I merely think it in some cases, but thinking is not knowing. People keep using the examples of people's natures or feelings- and to that extent I wonder if no one has ever taken an English class or described someone to their friends. When you read a book an make an assertion like "The character of Rayford Steele is an ego maniac" you then provide evidence like "Because he signed his son's picture of himself, because he lead on a woman for no good reason, because he keeps thinking of the rapture in terms of himself" et cetera. That's all evidence. If your roommate lost their temper, then there'd be evidence- they yelled, they threw something, they stormed off, et cetera. Do people seriously think that the only evidence of something is if you have a little machine that goes "bing"?

"Invocation" doesn't mean "god gives me stuff" though if I did a prayer and got to shoot a fireball every time I did that I'd consider that evidence of god, though not enough proof for a god. "Invocation" means that they would demonstrate themselves in a repeatable way. If I wanted to prove that I existed, all I'd have to do is show up- as of yet "god" hasn't seen fit to do that. Your sister has better evidence of her existence in the form of being able to interact with you. I think you probably have a sister (because I've seen sisters, because I don't know of you to be a liar, I'm willing to act in this fashion until evidence shows up otherwise) but I don't actually know you have a sister. If you had your sister call me, or interact with me, or show me even a birth certificate I'd have more proof that she actually exists. If you can go ahead and have god call me, interact with me, and then give evidence that he/she/it is a god (demonstrating god-like powers). Without that, I can just deal with the fact that you believe in something you can't possibly know. But that's still accommodating it.

[Orion]

Zanzanar, you seem to be missing the point. The argument here is that many believers believe in a God for whom there can be no evidence for or against, because this "god" is not a predictive model. Or at least, not a unique predictive model. It makes all the same predictions as mechanism, but simply visualizes them in a different way. A philosopher could say that God, like clashing, is "ready-to-hand" not "present-at-hand." (Quick Explanation: A wooden slab supported by four cylindrical wooden tubes is present-at-hand. A chair is ready=to=hand.)

Now, you can disagree about the extent to which this is an accurate description of the way believers actually think, but you can't just rewrite their argument to suit you.

[ZMiles]

I'm defining the 'fundamental nature' of the universe as a combined 'what should we be doing here,' 'how did we get here,' and 'what are the big things to know about?' Religions almost always try to answer that last question, and very often go for the first two as well. Even non-literal beliefs that include only the most general of moral precepts ("Be good to others in this way or that way") try to answer the first question, and I'm not willing to accept any answer for that question without evidence ("How are we defining good? Is there evidence that these acts really accomplish the 'good' here?").

I disagree that the meaning of people's lives can (or should) be found without evidence. Evidence is what allows people to translate abstract morals into concrete actions -- to start with "I want to help people" and to determine what acts are best to accomplish this goal. And, moreover, the fundamental morals and goals (such as "I want to help people") can also have evidence behind them. If I say "I believe that, if I help people by making this thing which I like (such as, say, freedom of speech) more available to everyone, we will all be better off," I can evaluate that based on prior examples (What are the effects of freedom of speech? In general, if some people have it and some don't, what happens? etc.) to determine if this is valid. I might need to make a postulate at some point (defining "better off", for instance), but from that, all else can be found with evidence. And, if the postulate is invalid and I get contradictory results, I can find that out too.

[Orion]

With respect, Zmiles, I think conflating those three elements in one question (fundmanetal nature) is unhelpful. Let's just tackle the first--"what should we be doing here." Since you acknowledge that morality depends on postulates, it's not clear to me what your criticism of religion is. Sure, we can say that a system with too many postulates, or bizarrely specific ones lacks elegance, but not all religious people subscribe to baroquely legalistic doctrines. This blog has been devoted for many years to a set of "moral postulates" that, while Christian, do not strike me as notably worse or less reasonable than atheistic postulates.

[Joey Maloney]

Antigone,

Light wavelength and sound frequency are both objectively measurable, but color clash and chord dissonance are emotional reactions and both are culturally determined. There are cultures that divide and name the color spectrum differently than our familiar ROY G BIV; and there are cultures that use a different tonal scale than we do. As a result their evaluations of what colors clash and what tone combinations (chords) sound dissonant are different from what yours or mine might be.

What that does to your larger argument, I don't know.

[MadGastronomer]

Other claims, like the existance of certain gods, aren't necessarily directly rebutted by facts, but that doesn't mean there is evidence (or, thus, reason) to believe in said gods.

Reason for whom? I have quite sufficient evidence for myself that my gods are real. I interact with them in ways that are quite real to me, but are subjective in the way that pain is: I experience it, but people who are not me do not. It's not sufficient evidence for you, but since I'm not trying to convince you, I don't fucking care. But I often find that New Atheists (with or without capitalization) tend to ignore the distinction between what is sufficient evidence for the person who perceives god/s, and the people who do not, and just insist that there is not sufficient evidence, period.

*reads about qualia* Experience of the divine seems to fall under the heading of "qualia" rather than the heading of "objective fact." Why do people (theists and atheists alike) seem to have trouble with this idea?

*sigh* Do we have to have this conversation again? Maybe I need to vacate this thread. I'm not yet, but maybe I do.

"Invocation" means that they would demonstrate themselves in a repeatable way.

No, it means that you call gods in. You can call you sibling and invite them over, but it doesn't mean they'll come. Why should gods behave differently?

If I wanted to prove that I existed, all I'd have to do is show up- as of yet "god" hasn't seen fit to do that for me.

There, fixed that for ya. Because, you see, a number of gods have shown up when I invoked them. And when I haven't. You can't know that, of course, but I can and do. You also can't test my experience of my gods, but I know that they happened.

I disagree that the meaning of people's lives can (or should) be found without evidence.

What the fuck business is it of yours how other people find meanings for their lives? You don't get to decide that other people's sense of meaning is "valid."

[Deird, who is fangirling MadGastronomer today]

If your roommate lost their temper, then there'd be evidence- they yelled, they threw something, they stormed off, et cetera.

Evidence that my housemate lost her temper with me:
- She yelled. I was there. I heard her.

Evidence you have that my housemate lost her temper with me:
- Nothing whatsoever. Except me saying that she did.
You were not there. You did not here. You can't reconstruct her yelling under controlled circumstances. Your knowledge of the event is entirely dependent on my say-so.

I have evidence for my god's existence. That being: he has interacted with me. I know - I was there.

You do not have evidence for my god's interactions with me, apart from my say-so.

This is IN NO WAY DIFFERENT from evidence for my housemate losing her temper, except that you are more inclined to believe in my housemate than in my god.

Tl;dr - I have sufficient evidence of my god's existence. You do not - but that does not mean that I don't.

[MadGastronomer]

Aw. Thanks, Deird, and you gave a much better analogy than I could manage.

[Gotchaye]

For my part, I don't care much if people are religious as long as their beliefs aren't leading them to cause harm (defined generously – teaching creationism is harm) in the world. I imagine that in practice I relate to religious people in much the way that the Froborr does. But I still value epistemically responsible beliefs, and, especially when it comes to close friends, I would in general prefer that they be less religious. Obviously this is only if all else is equal. One friend of mine in particular gets an awful lot out of her church and I don't wish that she would lose her religion since I think it would make her much less happy. I likewise would prefer it if people knew more math, even if none of them ever used it, and I wouldn't want people to learn more math if doing so were a significant hardship.

I disagree with the attitude behind statements like “There is thus no meaningful sense in which atheism is more or less objective, or more or less correct, than any of a host of religious worldviews...” I technically agree with that if we're talking about hard “I know there's no supernatural” atheism, but the attitude here seems to be that these are all potentially epistemically responsible views. I disagree very strongly with the statement if atheism is taken to be “there is on balance insufficient reason to think that the claims of religion X are true (or important, or in many cases possible), and so I shall not consider religion X to be a live option” for all X.

Comparisons between actually existing religious beliefs and made-up ridiculousness are common (and have shown up in this thread a few times). While these kinds of comparisons are often just intended to insult, there's an important point here. If one can permissibly believe in the untestable/unknowable/unimportant-to-living claims of religion X, and if this is so just because of the sorts of reasons Froborr gives – because there is nothing that makes them less meaningful or true than alternatives – then consistency seems to require acknowledging that the epistemic status of those claims is exactly the same as that of the made-up ridiculousness. I'm borrowing heavily from criticism of Alvin Plantinga's properly basic belief approach to religious justification, specifically the Great Pumpkin objection.

Very, very few atheists would care to disagree with someone who said “I'm a Christian and my belief is just as valid as Linus' belief that the Great Pumpkin will someday arrive and distribute presents on Halloween”. Or, if that's too testable, substitute Sagan's invisible dragon, or the FSM, or any other of the many examples out there. What I personally find strange is just that many believers* /do/ seem to think certain viewpoints ridiculous. They privilege some views above others, when the reformed epistemology argument justifying them in having religious belief in the first place relies heavily on the notion that members of certain (broad) categories of belief can't be meaningfully better or more valid than other members of those categories.

*I'm only talking here about believers who would justify themselves with reformed epistemology or with an argument like Froborr's

[Antigone]

I do have knowledge of people losing their temper, which acts as some additional evidence. I have no experience of interacting with a deity, so there is less evidence. You could be lying to me right now, so it is true that, as of this time, that I don't know that your roommate lost their temper. But, alternate evidence could be provided- your roommate could corroborate, there could be a recording.

As of right now, the evidence for your roommate losing their temper:

1) I have experienced people losing their temper.
2) You said that they yelled, which is a sign of people losing their temper.
2a) There is nothing that makes me feel like you are lying.

Evidence I have against your roommate losing their temper: at this time, nothing. Should your roommate contridict you, then I'd be willing to re-evaluate.

Evidence that could be given that your roommate lost his/her temper: said recording, your roommate saying so.

The evidence I have for god existing

1) You say you have experienced it, I have no good reason to believe you are lying.

Evidence against it: I have never experienced anything that could be called "god". There has been no evidence other than an assertion.

Evidence I would be willing to accept: god interacting with me. Fireballs, et cetera.

If "god" exists, in a real, objective sense, then there should be real evidence. If it is purely a subjective experience,- ie you think it is- then how does that exist?

In order to be able to KNOW something, you have to have evidence for it (preferably the kind that can be repeated and test). If it is 100% a wholly subjective experience, then you can't really know it- you can only think it. Functionally, I realize that there tends to not be a lot of difference: if I think something, but can't provide evidence for it, I'm going to act like I know it until something comes along and disproves it; which is why I accommodate people who have religious beliefs because I want them to accommodate me when I think something like chicken tastes better than tofu.

Oiy, I feel like we're talking in circles. Here are the problems I think that need to be resolved:

1) What is the difference between "know", "think" and "feel?"
2) Is subjective feelings evidence for an objective object?
3) Is shared perception evidence for something's existence in an objective sense and relatedly, does that evidence become more powerful the more people believe in it (corollary- does that mean we can create a something out of shared belief like God or art?)
4) What constitutes the difference between objective and subjective?

My major point (if perhaps inartfully said) is that if something is testable, and/or has evidence for it, then that is knowable. If it isn't then you can only think it or feel it. If you can know something, you can demonstrate it to me.

[MadGastronomer]

If "god" exists, in a real, objective sense, then there should be real evidence. If it is purely a subjective experience,- ie you think it is- then how does that exist?

Um, the same as many subjective experiences exist: experience that is inside your own head is still experience. The having of thoughts are a subjective experience, but thoughts still exist. Or is the thought of a unicorn not a real thought in your world?

And, again, what in the fuck constitutes "real" evidence? I have all the evidence I need, but you deny its reality because you haven't had it. And yet, it's as real as anything else I have experienced. How do I know that you are real, or the chair is real, but my gods are not? How do you differentiate between "real evidence" and mere experience?

In order to be able to KNOW something, you have to have evidence for it (preferably the kind that can be repeated and test).

Bullshit. There are multiple ways of knowing something, including experiencing it. You are making up definitions to suit your purposes.

If it is 100% a wholly subjective experience, then you can't really know it- you can only think it.

Oh? Then what, pray tell, is an objective experience? How do you tell the difference between the set of sensory input you describe as objective and that which you describe as subjective?

I accommodate people who have religious beliefs because I want them to accommodate me when I think something like chicken tastes better than tofu.

Then why are you not accommodating us now?

What is the difference between "know", "think" and "feel?"

I'm too tired to actually provide definitions at this point, but you definitions are nonsensical.

Is subjective feelings evidence for an objective object?

Pedant: Are subjective feelings evidence...

Um, subjective experience is all the evidence we ever have for anything, because all experience is subjective.

"The methods of science are about taking subjective experience and building models that predict some classes of behavior. They are not about creating a single objective truth. Science is fundamentally a descriptive, explorative activity, and they are trying to treat science as a prescriptive activity," says the astrophysicist in my livingroom.

Is shared perception evidence for something's existence in an objective sense and relatedly, does that evidence become more powerful the more people believe in it (corollary- does that mean we can create a something out of shared belief like God or art?)

Is there any other basis for evidence of something's "objective" existence other than the shared subjective perception?

What constitutes the difference between objective and subjective?

As far as I can tell, objective means that enough people agree that they perceive it. Subjective is what one person perceives.

My major point (if perhaps inartfully said) is that if something is testable, and/or has evidence for it, then that is knowable. If it isn't then you can only think it or feel it. If you can know something, you can demonstrate it to me.

Which requires a really weird-ass definition of "know."

Why don't we try Webster:

1 a (1) : to perceive directly : have direct cognition of (2) : to have understanding of (3) : to recognize the nature of

Hey, look at that, the very first definition is "to perceive directly." Let's see, what else is there?

b (1) : to recognize as being the same as something previously known (2) : to be acquainted or familiar with (3) : to have experience of 2 a : to be aware of the truth or factuality of : be convinced or certain of b : to have a practical understanding of 3 archaic : to have sexual intercourse with

So, where, exactly, are you getting your definition?

[Caravelle]

Reason for whom? I have quite sufficient evidence for myself that my gods are real. I interact with them in ways that are quite real to me, but are subjective in the way that pain is: I experience it, but people who are not me do not. It's not sufficient evidence for you, but since I'm not trying to convince you, I don't fucking care. But I often find that New Atheists (with or without capitalization) tend to ignore the distinction between what is sufficient evidence for the person who perceives god/s, and the people who do not, and just insist that there is not sufficient evidence, period.

What does it mean that there's sufficient evidence for you to believe in gods, but not enough evidence for an atheist ? If it simply means that you believe in gods and the atheist doesn't then sure, whatever, people believe or disbelieve all kinds of things.

If it means that your gods exist for you, and not necessarily for others, and those gods exist at least to some extent outside of human minds, than that's exactly the same as saying "gods exist" period. It's a truth claim about the objective world outside our heads.

Hence it's absolutely something that other people could want to evaluate for themselves and have some kind of opinion on. In which case, an atheist or materialist person in particular would look for evidence to base their opinion on, and "Madgastronomer says she's interacted with gods" certainly is evidence. And one can certainly decide whether it's sufficient evidence or not for that person to believe that those specific gods have an objective existence.

Basically an atheist, "new" or not, can't agree that "Madgastronomer's gods exist for Madgastronomer" while simultaneously not believing gods exist. Unless they define "god" in that sentence as something with no objective existence outside of people's minds. Hence, to avoid contradiction they need to either revise their disbelief in gods or revise their belief that Madgastronomer's gods exist for her. Hence the looking for "sufficient" evidence.

[Kit Whitfield]

I don't fucking care//

What the fuck business is it of yours how other people find meanings for their lives?

MadG - this may have happened in your absence, but we've had requests from some posters to include trigger warnings about swearing when cussing someone out. Would you please include a trigger warning at the top of your post if you're going to do it again?

[MadGastronomer]

MadG - this may have happened in your absence, but we've had requests from some posters to include trigger warnings about swearing when cussing someone out. Would you please include a trigger warning at the top of your post if you're going to do it again?

Yes'm. Sorry.

[Kit Whitfield]

Thank you.

[Caravelle]

Bullshit. There are multiple ways of knowing something, including experiencing it. You are making up definitions to suit your purposes.

"knowing" is a terrible word so I won't try and define it. But while "experiencing something" can help form conclusions on the outside world, it's hardly foolproof. Experiences are pretty much 100% accurate when it comes to giving information on our experiences, but much less so when it comes to the outside world. For example, if we're in the desert and I see an oasis, it's pretty clear that I see an oasis. It is much less clear that an oasis is actually there where I see it. Or if I feel I'm in love with someone and that they're in love with me, I can conclude that I am indeed in love. Concluding they're in love with me is another matter entirely; for that outside evidence such as how they act towards me would also be useful.

If gods are an experience, then experience is indeed the best and only way of knowing about them. If they're a property of the outside world then "other ways of knowing" also apply.

[Kit Whitfield]

If anyone has a scientific explanation for how dissonance or clashing work, I'd be very interested to hear it... :-)

[MadGastronomer]

What does it mean that there's sufficient evidence for you to believe in gods, but not enough evidence for an atheist ? If it simply means that you believe in gods and the atheist doesn't then sure, whatever, people believe or disbelieve all kinds of things.
If it means that your gods exist for you, and not necessarily for others, and those gods exist at least to some extent outside of human minds, than that's exactly the same as saying "gods exist" period. It's a truth claim about the objective world outside our heads.

A) I don't much care whether or not my gods exist for other people. It's nice that they appear to exist for some other pagans, because that gives me people to talk to, but the only important thing is that they exist for me. If other people do not have sufficient evidence to believe in the gods, then they probably shouldn't believe in them, but it's not really any of my business. But people who come in and tell me that there is not sufficient evidence to believe in them, period, that's insulting and condescending, because it presumes to tell me that they know better than I do what constitutes sufficient evidence for me.

B) If anybody can provide "sufficient proof" by standards other than perception -- which is, by definition, subjective -- of the objective existence of any world outside my head, then maybe I'll concede that the idea of sufficient proof has "objective" meaning. But, in fact, it's not possible.

I'm not claiming that my gods exist outside my head, although I perceive them to do so. I am saying that for me, as for most people, the evidence of my senses is sufficient to convince me of the existence of things, whether or not others can perceive them. Other people get to have the same standard for themselves, but they don't get to tell me that the evidence of my senses is not "sufficient proof" for me.

Other people are also welcome to either not believe in my gods, or to actively believe that my gods do not exist, but telling me that I don't have sufficient evidence when I am telling them that I do, is, once again, insulting and condescending, and I object to that.

But while "experiencing something" can help form conclusions on the outside world, it's hardly foolproof.

True. But I experience them as just as real as everything else I experience, and they do not behave in the way that things I have perceived that turned out not to be true have done, so I'm going to go with it.

Experiences are pretty much 100% accurate when it comes to giving information on our experiences, but much less so when it comes to the outside world.

And yet, they are the only thing that gives us any information about the outside world.

If gods are an experience, then experience is indeed the best and only way of knowing about them. If they're a property of the outside world then "other ways of knowing" also apply.

And I neither know nor care which they are. Perception of them does not negatively impact my life, and does positively impact my life, so it doesn't much matter to me. I am not making any "truth claims" or whatever about the universe, I am talking about my experiences. I am tired of being told that I should distrust my experiences because other people tell me they are insufficient.

[MadGastronomer]

The astrophysicist in my living room (ok, now she's in my kitchen) summed up what I'm annoyed about as: "You are making claims about your experience. They are making claims about your experience, and furthermore are making claims about what you mean by your claims about your experience. The extent to which they are straw-manning your experience is remarkable."

[Caravelle]

The astrophysicist in my living room (ok, now she's in my kitchen) summed up what I'm annoyed about as: "You are making claims about your experience. They are making claims about your experience, and furthermore are making claims about what you mean by your claims about your experience.

No we're not. At least I'm not. We're making claims about what your experience implies for the outside world. Which we happen to also live in. Nobody denies you experienced interacting with gods. But that this experience was actually caused by outside gods interacting with you is more than a statement on your experience, it's a statement on what the world outside our minds contains. And everyone is entitled to make statements on the world outside our minds, even atheists.

[MadGastronomer]

@Caravelle Mostly it wasn't about you, but about others. But since all I have talked about is my experiences and about their sufficiency for me, and have not said that my gods exist outside my mind, I don't see how we got onto that, or why anyone is trying to argue with me about a position I have not taken (which is where the straw-manning comes in).

My point is, and was, that "sufficient proof" lacks a "for". Proof that is sufficient for what? Because proof that is sufficient for me is not the same as proof that is sufficient for you, anybody else, or a consensus in the scientific community. Which I have absolutely no problem with, because, as I've said a couple of times now, I don't care if anybody else believes in my gods. I do care that people are telling me, essentially, that the evidence of my senses is insufficient, without any qualifiers, which implies that it shouldn't be sufficient for me, either, as do all of the comments that perception is fallible and subjective.

I am not the one claiming that my perception has any relationship to the outside world at all, other than that I react differently to the world because of it.

[Caravelle]

I'm not claiming that my gods exist outside my head, although I perceive them to do so.

Cool then.

I am saying that for me, as for most people, the evidence of my senses is sufficient to convince me of the existence of things, whether or not others can perceive them. Other people get to have the same standard for themselves, but they don't get to tell me that the evidence of my senses is not "sufficient proof" for me.

Well, I can't speak for other atheists, among which assholes certainly exist. I can see two potential misunderstandings here though : the most obvious one is that some atheists perceive you as claiming your gods exist outside your head, when you are doing no such thing. That doesn't sound too hard to resolve; as far as I'm concerned we just did.

The other one would come down to what we think about "truth" or "reality" and what standards of evidence are involved, and misunderstandings can occur when one doesn't realize that the other isn't working from the same premises and definitions. (of course disagreements on this subject aren't always misunderstandings - they can be plain disagreements)

If anybody can provide "sufficient proof" by standards other than perception -- which is, by definition, subjective -- of the objective existence of any world outside my head, then maybe I'll concede that the idea of sufficient proof has "objective" meaning. But, in fact, it's not possible.

And you complained some time ago when I was discussing the use of "know" because you thought I was being solipsistic ? I agreed with you then and have since revised my arguments. I still agree now.

[Caravelle]

@Caravelle Mostly it wasn't about you, but about others. But since all I have talked about is my experiences and about their sufficiency for me, and have not said that my gods exist outside my mind, I don't see how we got onto that, or why anyone is trying to argue with me about a position I have not taken (which is where the straw-manning comes in).

I'm afraid through lack of time I did not read the thread in any detail. I felt your posts that I responded to were sufficiently self-explanatory, and resonated with other such discussions enough that I could respond as is but it is still quite possible that my responses made no sense in context. If so I apologize.

[MadGastronomer]

I can see two potential misunderstandings here though : the most obvious one is that some atheists perceive you as claiming your gods exist outside your head, when you are doing no such thing. That doesn't sound too hard to resolve; as far as I'm concerned we just did.

Good.

And you complained some time ago when I was discussing the use of "know" because you thought I was being solipsistic ? I agreed with you then and have since revised my arguments. I still agree now.

I'm absolutely being solipsistic there, but I'm mostly trying to comment on the extremely fuzzy line between "objective" and "subjective," which, yes, I think you and I resolved. Sorry, that was meant to be a bit more generally directed. I do get sick of talk of "objective" this or that, as if it were the be-all end-all of arguments, and so I do sometimes go on about it.

[Bay]

There's a difference between faith and organized religion. Faith without organization - faith that amends itself to take into account new evidence rather than being organized by a rigid, unyeilding third party, such as a text or a guy with a funny hat - is perfectly fine and valid in my book. As far as I'm concerned, there's a lot out there we don't know about yet; we have room for explanations for a lot of "religious" phenomena we just don't know how to explain yet. Empirically, I sense things and feel things and, in some way, know things most people don't - I'm willing to believe my brain is broken, but I'm also willing to believe that these things are real and I'm simply more perceptive or wired in a way that lets me pick them up.

It's organized religion that says you MUST do this, you CANNOT do that, or you will burn in the pits of Hell forever and ever. You CANNOT be gay, you MUST convert others, you MUST wear purple socks on alternate Tuesdays, you CANNOT wear orange and purple together. That sort of pressure, that sort of upping-the-ante, is what leads to the negative aspects of organized religion - crusades, both capitalized and non, hate-filled speech, demonstrations, rallies... With individual, personal faith comes the ability to say "Wait a minute, I forgot my socks last week and I was fine, maybe that's not as important to my God as generally being good and helping the poor." Or not, as you will, but without the power to force other people into your brand of sock-wearing, the effects are limited.

[MadGastronomer]

Bay, demonizing organized religion? Not cool. There are a lot of people here who find organized religion to be very positive in their lives. Not all organized religion is about forcing people to do things, nor about telling people they cannot do other things.

[hen3ry]

Organised religion is making a much stronger claim than: "I have experience of god/s". The existence of the organisation implies that they believe that this experience is common to many people, and therefore can be considered as "objective". It is, in essence, making a claim about reality. I understand that "reality" is, in general, a badly defined term, and any definition must include the experiences of individuals. Sadly, individuals are very easy to fool. Everyone has had experiences of things that later turned out to be a product of their senses lying to them. Optical illusions are a example of what I mean here. Your brain and eyes can convince you that a series of slightly different still images are instead a smoothly changing video. The problem here is that we must be very careful to ensure that even if we are being lied to by our own senses/brains, we do not apply these lies to others. Organised religion, to me, implies the spreading of these products of imperfect senses/brains, and the enforcing of the acceptance of certain categories of these experiences, and not others. I am not denying that these social structures are very helpful and enjoyable for many people, but I hold an organisation to a higher standard of evidence than an individual.

[Deird, who should be packing for camp]

There are a lot of people here who find organized religion to be very positive in their lives.

Me, for instance.

I'd appreciate it if people would not make sweeping generalisations about something that I consider important to my life.

[Caravelle]

Antigone :

In terms of clashing, it is like dissonance in musical- yes, there are some that can't perceive it, but it can measured. Colors opposite each other on a color wheel will be the most different, and therefore create the most visual difference. There are a number of dissonant chords and you can measure the frequency. The fact that a few can't perceive them as well as other does not create their non-existence any more than the presence of nose-blind people mean there is no smell.

I don't know if even that's true. I've never had any doubt about my capacity to see color, I remember and dream it fine, but like Froborr I had trouble telling navy blue from black, I can certainly imagine seeing many shades of "blue" as "purple" and vice-versa (and don't even start me on "violet" vs "mauve"), and I have no idea what the objection is to purple and orange together in clothing. I do see clashing with very bright and saturated colors like on a computer screen, but not much in everyday world.

But that's perception; more to the point, I'm not sure your objective evidence shows what you say it shows. Purple and orange aren't on opposite sides of the color wheel. I read that in Medieval times people thought green and yellow were opposites; now we don't. And color discrimination depends to some extent on what colors are called, which depends to some extent on the specific language. For example, the word for the color "orange" comes from the fruit, not vice-versa. How did people call the color "orange" before the fruit came around ? Actually there aren't that many orange objects in nature; I expect most of them were reddish or yellowish enough to be considered shades of red or yellow. I think carrots are about the orangest thing around but in the children's books I had they tended to be colored red. Why not orange ? Well, it could be that carrots used to be red. Or maybe before people had the word "orange" they called carrots red, and thus colored them that way. Maybe that's why violets are blue. And people got away for centuries with saying there were 7 colors of the rainbow, when one of them was obviously just dark purple/blue added there to get a nice number.

Which cords are considered dissonant also has a cultural component.

So while clashing and dissonance exist, AFAIK separating cultural conditioning from the underlying physical or neural properties is still an open question. (If it's not I'd love to hear about it)

Froborr :

This is why I don't--why I can't--agree with the so-called New Atheists. Yes, some people's religions lead them to believe demonstrably false statements, such as that the Earth is 6,000 years old, you can cure cancer with acupuncture, or prayer can change the path of a hurricane.

But that first statement can't be demonstrated false if they add that God made it miraculously look as if the Earth was older. And the two others can only be demonstrated false with some pretty pointed use of the scientific method. Why use the scientific method's reliance on evidence to show the Earth is 4.6 billion years old, use its insistence on repeatability and avoidance of statistical biases to show acupuncture doesn't cure cancer and prayer doesn't affect hurricanes, but say there's "no reason to insist on" its use of parsimony when it comes to the assertion something undisprovable exists ?

I can get why one would choose to do this; I don't understand the need to object to those who make a different choice.

And I don't think "New Atheists" use "accomodationist" the way you do. That might explain why they don't exist.

[Ruby]

Antigone: I've heard that "prove that you love someone" thing, and honestly, I find it kind of insulting. If I wanted to demonstrate that my husband and I love each other, there is plenty of evidence. We support each other, we express it, we feel good around each other. I bet if you analyze our brain chemistry, there would be an increase in endorphines when we are around each other. There is evidence a plenty. Could you prove it 100%? Probably not, but you can't prove anything to 100%. Honestly, could people not tell the difference between the actions that a couple in love do versus the actions that couples that hate each other do? You can analyze emotions, and you can analyze where they come from- if someone is beating you, that's some pretty strong evidence they don't love you. If someone, on the other hand, demonstrates interest in your life and feelings, that's some pretty compelling evidence that they do.

Exactly. This, btw, happens all the time to atheists, "New" and old. (Along with the implication that we are incapable of love whether we can prove it or not, but that's a different insult.) In essence, it's a strawman--pretending that those mean ole atheists won't accept anything in life unless it is "proven" with 100% certainty.

For one thing, we can indeed demonstrate and test love. Not in the strawmannic sense of 100%, but if you looked at brainscans while I was being shown pictures of my family and friends versus acquaintances and strangers, we would be able to demonstrate love. And that is beyond the action-based evidence described by Antigone.

But again, the "prove you love your husband" argument is often a way to paint atheists as emotionless robots, and believers as the people who really care. As though we go through life thinking things like, "Boyfriend gives me bouquet of flowers. Does not compute."

[Reader John]

In Eastern Orthodox Christianity, there is an untranslatable concept that consequently gets transliterated as "nous." (In most English Bible translations, it's rendered "mind," which is inadequate and misleading.) It's a sort of 6th sense, which is pretty badly damaged in all of us but can be rehabilitated/healed to some extent. It allows us to perceive God in a way that surpasses just having opinions.

Maybe in a couple of more decades my "nous" will be rehabilitated to the extent that I can personally vouch for this.

[Nev, who's procrastinating]

Bay:

a rigid, unyeilding third party, such as a text or a guy with a funny hat

Which religions would that be? Texts evolve over time and have been subject to (often) centuries' worth of interpretation. (The fundamentalist Christian approach seems pretty rigid, but it's only been around for a century or so. It won't look the same in another 100 years.) Aside from Catholicism I can't think of another major religious tradition with a central authority, but even then in practice there's a lot of leeway.

It's organized religion that says you MUST do this, you CANNOT do that, or you will burn in the pits of Hell forever and ever. You CANNOT be gay, you MUST convert others, you MUST wear purple socks on alternate Tuesdays, you CANNOT wear orange and purple together.

I think you're overgeneralizing a bit. You seem to have conveniently overlooked Fred's posts arguing against homophobia, eternal fiery damnation, and the like, not to mention the tenets and practices of any religion that isn't contemporary fundamentalist/evangelical North American Christianity.

[Andrew Glasgow]

@Ben E. Reis-Schmottguy

this creator's role in the origin of the universe circa last Thursday

It was TUESDAY, you heretic!

[pepperjackcandy]

The original post reminds me that I've heard that the blue ageratum (http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ageratum_houstonianum_%28alverson%29.jpg) reflects light in the red part of the spectrum. It is, in fact, a red flower. But the part of the red spectrum it reflects is invisible to human eyes, so all we see is the purplish blue.

Tinyurl link to the graphic of the page of the book I found this info on: http://tinyurl.com/65v9fkc

Also, color deficiency runs in my family. I don't know if my mom ever really believed it, though. She just thought her father had poor taste.

[Nick Kiddle]

//i just want to say that i happen to like the way orange and purple look together (not all shades... but a warm, pumpkin orange and dark eggplant purple look very nice together--to me).//

I was going to say something along those lines. I remember an argument I had with my ex about painting my bathroom green and red, and he was all "Ooooh no, opposite sides of the colour wheel, it would look horrible." And we broke up*, and I eventually painted my kitchen "soft lime" and accessorised with a few bright red dishes, and I think it looks pretty spiffy actually.

//Honestly, could people not tell the difference between the actions that a couple in love do versus the actions that couples that hate each other do? You can analyze emotions, and you can analyze where they come from- if someone is beating you, that's some pretty strong evidence they don't love you. If someone, on the other hand, demonstrates interest in your life and feelings, that's some pretty compelling evidence that they do.//

You know, I find *that* pretty insulting. All the human relationships I've ever been a party to have been a lot more complicated than "is zie beating me or is zie demonstrating interest in my life and feelings?" My father, for instance, used to smack me hard when I was a kid. I take that as evidence that he was an imperfect human being, lashing out at situations he felt he couldn't handle, not as evidence that he didn't love me.

What's more, I've been in a similar situation to the one Lunch Meat is describing. I saw a therapist once who told me the love I felt for a certain person wasn't "real love" - except that by that standard I don't feel "real love" for anyone, not even the xCLP. I've tried to come up with an objective definition of love, and failed every single time. The only thing that works is to trust that you know it when you feel it.

//And yes, you could in fact test for a god. If that god showed up and told me so, and did some Dr. Who-like demonstrations, I'd find that some pretty compelling evidence.//

Except how would you know you weren't dealing with a very talented stage magician? If people are making falsifiable predictions about their gods, you can test them. Most people here don't seem to be doing that.

*Not because he criticised my taste in decor, although the fact that my immediate instinct was to prove him wrong might have been a red flag, in hindsight.

[Caravelle]

But the part of the red spectrum it reflects is invisible to human eyes

Wouldn't that make it infrared ? Or are the parts of the spectrum human eyes can detect discontinuous ? (given we have a limited number of receptors sensitive to certain ranges of the spectrum that might be possible).

Even if we do detect discontinuous parts of the spectrum, and if there is a wavelength between two "red" wavelengths that we can't see, I'm still not sure any color that can't be perceived by any human should be called "red", or any other name used for colors we do perceive.

(your tinyurl doesn't work for me :( )

What I like with flowers and colors we don't perceive, is all those that apparently have cool patterns that attract insects and that we can't see because those patterns are in the ultraviolet.

If we ever start genetically modifying people I'd love to see adding color receptors. But apparently it's not just the color receptors, there's also something about the number of channels in the optic nerve.

[Nick Kiddle]

//Exactly. This, btw, happens all the time to atheists, "New" and old. (Along with the implication that we are incapable of love whether we can prove it or not, but that's a different insult.) In essence, it's a strawman--pretending that those mean ole atheists won't accept anything in life unless it is "proven" with 100% certainty.

For one thing, we can indeed demonstrate and test love. Not in the strawmannic sense of 100%, but if you looked at brainscans while I was being shown pictures of my family and friends versus acquaintances and strangers, we would be able to demonstrate love. And that is beyond the action-based evidence described by Antigone. //

I'm sure it does get used in that way: there are jackasses on all sides of this debate. But the way Lunch Meat was using it seemed to presume that atheists *do* experience love: making an analogy between two subjective experiences to invite you to consider that they both have validity.

As for brain scans, you could probably demonstrate religious experience by looking at believers performing their most meaningful ritual versus grocery shopping, so I'm not sure it proves what you want it to prove.

[Roland]

I think that this issue brings up a question of privilege. My understanding of New Atheism is that it refuses to grant religious points of view privilege simply because they are religious. So the belief that Manchester United are the greatest and the belief that God loves me are the same sort of belief for a New Atheist - beliefs which are not amenable to change by evidence which can be generally agreed on. (I've thought quite carefully about that definition - perhaps a point for a different time?).

Of course I can't criticise someone for believing Manchester United are the greatest, so likewise I can't criticise someone for believing God loves them. People can believe whatever they like. But people can't *do* whatever they like. I think the question of privilege arises when people express their religious views in public. I think that religious opinions and statements have privilege in the public sphere which football team opinions and statements don't - even statements which are objectively false, such as the 6k-year-old Earth.

So take the story on Pharyngula recently about the woman who joined a scientific society, and then was disturbed when a gathering was opened with a prayer. If the gathering had been opened with a paean to Manchester United, members would quite legitimately (and probably publicly) objected - or indeed laughed; but objecting to a prayer felt much more difficult. To a New Atheist, this distinction is unjust.

This post isn't about prayers before formal meetings, but I think the story is relevant because I think the same privilege for religious points of view is at work in a more subtle way in daily life. If a person mentions their religious convictions even in an informal situation, then they have stopped merely believing - they have started *doing* as well, and the privilege attached to religious speech begins to have its effect. I feel it creates a subtle pressure on non-believers even in the most informal of circumstances to stay quiet on the subject; and the privilege then works again to turn mildly uncomfortable silence into tacit acceptance. I've experienced this and I find it very unsettling and excluding. Explaining this to the person who expressed the religious view can be extremely difficult as they feel hurt. But does that mean that I should not do it?

Of course people are welcome to say what they want - I'm sure no New Atheist seriously thinks religious speech ought to be curtailed - but reading this blog and its comments has taught me a lot about privilege, and people who have the power to use privileged speech (which as a reasonably well-off white Western man living in London I find that I do in many circumstances) should perhaps expect, I think, to have it pointed out when they are using it.

Deird and MadGastronomer - I think that your religious speech is privileged, even here. I'm not saying that you shouldn't say the things you say; merely that your religious claims (for example: "My god would probably get pissed off at people trying to invoke him for science") can appear like privileged speech. Some of the reactions I've read might perhaps best be explained by that.

I think it's rude and unnecessary to ask people without permission to justify their beliefs. But I think it's quite OK to ask people to justify their actions. Why did you speak about your religious beliefs? I don't say you shouldn't do it - but why did you feel it to be necessary? No New Atheist I know of says that people should be prevented from being religious, so why would the fact that you hold religious beliefs be relevant to a discussion of New Atheism?

[Caravelle]

As for brain scans, you could probably demonstrate religious experience by looking at believers performing their most meaningful ritual versus grocery shopping, so I'm not sure it proves what you want it to prove.

Well, that would prove that those experiences exist which I don't think anyone disputes, "New Atheist" or not. Come to it, haven't such brain scans been done ?

[Ysidro]

I keep losing my temper. So I'm just going to say this: I won't be here anymore. Yeah, I pretty much only lurked but if this is the state of the forum, I'll feel better elsewhere.

I had to take a couple months off before because of theists on this board. I see no reason to keep coming back for more.

[Raj]

a rigid, unyeilding third party, such as a text or a guy with a funny hat

o hai, funi hat we haz it

Sorry, it was the first thing that popped into my mind when I read that comment.

*quickly places hat back on Mod Hatstand before he gets his hand smacked*

[Ross]

I've heard that "prove that you love someone" thing, and honestly, I find it kind of insulting. If I wanted to demonstrate that my husband and I love each other, there is plenty of evidence. We support each other, we express it, we feel good around each other. I bet if you analyze our brain chemistry, there would be an increase in endorphines when we are around each other. There is evidence a plenty. Could you prove it 100%? Probably not, but you can't prove anything to 100%. Honestly, could people not tell the difference between the actions that a couple in love do versus the actions that couples that hate each other do? You can analyze emotions, and you can analyze where they come from- if someone is beating you, that's some pretty strong evidence they don't love you. If someone, on the other hand, demonstrates interest in your life and feelings, that's some pretty compelling evidence that they do.

And I bet that if you analyzed the brain of someone who was having a numinous religious experience, you'd find particular patterns of activation and chemical triggers.

I suppose that would prove that their god existed and had a real effect on the world.

[Risser]

If your roommate lost their temper, then there'd be evidence- they yelled, they threw something, they stormed off, et cetera.

Evidence that my housemate lost her temper with me:
- She yelled. I was there. I heard her.

Evidence you have that my housemate lost her temper with me:
- Nothing whatsoever. Except me saying that she did.
You were not there. You did not here. You can't reconstruct her yelling under controlled circumstances. Your knowledge of the event is entirely dependent on my say-so.

I have evidence for my god's existence. That being: he has interacted with me. I know - I was there.

You do not have evidence for my god's interactions with me, apart from my say-so.

This is IN NO WAY DIFFERENT from evidence for my housemate losing her temper, except that you are more inclined to believe in my housemate than in my god.

Here's the thing. Your experience may have been that your roommate lost her temper, but an objective observer might look at that and say, "No, by no objective standards did she lose her temper. Deird is perceiving it that way, but we're not sure why."

For example, the other day, I was correcting my six-year-old son, and I was speaking sternly to him. And, because I'm a yeller and wasn't yelling, I said, "Do you see that I'm not yelling at you? It's just important that you understand." and he shook his head. I was taken aback. "Do you think I am yelling at you?" And he nodded.

I would argue that any objective observer would look at that situation and see that, while I was stern, I was not yelling. My voice was not even raised. However, if you asked my son if I was yelling at him earlier, he would say "yes."

Therefore, even though he experience my "yelling" at him and would testify to it to the best of his ability, he would KNOW it to be true, but he is still wrong.

OR

Perhaps an objective observer would look at the situation and say, "Yes, clearly you are yelling at him. You don't think your voice is raised but it is. Plus you are six-foot-one and that is scary to a little boy." In which case, the exact opposite is true. I would testify to the best of my ability, I would KNOW it to be true, that I was not yelling at him. Yet, I would be wrong.

The point? The point is, not only can I not necessarily rely on your statements of your subjective experience as fact, but I would argue that it is potentially foolish for YOU to rely on your statements of your subjective experience as fact.

Now, when it comes to something like, did your roommate lose her temper. There are several things at play. First, so what. I honestly don't care if she did or not, and I don't know you, so I'm willing to take your word for it, because, whatever. Also, I have seen people lose there temper, and I'm assuming you have as well, so we all have a generally common model of "losing one's temper" to go against, and there's no reason to think your ideas on the subject would be too far away from mine, any more than we might disagree whether a green car was green.

But when it comes to claims of supernatural phenomenon, supported only by anecdotal personal evidence, that completely contradicts what we know about the natural world, I'm going to have to rely on a little more than "You KNOW it because you felt it & interacted with it." To me, that holds no more water as an argument than a schizophrenic arguing that the voices in his head are real or that the bugs inside her skin are trying to tunnel our or that the CIA is beaming mind-control rays from outer space. They also KNOW this to be true, because they have had the same personal, subjective interactions that you have had. It's just that they are crazy.

This is how the world of religion looks to a scientific mind (at least this one). There is no difference between what you claim to have experienced and the experiences of faith healers, schizophrenics, UFO abductees, voodoo cultists, ghost hunters, psychics, witch doctors, dowsers, etc. etc., all of whom believe exactly as you do, that their subjective experiences are REAL, simply because they had them.

You may be right, at which point, I will humbly admit I was wrong. But in the meantime, I'm waiting for proof, or even evidence that such a thing could be possible in our universe as we know it, without having to supercede natural laws.

[Ruby, on the go]

@Nick Kiddle--No, the brain scans show that an emotion is causing changes in the brain. It is not showing that an event actually happened. If you saw the brain scanes of a small child, s/he might have strong emotions when thinking about Santa Claus. But those emotions, real though they are, are not evidence that Santa actually exists in the world right now.

[Raj]

Ysidro: I had to take a couple months off before because of theists on this board. I see no reason to keep coming back for more.

That is, of course, up to you, but you know, meaningful and non-acrimonious discussion between theists and atheists has been known to occur here.

[Nick Kiddle]

//Well, that would prove that those experiences exist which I don't think anyone disputes, "New Atheist" or not.//

This is where the disconnect comes, I think. As far as I can see, both love and faith are subjective but legitimate, "real" in the sense that it's not unreasonable to use them as the basis for life decisions but impossible to demonstrate to an external observer. A lot of atheists do seem* to be arguing that, while love is legitimate, faith is not, so I can see where the strawman arises from.

//My understanding of New Atheism is that it refuses to grant religious points of view privilege simply because they are religious. So the belief that Manchester United are the greatest and the belief that God loves me are the same sort of belief for a New Atheist - beliefs which are not amenable to change by evidence which can be generally agreed on.//

The trouble is that many atheists - I have no idea whether they are New or otherwise - go to the opposite extreme and put religious beliefs into a specially deprecated category. I've heard someone denounce the widespread and dangerous belief that god does foo, then turn round and declare the belief (at least as widespread and dangerous) that a disabled person's report of zir limitations is not to be relied upon.

*I don't say anyone is definitely arguing this, only that it's my first reading of many comments. I may be misunderstanding the whole thing - it's happened before.

[Nick Kiddle]

//No, the brain scans show that an emotion is causing changes in the brain. It is not showing that an event actually happened.//

OK, clearly we're working off different definitions, because I would say that a person experiencing an emotion is an event that happens.

//But when it comes to claims of supernatural phenomenon, supported only by anecdotal personal evidence, that completely contradicts what we know about the natural world, I'm going to have to rely on a little more than "You KNOW it because you felt it & interacted with it." To me, that holds no more water as an argument than a schizophrenic arguing that the voices in his head are real or that the bugs inside her skin are trying to tunnel our or that the CIA is beaming mind-control rays from outer space. They also KNOW this to be true, because they have had the same personal, subjective interactions that you have had. It's just that they are crazy.//

First of all, can you dial the ableism back a touch? "Crazy" is a horrible word to use here, and I'm not wildly keen on the descriptions of delusions, although I can't put words to the reason why.

Secondly, this line of argument really worries me. If you looked at my body on one of those airport scanners, you'd see a body with breasts, no penis, and a "female" fat distribution. If you looked at my medical records, you'd see that I've given birth. My subjective understanding that I'm a man runs counter to what a lot of people think they know about the natural world, but that doesn't give anyone the right to run around calling me "she" after I've made it clear.

[Mmy]

@Raj: I would prefer that neither you nor anyone else who isn't part of TBAT use the "modhat" icon on the board. I know you were doing so in a light spirit but we are using that icon to distinguish circumstances when members of TBAT are speaking officially. Having it used in other circumstances makes it harder for people to distinguish when members of TBAT are speaking for themselves and when they are speaking for the board.

And joking about "getting your hand smacked" doesn't make your use of the icon any less confusing to newcomers to the board.

[Ross]

Here's the thing. Your experience may have been that your roommate lost her temper, but an objective observer might look at that and say, "No, by no objective standards did she lose her temper. Deird is perceiving it that way, but we're not sure why."

And they'd say "It wasn't offensive to ME, so you have no right to be upset," and Deird's roommate would say "I'm sorry IF I caused you offense," and then it'd be Flame War Thursday.

This is how the world of religion looks to a scientific mind (at least this one).

I do not think the "(at least this one)" parenthetical there cancels out the offensiveness of claiming that "A Scientific Mind" in the abstract finds religion to be a form of nonsense no different from any of the other things you've also classed as nonsense. There's no polite way to say "Can't you see how silly you look to someone with an objective, reasonable mind?"

[Caravelle]

Hey, I've just had this idea on clashing and computer screens. I was wondering why say, bright red on king blue is completely unreadable and an eyesore to me whereas the even-more-opposite white on black or black on white are fine. Maybe one factor has to do with brightness : in our eyes, rods detect levels of brightness and they have a good resolution. Cones detect colors and they're much less precise, because you need three of them per "pixel" and each one detects less light than a rod does.

So whenever objects of different colors differ in brightness (which I'd argue is usually the case otherwise we wouldn't distinguish anything on black-and-white photos) the rods can tell the objects apart. But when you have two equally-bright different colors then it's up to the cones and they won't be able to resolve as much detail. Hence unreadable text and fuzzy, clashing borders.

I should look this up instead of imagining things...

[Risser]

Yes, some people's religions lead them to believe demonstrably false statements, such as that the Earth is 6,000 years old, you can cure cancer with acupuncture, or prayer can change the path of a hurricane. But most people don't. Nothing in their religion leads them to believe anything demonstrably false, or that ever could be demonstrably false. There is thus no meaningful sense in which atheism is more or less objective, or more or less correct, than any of a host of religious worldviews, and most of the arguments otherwise are strawmen.

Right, nothing like a man walking on water, a virgin having a baby (and, according to some, somehow remaining a virgin afterwards), the healing of the sick, the raising of the dead, feeding thousands with a few loaves or turning water into wine. Nothing like dying, then coming back to life and miraculously appearing on a road to Damascus or in the middle of a locked room. Nothing like plagues of boils, locusts, frogs and a spirit that sweeps through a community and kills the first born of its enemies. Nothing like a talking bush that burns without being consumed. Nothing like specially sanctified dead people interceding in the lives of individuals or prayer groups offering prayer to help the sick. Nothing like the idea that a man can say an incantation over some bread and wine and turn it into the actual body and blood of the living God. And that's just Christianity and Judaism. I don't know enough about other religions to speak on them, but I know they each have their own supernatural claims.

Atheism is sort of defined by objectivity. One of the most important tenets of atheism for me is, objectively speaking, I cannot believe in something that supercedes everything we know about the universe. I cannot believe in things that, objectively speaking, cannot happen without some sort of divine intercession. To say that atheism is not more or less objective is hogwash.

To say it's not more or less correct, well. You'll have to define what you mean by correct. "Correct" to me, in this sense (unlike say, the answer to a math problem), is subjective.

And then, the last bit, where you simple state, without any proof or argument that all arguments to the contrary are simply strawmen is weak, weak, weak. This sounds exactly like an argument that Fred rails against all the time. Simply stating it doesn't make it so. Even if you didn't want to rehash all the arguments in your post, I assume somewhere others have, and you have done your research in order to make such a grand sweeping statement, so you could at least provide links.

You know, [citation needed].

Also, I don't know anything about "New Atheists" or what they represent in the realm of atheism or religious argument, so please don't think I'm making excuses for any reprehensible behavior on their part, if any exists.

I'm merely sticking up for the godless in general.

[Ross]

@Caravelle: Among pure colors, there's a visual processing thing that makes red look like it is moving away from you and blue look like it is coming toward from you. As a result, red-on-blue and blue-on-red will look like the foreground and the background are in different planes, with one further away from the other. This can cause a cool optical illusion, as long as you're not trying to read it, in which case it will hurt your brain.

Colors on a computer screen can often be purer than you normally see in real life, which makes the effect more profound, but you can see it in the real world too. The best example I can think of is the 1988 World Almanac and Book of Facts, which came packaged with whichever edition of Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego I had as a kid. You can see its cover here: http://www.amazon.com/World-Almanac-Book-Facts-1988/dp/0886873355

It always looked like it was moving to me, and really creeped me out.

[Ruth (formerly alfgifu) (now alfgifu again over at the other place)]

But when it comes to claims of supernatural phenomenon, supported only by anecdotal personal evidence, that completely contradicts what we know about the natural world, I'm going to have to rely on a little more than "You KNOW it because you felt it & interacted with it." To me, that holds no more water as an argument than a schizophrenic arguing that the voices in his head are real or that the bugs inside her skin are trying to tunnel our or that the CIA is beaming mind-control rays from outer space. They also KNOW this to be true, because they have had the same personal, subjective interactions that you have had. It's just that they are crazy.

This is how the world of religion looks to a scientific mind (at least this one). There is no difference between what you claim to have experienced and the experiences of faith healers, schizophrenics, UFO abductees, voodoo cultists, ghost hunters, psychics, witch doctors, dowsers, etc. etc., all of whom believe exactly as you do, that their subjective experiences are REAL, simply because they had them.

Risser, you might want to bear in mind first that nobody here is asking you to believe in anything.

Also that your entire interaction with the universe is on the basis of 'this is what I feel and interact with'. Your experience of the universe is inconsistent with the existence of supernatural phenomena, so you're not personally a believer - that's perfectly reasonable. What is unreasonable is expecting people whose experience of the universe includes supernatural phenomena to cease believing just because yours doesn't.

You aren't going to rely on an account of somebody elses experience as fact, so why should they rely on your account as fact?

However, there's one thing I do know: it's not particularly classy to back up your point by drawing a dismissive comparison with a wide range of different practises and beliefs, particularly not when you include a medical condition like schizophrenia in the list. To combine that with bringing up the old 'religious people = crazy folks = bad' canard begins to look ugly.

Could we perhaps have a discussion that accepts that people might not agree with one another without some of them being mentally ill, and which doesn't belittle real illness and tragedy by using it to (attempt to) score cheap debating points?

[Ruby, on the go]

@Nick--yes, experiencing an emotion is an event in itself. But an emotion is not evidence that an event happened. See my example on Santa. Feeling happy when you think of Santa is not good evidence that Santa exists. This is where the disconnect happens when believers order atheists to prove they love their mothers. They appear to be saying that the fact that they feel love of god(s) is evidence that the god(s) exist. In fact, the" prove you love your mother" question is a red herring, as others have pointed out--I have never seen an atheist deny that a believer is experiencing an emotion, only that there is no proof that the thing allegedly BEHIND the emotion exists.

[Caravelle]

Ross :

I suppose that would prove that their god existed and had a real effect on the world.

Nooo, that would prove that they had some kind of experience that showed up that way on the brainscan.

Seriously. If the divine is exactly an experience and/or a set of human actions, then you have no quarrel with New Atheists, you're just defining terms differently. Well, you might have a quarrel with some New Atheists over how those terms should be used but that's a different argument.

If the divine is to some extent different from "just" an experience and/or a set of human actions, then the divine is not analogous to love as most people understand the term.

[rejiquar]

I don't have a scientific understanding of color theory, but I was fortunate enough to be taught by someone who did; he refused to cover the subject, he said, because he was tired of art students tuning him out.

It was also in art class (an earlier art class) that I made the fascinating discovery that "white" people are, in fact orange. It's just a very high tint (tints, technically are pure hues with a lot of white and no black added). And I was one of those who looked at my mother in disbelief, as a young child, when we were looking at spools of thread and she couldn't tell black and navy apart.

I'm highly sensitive to color, love putting it together in all sorts of ways; and am quite likely part of that (10%?) cohort that is quadrachromic: that is, I have four sets of sensor cones, instead of three, for perceiving color. You can be tested for this; Monet is often thought to have been.

But here's the thing---being exposed to color theory, other cultural norms of color (which as other posters have pointed out, are quite different across cultures), and having a lot of self-confidence because I work with color, I too am sort of like Froborr, but coming from the opposite direction---in a sense, I've managed to shed some of my culturally imposed ideas about color. I *don't* automatically see orange and purple as clashing.

I think part of problem is that if MadG says, I experience my gods, but that experience is limited to the inside of my head, my response is, oh, ok. I had a friend who walked into an old french cathredral and saw a modern Miro stained glass in it. Gave her the willies: she felt she'd entered the presence of evil. Me, I figured the dissonance of the two styles was freaking her out. Other people talk about the ecstasy of experiencing god. Ecstatic, altered state---sure, the first time I saw celtic interlace on the screen in art history, or the portland rose garden in full bloom. Had I never been exposed to atheism, not had the tools I have, I probably would thought I experienced the divine.

And again, so long as those who *do* feel they've communicated with their gods or experienced evil solely as an internal state, I can hardly argue. But...as a USian raised (ex) RCC, when someone says god(s), then I latch onto the idea of a creator, or something that does answer prayers or can have impact, because that's part of the mythology of the christian church (burning bushes, loaves and fishes, etc, not to mention rising from the dead).

If it stays solely in your head, has no other impact whatsoever, why then is it god? That's the problem I guess I have---your numinous, special experience is divine, mine's profane---my argument for privilege is aptly demonstrated by the words themselves: think about the connotations!

[Nick Kiddle]

//yes, experiencing an emotion is an event in itself. But an emotion is not evidence that an event happened. See my example on Santa. Feeling happy when you think of Santa is not good evidence that Santa exists.//

The xCLP has good evidence that Santa exists: sie left a mince pie out on Christmas Eve, and all that was left next morning were a few crumbs. No-one could have broken into the house and eaten it, and the only people legitimately in the house would *never* leave crumbs.

But seriously, I'm not even sure what you're arguing. Emotional experience of love is clearly evidence that love exists, to the point that you're outraged at the suggestion that it isn't, but emotional experience of the presence of god is not evidence that god is present? What is it I'm missing?

[Raj]

@TBAT: I apologize for my 8:55AM comment. I hadn't thought of the points Mmy brought up at 9:15AM.

[Caravelle]

@Risser : What Ruby said. Even if you think that things that are generally accepted as ridiculous or signs of a disease are valid analogies for religious beliefs it's still an extremely loaded analogy and you can't expect people not to feel insulted by it. If you're intending to insult people, whatever, but as a godless person I don't think it's the best way to stick up for me. Especially here, where I don't think anybody particularly deserves to be insulted.

[rejiquar]

And I see several comments, with similar (but adjudged ruder) arguments than mine, have appeared since I started. Which is a problem, I guess, with flames---several people responding simultaneously to the same point, resulting on pile-on.

Not a new observation, but what I haven't seen and wondered: any methods developed to deal, excepting add-on posts (which is a clunky solution to be sure) like this?

[rejiquar]

Aaaaand I see I just stepped in it.

Apologies!

(This example of why you should never double post brought to you by Rejiquar, Inc. Who is going to go sit in the corner now.)

[Roland]

Quote: me "My understanding of New Atheism is that it refuses to grant religious points of view privilege simply because they are religious. So the belief that Manchester United are the greatest and the belief that God loves me are the same sort of belief for a New Atheist - beliefs which are not amenable to change by evidence which can be generally agreed on"

Quote: Nick Kiddle "The trouble is that many atheists - I have no idea whether they are New or otherwise - go to the opposite extreme and put religious beliefs into a specially deprecated category."

Do you have an example of this?

[Mmy]

@Nick Kiddle: The trouble is that many atheists - I have no idea whether they are New or otherwise - go to the opposite extreme and put religious beliefs into a specially deprecated category

You have posted about your experiences of having your subjective experience of being a "he" not accepted. My subjective understanding that I'm a man runs counter to what a lot of people think they know about the natural world, but that doesn't give anyone the right to run around calling me "she" after I've made it clear.

Well I, like many atheists, have had experiences just as wrenching. I don't believe that I specially deprecate religious belief but I do think that I have a different understanding/experience than do you of just how deeply privileged religious belief is in North America and how often a simple statement of "no, I don't believe that" or "no, I don't see that that makes any sense" will be taken as "special deprecation."

I wrote much on this board about my experiences around the death of my mother and I will never feel the same way about the special treatment of religion again. My parents were both deeply religious and we honoured they feelings/needs. Not only would we (their children/grandchildren -- all atheists) not deny them access to things they found important we made an active effort to bring those things to them.

But atheists did not wander from bed to bed in the palliative care ward in the hospital and admonish dying people to give up their belief in god. Atheists did not wander into wards and lay hands on comatose patients. Atheists did not put their arms around my sister and beseech her to hold their hands while they offered (what they perceived as) comfort to her.

There was probably not a day during the time I sat at my mother's death bed that I was not forced to make a choice of saying something that would imply acquiescence to something I disbelieved or being perceived as specially deprecating religion. I understand that someone who offered to "help me" by praying thinks that praying has a value -- but I do not and I do resent that many of the people who now proudly believe that they "helped" me did so without doing anything that was actually helpful to me at that moment in time. I was worried about making sure that my elderly father was looked after in his time of need, I was tired, I wasn't sure if my father had groceries in his fridge, I didn't know who would drive him to the hospital that day.....

Many deeply religious people were also physically helpful -- but I, to this day, find it hard to smile and say "thank you" to people who tell me that they "prayed for" my mother.

If my mother was right and the god she believed in existed then she needed no praying for -- she was a good woman in every meaning of the world and if there is a heaven she is there. Of that I am sure.

And I needed no praying for either. I was not (and am not) torn with fear over what happened to my mother after death. Nor am I torn with fear as to what will happen to me after my death. If there is no god then I will simply wink out of existence. If there is a god such as my mother believed in -- well I have lived according to the ethical and moral standards she brought me up to value and I have no fear of divine retribution.

If it turns out that we live in a Lovecraftian universe -- then the only prayer than any of us should be praying is "that Cthulhu eat me first."

[Caravelle]

Nick Kiddle :

The xCLP has good evidence that Santa exists: sie left a mince pie out on Christmas Eve, and all that was left next morning were a few crumbs. No-one could have broken into the house and eaten it, and the only people legitimately in the house would *never* leave crumbs.

That is indeed much better evidence than "I feel good when I think of Santa".

But seriously, I'm not even sure what you're arguing. Emotional experience of love is clearly evidence that love exists, to the point that you're outraged at the suggestion that it isn't, but emotional experience of the presence of god is not evidence that god is present? What is it I'm missing?

The part where love is an emotional experience* and god isn't** ?

*Love, like God, can have many definitions. As a matter of fact some of them just strengthen the point : for example some will argue that love isn't something you feel, it's something you do. Those people might say "if they really loved you, they wouldn't act that way". This comes down to denying people's emotional experiences of love, but since in this case love isn't being defined as an emotional experience there's nothing inconsistent about it. Although you'll run into problems when two people using two different definitions for love try to have a conversation.

**Similarly, if gods are defined as an emotional experience then the argument doesn't hold, but in that case nobody denies the existence of gods. The point is that usually gods aren't defined as "an emotional experience".

[Nick Kiddle]

//Do you have an example of this?//

Well, the next sentence of my comment was intended as an example - maybe it didn't come across that way. But I hear a lot of atheists talking about how much more objective and rational they are because they don't believe in god, without ever acknowledging that they have some equally untenable beliefs of their own. My admittedly sketchy study of psychology suggests that nearly all of us do.

[Mmy]

@Nick Kiddle: But I hear a lot of atheists talking about how much more objective and rational they are because they don't believe in god, without ever acknowledging that they have some equally untenable beliefs of their own. My admittedly sketchy study of psychology suggests that nearly all of us do.

And I (as an atheist who hangs with atheists) do not commonly experience other atheists saying that they hold no secret "untenable beliefs" -- in fact they are very open to the way in which they do.

Which is why they don't think that the society should be ruled by other people's untenable beliefs.

Put it this way -- I find the idea of putting cream into coffee disgusting and personally find the idea of washing in dirty water* horrifying -- but I wouldn't for a moment think that my own experiences of life should allow me to set out rules for others.

It is, indeed, my understanding of how unprovable many of my own deeply felt beliefs that makes me so uncomfortable with having laws determined by others on the basis of their own deeply felt but unprovable beliefs.

*that is -- taking a bath without first having a shower.

[Nick Kiddle]

//Well I, like many atheists, have had experiences just as wrenching. I don't believe that I specially deprecate religious belief but I do think that I have a different understanding/experience than do you of just how deeply privileged religious belief is in North America and how often a simple statement of "no, I don't believe that" or "no, I don't see that that makes any sense" will be taken as "special deprecation."//

You're right: my ideas are coloured by the fact that, where I live, saying I don't believe in god is most likely to provoke a response of "well duh" than argument. In the sort of atmosphere you describe, I can see why it would be necessary to take extra pains to counter the religious arguments.

I suspect I am in part doing the classic privileged* thing of approaching as an abstract debate what is a matter of life and death for others, and I apologise.

//Similarly, if gods are defined as an emotional experience then the argument doesn't hold, but in that case nobody denies the existence of gods. The point is that usually gods aren't defined as "an emotional experience".//

I think they are being at least described that way by several people in this conversation, although I defer to believers on that one. It seems as if theists and atheists are using two different definitions of god and so talking past each other.

*My privilege, in this case, is of growing up and living in an area where religion is far less privileged than in North America, if that makes sense.

[Orion]

"Bay, demonizing organized religion? Not cool." -- MadGastronomer

MadG, can you explain for me what exactly was problematic about that post? I'm not saying that I agree with the content of Bay's proposal--I don't agree that organization is what makes problematic faiths problematic. But at a cursory glance, I don't see any "bashing" there--nothing rude or aggressive in that post at all. I'm very open to being wrong about this, so please do tell me if there is something offensive I missed.

Right now, it seems to me that you are saying that one simply ought not to express the opinion that organized religions are bad on this board. I find that troubling. The post under discussion is framed as a response to, even a criticism of, the New Atheists. Since this board has long had substantial atheist readership, I don't think it's unreasonable to assume that some New Atheists would want to engage the post and explain their worldviews, or that they have the right to do so if they can do so civilly. And one simply can't be a New Atheist without, as a consequence, believing that organized religions are problematic. It's part and parcel of the whole deal. I would suggest that if you simply don't want to read posts critical of religious practice, you avoid threads devoted to discussing new Atheism--again, assuming that you aren't reacting properly to some aggression that I didn't pick up.

I know that this board has had problems with hostile atheist posters before--in fact, I can safely say that I've been part of the problem. But I also feel that you personally have a history of shutting down atheist speech inappropriately. You've gone to great length in the past to argue that I do not even have the right to *call* myself an atheist, which I still feel is silencing. This is why I feel comfortable asking you now to reevaluate whether Bay is actually a problem. My understanding has always been that atheist posters are a problem when they act with condescension, or demand that believers justify themselves. Stating that *we* find a class of organizations problematic does neither.