Month: July 2009

Above Average On Average

by Patrick Appel

Vaughan points to a new study:

In this study, the participants (psychology students no less), were given a booklet explaining how cognitive biases work that described eight of the most common ones. They were then asked to rate how susceptible they were to each of the biases and then how susceptible the 'average American' was. Each rated themselves as less affected by biases than other people, instantly causing an irony loop in the fabric of space and time.

I’m An Atheist, But…, Ctd

by Patrick Appel

A reader writes:

I take issue with the "certainty of some atheists and most fundamentalists deeply grating" business. Equating atheists and fundamentalists is absurd (almost comically so), I can't believe this nonsense so often substitutes for an argument (including, most prominently perhaps, by Robert Wright). What is the certainty of atheists? That the God of Abraham is no more likely than Zeus? That a personal God has no more force in the world than astrology? Come on man. Enough with the straw men. This fundamentalist atheist stuff isn't clever or insightful. Please take on a real argument and not this nonsense.

I'm not arguing that atheism and fundamentalism are the same. I wrote that the certainty of some atheists and most fundamentalists irks me. What bothered me about Dennett's article was his policing the acceptable atheist discourse, shoving non-belief in a personal God onto a narrow ideological foothold and saying that atheists must not allow others their illusions. Another reader:

Ironically, I don't see any support in the quote you cite for the certainty with which you state your own opinions, i.e., that Dennett is disturbed by tolerance, or that some atheists have certainty about some things.

On the first point, Dennett is not calling for intolerance but responding to intolerance from those who do not want him to state his opinions and argue for them. I would think anyone who writes for a blog would be in favor of allowing opinions to be expressed and argued. If you think he is wrong or uncivil about it, you should provide some evidence, which the quote does not.

Dennett states that he is confident that the belief in belief is wrong (i.e., the argument some make that religion provides an invisible "Big Brother" to keep humanity in check, and that this function is essential to civilized society). Confidence is not the same as certainty. If it grates you that some atheists are confident about some things, please don't let that annoyance cause you to twist their words.

I am quite confident that there is no Santa Claus, although I too retain a slight nostalgia for the days when I believed in magic.

I take the point about confidence vs. certainty. And I've absolutely no problem with Dennett stating his opinions or arguing forcefully for what he believes. But telling fellow non-believers they ought to be less courteous to the faithful strikes me as intolerant of other forms of atheism, perhaps more so than of belief itself. Overconfident atheism and fundamentalism both make the question of God appear effortless. For many individuals, if not most, it is anything but. Another reader gets closer to what I was trying to say:

I think you hit the nail on the head in your comments about the certainty of atheists.  I grew up Methodist (currently not practicing) and while my relationship with Church and church-goers has always been complex, even when I tried atheism/agnosticsm on in my college years I couldn't see the point in being overly heavy-handed about it.

 
So you're "certain" beyond doubt that something isn't real.  Fine, religion has been used against people since the dawn of religion, but what is real is that a personal relationship with a spiritual being also works for a lot of people for a lot of different meaningful and constructive purposes.  So you think or know or you think you know God isn't real and we should approach all our emotional and intellectual needs with the known and certain — do you approach all manner of fiction this way?  I realize that Santa Claus and similar childhood constructs aren't real, but I'll let my son figure those out on his own, and they have a value to me.  I don't sit him down for story time every night and preface it with "Son, you should know the talking dogs in this book are bullshit." 
 
I suspend disbelief every time The Empire Strikes Back shows up on my channel guide.  Please don't tell me that explosions in space would lack the oxygen conducive to either produce fire or transmit sound. I like the idea that perhaps there is something at the bottom of Loch Ness. I've had my life or worldview influenced and altered by literature and theatre, most of which never actually happened. And if I find appealing the notion that my ancestors are watching down on me or over me as I navigate myself through life's tests, just let me be. I'll do the same for you.

Smaller, Certain Punishments

by Patrick Appel

Mark Kleiman writes about Hawaii's experimental HOPE program for felony probationers (a topic he discusses in greater detail in his forthcoming book). His thesis:

A solid body of social science and criminological research dating back to the eighteenth century tells us that behavior can be changed by punishment that is certain and swift even if it is not severe. Conversely, if punishments for wrongdoing are sporadic and delayed, increasing severity has only modest impact. That’s why quintupling the prison and jail population has failed to get us back to the crime rates of the early 1960s. (Averaged across major crime categories, current rates are about 250 percent of 1962 rates.) The importance of swift and predictable consequences is plain common sense, understood by every parent. But that lesson has not been incorporated into our corrections system.

The Right To Pass

by Patrick Appel

Caleb Crain explains why he gets angry when getting cut off while in a car but not so much when on his bike:

[When another biker] passes me because he’s in better shape than I am, because he has more energy at the moment, or because his bike is more efficient. And these are factors that, even if I’m not happy to have to acknowledge them, I have to respect, because they’re more or less the same limits to motion that I, as a human animal, have had to be at peace with since around the time I learned how to walk. I can’t simply will my bicycle to go as fast as any bicycle that passes me. Or rather, I can will it to, but I then have to work to make it happen—work that I’ll feel in the ache of my muscles and the flow of my sweat. If that sounds a little sexy, that’s because it is: I’m not likely to rise to the challenge unless the exertion it will require strikes me as pleasant. If I don’t have the energy or the appetite for it, I won’t mind letting the challenge go, because I’ll understand myself to be reserving my energies and appetites for something else. It’s all about my pleasure.

Outing Iran: Marg Bar

by Patrick Appel

A reader writes:

I wanted to make a few comments on the slogan of "death to Russia" from the Friday prayers: 1. "Death to …" is not a correct translation for "Marg bar …" although it is a literal translation, the real meaning is closer to "down with …"; it is an expression of extreme dissatisfaction rather than the wishing of death. Remember "death to potatoes" from the campaign (as a sign of dissatisfaction with Ahmadinejad's distribution of potatoes among likely voters)? My guess is that it originated with "Marg bar shah", which at the time probably was literally meant; it was a particularly powerful and defiant slogan at the time and that memory has perpetuated this line of sloganeering.

2. It is worthwhile to understand the importance of meter and rhyming in the Persian language. Put anything in metered poetry and its chances of affecting the Iranian soul triples. So not every slogan would work, and in this uprising people have been amazingly creative in coming up with poetic slogans that fit the occasion and are powerful and witty. "Marg bar …" is a simple formula which can be put to music depending on the number of syllables in what follows it. I can't think of a simple way to replace it with another word which conveys the same meaning and provides such a resourceful musicality.

3. Although you have already reported on it, I want to emphasize the significance of the incident Friday, in which people changed the official slogans to their own benefit. In Friday prayers, there is a person who is mockingly called "the minister of slogans" and shouts all the official slogans of "death to America, Israel, etc" and the people who attend the Friday prayers (usually staunch supporters of the regime) follow him and repeat the same slogans. Yesterday, a sizable portion of the crowd chanted "death to Russia" in response to "death to America", or "death to Israel", or "death to England" . More significantly, when he yelled "the blood in our veins is a gift to our leader" the crowd spontaneously and apparently without much coordination responded "the blood in our veins is a gift to our nation." Every Iranian I have talked to or corresponded with since yesterday has been deeply touched by this act of defiance. You have to realize that we Iranians are numb to the official slogans; they have been repeated so often that they have lost all meaning and content to us. To take these most secure weapons of the regime and to turn them against the regime in such a potent way is a sweet victory. It is hard not to love these people for their creativity and braveness.

I’m An Atheist, But…

by Patrick Appel

Daniel Dennett is disturbed by tolerance:

Today one of the most insistent forces arrayed in opposition to us vocal atheists is the "I'm an atheist but" crowd, who publicly deplore our "hostility", our "rudeness" (which is actually just candour), while privately admitting that we're right. They don't themselves believe in God, but they certainly do believe in belief in God…I am confident that those who believe in belief are wrong. That is, we no more need to preserve the myth of God in order to preserve a just and stable society than we needed to cling to the Gold Standard to keep our currency sound. It was a useful crutch, but we've outgrown it. Denmark, according to a recent study, is the sanest, healthiest, happiest, most crime-free nation in the world, and by and large the Danes simply ignore the God issue. We should certainly hope that those who believe in belief are wrong, because belief is waning fast, and the props are beginning to buckle.

I consider myself an agnostic or pantheist depending upon how you define such labels but still have an acute nostalgia for my Catholic upbringing. I find the certainty of some atheists and most fundamentalists deeply grating.

Robert Wright will be guest-blogging this next week (Andrew reviewed his new book a few months ago). I imagine Bob may have some thoughts about Dennett's dismissal of believing in belief.

(Hat tip: 3QD)