technologeekery

Responding to a comment and some analogies

2012-02-12T10:18:00.000-08:00

I received a comment one one of my Letters to a Doubting Thomas posts and thought I'd respond to it in a new post, as it stirred some interesting thoughts. I'll reproduce the comment here, inserting my thoughts inline.

Hi John, I hope you aren't offended that I prefer to remain anonymous. First, I'd like to say that I'm impressed by your transparency.

Not offended at all. I stayed quasi-anonymous for some time. It's only recently that I've started to try and spread my wings a bit and stop being afraid of the world. I also share as much as I do in that this has been a lonely road. I hope others find this and are inspired, or at least feel less isolated.

It seems this quest is one on which your find yourself due to your highly analytic nature. I would suggest that perhaps others - atheistic or religious - do not often find themselves so entrenched in the search due not to ignorance or brain-washing but rather because their brains are wired differently, in other words, they have different aptitudes.

It's very possible, but I do think brain-washing (if one might call it that) and ignorance can both play a part. In my discussions, it's quite clear to me that many theists meet one or both of these criteria:
-- They are ignorant of the many issues surrounding Christianity's various truth claims
-- Once aware of this ignorance, it is not followed by a sense of urgency to remedy the situation

A massive amount of extremely devout believers literally have no idea what fields play a part in apologetics and the battles of thought and mind that rage therein. My quest took me into surprisingly diverse fields of knowledge: philosophy, biology, astronomy, physics, literary criticism, and history to name a few. While I'm still an absolute novice in these fields, it did surprise me that most of my circles would not even have been able to summarize the general arguments that both sides use.

Hence my support of the term, "ignorance." Most Christians are confident in their belief; they don't spend their nights and days wondering if it's true. They spend their time trying to deepen devotion and holiness because they are confident (one will at least admit that this is implied confidence) that it's true.

Similarly, my lack of interest in woodworking is not an indication that I have been brain-washed against it, or that I am too ignorant to appreciate the intricacies of the craft, but rather that my greatest attempt at woodworking would lead to a frustrated lump of chipped wood. I'm perfectly happy not attempting it, but knowing that there are people that are great at woodwork. I choose to enjoy their work.

I only addressed ignorance above. I'll bring in brainwashing here as it goes with your analogy. Literal "brainwashing" might be a bit extreme, especially with the cultish connotations this evokes, at least in me. I more mean a predisposition to favor one's beliefs for psychological reasons that don't track back to objective facts, data or reasons. In other words, the resistance to a foreign belief is much greater than the reasons one has supporting the current belief or opposing the foreign one.

The "brainwashing" aspect comes along in that the resistance is based on things learned during childhood and supported by social structures. The believer is sold out for the belief for reasons not grounded in facts or logic.

The woodworking analogy is a fantastic one! To summarize the core: there's a topic out there that a bunch of people debate about in terms of the best tools and techniques, what qualifies as "beautiful" art, and so on. It doesn't interest you and thus you aren't going to invest your time and energy into studying Woodworking Magazine just to get up to speed and feel intellectually satisfied. Fair enough, and I really do like the analogy. Now I'll introduce a couple of my own :)

My first objection is that the woodworking analogy doesn't capture the fact that theism is something people are living in, not looking at. To adjust your analogy, a theist more like a professional woodworker who spends no time examining the best practices for safety, quality and efficiency. He doesn't wear a respirator because he's ignorant that certain wood dusts cause cancer. When he's informed of this, he thinks it sounds like a ridiculous idea. He's a gruff, strong guy and this way has worked just fine for him his whole life; there's no way that some silly tree is going to give him cancer. After all, his dad never wore a respirator and that's good enough for him to know he doesn't need one either. Moreover, he only knows how to make one style of furniture. People ask for other styles, but he feels confident that they don't know the true best style, so he chooses not to learn about how to make them or why people disagree with his idea of "best." They're wrong somehow and that's that.

There's some "brainwashing" in that the woodworker has a set of embedded ideas about reality that are stubborn to outside evidence. Whatever can be tracked to reasons (I've been successful so far, this is how I learned, I respect my dad and this is how he did it) are all relativistic: they can apply equally to radically different styles and practices and thus justify any set of beliefs equally well.

I also think my adjusted version gets at the pertinence factor a little more. Woodworking is a trivial hobby. Some like it, some don't. It can take up as much or as little of your life as you want with little matter. But we're talking about a religion that shapes peoples minds and lives. I don't think they can take the same "take it or leave it" attitude with respect to the reasons it is or isn't true.

The magnitude in the original analogy also isn't right. We're talking about what is supposed to be someone's eternal life. While I'm well aware that no one knows what happens after death and any religion's god could be merciful and allow for some type of post-death conversion or atonement, all religions believe that subscribing during mortal life offers some sort of advantage when it comes to death. Thus, there's little excuse not to investigate (as opposed to a hobby).

To sneak in another analogy, let's say I design a new airplane with wings that are half as long as those used today. Will you ride it prior to finding out if it's been shown to actually fly? No. You can't afford not to care or invest some mental energy into this problem; the consequences are too grave. This is my other issue with the topic of religion. Anyone "gets" the idea concerning the plane. We have a plane; it either flies or it doesn't. No matter how much I tell you that I believe it will fly or think we should ride it because I really like the way it looks... you aren't going to bite.

What about religion? It's either true or it's not. It gets you to heaven or it doesn't. A god is either tinkering with reality in response to intercession or it isn't. Why the universal agreement that the plane should be examined but the religion doesn't need to be?

We can complicate it a bit further by bringing in a tidbit from your woodworking analogy: "I'm perfectly happy not attempting it, but knowing that there are people that are great at woodwork."

We could take this to mean that one is happy not attempting to master apologetics, knowing that there are those out there who are great at it. Or that one might know an educated apologist for his religion who he trusts. Thus, if he takes a question to this apologist and receives an answer, he'll accept it. He might not grasp the answer or internalize it, but he hears a stream of words emitted from a trusted source and feels confident knowing that his teacher had something to say and wasn't stumped. That's sufficient.

What about the plane analogy? To replicate the situation of theism(s), let's say that there are many world experts who all disagree on what will happen if we fly this plane. Some say it will fly, some say it will crash. Others say that we'll quantum leap into another dimension. Some say that it will fly, but only if we believe strongly enough. How do we decide? Surely we can't just pick the expert who happens to support what we already believe and judge him to be correct!

To wrap up, the issue with religions is that at the fundamental level, there is no objective, reproducible method to establish one over the other. If there were, guess how many religions would still exist today? (One. Or only the ones with objective evidence supporting them.) Instead, we have absolutely laughable ideas that at least somehow people are made or brought to buy into. I conclude that the issue is the human mind, and not with the fact that the required evidence exists but most humans are simply ignoring it. Conclusive and objective data tends to obliterate falsehood.

I would also like to speak to your frustration on having so many book titles suggested to you from those with religious beliefs. Having had a "going from one belief to another" experience in my life (though not a "deconversion") I can empathize with this frustration. I felt as though I wasn't free to change belief systems until those around me were also convinced, and I knew that wasn't going to happen. I felt their offering of book titles was a symptom of that. However, it's important to note that this wasn't always the case.

Thanks for sharing this and I absolutely relate. I spend my emotional energy these days feeling that two years is enough to move on, while constantly doubting that I've really been objective, that I know enough or have read enough, and/or that the place I've settled is intellectually justifiable. It does bother me a great deal that I feel rather discounted in this area, especially given that I have a track record as the sort of geekish researcher rational oddball of the group. I've written about this before.

For instance, if one of your daughters asked you a question that you did not know the answer to, would you say:
a) I don't know, don't ask me again. (I'm feeling challenged and intimidated by your questions)
b) I don't know, hope you find your answer somewhere (I care about you but I'm not personally interested in that topic at all)
c) I don't know, but let's find out together. (I care about you and I'm also suddenly very interested in the same question, let's work together)
d) I don't know and I'm swamped with work right now, but I do know there's a pretty good explanation in the encyclopedia. I haven't read the whole thing, but I trust the information. (I care about you and I've skimmed across similar questions in the past, or know someone who did, here's what I found/hear is helpful)

I guess I'd ask you where most of your religious friends fell/fall *and* where you wish they fell? Sounds like the book offer-ers were either a or d. It's probably important to make the distinction as to which, since a and d are coming from very different places.

Interesting and great summary. My one correction is that C might sometimes be sacrificial in that I'm not embarking with my daughter because I'm suddenly very interested, but because I think it might benefit her. I'm not really interested but will still be willing to help.

I can think of some who probably fall into both categories. Some might even shift back and forth. I had one guy dialog with me quite a long time fairly reasonably. Then we shifted into talking about the gospels, and I said something that was probably too much for him or indirectly insulting and he said he thought I was crazy and left. That was a situation where I think it shifted from D to A.

There may be another category -- the person who just throws out more and more books because they know that there's no possible way that someone could be intellectually justified in holding a position contrary to their own. I've been in situations where this was my read of the book suggestions. Were I to complete the books and remain unconvinced, it would not have increased the respect the other had for my position. Instead, more books would have come, or simply challenges aimed at whether I was really open minded or objective.

This might be more about the book suggestor than the doubter. Suggestor presents books under the guise of remedying what he claims is ignorance in the doubter; "If you really understood the subjects, you'd be intellectually justified in forming an opinion." What might be occurring is that the suggestor can't cope with someone who both knows a lot (or enough) and still doesn't believe. Thus, the books serve as a perpetual barrier to obtaining respect.

An interesting extension of this requirement to be justified in non-belief is whether our book suggesters in categories A or D apply the same standards to those who do believe. In other words, is there a higher burden of education placed on dissenters than assenters? If I don't have enough education to doubt a god, do believers have enough to worship/follow it? From my experience, the answer is "No." I consider myself more well versed in the field of apologetics (at least being aware of it) than most in my circles (who are almost all devout Christians). Adam Lee, author of Daylight Atheism, just wrote about this on his blog, citing an email exchange we had early in my doubts and puts things quite well.

I'm not ignorant of my finger pointing leading to three pointing back at me, either. Or at least I admit that this is something I need to be aware of as well. Should someone read something I send them and not be convinced, my reflex shouldn't be that the really didn't get it, or that they decided ahead of time not to be open to it. I should stick with the facts: they read a piece of literature and were not convinced by it.

To wrap up (wow, this got long...), my current take is that one should be very cautious of being confident in this realm. After two years of investigation almost night and day, it's the muddiest topic I've ever tried to research. The world stage agrees with me much more than anyone who thinks that their religion is clearly correct and that other believers are either deceived, ignorant, unjustified, sinful, rebellious or stupid. One of the things I found quite eye opening was listening to a gentleman named Joshua Evans who converted to Islam from Christianity. I couldn't believe how passionately he talked, how clearly educated he was, how serious he was about his faith, and so on. I've heard the same at any retreat I've been at. Clearly he knows his stuff and yet it has taken him to a different place. To of his videos are Top 10 Reasons Jesus is not God and How the Bible Led me to Islam. Check them out and soak in his journey!

On a *completely* different note, I do have one question for you - this is absolutely not in any way a challenge or the beginning of a debate, I'm simply curious as to what your perspective is, since I'm positive this must be something that you - with your highly analytical mind - have already asked:

As an atheist, how do you approach the concept of mathematical infinity and space/time eternity both past and future?

I don't think too much about this, at least anymore. Listening to many debates in which William Lane Craig was a participant did have the obligatory effect of familiarizing me with his flavor of the cosmological argument which includes discussion about infinity a la Hilbert's Hotel. My current take is that I'm not sure the concept of mathematical infinity is/was intended to track with reality. It's useful, but doesn't mean that being able to write "∞" and think "the most that can exist" means that such a concept exists in reality. Our brains think sequentially; iteratively stacking is bound to produce issues, as one can always add one more... and thus infinity always brings about paradoxes and issues when trying to imagine an actual infinite set of discrete components. In the sense of counting numbers, no, I don't think an actual infinity exists.

Regarding time, we may very well live in a time block, not on a time line. Thus, all the time that exists might already exist. We experience it as a continuum, but this doesn't mean that's how it is. In that sense, it might not suffer from the same issues of infinite regression/extension that numbers do (in the counting sense).

Unequally yoked marriage | A hopeful note

2011-12-23T20:57:00.000-08:00

This is a post among an unknown number of posts to come about "unequally yoked" marriage. Googling for "unequally yoked" produces an absurd amount of hits. I've found most to be about what to do before marriage. I'd like to write a bit about what it's like from within marriage.

Here's a link to the index for this series
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My last post was a pretty sad story. Things were really tough for me. In talking to several people as well as my parents, I think things have eased up a bit. Part of it has to do with my personality. I tend to ignore or literally remain unaware of messes for sometime and then go into full-out-attack mode and clean like a madman until I'm satisfied. Perhaps that's what's happened over the past two years. On and off, I've had glimpses that something isn't right. But I've not really dug in to figure out what it is. Thus, I continue to have recurring bouts of acute negativity toward my situation.

Well, I thought I'd write whilst singing a different tune. I had a bit of a change in mindset driving home from work the other day, and I thought I'd share about it. Before explaining the change, there's some background. I expressed my hesitancy and feelings of emptiness about my social group and marriage to my wife last week. Perhaps not a great move, but it was being honest. That led, as expected, to quite a bit of marital strife and hurt feelings. Perhaps I overreacted. On my behalf, all I can say is that the last two weeks have been extremely difficult. I've had a massive feeling of being drowned in things like:
-- Thinking no one really respects me because I believe differently
-- Extreme intolerance of attitudes that seek to exert belief-based outcomes on others without having justification for said beliefs
-- Feeling like I would experience relief if I just ran away and started over in terms of a new social group
-- Feeling very, very, very alone, not understood or related to, isolated, etc.

That was an ugly situation. I still have those issues and will be seeing a counselor of some sort (either our previous couple's counselor or Marlene Winell) to attempt some resolution. I realize that my instinct is to run away. It feels like if I just left all of my past behind, I'd also leave behind the pain of separation/differences as well. This doesn't take into account future pains, though, such as loneliness, time delay in rebuilding friendships, and frustrations in trial and error in new-best-friend-finding. Anyway, my point is to paint the picture that I felt like I was in a burning building and thus wanted to run, but there wasn't necessarily a lot of thought about which way to head.

The other day, however, I had a shift in perspective. Rather than just focusing on the problem (burning building -> run), perhaps this could be a problem to solve. I love studying and analyzing things. I tried to get this across in my multi-level marketing analysis series. I used google scholar to track down 45 published scientific papers about marital success/failure predictors and factors. Rather than remain hopeless, I can be informed about the factors affecting satisfaction. Specifically, perhaps common interests and/or religion will turn out to be dominated by some other variable(s). If I know those variables, I have some knobs to tweak.

You may be reading this and thinking, "Yeah, right. This is ridiculous!" Maybe so. But for now, using my innate drive to fix problems and research is a good thing. It keeps me able to envision a future self that can share the results of this research to help others, especially if I've helped myself, not to mention an increase in relationship satisfaction if I succeed. I bought a John Gottman book at Half Price books that day as well. I also plan to finish a book recommended by our couples therapist as part of my research. Anyway, it's hard to exactly convey my change in state, but just know that it's far different from where it was, and in a good way. I'm up to the task of trying to invest time and effort into the practical applications of research on romantic relationships.

To testify to a bit of positive fruit that resulted from this change in mindset, I present you with Exhibit A, my Christmas present for my wife that I just gave her as a sign of my investment in our relationship:

We were on a budget this year, so this gift was one that had extremely high value, but not in the monetary sense, exactly. I was inspired to give my wife a bunch of things I probably should have been giving her all along. There were something like 40 coupons in total that she can use in 2012. They were things I knew she's really appreciate, but more importantly, I wanted to convey that I'd be around to redeem them. There was quite a bit of shakiness in our marriage recently; this was my way of trying to recommit and display my investment in making this relationship a success:
-- A fun night out x 6
-- A sweet back rub x 4
-- A rockin' foot rub x 4
-- Breakfast in bed x 4
-- Breakfast/coffee out with a friend x 6
-- A Saturday sleep in x 12
-- A weekend at the Santry Mansion or The Cottage (two local bed and breakfasts)
-- Beginner Lindy swing dancing lessons via Twin City Rebels Swing Dance Club

That's a lot of coupons :) I also tried to summarize my thought in a card. Here's an excerpt:

...

These gifts are my way of recommitting to you. You shouldn't need to be recommitted to; there shouldn't have been an "uncommitting" in the first place. Thus, I'm trying to do something I hope will help.

I had a change of mindset yesterday. While my study in one area has brought about significant issues, perhaps my gift for study could instead be advantageous. My disposition shifted yesterday on the way home from simply seeing a problem to seeing a problem to solve.

I plan to wrap up a couple of my current books and then turn my gaze toward relationships. I spent quite a bit of time hunting for scientific literature on relationships. I have 45 published articles on factors affecting relationships satisfaction. Perhaps if I knew the variables involved, I could improve myself and our relationship.

I think I panicked about us. Two years of on and off awareness of something no being right caught up to me. My instinct was to run -- perhaps "starting over" or just leaving the situation would help, I thought. But perhaps that's not necessary. I just don't want to hurt and to be happy. If that can come about by changing me and/or some variable in our lives, problem solved.

This gift is my way of showing you that I'm still here and still with you. I plan to work very hard on trying to understand my/our hurt and issues to try to make us work. I'm sorry that my issues hurt you so badly.

You shouldn't need coupons for most of this stuff -- a good husband would already having been giving them to you. Nevertheless, maybe I need a bit more push than the average good husband. this is my way of pushing myself for you. Here's to you -- my loving, tender, caring, fantastic wife.

Merry X-mas,
Love,
John

Long journey ahead. Nevertheless, I thought I'd post again with these updates. This is hard stuff. I continue to share as I think more people might benefit from reading the raw data on how this can go, the ups along with the downs. There's a horrid amount of ugly stuff when googling for "unequally yoked marriage." Most of it is hopeless and depressing. I, too, as evidenced by the last post, have my depressed and doubtful moments. But there's also changes in heart that can come about. I'm off next week from work, so I hope to finish my couple of [a]theistic books and get cracking on relationship information.

At the end of the day, I just don't want to be miserable. I want to thrive and be happy. It's helpful to just keep those in mind without any qualifiers. The temptation is to look at my situation, realize that there's some potential sources of unhappiness in it, and just think, "causation." That's not necessarily the case. I don't know why, exactly, I'm unhappy... just that I'm unhappy. If the issues lie in myself, there's nothing to be fixed or upset about with respect to my circumstances! If there are some independent factors coming from the situation itself, I'll have to look at those down the road. To combat my inclination to just run, I need to keep hopeful and optimistic, hence my act of pre-committing myself with coupons. I also am going to apply my desire for knowledge and self-improvement to this, just like I have with god, power tool purchases, and multi-level marketing schemes. I'll stay in touch.

Letters to a Doubting Thomas | A moral argument

2011-12-19T20:27:00.000-08:00

Back to series index >>
This is part of a series of posts in response to "Letters to a Doubting Thomas" C. Stephen Layman.
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Whew. Last post in this series. I'm not going to lie, morality is probably my biggest weakness since deconverting, at least from the standpoint of intellectual defensibility. I completely get the appeals to intuition when it comes to morality. I find it extremely difficult to reject apparent moral laws with a straight face and fear the day when someone pulls the 'ol slap-you-in-the-face routine and then asks why it's wrong for them to slap you if it's all relative. Speaking of this, Layman includes such an anecdote in the book:

Many moral antirealists have held that moral judgments merely express feelings or emotions. Saying "Murder is wrong" is like saying "Murder—boo!" A friend of mine who teaches ethics received a paper defending this thesis from a student. My friend immediately placed an F on the paper and returned it. The student contacted her to protest the grade. The conversation went something like this:

Student: Why did you give me an F? I worked hard on that paper. Was it unclear? Did I leave something out? Was there an error in the logic?

Prof: You write well. You have a clear thesis. The paper is nicely organized. The grammar is fine. I didn't spot any fallacies.

Student: Well, then, the grade is unfair.

Prof: "Unfair." Hmmm. "Unfair" is a moral word, isn't it? But as you point out in your paper, there is no moral truth. People just feel differently about certain things. Well, you and I just feel differently about this paper.

The point, of course, was not to stick the student with a bad grade, but to initiate a serious discussion about the foundations of morality. Verbalizing moral antirealism is one thing, accepting its implications is another thing altogether.

Now, moral anti-realism isn't the only option out there. The beginning of this chapter lays out just what Zach says the "moral order" is, along with evaluating some non-theistic ways to support a moral order. (As is probably obvious, Zach won't buy any of them.)

I was surprised that Layman (Zach) wasn't a supporter of Divine Command Theory (DCT). He lays out two versions of DCT and them suggests why he thinks them to be on precarious ground. One has to do with the Euthyphro Dilemma, though he doesn't call it by name. In essence, though, Zach brings up the point that there could be necessary moral truths that can't be wrong under any conceivable circumstances:

First, we can offer examples of moral statements which, if true, are plausibly necessary, e.g., "It is wrong to torture people for fun" and "Unjustified killing is wrong." It's hard to see how these statements could be false under any possible circumstances; hence, it is plausible to suppose that they are necessary truths.

...

The inference from "God is almighty" to "God has control over what is good and evil, right and wrong" is invalid. God does not control necessary truths; they cannot be false under any circumstances whatsoever.

In other words, such a "necessary moral law" wouldn't be wrong due to god's commands; it would be wrong independent of god, and thus god couldn't be a moral lawgiver via DCT.

Zach and Thomas dabble a bit in the ontological argument and then come to the heart of Zach's argument. He lays out what he calls the "moral order:"

The Moral Order: (a) The strongest reasons always favor doing what is morally required, and (b) the correct moral code is traditional in content.

When I speak of a traditional moral code, I mean one that says killing, stealing, lying, adultery, and so on are wrong, except perhaps in certain special cases, e.g., killing in self-defense.

In our discussion of the Imperfect-Deity hypothesis, I mentioned that most moral theorists hold or presuppose that the strongest or overriding reasons always favor doing one's moral duty. I know of no way to prove that this principle is true, but I think most people believe it or at least find it plausible once they've considered it.

Next, Zach lays out some naturalistic explanations for the moral order:
-- Being moral always promotes self-interest
-- Doing one's duty is the only way to have peace of mind
-- Having virtue is it's own reward

For various reasons, Zach rejects all of these. He uses examples to illustrate when being moral might not be in one's self-interest, when peace of mind does not follow from being moral, or when being virtuous might lead to, say, unjust imprisonment and thus not be its own reward.

Thomas briefly suggests abandoning the idea that the strongest reasons always lead to the moral choice. To this, Zach lays out the humdinger:

Being moral always pays in the long run, where "the long run" includes life after death.

There's two key parts to Zach's argument I want to highlight. The first is his use of the term "traditional moral code" above. The second is his introduction of the afterlife. Essentially, he's suggested that the "moral order" is that which humans universally think is right. One issue with this is that these are kind of the no-brainers. Zach doesn't bring up any writings about evolutionary reasons that such beliefs/practices might be advantageous. Not killing fellow species-members and adherence to particular sexual rules would be favorable in terms of our genetic and evolutionary heritage. There are other theories concerning our pestering drive to tell the truth (which I'll group with not-stealing). So, I think this chapter would have benefited from a more fair dealing with naturalism.

Secondly, Zach essentially makes his initial definition fit by bringing in a hypothetical, unproven, speculatory meta-location, heaven, to make being moral the thing supported by the strongest reason. In other words, be moral during this life or burn forever; this now allows morality to be supported by the strongest reasons. I find this unsatisfactory. This is akin to parents inventing a new story about The Elf on the Shelf so that their kids will behave. Fear of losing out on those nice Christmas presents because of disappointing a hawk-eyed stuffed animal is now the driving factor to be good (i.e. the "strongest reason").

As I opened up with, I don't have any breathtaking alternative answers to morality. I just don't think that because we feel really, really moral and haven't figured out what it is or where that comes from that this indicates a god exists who wrote things on my heart. I actually think this argument opens the bag on a number of other fascinating questions that don't fare so well for theism. For example, we've seen a free will argument from Zach previously. If free will and morally significant action is important to god, but I have an overwhelming desire imprinted on my soul not to kill or rape, where is the line between free will and coercion? I realize that I can force myself to override these instincts, but why not create other instincts/drives like these moral ones? After a two-year agonizing journey of deconversion and study, I would love to have evidence in the form of belief in the Christian god akin to these moral drives. What if every human felt the same compulsion to love Jesus Christ as they do not to murder!? Now that would be a reason to torture someone forever if they turned away. At least we would be universally cognizant of the god we were rejecting! Anyway, that play on free will/coercion and how it relates with morality and belief has often intrigued me.

I'll close with some naturalistic work on morality I've run across.

Richard Carrier's, Sense and Goodness Without God. I will definitely be reading this someday.
EbonMusing's (same author as Daylight Atheism) writings on morality: The Ineffable Carrot and the Infinite Stick. This is where his objective but naturalistic moral system, Universal Utilitarianism, is presented.
Luke Muehlhauser's (author of CommonSenseAtheism) writings on Desire Utilitarianism. He subsequently launched a podcast entitled, Morality in the Real World and now, I think, is more geared toward writing about ethics on LessWrong, as evidenced by his announcement of a MetaEthics Sequence. He summarizes his most recent thoughts on desireism in a blog post published, coincidentally, today.
Alonzo Fyfe, the inventor (I believe) of desireism, blogs about naturalistic ethics at The Atheist Ethicist.

So, there's a very small bit of naturalistic morality stuff I'm aware of, just to plant some seeds for thought. Again, I certainly don't have this figured out. Be good, do good stuff, blah blah. I haven't changed much about my moral stances, but getting a coherent argument together for why I do what I do and believe what I do is definitely on my todo list!

Letters to a Doubting Thomas | The problem of evil

2011-12-17T20:31:00.000-08:00

Back to series index >>
This is part of a series of posts in response to "Letters to a Doubting Thomas" C. Stephen Layman.
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Chapters seven and eight focus on the problem of evil. This is probably one of the most discussed objections to theism ever. Zach and Thomas begin by discussion the differences between natural (the result of inanimate causes/events) and moral (the result of some human willed event) suffering as well as definitions for suffering:

--Suffering is a very unpleasant conscious state.
-- Suffering comes in both mental and physical forms. For example, intense anxiety is a form of mental suffering; and the long-lasting pain common in diseases such as cancer is a form of physical suffering.
-- Because suffering is a conscious state, many types of entities cannot suffer. For example, I assume that rocks and plants cannot suffer because they lack the sort of conscious awareness suffering involves.
-- Suffering comes in degrees. For example, suffering can be trying, intense, unbearable, etc.

So far, so good. Next, Zach launches into the free will defense. In essence, god created us wholly free in order to grant us morally significant actions. It isn't saying much to choose to live for god if choosing to sin isn't even attractive. Thomas objects that god essentially put is in a room full of candy and then complained because we ate candy, and brought in the parent/child analogy for god. This came up in the last post on free will. Zach responds:

Parents are procreators, not creators, and there's a big difference. A Creator must determine the basic structure of the created realm, including the fundamental sorts of options to make available to free creatures. No one else is in a position to do that. Human parents lack the requisite power and knowledge. The God-parent analogy is useful, but it is misused if it is taken to mean that God has precisely the same responsibilities a human parent has.

This is an interesting response. I believe what Layman is getting at is that god set up a universe with good/evil options in order to grant us free will. Parents only enter the game as it already exists and make choices within it. Unfortunately, I see this as conflicting with the idea of miracles. While Zach/Layman never brings this up in the book, it is a widely used apologetic argument, especially in favor of Christianity. If god can intervene against the rules of the game he created, it becomes precarious to explain why god doesn't intervene most of the time. This, again, brings in the assumption that we know that a mega-human type being invented the rules of the free willed universe and that it's responsibilities aren't anything like those of a parent. In fact, god is somewhat of the ultimate parent -- responsible for our existence in the first place, supposedly! If that doesn't merit some care and looking after of inferior, sin-prone creatures... I don't know what does!

The other issue with this is assuming that significance only matters when compared to negative integers along the number line. Why can't we view saintliness in comparison to lukewarmness? Can being a good husband only be compared to adultery or murder? How about couch-potato, apathetic husband vs. science-museum/anniversary-remembering/dinner cooking super-dad? Thus, I can conceive of a world in which evils don't exist like they do (or are't attractive) and in which there is still a spectrum of responses to god.

Zach puts the free will defense forth very succinctly here:

Second, the suggestion that we could have as much meaning or significance in our lives as we actually do without certain types of wickedness, such as genocide, is problematic. If there were no genocide, no doubt we would be discussing some other example of wickedness, such as murder or rape. And if murder and rape were beyond human capability, I suspect we would be discussing still other forms of wickedness. Some humans would probably be satisfied with a situation in which the consequences of our acts would be trivial; but such a world would pale in significance to the world we find ourselves in—a world full of drama, in which acts have enormous significance—significance that is partly a function of their consequences.

A world with less significance has its attractions, because such a world contains fewer risks. But I believe it remains unsurprising that we find ourselves in a situation in which acts have enormous significance—assuming that God exists. Such a world has many risks, but it is also replete with meaning. What we do—and do not do—really counts for something.

This is quite difficult for me to swallow. In essence, the more massively harmful humans can be, the more reason we have to suspect that god really, really, really created something special when he formed humans. That just rubs me the wrong way. Why not make the world even more morally significant. Make a world in which it's massively easy to kill someone and not get caught. Or give everyone a world annihilation button to tempt them whenever they get really angry at humanity. Or give us psychic powers to harm others whenever we think bad thoughts (how's that for some thought crime?). In reality, we have no predictive power either way. We only have the world we have and thus can't say whether things could be different one way or the other, or what that would imply about the world. Viewing these types of things from the comfort of our homes can be quite sterile. Perhaps we should ask those who are the victims of moral evils if they would prefer to have slightly less morally significant choices and to have been spared some harm. If the world were 1/100th less morally significant and heaven were still the reward... would you choose such a world?

Zach also brings forth a hinting at the soul-building defense:

The significance of intense suffering must be transformed by the role it plays in one's life as a whole, as an ugly splotch of color in an impressionist painting may add to the beauty of the whole painting.

I won't really address this as it can be countered with gratuitous evils in which no apparent soul building results (infants killed during birth, young children raped and murdered, animal suffering, etc.). That quote is immediately followed by what I'll call the "catch all:"

Let me make a suggestion and get your response. I assume that an almighty being is able to raise creatures from the dead; thus, life after death is possible, from the standpoint of Theism. Indeed, life after death is probable, from the standpoint of Theism, at least in part because divine love will not give wickedness the last word. A loving God seeks the fulfillment of his creatures. And from the standpoint of Theism, the only thing that can prevent the fulfillment of an individual creature in the long run, I take it, is the individual's free rejection of divine love.

...

[The afterlife] provides an assurance that those whose lives are wrecked by wickedness in this earthly life will have opportunities to reclaim the fulfillment denied them. Beyond this, [the afterlife] provides for the possibility that God may have some purposes for each person that are not (or cannot) be fulfilled prior to death, in which case all persons would have a life after death.

We now postulate a hypothetical realm in which the dead can live again to cover for any apparent injustices during earthly life. I admit that this is possible, but I see no reason to think it's probable. It just seems convenient and thus it's used to sweep the problem under the carpet. In any case, the two move on to discuss natural evil. Zach brings forth that natural evils are a reasonably large cause for the formation of human societies at all and thus their absence would reduce the moral capacity of humans. Furthermore, he lists a number of professions as existing only in response to natural evils. Thus, they serve a benefit. Let's imagine risk of famine or shortage of other natural resources wasn't an issue. Couldn't people flourish via hobbies or art? Heck, if food wasn't scarce at all (as in, plentiful everywhere) or you didn't need shelter from storms and the environment... why would you need to work at all? My house and eating are the two reasons I have to work. I'm a bit aghast that Layman would take this approach:

So far I have emphasized the connection between significance, work, and natural evil. I am not suggesting that our lives would be insignificant without natural evil. But I am pointing out that we humans often find great significance in the work we do, and the work we do is usually linked to some natural evil, so the work would not be needed if the natural evil (or threat thereof) were absent. And I suggest that the kind of significance humans achieve in their working lives is a very good thing.

This, again, strikes me as sterile talk. We're talking about natural evils as simply those things our jobs seek to remedy: food shortages, cures for diseases, how to tap into natural resources. We're forgetting things like tsunamis, earthquakes, and hurricanes. You know, unpredictable, massive killers of human beings. Is the satisfaction we take in our jobs in trying to solve things like world hunger or AIDS worth killing off that many unsuspecting people at once?

Zach and Thomas move on to animal suffering. Zach essentially posits the same two responses: animals are granted the ability to take part in the "drama of nature," and there might be an afterlife for animals. Forgive me if I'm not really impressed by these answers.

Chapter eight moves on to discuss naturalism and evil. I felt a bit cheated by this chapter; the following quote illustrates why:

Recall that hurricanes, viruses, earthquakes, etc., do not count as natural evils; it's the suffering (and loss) these natural events bring about for sentient beings that counts as natural evil. But does Basic Naturalism lead us to expect the presence of sentient beings? No. As we saw in our discussion of the Cosmological Argument, Basic Naturalism does not even lead us to expect the presence of contingent beings, let alone a life-supporting universe and conscious living things. And if Basic Naturalism does not lead us to expect conscious living things, then it does not lead us to expect any suffering (or loss) at all. Hence, Basic Naturalism does not lead us to expect any natural evil.

In other words, Zach has piggybacked on an earlier chapter and now suggests that since we don't have any reason to expect that humans (contingent beings) would even exist at all, naturalism doesn't predict any evils whatsoever. While I get the point, forgive me if I think it's a tad more reasonable to start with the knowledge that humans clearly do exist, and then ask whether we should be surprised that nature appears to be completely ignorant of such beings' existence. From here, the two, in my opinion, digress heavily into the moral argument even though it will be dealt with in the next chapter. Zach attempts another piggyback move, claiming that moral evil is also not explained by naturalism because morality presupposes the existence of moral capacities, which are only existent with free will, which is only predicted by theism. Thus, again, we have a reused argument that Zach uses to suggest that naturalism also can't explain the existence of moral evil because there's no non-theistic moral standard to judge it by and without free will, humans aren't really moral.

I think this would have benefited by examining apparent evils in light of humans evolved primates. Would our tendencies to commit evil that surround hoarding of goods, reproduction, and territory claims be explained better by our existence as an animal vs. an en-souled part human/part divine creature? In any case, hopefully you understand why I thought this chapter was cheating a bit. It's also another return to a flaw I pointed out in the book earlier. It evaluates everything in light of Zach's picture of naturalism rather than simply looking at whether theism paints a coherent explanation or not. The problem of evil is obviously a big one, otherwise it would have gone away by now. While I realize there are explanations like the free will defense and soul building theodicies, in the end, I think most humans would find these unsatisfactory. Do we really think this is the absolutely best possible world? Not one act of evil could have been prevented while still maintaining morally significant action/free will? One less instance of rape or torture would have led to an overall decrease in world quality?

We just can't know this, and thus I find these types of theodicies insufficient. They presuppose that god knows best, only to assert that this really is the best world we could have expected. Rather than pick on naturalism because it can't explain the origin of the universe (yet) or what free will is (yet) and thus can't explain sentient life (natural evil) or morally significant choices (moral evil) seems cheap. Just compare theism's picture of god allowing moral evils so that choosing him means more on one hand and humans as evolved animals with desires that sometimes harm others on the other. Or natural evils as benefiting society or providing satisfying jobs on one hand and an uncaring deterministic universe filled with horrible weather on the other.

Lastly, there's also my argument from the impossibility of evil. I think god could have created a world in which evil was possible, but more like a math problem to be solved. Actually, this dovetails well with Zach's claim that many significant jobs arise from trying to combat natural evils. Flip that and think of committing evil as the problem to be solved. Imagine conceiving of killing Johnny but not being able to figure out how. You can will it, but not do it. We still consider ourselves free despite not being able to jump over buildings. Why doesn't this bother us? Presumably, we can be satisfied with our freedoms within our borders of limitation. Simply shrink that border to include many currently doable evils. Would the world really be worse off?

Letters to a Doubting Thomas | Argument from free will

2011-12-17T15:07:00.000-08:00

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This is part of a series of posts in response to "Letters to a Doubting Thomas" C. Stephen Layman.
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This chapter features an incredibly long discussion about the nature of free-will between Zach and Thomas, prior to Zach giving him the heart of the argument:

Premise 1. Theism has a significantly higher prior probability than MUH Naturalism.

Premise 2. Theism does a better job of leading us to expect the presence of free will (in the incompatibilist sense) than MUH Naturalism does.

Conclusion: Theism explains the presence of human free will better than MUH Naturalism does; hence, the phenomenon of free will provides evidence in favor of Theism over MUH Naturalism.

Premise 1 might need some explanation. The original formulation of naturalism was found in the first post. Since then, Zach and Thomas have shifted to a new formulation, "multi-universe naturalism (MUH):"

MUH Naturalism: (1) There is a self-organizing physical reality, (2) some part of physical reality exists of necessity, (3) the necessary part of physical reality randomly generates additional parts of physical reality that are distinct universes, and (4) the number of universes generated is vast— perhaps even infinite. (5) Leaving aside possible special cases (e.g., sets or numbers), all entities are physical entities.

They made this adjustment during Chapter 5 on the Design Argument to account for the fact that apparent fine-tuning exists. Thus, by postulating a massive number of universes, it becomes more plausible that the fine-tuned one in which we live, exists. I covered this in a separate post. Regardless of this, the obvious key premise is the second, which implies both:

We have free-will in an incompatabalist sense
Theism predicts the existence of free-will

The second half may very well be true, depending on one's understanding of "free will." Even so, the heart of the second half hinges on this bit from Zach:

By contrast, the presence of free agents is not surprising, on the assumption that Theism is true. A morally perfect Deity would have good reason to give persons the opportunity to live significant lives. And, other things being equal, a life involving important choices is more significant than a life involving no choices. So God would have reason to give us the power to make important choices, such as the choice to help or harm ourselves and others.

This goes back to previous bits in the chapter where Zach makes the familiar argument that free will implies no significant action, no real moral capacities, and so on. Mustering as much as we can to adhere to the Litany of Gendlin (or see my blog tagline above), what would the reaction be if we really didn't have free will? Would everyone go on a rampage of suicide, crime, and complete despair? If you knew that the laws of physics determined the life you would life, would you want to not experience it? I return back to a discussion of free will I had with a friend, who posed it this way:

If I could prove conclusively that you had free will, how would you behave differently?
If I could prove conclusively that you did not have free will, how would you behave differently?

I had to admit that neither scenario would alter my behavior. I may be an exception; free will have never struck me as impossible, horrid, scary, or depressing. That there could be knowable causes for every single action I conduct is quite feasible in my mind. We could be biological machines of immense complexity that go about behaving in pre-determined ways that yet remain unpredictable even by a perfect prediction machine.

The real key to this idea of free will is simply whether we could, in principle, reduce every action to a previous condition described by physics, or if the furthest back we could go was, "Because I chose it." I don't know that there is a ready answer to this question. Zach makes the case that the best we could get to is something like, "Inputs like wants, desires, history, past actions, and current brain state S1 lead to the expectation of a 90% chance of brain state S2 occurring and a 10% chance of brain state S3 occurring." I'm unsure if I think this is accurate or if we could know something more, say about the exact location of all quarks, that would reduce this to a single answer. Then again, measuring something interferes with it, and thus we may never know. Is this not knowing because we really have free will or because of how physics works?

Furthermore, I've wondered if either the mind isn't simply what the brain does, or if free will isn't entirely dependent on brain states, why injuries to the brain have such predictable side effects. Ebon Musings has an already massively cited section on all kinds of these phenomenon in Ghost in the Machine. There's just something odd about admitting that our hardware dependent minds/actions are also being affected by something unknowable, detectable, traceable, or predictable. And again, would not knowing be due to a free will component in the theistic sense, or because of something more like Heisenberg uncertainty? And if that is what free will is, then do electrons have it? Layman actually used radioactive decay as evidence that not everything is predictable:

For example, take a quantity of radium 226 over a period of 3,240 years; each atom of the radium has a .75 probability of decaying and a .25 probability of not decaying (within that period of time).

But if this is what we're talking about with respect to free will... the conclusions drawn seem to lose some significant loftiness.

The chapter concludes with a discussion of whether or not god's omniscience conflicts with the idea of free will. Zach defends the idea along the lines of "God knows everything that can be known." Thus, since free will implies that future actions cannot be known until they occur, the best god knows is a range of possibilities and not a definite action. This avoids things like god believing I will lie, and then I freely tell the truth and thus make one of god's beliefs false. Instead, god believes that I might do either action. Once I do it, god knows which I chose. They discuss solutions to the same problem from timelessness and middle knowledge which I don't particularly care to get into.

This post is probably somewhat of a disappointment. I don't have the free will answer. I am reading through LessWrong's solution (think about it yourself before reading!), and think that Thou Art Physics makes a hell of a lot of sense (it was an incredible "Aha!" moment for me upon seeing the second drawing). Are theologians satisfied with this? Probably not. For me, the above argument contains a lot of issues that the argument from cosmology had. Namely, we're postulating a perfectly moral being and then speculating about what that being would and wouldn't do with creation. Such a being would obviously want us to have moral capacities, right (even at or own eternal peril)? This type of anthropomorphism has never gotten very far with me. We're looking at ourselves and then trying to imagine what kind of super-version of ourselves would have created us. If my daughter walks toward a busy street, I frankly don't give a damn about her free will at the moment. I protect her from danger. If god's thoughts are not our thoughts and his ways are above our ways, why should we expect that he cares so much about morally significant action? Why not give us mostly free will (like a child) but intervene when things get really messy? Eliezer Yudkowsky puts things well in his post, Beyond the Reach of God.

In any case, I don't have the solution, but Layman's chapter isn't striking me as it, either.

Letters to a Doubting Thomas | Cosmological argument

2011-12-17T14:23:00.000-08:00

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This is part of a series of posts in response to "Letters to a Doubting Thomas" C. Stephen Layman.
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This chapter opens up with quite a long discussion of logic, necessary and contingent truths, the difference between logically and metaphysically possible. I'm going to bypass all of this and skip to the main argument. It's a little tricky to figure out exactly where it is, as this occurs in the context of a dialog, but I'd say this is the "meat" that Zach brings forward to our doubting Thomas:

Theism postulates a necessary being who is almighty and so has the power to bring the contingent beings of our acquaintance into existence. Also, Theism postulates an almighty person and hence an entity who can make choices. The choices or volitions of God can thus explain the presence of contingent beings in the world, assuming God has reason to create anything at all. Any being God freely chooses to create, he might also freely choose not to create, and hence any being God freely chooses to create is a contingent being.

But does God have reason to create anything at all? Yes. A perfectly morally good being would be a loving being, hence generous. A loving and generous being would have reason to create entities with which to share good things. So God would have reason to create conscious beings who can enjoy good things as well as reason to create the good things for conscious beings to enjoy. It seems especially clear that God would have reason to create intelligent conscious creatures along with things for them to enjoy, such as beauty, interesting activities, pleasures, and satisfying personal relationships.

...

Premise 1. The prior probability of Theism is lower than that of Naturalism (due to Naturalism's greater simplicity) but high enough to make the theistic hypothesis well worth considering.

Premise 2. Theism leads us to expect the phenomenon, namely, the presence of contingent beings, but Naturalism does not. (Note: As we've seen, God would have good reason to create contingent beings. Naturalists who think that all of physical reality is contingent do not give us a hypothesis that leads us to expect contingent beings; rather, these Naturalists simply postulate the presence of contingent beings as a brute fact. And if Naturalists state merely that some part of physical reality is necessary—without explaining how the necessary part accounts for the presence of contingent beings, then the presence of contingent beings is still left as a brute fact.)

Conclusion: Theism explains the presence of contingent beings better than Naturalism does—hence, this phenomenon is evidence in favor of Theism over Naturalism. (p. 95-96)

Wow, there's a lot there. My issue with all forms of the cosmological argument has to do with an objection I made in an earlier post in this series:

The reason to lay out both hypotheses is that Layman states that one can only compare apples to apples. One can't simply compare theism to ~theism; one needs to compare theism, a positive argument for how the world is, to another competing set of positive claims for how the world is. This is the first mistake in the book, in my opinion. One doesn't need a comprehensive explanation for all the various items Layman is going to attempt to explain with theism in order to evaluate whether or not theism does a good job. It isn't intrinsically about theism or naturalism; it's about theism vs. ~theism.

What the cosmological argument attempts to do is to bring about some admittedly serious issues with understanding why we're here, how the universe came about, how to make sense of what might have been "before" or exists "outside" the universe, and the postulate some sort of mega-immaterial-human as the answer. Since humans know humans, this seems to resonate as not completely ridiculous, and we're prone to giving the idea some credit. "Sure, a loving being would want to create little miniatures to enjoy in sunrises and flowers and such!" All along we forget that the whole reason we're postulating this being is that we have no flipping idea where we came from or why we're here!

Because theism appears to hold together by making up a mega-human powerful enough to create a universe, it's quite easy for Layman to compare it to naturalism and plow it over. This is where the rest of this chapter heads. Zach and Thomas go back and forth about what "tweaks" would have to be made to the original definition of naturalism (see the first post in the series), such as postulating that there is something necessary in the universe that leads to contingent beings existing. Thus, Zach sets up the dilemma that either:

Naturalism needs to complicate itself further by postulating a new kind of thing, a necessary one, which is what made theism more complicated a priori to begin with
Ignoring the issue of why contingent beings exist, and thus losing something in terms of explanatory power to theism

I think this dilemma is a false one. One can not know what in the world caused this chain of apparent inexplicable contingency and still evaluate theism's proposed explanation. Should someone back in the day have been forced to accept a circular theory of planetary orbits despite such a theory's flaws just because he or she didn't have an alternative? Or should circular orbits have been evaluated in comparison to geocentricism simply because that was another possible theory? I don't think so. My take is that a theory stands on its own two feet and either advances our understanding of an explanation to the problem or doesn't.

The cosmological argument is one where I don't really see the advance. Because we can imagine a necessary being doesn't mean that such a being explains anything. I agree that we know we're here and thus something brought about the universe... this does't give us any reason to suggest a mind disconnected from a body, a thing that loves like us or thinks like us or enjoys sunsets like us, or that can sonic boom universes into existence.

An interesting topic that comes up in the book several times has to do with this snippet from Zach's preface above, which I'll requote here:

But does God have reason to create anything at all? Yes. A perfectly morally good being would be a loving being, hence generous. A loving and generous being would have reason to create entities with which to share good things. So God would have reason to create conscious beings who can enjoy good things as well as reason to create the good things for conscious beings to enjoy.

Thomas challenges this, asking why god would have to be perfectly good. Zach's issue with the idea of alternative gods is that we would have no reason to trust our senses. He puts it like so:

1. The mostly evil Deity would, as we've seen previously, lead to serious doubts about the reliability of our cognitive faculties. Such a Deity might very well want us to be systematically mistaken about most of the things that matter to us most...

2. A half-good and half-evil Deity seems to me to lead to the same problem. Such a Deity would be highly untrustworthy and might very well not care enough about us to give us reliable cognitive faculties. (Put yourself back in the locked room, receiving info you can't check up on. If you know the source of the info is half good and half evil, would you expect the info to be for the most part true? I don't think we can plausibly answer yes.)

3. A mostly good (but imperfect) Deity would presumably be somewhat generous (or perhaps intermittently generous), so it would have good reasons to bring intelligent conscious creatures into existence and to share good things with them. Thus, a "mostly good" Deity hypothesis would lead us to expect the presence of contingent beings. Also, assuming that having the truth is generally in our best interest, a "mostly good" Deity would probably try to ensure that our cognitive faculties are reliable; hence this hypothesis does not seem to be self-defeating.

Note the mention of a "locked room" in number two. Zach has used this before, asking Thomas if he were in a locked room and receiving notes from an unknown informant if he would trust the information received if he had prior information that the informant was evil. Since most people would probably say, "No," Zach applies the analogy to god, stating that if god is partially or fully evil, we would have no reason to trust that anything we sense or think is valid.

I object to this because we're explicitly not in a locked room. The locked room is horribly flawed in that the notes need to be taken completely on faith. In the world, if I sense a tree or see a car, I can validate it. I can let myself get hit by it, or notice that other people get hit by cars they see at the last minute. Or ask others if they see a tree, etc. Zach has handled the impossibility of really validating sensory input before; I wrote about it in another post. Thus, I see two options:

Sense experience really is an illusion and there is a mass conspiracy to keep me from finding out
Sense experience is actually correct, and the validation options surrounding me are, indeed, confirming my experience

In either case, I don't see an option to act any differently. If we're brains in a vat, subject to the puppeteering of an evil demon, or everyone else is conspiring against me to dupe me... there is no ability to determine which is occurring. Thus, I choose to live on like I have been.

In the same sense, as long as sense experiences continue being coherent, why would I distrust them? To conclude, then, I see the moral character of a being as separate from the issue of whether that being would have created beings with reliable senses. Some humans are immoral in the sense that they killed someone, but it doesn't imply that they lied about it to others, themselves, or the victim. In the end, just like cosmological arguments, the idea that we have a basis for speculating what a universe creator would and wouldn't do in terms of creating beings (through evolution) with reliable or unreliable senses seems intractable.

I wonder if we'll ever understand where the universe came from. I distantly follow ideas concerning new developments in physics, and it's an area I hope to pursue in much greater detail when I abandon full investment in apologetics and theology. I'm also open to the idea where because this line of argument seems improbable, I'm not following the philosophical conclusions to where they lead. For now, it seems like an expanded and complicated form of "We don't know, therefore we know."

Letters to a Doubting Thomas | Religious experience

2011-12-15T12:15:00.000-08:00

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This is part of a series of posts in response to "Letters to a Doubting Thomas" C. Stephen Layman.
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I was highly surprised by the next chapters. Layman focuses in on religious experiences (like, people feeling like they've heard/seen/sensed the divine) in order to offer this (spoiler alert) conclusion at the end of chapter three:

I suggest that the testimony of the Theistic mystics makes up for at least one of the ways in which Theism is more complex than Naturalism. If the testimony of the mystics doesn't count for at least this much, it seems to me that we've relegated it to insignificance. And I think that would be a mistake. Indeed, I'm inclined to think that the testimony of the mystics largely makes up for Theism's greater complexity in regard to both of the first two facets of simplicity. (p. 36)

In chapter four, Layman will offer the cosmological argument, and the thinks that these together (religious expeirence and the cosmological argument) make up for theism's initial disadvantage:

A consideration of religious experience and the Cosmological Argument leave Theism and Naturalism on a par. (p. 248)

So, this sets up Layman's task. He provides twelve descriptions of religious experiences, taken primarily from William James' book, Varieties of Religious Experience. There's one each from Beardsworth's A Sense of Presence and Weil's Waiting for God. After presenting the twelve quotes, Zach summarizes them like so:

What we have here, it seems to me, is not a mere outpouring of emotion, but fairly clear descriptions of a direct awareness of a divine presence. Let's call this sort of experience Theistic mystical experience, to distinguish it from other kinds of religious experience, such as a feeling of oneness with the universe or an intense reeling of peace and joy or a religious vision that involves sensory imagery (e.g., a deity sitting on a throne). (p. 42)

The two next go back and forth concerning what we can and cannot accept as valid evidence concerning experience and testimony. Zach proposes the principle of credulity, which essentially suggests that "it is rational to accept what experience indicates unless special reasons apply." From here, the two debate whether this principle should be applied to both sense experience as well as religious experience. Zach makes the case that sense experience is, at its core, unprovable. We all trust that what we think is real really is. The only verification we have is to rely on other senses (which are also possessed by us), or to ask for verification from others, which assumes that, in Zach's example of seeing a tree, "a) that you exist, (b) whether you state (or otherwise indicate) that you see a tree, and (c) whether you are sincere" (p. 44). Thus, since Zach argues that we can't prove sense experience, there's no reason to apply the principle of credulity to the senses while not accepting it with respect to religious experience:

To return to my main point: Yes, I think the Principle of Credulity should be applied to religious experience. If we refuse to apply it and demand some sort of proof for the reliability of religious experience, then I think we are arbitrarily demanding that religious experience should meet a standard that even sense experience cannot meet. (p. 46)

Here is where Zach/Layman and I diverge. I've long pondered this sort of argument and got into a massively lengthy debate with a blogger once about whether "the experience of the Holy Spirit" should be considered "properly basic," according to Plantinga's Reformed Epistemology or Foundationalism. The issue I have is that while Layman might be correct that to justify sense experience only brings in other assumptions (the existence of others, their reliability and trustworthiness), at the end of the day, we do have more of a "coherentist" picture with sense experience that we just plain don't with religious experience. To deny that seems ludicrous.

In other words, even if we take to complicating hypotheses and risking circularity with attempted verification and do so with both sense and religious experience, one emerges the clear winner. Let's grant Layman's assertion that sense validation gives rise to many more assumptions and circularity. This doesn't change anything about how the world works. If I'm wrong and no one else really exists and the entire 6.99 billion of earth's inhabitants are involved in a massive conspiracy to falsely verify my experience... so what? There will be no predictive difference between that world and one in which my senses really are functioning. Since no new data is accounted for by the highly conspiratory and mind-in-a-vat world, we should prefer the simpler explanation that things are as they seem. Thus, the experience that I see a tree, can verify it by touching it, interact with it (say, bash my head against it and hurt myself), take a sample and test it, and have others verify that they see it, etc. is pretty darn reliable.

What about for religious experience? On Christian theism, there is a being whose primary aim is to get everyone to heaven with him. This entire world exists for the sole purpose of forming enough virtue and holiness in humans such that they can pass the test and enter the pearly gates. Presumably, this is why god grants profound experiences to humans -- it inspires them, encourages them, strengthens their religious beliefs, etc. But if we're trying to suggest that religious and sense experiences are on par... why can't one validate religious experiences via others? While sense experience might open the door to circularity, religious experience can't even risk that much because most people don't have such profound experiences, and those who do will attribute the experience to their specific, pre-believed in deity. If one god rules them all, so to speak, why do those who have experiences of god have experiences of the god they already believed in? Statistically, most religions are false. We should see religious experiences bringing about a convergence of belief. Muslims should sense Jesus or the Saints and convert; or Christians should experience Allah and convert. Instead, Christians sense the presence of the Christian god and so goes it with other religions.

To be fair, I think there's some priming that can take place with sense experience. If I tell you shots really, really hurt and you've never had one, your first injection might be more painful than had I told you it was nothing to worry about. On the other hand, I've had people rave about movies and then I didn't particularly like it when I saw it. I had a prior belief/expectation and was converted by my actual experience.

Layman points out that the pure experience itself doesn't say anything about the interpreted significance. In other words, the points above are primarily about how humans interpret their experiences and don't imply that the experiences weren't valid. If we ignore interpretation, it's still not clear to my why a god wouldn't want everyone to directly experience him/her/it if the experience is so beneficial, inspiring, etc. In previous debates, this has been typically met with, "You will have such an experience if you're really open, and god's time isn't our time." You an imagine how comforting that is to hear.

But what of interpretation? How far up the chain do we stop and assume we have the base experience? If we're to assume the principle of credulity for religious experiences, they why does attributing the experience to a specific divine being cause the warning flag to wave? What good reason does one have to doubt this? Or if Layman wants specific religious being attribution to not count, why does attributing the experience to a "divine presence" meet his criteria? Why not stop at, "I felt a really, really good and exhilarating feeling the other day. Pure joy. I was just really happy about my life"?

Zach moves on to address some of Thomas' objections. To the point that not many people have religious experiences, Zach points out that a rare experience does not mean it's not real. He brings up a superb tracker who can see things others cannot, or a musician who can hear subtle harmonies others miss. He ends with a catchall quote from the Beatitudes, "Blessed are the pure of heart, for they shall see God," and asks how many have that kind of preparation? These fall short with me. The first two are examples of natural skills or genetic giftings. Experience of god isn't dependent on your physical abilities or training. The last is just silly. Most people, plain and simple, don't make the cut for sainthood. Yet many people have these experiences. Are we to conclude that they alone are the spiritually prepared among us? Does Tim Tebow make the cut?

The next objection is that we can test sense experience but not religious experience (as I alluded to above). Zach brings up a good point that because sense experience allows for valuable predictions doesn't mean that all experiences need to meet such a criteria. He uses a great example of introspection -- can I verify that I feel sad? I'd agree with him on this one, though often our introspection still matches up with something that is verifiable. I feel sad because so-and-so said X to me. Or if I feel nebulously said and can't trace it to anything even after thinking about it for a while, my personal conclusion is to try to just shake it. It's a false signal that doesn't provide any benefit. Zach does bring out his criteria for theistic mystical experience at this point, which is helpful:

Nevertheless, there is a kind of test for Theistic mystical experience. In fact, mystical writers and spiritual directors have shown a lot of interest in distinguishing genuine experiences of God from illusory ones. The basic idea is that if the subject has experienced God's presence, certain results will follow. These include interior peace, trust in God, patience with trials, sincerity, self-forgetful charity, and not being concerned with useless matters. Criteria for identifying false or illusory religious experiences include anxiety, presumption or despair, impatience with trials, duplicity, and being concerned with useless matters. (p. 58)

One of the absolutely coolest aspects of deconverting is the fact that the same types of "Huh?!?" moments I had as a believer still happen now. Crazy coincidences, experiences of feeling very small/in awe, reinvigorating thoughts and ponderings, etc. When I first started questioning, I had a "spiritual experience" while sitting on the crapper reading Dawkins' God Delusion. It was my first time reading about how very, very small we are. I had a profound sense of smallness, imagining myself, on the crapper, whirling around in this massively empty black space that is 100 billion galaxies with 100 billion stars each. Nuts. I've also been thinking about getting together with another deconvert and had him contact me that day. Spoooooky! Or experiences of a sort of self-revelation about my shortcomings, which bring about things Layman suggests above: peace, increased patience, charity, etc. It still happens to me, despite not believing.

This concludes my thoughts on chapters two and three. I don't exactly know what to make of religious experience. I think the chapters would have been fairer had they included some testimonies of non-believers who have also had powerful experiences that produced the same kind of "fruit" that Layman presented as his criteria for "valid" theistic experiences. In the sense that he wants theistic experience to be predictive or explanatory, such benefits shouldn't be had by those who don't experience theistic experiences. If they do, I see the thought that these examples increase the prior probability that a being is causing them to occur as being reduced. At the very least, for the reasons I gave above, I really do see these in a different class than sense experience. It comes down to predictive power and replicability to me. These are the cornerstones of the scientific method. The predictive aspects Layman brings into play are actually retrospective: if the experiences produce good fruit, they were real. If people don't have them, perhaps it's because they aren't perfected in Beatitude. But there's no expectation provided that will allow us to predict who will and who won't have or how to replicate the experience by setting up controlled conditions (X years of living with Y types of virtue).

In all honestly, I think Layman is tipping the scales in his favor. He's allowing generic experience to count while omitting the fact that religious persons interpret them as validating their religion. He only wants the experience to count and not the fact that believers are primed to thinking it's their personal conception of god who did it. Given that theism is the belief that a personal god intervenes in human affairs, a god who reveals himself but won't show his face (as in, identify himself) isn't a god to care much about. After all, with that kind of god, you can't find out about his/her wants, desires, properties, and allowed sexual practices.

While it doesn't come up in the book, perhaps Layman would advocate for being a theist first and then studying the material of revelation in order to determine which theistic formulation is correct. If revelation supports a particular god, though, it should allow us to feed this belief back into the system and look at religious experiences. Thus, if Layman thinks one religion is true, he's omitting such a belief selectively to get these chapters to fly. The more intellectually honest approach would be to state it straight up right now. I'm wondering if he doesn't because the fact that he advocates for Christianity as true brings about the puzzling fact that the Christian god is bolstering the beliefs of Muslims, Hindus, Scientologists, and Mormons alike. Which again gets us back to the problem of predictive power -- if the existence of a god doesn't bring about a change in expectation with respect to a particular group's holiness, experiences, answered prayers, etc... then the belief isn't paying rent.

On "unequally yoked" marriage | Part 4 of ?

2011-12-14T20:05:00.000-08:00

This is a post among an unknown number of posts to come about "unequally yoked" marriage. Googling for "unequally yoked" produces an absurd amount of hits. I've found most to be about what to do before marriage. I'd like to write a bit about what it's like from within marriage.

Here's a link to the index for this series
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I thought it time to write another post on marriage. Things are improved yet the same. I wish I could say more than that. We had a fantastic peak in the July-September time frame. We wrapped up our marriage counseling and I think that there were some significant breakthroughs. For some time, I think I was operating under a mindset of victimhood:
-- Why are things like this?
-- Why couldn't have I deconverted sooner?
-- Why am I trapped?
-- I didn't ask for this

Things like that. Essentially unhelpful, self-pitying phrases. These are still attractive at times, and there's some truth to each of them. In the end, things are what they are. I didn't know to question my faith until I was already bound up in a lifelong relationship centered on said faith and with one child and one on the way. That's that.

In any case, we hosted my brother and his fiance during early July, and something about their relationship made me first miserable and then brought about a profound change in mindset. The misery was brought about by how happy they were. I kept thinking that if I had "found myself" earlier, I could have found someone that aligned with all that I now find exciting and interesting. On the other hand, I witnessed my brother and his fiance's relationship as very intentional and chosen. I live my life, I thought. Simple as that, and things were much different. I am the one who plays the part of me. Despite having just written the same thing twice, I still find it hard to convey both the simplicity and profundity of how I experienced that awareness. I could choose to live a romantic and fun life with my wife. It didn't have to flounder around on the brink of awfulness. I could build it as something else. And so we did for some time, and things were excellent!

I'm not sure what exactly happened. I'm thinking we didn't discuss religion during that time, for when little exchanges started popping up recently here and there, things really got worse again. I find myself becoming more and more distanced from the Christian mindset. It's become hard to imagine how others can believe some of the things I hear via my wife about sermons or talks she attends. The [what I take to be] self-centered attitude concerning "weird little things" that happen (singing a praise and worship song and then seeing the lyrics as the readings for the day) and thinking that it's god blessing one's life miraculously are just plain irritating to me now. My tolerance for things Christian is quite low.

Worst of all is the constant reminder that of my very best friends and wife, no one thinks there's anything to what I've spent two years researching, thinking about, and studying. Once revered as the geeky, nerdy researchy guy, this area is different. There's just no way I have anything worth considering. That's been really hard to live with.

Additionally, what really kills me is to know that others know they don't have reasons for belief... and for that not to bother them. As soon as I realized I had never researched Christianity on my way in, I was off to the races. I literally couldn't believe that I'd missed that part of the process. I wanted reasons for everything. I researched purchases and decisions all the time, partly because I felt like it was more intellectually honest, and partly because letting my impulses get the better of me before had burned me. I'd bought some things on a whim that weren't worth it or that I shouldn't have bought given my financial state. Those ate at me and that eating away at myself taught me to be more cautious in the future.

Interacting with people who are aware of a lack of intellectual foundation and yet still think that because they believe what their parents taught them and because they really, really, really like their beliefs, this gives them the right to make decisions which impact themselves and those around me... is like dealing with another species. I keep expecting that someone will admit that they've been pulling my leg. "John, I didn't really think that just liking my faith gave me the right to evangelize or lobby for religiously-inspired political decisions... I was just messing with you." Or raise my kids with some set of beliefs or give away a certain amount of my income to religious causes.

This is probably sounding grim. It feels grim. It has been quite the roller coaster to travel from feeling renewed and revived to feeling like I'm interacting with aliens. It sinks in more and more that the common ground that has been lost really is hugely significant. There was a time when I thought rebuilding around hobbies, interests, activities, and the like would be the way forward. I'm not always as confident anymore. There's something more defining that seems to come to play. It's not the same doing external things with others when you know that internally you have such radically different views about how the world works, what counts as knowledge, and what intellectual justification implies with respect to taking actions that have effects on others.

I still have loads of fun. I can go to parties and enjoy myself. I can talk about work, science, math, and life's events with great hilarity. Something still strikes me as "off," though. I tend to feel most alive with others who have deconverted. I find more "zest" at atheist meetup groups with those who find excitement, now, in discovering how the world works according to science, or learning how and why humans think how we do. It seems a bit troubling to find the most life in the events and people that play an extreme minority role in terms of time and frequency. It's hard to escape that it feels a bit empty being me in my situation. My hope is on a turbulent ride as of late.

Any thoughts?

Letters to a Doubting Thomas | Theism & Naturalism

2011-12-14T19:26:00.000-08:00

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This is part of a series of posts in response to "Letters to a Doubting Thomas" C. Stephen Layman.
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For the first post, I'd like to lay out Layman's groundwork first chapter. In the book, Zach (the philosopher theist) receives a letter from his long lost college friend, Thomas (the agnostic). In the first chapter, Layman presents some recurring themes that will come back up throughout the book. For example, here is his definition of theism:

Theism: (1) There is exactly one entity that is (2) perfectly morally good and (3) almighty and that (4) exists of necessity.

Conversely, he defines naturalism thusly:

Naturalism: (1) There is a self-organizing physical reality (i.e., there is a physical reality whose nature is not imposed by a god or by any other force or agent), (2) physical reality exists either necessarily, eternally, or by chance, and (3) leaving aside possible special cases (see later), all entities are physical entities.

The reason to lay out both hypotheses is that Layman states that one can only compare apples to apples. One can't simply compare theism to ~theism; one needs to compare theism, a positive argument for how the world is, to another competing set of positive claims for how the world is. This is the first mistake in the book, in my opinion. One doesn't need a comprehensive explanation for all the various items Layman is going to attempt to explain with theism in order to evaluate whether or not theism does a good job. It isn't intrinsically about theism or naturalism; it's about theism vs. ~theism.

Zach also lays out some criteria for background knowledge (logic, common sense, etc.) as well as the "principle of simplicity" for Thomas as terms for establishing the advantage of one explanation over another for the future discussion. The criteria for simplicity are (my mini-explanations in parentheses):

1. The number of things postulated (less is better)
2. The number of kinds of things postulated (less is better)
3. The simplicity of the terms (this is to avoid hiding complexity in words; the definition of the words and resultant complexity derived from the definition must also be taken into consideration)
4. The number of statements within a hypothesis that receive little or no probabilistic support from other statements contained in the hypothesis (the more terms contained in an explanation, the more likely it is to be false)

Thomas accepts the terms and immediately recognizes that theism seems, a priori more complex than naturalism due to positing more things (not only a univers, but another entity), more kinds of things (natural and spiritual things), more complicated terms (like omniscience and omnipotence), and more claims in general (he points to Zach's definitions as containing 4 terms under theism and only 3 under naturalism). Zach, somewhat surprisingly, accepts Thomas' observations:

I end where I began, agreeing with your claim that Naturalism is a significantly simpler hypothesis than Theism.

The chapter ends with a discussion about how naturalism might be self-defeating. Layman refers to the work of Plantinga on this:

Plantinga's basic idea is that, from the standpoint of Naturalism, the origin of our cognitive faculties gives us a reason to doubt their reliability. Given Naturalism, our cognitive faculties evolved without God (or anyone else) overseeing their development. Only the "blind" forces of nature were at work, e.g., random genetic mutation and natural selection...

From an evolutionary standpoint, the human brain and nervous system enable us to behave in ways that promote survival and reproduction. In other words, from the standpoint of evolution, it is behavior that matters, not beliefs. So it seems possible that humans might be successful at survival while having mostly false beliefs (and, hence, unreliable cognitive faculties).

Here's the question we have to ask: How likely is it that our human cognitive faculties are reliable, assuming that Naturalism is true (and that our cognitive faculties evolved without guidance from any intelligent being)? Plantinga argues that the probability is low or beyond knowing; and either way, Naturalism leads us to doubt the reliability of our cognitive faculties. But, as noted earlier, Naturalists themselves believe that our human cognitive faculties are reliable. Thus, Naturalism is self-defeating.

Thomas is a bit skeptical of how we might have evolved with false beliefs, and Zach responds with some more material from Plantinga, who states that ancient man could have believed a tiger was cuddly but thought the best way to run toward it was actually running away, or that he wanted to go to the tiger but also wanted to lose weight and so ran away at top speed, or runs away because he doesn't think the tiger will see him despite him wanting to be eaten. The point is that someone could believe wrongly while still surviving.

While these are somewhat "cute" examples, they seem to complicate the matter. This sword is actually going to cut two ways. Layman wants the function of "belief" to seem "too good to be true," and thus point to an intelligent creator who gave us such a faculty. The first cut of the sword is that it's not self-evident that it would be evolutionarily advantageous or equivalent to have things not turn out like they did. Could these examples above really have provided equivalent survival mechanisms? These are just snapshots of one way a belief could have been different. But beliefs are more like a web or heuristic in these cases than a rolodex of individually targeted cause/effect notecards. Thus, the above examples seem fairly ad hoc to me. It over-complicates things to come up with a system of beliefs that might have been false while still surviving.

On that note, however, we have the other side of the sword. Let's grant that an omnipotent, omniscient being provided us with "true belief" faculties that let us exercise this fantastic ability and "believe rightly." Cognitive science shows us that we don't. The faculty isn't nearly as great as we'd like to believe. Man is not rational and believes wrongly all the time. We're filled with biases and false arguments. Thus, even giving Layman what he wants, an admission that belief is just too accurate about reality to have happened by chance, does't fit his purposes of pointing to god has having implanted it. Instead, we have something more fitting of evolutionary biology. We really do have a hybrid -- beliefs that track well enough for survival, but ones that aren't tracking as we get better and better at improving our maps of the territory around us.

In any case, this example doesn't carry very far in the book. The chapter primarily sets about to establish some definitions and the principle of simplicity. The next chapter examines why Zach things theism is still worth looking at.

The Agnostic Inquirer | CUE facts favoring theism

2011-12-14T10:30:00.000-08:00

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This is part of a series of posts in response to "The Agnostic Inquirer" by Menssen & Sullivan.
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Another "meaty" section of Menssen and Sullivan's book includes a discussion of "CUE facts," that is facts that are true "conditional upon explanation." They list a slew of them that they imply favor theism:

humans have a special place in the universe
the beatitudes are original
the Judaeo-Christian doctrine of omniscience is resilient
the Judaeo-Christian doctrine of omniscience, as well as the Christian doctrine of incarnation, are fertile
consciousness has a function
humans have libertarian freedom

Now, recall that Menssen and Sullivan aim only to show that revelatory claims deserve studying prior to dismissing theism as implausible outright. They hold that if it's not altogether infeasible that an all-good creator exists, then one cannot walk away from revelations prior to investigation, or as having no merit whatsoever. I'll bite, though I'm a bit skeptical concerning the magnitude or implications of the argument, as I think many agnostics are taking into account potential revelatory content (e.g. the Bible's claims). So, here are some brief responses to some of these CUE facts.

Humans have a special place in the universe
This seems like a no-win approach to anyone. Non-believers can't really say we don't because a believer can always come up with explanations for why things are they way they are. For example, while we may be in a very unique situation with respect to our location in the galaxy, why be so wasteful as to create a universe with almost unanimously hostile-to-life conditions everywhere else? The believer can simply say that this is the only type of universe that can support life -- one that has mostly non-life and a small proportion of life. Perhaps. I just don't see how one can know one way or the other. There's too much uncertainty with respect to what exists "outside" or exited "before" our universe. How can we know that our specialness is something to look into? Moreso, how can we know that our specialness is the result of the most powerful human-like non-physical mind that's ever existed?

The beatitudes are original
I don't really have any issues with this. Jesus could have been real and an insightful man. The Tao Te Ching is also original. We can rejoice at the message in Jesus' teachings without considering that he was speaking via a channel with god. I'd also add that recent additions like Mormonism, Scientology, and the Course in Miracles are also original and have gained many followers. The uniqueness of a thing and it's attractiveness obviously do not signify truth content.

The doctrine of omniscience is resilient
All Menssen and Sullivan do here is suppose that a hypothetical world creator may not know things like we know them, and thus our concept of omniscience as simply "knowing everything" obviously falls short. Unfortunately, they haven't laid out what, exactly, omniscience is. They simply point out that because it is radically different ("For my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways, says the Lord," they quote), omniscience is resilient to scrutiny. Sure, it's possible. I've heard other explanations such as "God knows that which can be known," which is an effort to get around the oddities created by omniscience and free will/the future. This, again, falls into my bucket of "Who knows?" and "So what?"

Omniscience and the incarnation are fertile doctrines
This means that omniscience and the idea that Jesus was both all god and all man gives us a lot to think about. I'm not sure how to respond to this section. I suppose they have a point -- no one else in the theism game thought to unify god and man in an ineffable 100%+100% = 100% combo pack.

Consciousness has a function
Consciousness is a weird one. I admit that I don't know much about this. Can it all be just running "software running on hardware"? I really don't know. Here's another great example of where Messen and Sullivan appeal to common sense:

Could one of the most important things in our universe just have happened? The commonsense answer is "no," and that is the answer most scientists give as well.

I get this attitude, I just don't think it's correct. Yes, one of the things in our universe we think is most important (because we're the ones how have it), might have just happened. We really don't know. I'd be interested in how much "consciousness" other creatures have as well. Are we so sure they don't have anything like it? Again, is the fact that we can meta-think (be aware of what someone else might be thinking about someone else who's thinking about us?), think "outside" ourselves, discuss, and seek greatness a sign that a conscious, bodiless being with the perfection of what a mind is implanted such capabilities within ourselves? What always gets fascinating to me is how one supposes this came about. Coming from a Catholic background, the Catholic Church supports evolution. Is this is the one time god intervened and did something radical? Or was consciousness evolved? If it evolved, then yes, it just happened -- a mutation like everything else. If it didn't, Christians are in the position of needing to say why they need to posit an intervention of some kind, just this once in this history of biological evolution.

Humans have libertarian free-will
Again, this is another reliance on what we feel.

Looking within, it surely seems to us that we can do or refrain from doing; and there is little by way of direct evidence to show that it is an illusion, to predict human behavior in a great variety of circumstances, and human behavior is notoriously difficult to predict.

This is another one that I completely get. It's really weird to think that my sense that I can do something else isn't real. Again, though, this doesn't mean that my sense of it is accurate. This is going to take a really long time to figure out. There are some interesting writings on the subject. How would we know if we were truly free or if we were really determined? I'm not really sure. Also, as a friend of mine pointed out...

If I could definitvely prove that we had no free will, how would you act differently?
If I could definitely prove that we had free will, how would you act differently?

I think those are great questions. My first inclination was to point to a classic xkcd cartoon; how would we know who was wrong?? As I kept thinking about the questions, however, I realized the point. I wouldn't do anything differently. However the world works... that's how I'm actually living it, so I shouldn't worry about which version is real.

I will admit that the hypothesis, "We do what we do because we will it" seems a little non-predictive. Libertarian free-will simply injects mystery into the concept of action. We trace back the "why" of action only to find a "because he/she did." On determinism, we have a complex network of inputs that while not understood completely, would have produced the same result every time. This, in actuality, seems to make more sense to me than pure acausal free-will.

Summary
I don't have all the answers. I simply wanted to walk through some of the reasons Menssen and Sullivan think that religion has some things going for it. In the end, it doesn't seem that one could establish any of these claims. If one could, there would be no debates. Especially if one could establish specifically Christian variants/twists on these claims with objective facts and data... it would seem that other religions would fail to flourish in today's world. The fact that other religious not only flourish, but have done so for hundreds of years in the face of competition tells me that non can yet prove any of the others wrong.

The Agnostic Inquirer | Bayes/Inference to the Best Explanation

2011-12-03T12:26:00.000-08:00

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This is part of a series of posts in response to "The Agnostic Inquirer" by Menssen & Sullivan.
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One objection Menssen and Sullivan bring to the table is that perhaps revelatory claims cannot be evaluated because no good method is suitable for doing so. They resist the use of Bayes' theorem and put forward what they call the "Inference to the Best Explanation." I was quite perplexed by this, being an ardent follower of LessWrong, a site devoted to improving human rationality using a number of methods including, to an extremely high degree, Bayes' Theorem. Thus, I'm aware of a highly devoted community of thinkers who do believe that Bayes' Theorem is the way to go.

In any case, one of the objections was that since we need to establish the probability of an infinite number of possible worlds, no matter how small of a probability we assign to each, the individual probabilities will sum to infinity, which is intractable. But it's generally accepted that infinities don't exist in real life anyway. Thus, it would make no sense to apply Bayes' Theorem to an infinite number of infinite universes, anyway, since the only place the concept of an infinite number of universes can exist is in one's mind (and not even there, except as the simple words, "infinite number of universes").

They also object that the principle of parsimony is a valid one for examining theistic hypotheses:

When Swinburne sets up his Bayesian argument for theism, he takes the prior probability of h to be the intrinsic probability of h, and he vigorously defends the thesis that the intrinsic probability of a hypothesis is a function of its simplicity, which h takes to be an a priori matter... Yet, on close examination, the history of science might reveal that the simplest hypotheses have not proved in the main to be true.

It doesn't seem like the authors are familiar with the concept of parsimony. The best explanation is always the simplest one that accounts for all the evidence. Thus, it's not a matter of literal simplicity such as a theory about circular orbits of the planets. Sure, this has not proved to be true, despite being simpler (r² = x² + y² is simpler than 1 = x²/a² + y²/b²) precisely because such a theory failed to account for all of the evidence. But now imagine a much more complicated formula that also happens to draw the path of a particular ellipse (one escapes me). The standard elliptical formula would still hold, as it explains all evidence and is simpler. This is what is being referred to by simplicity... not just simplicity for simplicity's sake. Adding extra terms necessarily lowers prior probability, for A is always more probable than (A&B).

Next they bring up the often touted point that the numbers used are arbitrary.

The artificiality of trying to calculate the values required to apply the Bayesian approach in some areas can be illustrated by reflecting on the following question: Were the five books of the Pentateuch written by a single author, Moses?

I get the point of this question. The authors are trying to pick a complex issue filled with input from sociology, history, literary criticism, etc. to try and show how Bayes' Theorem fails to work. The problem is that it still holds. We can take all of that input and make our best estimates for probabilities and still come out with an answer. I think a great example of this is how Richard Carrier uses Bayes' Theorem to discuss the probability of the resurrection in Why I Don't Buy the Resurrection Story. He doesn't state that he knows exactly the values to use. He simply pulls facts together to support using values we could say are at the low or high end of the spectrum, and thus executes his calculations with all involved terms being "on the safe side." The same is possible for Moses and authorship of the Torah.

As their alternative, Menssen and Sullivan propose Inference to the Best Explanation (IBE) as follows:

1) If a hypothesis sufficiently approximates an ideal explanation of an adequate range of data, then the hypothesis is probably or approximately true.
2) h₁ sufficiently approximates an ideal explanation of d, an adequate range of data.
3) So, h₁ is probably or approximately true.

As you can imagine, they go one to discuss what they mean by an "ideal" explanation: valid logical form, true premises, the explanation uses a causal property in virtue of which the effect is observed, the explanation bottoms on fundamental substances and properties (unclear on this), and each of the above is satisfied to a high degree (they even state, for example, that something "may not only be true; [it] must be known to be true.").

Now, I had a quite difficult time discerning what, intrinsically, was different between this and Bayes' Theorem except that this confuses things with words and definitions rather than relying on the math. The above seem fairly obvious to me with respect to an explanation. If it's not logically valid, it's not really an explanation. If the premises aren't even true... then it clearly has issues.

And Bayes' Theorem appears to be doing exactly what Bayes Theorem is trying to do.

$$P(A|B)=\frac{P(B|A)P(A)}{P(B)}$$

This says, we want to know the probability of A (some hypothesis) given the evidence, B. This is equal to the probability that the evidence, B, would be present given the hypothesis, A, multiplied by the probability that A would hold true in general, all divided by the probability that B would occur in general. The "ideal" explanation is one in which P(A|B) ends up being very high! That's it, folks.

The formula is intended to make sure we take into account the IBE term, "an adequate range of data." If the evidence has a low probability of occurring even if we grant that the hypothesis were true (P(B|A)), this will lower the value of the numerator. If the hypothesis if far fetched on it's own... this lowers the numerator. If the evidence has a high probability of occurring on it's own, with or without the support of the hypothesis, A, (P(B)), then the denominator increases, thus decreasing the final probability that B says anything at all about A's validity.

It's unclear what issue Menssen and Sullivan have with Bayes' theorem other than their objection that number assignments are arbitrary. But if that holds... then how aren't our thought experiments and armchair ponderings arbitrary when it comes to figuring out if h₁ sufficiently approximates an ideal explanation? One might as well take a stab at some min/max values for the various probability assignments in Bayes' Theorem to determine best/worst case results. This, again, is why I linked to Carrier's article above. If Carrier can appeal to theists to grant his various values for low/high estimates for various possibilities (surviving a crucifixion, a body being stolen, etc.) and Bayes' Theorem still comes up pretty bad even with a worst case analysis favoring theism, then we've learned something.

I inquired with LessWrongers on whether Menssen and Sullivan had anything with their IBE, and the result wasn't very favorable. I get that they are already predisposed to favor Bayes, but the comments I received at least contain some food for thought.

Re. Non-Euclidean Theology

2011-11-27T21:05:00.001-08:00

I was catching up on Leah Libresco's blog, Unequally Yoked, and followed a link trail back to an earlier post of hers entitled, Playing the Consistency Game. In it, she makes some really good points (I'm glad I re-ran into it):

It can be useful for both sides to put aside the big contentious dispute and talk about how well the rest of the theory stands up, even when you grant the cornerstone premise... Don’t forget that atheists and Christians don’t just disagree on which way the evidence points, they disagree on what kind of evidence should be counted... Trying to settle the standard is intensely frustrating and leads to a lot of talking past each other. But if you play the internally consistent game, it’s easier to learn how your opposite number thinks (maybe even well enough to pass an ideological Turing Test). You can see whether, even when spotted the major premise, your opponent’s system makes predictions about the empirical world that are flat out wrong. If there aren’t any obvious misses, is it because your sparring partner has limited the real world implications of his position until they can’t pay rent? How do they respond to that criticism?

In other words, instead of getting hung up on things like epistemological methods, whether free-will or immaterial minds exist, and the like... grant such premises and then see how the belief system turns out with respect to reproducible and predictable experience/evidence.

I was happy to read this, as I think I can honestly say that this has been my primary approach, or at the very least the one I have thought would bear the most fruit. In fact, I more or less hate philosophical debates and arguments over things like this. Such discussions hardly ever go well. Ever since I embarked on my quest, I've gravitated toward lines of argumentation that even have a chance of intersecting the world we actually live in vs. a possible on in our minds or one that can only be experienced after we die.

I hope to flesh out more of these reasons in my series on why I don't currently believe in god, but for now, I'll give some examples of where I personally don't think that religious beliefs pay rent, despite being granted one or more key premises.

The Fall
This is by far my most fascinating area of pondering when it comes to apologetics. I already wrote a bit about this before, and hope to write more in the future. I'm primarily interested in the Catholic positions, as it's the position I maintained. Most particular about Catholicism in this area is its embrace of evolution while requiring firm adherence to a literal first man and woman, Adam and Eve (see the section, Adam and Eve: Real People). For me, this raises a number of issues. Given that evolution is such a slow process of mutations, it's interesting to posit that:
-- Adam had moral capacities while his father had none
-- Adam possessed the potential for eternal life while his father did not
-- Adam was in communion with God in a special way that his father did not partake in
-- Another human, Eve, arose in a close enough frame of time and space for the two to procreate

Even more basically, the point is that without theology insisting on souls, there would be no reason to posit a "hiccup" in evolution. But since souls exist and man needs to be distinct from the animals in more ways than just increased brain power, apologists are forced to insist that god intervened, just this once, to do something fundamentally radical to a living species.

Prayer
Even when granting that an omni-max being exists who hears prayers and cares about the pray-ers, we fail to see any discernible pattern in answered prayers. Some may claim there shouldn't be a pattern. I suppose this could be correct -- there could be no way to know why god answers what he does. On the other hand, it's suspicious to me that the prayers that go answered are those that could be chalked up to inexplicable medical resolutions or luck, while the prayers that would be truly radical (manna from heaven for the starving third world countries, re-growing a lost limb, praying in tongues in multiple real languages without prior knowledge, etc.) never occur.

Evangelization, the Bible and Doubt
Now that I've wrestled with this muddy realm for almost two years, something that has grown on me more and more is... just that: the realm of theology and apologetics is so muddy. It's been almost 1400 years since Muhammad and almost 500 since Luther. No religion has established itself the victor. I recall thinking about the great commission (Jesus' command to "Go, and make disciples of all nations") and the great juxtaposition I see between god's chosen evangelization tools of word of mouth/a book and how many are well aware of that book and have heard evangelistic words and gone one with their lives completely unconcerned.

I liken the fact that someone can be instilled with belief in Islam/the Koran and therefore give no thought whatsoever to the possibility that the Bible is true to the idea that because someone read Dan Brown's Da Vinci code prior to being exposed to Christianity and the Bible, he/she will not even be slightly interested in whether or not Christianity is actually true. Because there is only one divinely written book, all the rest were written by "mere" mortals. Thus, it's mortals who have been making the true god's authored book utterly uninteresting for 500 years (well, only 150 if we include Mormonism and 50 with Scientology, but we need to draw the line somewhere).

Conclusion
So, there are three areas where I think that even if one makes some hefty concessions... things still start to break down. Since science would not give us any reasons to suspect a special intervention in speciation when it comes to humans, and because Catholics support science, the fall/souls seems to be an ad hoc supposition. There's no reasons to posit it except that it has to in order to maintain theological consistency; there are souls because Jesus died to save our souls.

If we grant that god sometimes answers prayers, the competing hypothesis between chance and god's intervention seems to favor chance due to the type of prayers answered (and I'll add the location -- it is much more likely that someone in an American hospital being treated for cancer will experience a "miracle" than that a dying child in a 3rd world country will suddenly be fully healed).

Lastly, we have a fairly ineffective tool, the Bible, that god himself authored and is the primary method for the conversion of others. Scriptures, beliefs and apologetics that rival Christianity are not empty enough to make them a laughing stock or sharply drop their number of adherents. Thus, I have to grant that mortals have done a pretty good job in competing with the almighty in terms of persuasiveness, convincing scriptural content, fulfilling belief systems, supportive communities, etc.

In any case, the primary point was to highlight Leah's suggestion. I agree that it's far more fruitful to bypass the technicalities and just ask for some evidence based on granted premises. I personally find these endeavors much more exciting, interesting, and hopeful than the typical interactions about defining "matter," "mind," "cause," and the like.

The Agnostic Inquirer | The origins of the world

2011-11-27T15:13:00.001-08:00

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This is part of a series of posts in response to "The Agnostic Inquirer" by Menssen & Sullivan.
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Menssen and Sullivan take the traditional tracks of discussing causality, whether everything needs a cause, etc. My stance on cosmological arguments, ever since hearing them, has been that we just don't know. This gets mixed in with a little bit of "if cause A precedes effect B, how could there be a cause A when there was no time scale with which to call effect B "prior" to the creation of the temporal universe?" Similarly, in assuming the hypothesis is true and a timeless, spaceless, disembodied mind created the universe... how does choice occur in a non-temporal realm? We constantly refer to "states" of being. Is there a "meta-time" in which god can do such things? Nevermind that we have no frame of reference for how power and knowledge can reside in non-space.

In any case, this question simply seems beyond our reach, and it has never struck me as clear how we can trace back our existence to a specific point in space-time (the Big Bang) and then state out of our unknowing that we know exactly what the cause is/was. Even if we know there was some first cause such that we don't fall into an infinite regress... what leads us to suggest that we should start piling on human-like attributes to such a thing? A mind? A loving desire to bring about creatures to share in its/his/her goodness? The ability to design? While I get why it makes sense to suggest that a mind caused the universe because the only things that choose and decide (from our experience) are minds, as stated above we have no experience of minds not in this universe or not in an animal of some sort. Thus the extension simply doesn't hold -- one can't transfer the property of a mind in a human to a realm no human is known to inhabit and to a being nothing like a human in terms of how the mind is developed, educated, and sustained (fed with nutrients).

Furthermore, why couldn't anything be on the other side of that curtain? A universe generating force/machine/entity? A computer on which we're living this simulation? An infinite regress (I realizing most hold an actual infinity can't exist... but that's in our universe with our mathematics)? An entirely different system of logic, physics, math?

Or... perhaps we'll just never know. That's okay with me. Surely this is an unsatisfying conclusion, but it's where I currently stand. I don't think one can assert what or who caused the universe from a realm outside our experienceable universe.

The Agnostic Inquirer | Spirit interacting with matter

2011-11-27T14:19:00.001-08:00

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This post will be short, but I had to speak on it as I was surprised by it. Menssen and Sullivan cover the objection that an immaterial mind cannot interact with matter:

How could a spiritual entity interact with the physical order? How could a god, an immaterial mind, affect or move matter? If mind cannot interact with matter, then a supernatural entity cannot create a natural or physical world.

Admittedly, we have no idea how mind can move matter. But how big a problem is this? It could be monumental if it were not for one thing: in the end, we have no idea how matter moves matter. Despite what is sometimes said, we do not actually experience physical causality in any deep way. We see that matter moves matter in some sense, but we do not see why or how it happens. We see someone throw a pencil across the room: we can see the hand grasp the pencil, we can see the arm move back, and we cna see the pencil leave the hand and fly across the room. We do not, however, see the causation. Hume was right on this point: all we have are laws associating causes with effects.

While their point might be valid (I'm not an expert in physics and causality debates), what is the harm in backing up to change the question from how to whether? If they grant that we see that matter moves matter... how about establishing that mind moves matter instead of derailing the train onto discussions of why and how? There are a whole host of assumptions at play:

1) A non-physical realm exists
2) A mind can exist without a physical brain
3) A non-physical mind existing in the non-physical realm can interact with the physical realm

While we might not know how matter moves matter, our ability to know that it happens has established areas of study like static and dynamic mechanics, fluid flow, heat transfer, and the like. We can design bridges to sustain various loads, hydraulic devices which take advantage of force/pressure relationships and incompressible fluids, etc. Our ability to know that matter interacts with matter enables us to do all kinds of useful things.

What has been verified, experienced, or predicted as the result of the hypothesis that an immaterial mind can affect or move matter? The cause of the universe? Apparent miracles? These seem more like unexplained phenomenon explained by unexplained phenomenon.

This probably belongs more in a discussion of causality and determinism, but it gets fuzzy to me how we can allow intervention by an immaterial mind (will) and still maintain physical causality. Let's say a very devout and holy man is playing pool in a competition to win money for his starving family. As he makes his last shot, he prays that god would hear him and help him win. If god's immaterial mind granted the request and compensated for his slightly off shot by "tweaking" the cue ball or the ball it impacted so that he sunk the shot... how would that mesh with the realm of physics? We could know with high confidence the outcome of the shot as soon as the ball was struck -- both masses, angle of incidence, velocity, resistance of the felt, etc. The unknowns would be the exact position of all fibers in the felt and their effect, the minute air currents in the room, etc. Even so, these are fairly negligible. Let's say that initial calculations resulted in 99% confidence that the ball would miss the pocket, yet it sank. Furthermore, let's say that this continued to happen again and again. Why should anything be predictable, then? If god is able to violate physical laws, how should we behave when it comes to behaving as if physical laws are... well... laws?

In any case, I think there's a lot more to this than simply claiming that since we don't understand matter/matter interactions, there's nothing wrong with positing mind/matter interactions. We observe one, even if we lack understanding. We neither observe definitively nor understand the second.

The Agnostic Inquirer | Introduction

2011-11-27T13:19:00.001-08:00

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This is part of a series of posts in response to "The Agnostic Inquirer" by Menssen & Sullivan.
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Having just finished two heavily philosophical apologetics books (this and Letters to a Doubting Thomas), I'll start by saying that the more I experience philosophy, the more I'm convinced I hate it. I don't think this is because I only took rudimentary courses in philosophy during college, either. I think it's because I'm less and less convinced that philosophy offers us much that even has a hope of intersecting with testable reality (much like theology, actually). In other words, after 331 pages of heady literature, I'm left wondering whether any of the conclusions drawn would lead to any noticeable differences in the world if they weren't true.

The case laid out by Menssen and Sullivan is as follows:

1) If it is not highly unlikely that a world-creator exists, then investigation of the contents of revelatory claims might well show it is probable that a good God exists and has revealed.
2) It is not highly unlikely that a world-creator exists
3) So, investigation of the content of a revelatory claim might well show it is probable that a good God exists and has revealed.
4) So, a negative conclusion concerning the existence of a good God is not justified unless the content of a reasonable number of leading revelatory claims has been seriously considered.

You might read that and think, "That's it?" Indeed, you would be correct to ask that. After trudging through this book, I think the same thing. Even if Menssen and Sullivan succeed, all they've shown is that one should add revelatory claims to the list of evidence to be considered. They don't list which revelatory claims, mind you; they simply make the case for including them in the apologetics arsenal. Perhaps I'm not as philosophically savvy as I need to be to realize if this is a massive leap in the land of apologetics, though.

From this outline, they spend a reasonable amount of energy on premise 2. To their credit, they handle a whole slew of possible objections to the possibility that god might exist, including:

The world might have popped into existence
The world might have caused itself
Am immaterial minor cannot interact with the physical order
There is no need to examine revelation due to the problem of evil
No method exists for examining revelatory claims
Revelatory claims lack explanatory power

That's essentially the book -- a defense of why one can't be an intellectually justified non-believer without examining revelatory claims. To be fair, they actually cover a fair bit of the traditional apologetic grounds in order to defend their premise that one can't outrightly dismiss revelation as having no value (such as their treatment of cosmology and the PoE). For this review, I'd like to comment on a few of their specific rebuttals above. Find these in separate posts that are part of this series.

The Agnostic Inquirer | The Problem of Evil

2011-11-27T13:13:00.001-08:00

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Instead of dealing directly with the problem of evil, I'd like to focus on some of the sub-chapters in this section of the book. To start their case, Menssen and Sullivan lay out three alternatives for a world-creator: it is amoral, partly wicked, or wholly good. In covering amorality, my primary issue is the same with all discussions of morality (and properties of god, in general) -- the reliance on human intuitions.

For example, Menssen and Sullivan propose a thought experiment to show that a world creator couldn't be amoral and line up with our intuitions about what the responsibilities of a world-creator would be:

You are a laboratory scientist curious whether it is possible to breed hairless dog-faced monkeys -- and you undertake the experiment and succeed -- you have some special responsibility for the monkeys. You cannot, for instance, just toss the monkeys into a fire once you have satisfied your curiosity. Creation of sentient beings caries with it responsibilities. And creation of rational beings carries additional responsibilities. It is one thing for a laboratory scientist to breed hairless dog-faced monkeys; it is quite another to breed hairless dog-faced humans.

This passage brilliantly highlights why apologetics is such a muddy and laborious area of study. First, we're taking our assessment of what a human would be responsible for and projecting it onto god. There's also the huge assumption that the cosmic analog of a human scientist with full awareness created a universe containing 10 sextillion stars with 10 quadrillion planets during something of an intention-filled lab experiment and is now responsible for the care taking of all sentient life-forms on a single planet. A better analogy would be that NASA is responsible for collecting and taking care of all of the bacteria that grow on space vehicles and satellites prior to launch so that they don't die. It isn't impossible that a world-creator isn't aware of our small corner of the universe!

In any case, even if we grant that this thought experiment holds, it's a double edged sword. For where is this morally responsible father god when his sentient beings are dying of hunger because this designed world has such a poor distribution of farmable soil, climate and precipitation? Accusations of responsibility immediately have something to say about the Problem of Evil (though, to their credit, the authors will argue that human happiness isn't an acceptable standard for judging whether this world is the kind a good world-creator would create).

Nevermind this, however, because there's always the catch-all trump card: heaven. Divine justice will be served. Those poor and weary ones in 3rd world countries will eat their fill at god's table, so while it's unfortunate and we should try to help them, all will be made well in the end. Nevermind that there's no way to verify this. It's the final stone in the theist's air-tight but untestable hypothesis. This is why apologetics is so frustrating. There's no way to establish truth claims as reliable. If there were, only one true religion would be standing today. Instead, we have the exact opposite. The pure fact that no religion can prove another wrong is exactly the reason why people are within their consciences to throw coexist and tolerance bumper stickers on their cars. These stickers should cause believers to spend their prayer time focused on only one thought: "Where are you, God, that so many can live happily astray and ignorant of you?"

Next up, Menssen and Sullivan discuss the possibility that god is partly wicked. They quote Hume's Philo which hypothesized that there are four alternatives for the first causes of the universe: that they were all good, all wicked, partly good/wicked, or neither good or wicked (amoral). Hume concluded that amoral causes were the most likely given the evidence (the world's apparent apathy for living creatures). Menssen and Sulilvan piggy-back on this, stating that because the universe is so consistent, it is unlikely that there is either a 1) team of creators or 2) a single creator with divided moral properties. While I see their point, I disagree. Using consistency and physical laws as predictors for moral character seem unreliable. Regardless of your thoughts on the morality of a creator, physical laws really do seem amoral. I'm not sure how one would say that it's [im]moral for a world creator to bring about a universe with physical constants and laws. Morality only matters when discussing interactions with other beings.

They move on to discuss cacodaemonies, attempts to explain the existence of good in the presence of a purely evil demon, essentially anti-theodicy. They begin by making the point that it's evil as a privation of good that is the standard definition, not the other way around. You can understand goodness without reference to it being lost but not the other way around. For the most part, I get this. At the same time, I can ask, "Would you like this juicy apple?" and "Would you like a fervent beating?" without referring to either not having the apple or not having the beating. Both questions would be answered without having to explain what it's like not having the apple or not having the beating. Or perhaps they assume that the default not-getting-beaten state is a "good" and this would be lost once the beating commenced. If so, the not-eating-a-juicy-apple state would be "bad" and be lost once the apple begins to be eaten. It seems like more of a neutral start that can be improved or degraded to me.

I realize it was published after their book, but the authors might be interested in Stephen Law's Evil God Challenge, which attempts to do this exact thing -- challenge the theist to show why standard theodicies cannot be inverted to defend the existence of good in a world ruled by an omni-max evil being.[1]

Moving on, Menssen and Sullivan go on to claim that no non-theistic standard for "world grading" exists. In other words, there is no possible way that an atheist can establish a coherent system which allows for the claim that our world is less good than any other real or possible world. They discuss some potential systems which might be used: happiness (utilitarian calculations), aesthetics, morality, and various functional standards.

For utilitarian calculations, I find it odd that they object due to the current inability to sum human happiness: "And anyway, a usable standard of goodness requires more than an 'in principle possibility' that happiness or pleasure or utility can be summed." Compare this to their definition of "possible world": "We are committed to no more than the idea that one could suppose that there are worlds different than our own." Why can I not suppose that some future development will allow utilitarian calculus to emerge? Or think that at least, in principle, if we could read minds or know the state of a person's mind/life, we could assign some type of "happiness value" to him/her? Another objection put forth is that summing happiness might allow the happiness of the many to be "purchased by the suffering of the few." But we could include in our summation a coefficient that weighted suffering more heavily than happiness so that this type of world wouldn't come out ahead of a better one with less suffering. Note this aspect of EbonMusing's posited moral system, Universal Utilitarianism:

Always minimize both actual and potential suffering; always maximize both actual and potential happiness. One final point of importance is that the two halves of universal utilitarianism, as given above, should be considered to be in logical order. That is, actual and potential suffering should be minimized before maximizing actual and potential happiness.

This system does just what I suggested above -- weight suffering more heavily than happiness. I simply want to point out that the objection is not very hefty. Given that such a calculus does not exist, we can construct it to combat any number of these types of fears.

Next up in objecting to utilitarian standards, they suggest that there is no reason to suspect that a world-creator is obligated to put human happiness and preference-satisfaction as the highest aim. Since humans value human preferences as higher than animals, why shouldn't we value a god's preferences as higher than our own? Fair enough, but one has yet to establish how we can determine god's preferences and understand why they are contradictory to human happiness and preference satisfaction. Even if one can do this, the apologist has a pretty heavy burden of explaining why god's preferences are contrary to minimizing suffering, which is a far cry from satisfying happiness and preferences. We're not talking about my desire to upgrade my rusting-out '95 Mazda Protege; we're talking about people who haven't eaten in weeks or who have very curable illnesses but lack of resources or access to proper treatment. Also, surely even a powerful master can be summoned if need is great enough and worthy enough (since we're speaking about revelation, dare I cite the widow in Luke 18?).

The use of aesthetics is another possible standard that Menssen and Sullivan suggest. I don't find it noteworthy and will pass on commenting. Next, they look at moral standards. I find it odd that they only cover one angle -- Kant's belief that a world without freedom is a world without goodness. They respond that too much freedom might result in a world with too much sorrow and pain to call it, as a whole, "good." But what of this when it comes to the free-will theodicy for the PoE? This is precisely what apologists claim: that without freedom, there would be no morally significant action and, thus, god couldn't have created a world with both free creatures and a guaranteed lack of evil. Now we hear that this is precisely why we don't have more freedom (because otherwise we could have too much suffering)? One can't have it both ways. To hold to this, Menssen and Sullivan would need to show that the world has precisely the freedom necessary to give it the property of allowing morally significant action while not allowing too much sorrow and pain. If freedom is a continuum, why can't we turn it down some more to eliminate some suffering?

Lastly, they try various "functional standards." In other worlds, hypothesize a function/purpose for the world and then claim it's not meeting it. I agree with them that functions for the universe and organisms make little sense in non-theistic language. The universe exists, living things exist... that's about all that can be said from the non-theist's point of view.

Having covered these possible standards, they cover the case that says (paraphrased), "Well, I might not be able specify an exact standard, but this world just plain doesn't make the cut, whatever the standard is." This is the intuitionist case: the world seems like it could be better even though I might not be able to define the measurement used to land "better" on some scale. They offer three objections.

First, it's hard to say whether a state of affairs is unqualifiedly good or bad. Sometimes it has to be considered relative to something else. Getting a cavity is a good thing, but only compared to the bad state of having a cavity in the first place. I get this, though I think we have plenty of bad to work with in the world without it needing to be referenced against some comparative good (a woman being raped, someone getting killed, starvation, etc.). Their second objection is that one might not even be able to tweak something while keeping everything else constant. Thus, it might not make sense to suggest that some instance of suffering could just be removed from the world since the world might not work like that. Similarly, the third and most powerful objection (in my opinion) essentially suggests that god might have created a world most optimized for good, even though it contains bad. To tinker with little bits might start on grappling with the Butterfly Effect, and thus we can't be sure that removing some instance of bad/evil won't produce even more bad/evil or a reduction of resultant goods. This is a very tricky one, and without being able to know all results from an action, it's very tough to say one way or the other. Given the vast number of instance of suffering in the world and throughout time, however, it's very, very, very difficult for me to concede that none of them could be removed without negatively impacting the universe.

After covering non-theistic options, I expected them to discuss theistic standards for grading worlds. They didn't really do this! All they say is that the theist can simply claim that the world is ordered to a good god and call it a day. How unsatisfying! They then transition by stating that a more accurate question might not be grading the world by itself, but grading how the goodness in the world exists in complement with god. Thus they present their case for why this is a world worth creating:

Still, many agree that the promise built into human beings, the beings of wondrous worth, the promise that can be brought to fruition by the ever-reliable promises of a good God, makes this world, with all its grief, a world worth creating, even though the world as we know it is passing away. In short, this is a world a good God could create if it is a world perfused by God's transforming love -- and is followed by an afterworld of the right kind.

Does the creator's love perfuse the world?

Anything due a creature is due on account of something already existing in the creature. But when a creature does not even exist, there is nothing in it to which something is due. Hence, any being owes its existence and ultimately all that is has and does to a primordial act of loving-kindness and mercy on the creator's part. If, then, there is a creator, love and mercy perfuse the world.

I'm not catching the immediate connection between creating a creature and doing so out of obvious love and mercy. What of those bald-faced monkeys? Was the act of the scientist one of "loving-kindness and mercy?" If not, why not?

Also, they've established an empty tautological definition: "This is a world a good god could create if it is a world perfused by God's transforming love." Why use the world "if" in the claim... if we already know that a good god, by definition, creates a world perfused by love? These are meaningless arguments if there is no way for the world not to be the world a good god would create because it is not perfused by god's love. We end up with "this is the world a good god would create because it is the world a good god would create."

What of not being able to establish these claims with certainty?

If what we have said offers any help, it certainly is not enough. Nor are the revelatory traditions completely satisfying. And it looks as though no entirely satisfactory explanation should be expected this side of the world's last night. Yet perhaps revelatory traditions, backed by whatever philosophy can muster, can provide enough of an explanation of the problems of evil and good for an inquirer to conclude that the world began with love, will end with love, and is moved by love all the while -- appearances notwithstanding

Here again we have reference to a temporal-spatial curtain. The best we can do is hope that despite appearances (and what else do we have to go on?) there's a separate world that has never been verified where all of this will finally make sense and be made right? What's happened is that Menssen and Sullivan have introduced language about moral responsibility and owing all of one's life to a creator due to its act of supreme "loving-kindness and mercy," and then explained the inability to verify this in the actual world we experience by asserting that there is some other world which, by definition, no living human has experienced. Pardon me if as an agnostic inquirer, I'll state that revelatory traditions along with "whatever philosophy can muster" have not convinced me that the world was created with love, will end with it, and is sustained by it at every moment.

Footnotes

[1] For more on the Evil God Challenge, see:
-- Interview with Stephen Law on CommonSenseAtheism
-- A rebuttal by Edward Feser
-- Stephen's response to Feser

Book Series: The Agnostic Inquirer | Menssen & Sullivan

2011-11-27T13:05:00.001-08:00

In the following series, I'll be posting my notes on selected bits from The Agnostic Inquirer by Sandra Menssen and Thomas Dullivan. This book is part of the reading I am undertaking in my quest for the truth about god, heavily inspired by the Ultimate Truth-Seeker Challenge (Easy Version) from Common Sense Atheism.

This book was recommended by a friend, and I finally finished it a couple of months ago. It was a heck of a read. Laborious, tedious, and filled with some of the most tentative language I've run across in any apologetics book or blog thus far ("we might just find that," "it seems to us that," "one could possibly conclude that," etc.). I won't cover the whole book, which is highly organized into sections, but just a few areas of interest. These are two professors from my own university; perhaps we'll dialog in person sometime! Here are the posts in this series:

Cumulative Case: My Story (2 of 5)

2011-11-22T20:07:00.001-08:00

6:15 - 6:35a: Wake up, dress, and get ready for the day
6:35 - 6:45a: Clean the dorm (by doing your assigned chore, e.g. sweeping, wiping down the bathroom, etc.
6:45 - 6:50a: Exit the dorm and line up outside
6:50 - 6:55a: Walk to the chapel and get seated
7:00 - 7:45a: Prayer service (which rotated; Mon was non-denominational Christian, Tues was Jewish, Wed was Catholic Mass, Thu was Presbyterian, Fri was non-denominational. You didn't have to believe in religion x, but you did have to be present, be respectful, and participate (like with songs, responses, etc.))
7:45 - 8:15a: Breakfast
8:15 - 8:30a: Chores (clean up common area) and get to class
8:30 - 12:00p: Morning classes (M/F featured periods of 50min, I think, and T-Th featured 40min periods)
12:00 - 1:30p: Lunch
1:30 - 1:50p Chores and get to class
1:50 - 5:00p: Afternoon classes
5:00 - 6:30p: Dinner
6:30 - 6:45p: Clean up
6:45 - 8:30p: Homework
8:30 - 8:45p: Clean up and head to chapel
8:45 - 9:00p: Night chapel service
9:00 - 9:45p: Return to dorms, night time showers (4min timed showers), lights out

This is from memory, but I think it's pretty accurate. Weekends were a little different -- they involved a more "extended" set of chores, assigned on a rotating basis to each family group, such as washing the 15 passenger vans (used for trips in to town for student doctor/dentist visits), doing laundry, cleaning the school building, etc. Weekends also featured some extended rec time, usually meaning 1-2hrs in the gymnasium. I got pretty good at basketball as there really wasn't anything else worthwhile to during that time!

I also need to note that the somewhat massively long school day featured 8 periods on M/F and 11 on T-Th. These periods included study halls (I'd say the average kid had between 5-10 study hall periods amongst the 47 total periods per week) as well as any extra-curricular activities. For example, I played soccer, so during the fall my last period on M/F and last two periods on T-Th were scheduled as soccer. Same for being in choir, drama, art, woodcarving, etc. There were also periods scheduled for various chores. A couple days a week you might have a period scheduled for lunch or dinner prep (helping cook, do dishes, deliver food, and set tables) or laundry. Laundry deserves a special mention. All of 240ish kids had to "intake" their clothes, which meant writing your initials in Sharpie somewhere on them. This meant everything -- shirts, pants, socks, underwear, etc. You also got a laundry bag with your name on it. Each family had two days per week assigned to laundry. As you wore clothes, they went in your bag. Two days a week, you would bring your bag down to the laundry area (in a big red barn near the building with the eating areas) and drop them off. There were about eight washers and five dryers in two rooms, one for girls and one for guys. Crews were assigned to laundry throughout all the class periods of the day, as assigned by their schedules. You washed clothes one-washer-per-person, dried them two-persons-per-dryer, and then folded the clothes afterward, matching the intake with the bag. At the end of the day, the bags were hauled to the dorms and thrown into the middle (biggest) dorm room to be put away by the owners at night. It was quite the operation. Laundry ran all day, every day.

There were also a complex series of "sanctions" (read, "punishments") for various things. You could be assigned to have a senior member (trusted student) follow you everywhere, you could have your food portions reduced or replaced with tuna, be put in the corner so that you had to sit facing a corner all day long, or even put on a standing sanction where you would stand 50min of every hour... all day long. It was pretty intense.

There are essentially two types of students that enter the school: compliers and rebellers. I was of the former type. I did what I was told, behaved, and just went along for the ride. I didn't really understand the twelve steps or whether I was an alcoholic or not, but it didn't really matter in the beginning. You have plenty to do -- adjust to the schedule, memorize various prayers/twelve steps, get into your classes, tons of homework, extra-curriculars, and lots of chores. I've always done fine in school. I had a 3.7 in high school up until entering the Family School, and I graduated (sorry to spoil the ending of this saga) as valedictorian (of a class of 25!). I memorized what I needed to fairly quickly. I started meeting with my sponsor, an assigned staff member who is to guide you through the twelve steps. This was a difficult portion of life there throughout. The first three steps essentially boil down (as is often said by AA-ers), "I can't, He can, so I'll let him."

In other words, you need to make an admission of personal powerlessness and come to the conclusion that only a power greater than yourself (aka God) can restore you to sanity (proper functioning, a non-destructive lifestyle, etc.) (steps 1 & 2). The logical conclusion, therefore, is to surrender your will and life over to that being (step 3). Much emphasis is placed on having a proper first step. Without truly believing that you are powerless, it is said, you will not be able to work the rest of the steps as if your life depended on it. I don't know how much I believed all of this, but I did buy in and think that I was an alcoholic or addict of some sort. I was able to see how my actions were different from my friends (taking extra risks to get high/drunk, using substances alone, perhaps obsessing about the next opportunity rather than going on with my life, etc.). These types of realizations helped me with the first step.

In any case, I was a pretty good kid for about a year. I was well-liked, trusted, and earned more responsibility. I will say that my emotions were insane. By that I mean that I had previously been quite a sensitive kid -- prone to crying easily when yelled at, insecure, etc. Drugs had a definite effect of "hardening me." I didn't feel as much as I had before. I was able to harden myself to the effect my behavior had on my parents. Once at the school, all of the emotions came back. Without drugs, I found myself just like I had been. I was very sensitive, would tear up if picked on, and so on. It was crazy. They say that your emotional age stops when you use a substance in an addictive manner, and I'm prone to agree! Around the end of my first year at the school, I got in trouble. I don't really want to paint in all of the details, but let's just say that I was caught being a hypocrite. I had gotten someone in big trouble for not paying attention and was guilty of the exact same thing myself.

I need to backfill briefly. At lunch and dinner, the school holds "table topics." This is where the peers in your family group are able to submit concerns to the staff members, and the staff look through the concerns and decide which ones to handle. A "concern" could be like so (written on an index card and handed in): "Bring up John for not doing his chores for the 5th time in a row. He needs a consequence" The staff would ask John to get up in front of everyone, the writer of the card would address the concern, and John would respond. The conversation would go from there. If John discussed what was causing him to intentionally or unintentionally not do his chore, things might go fine. If not... me might get have a sanction applied.

So... I got brought up in front of the group and was accused of all kinds of things: skating by on personality/humor, trying to be too much of a nice guy, not internalizing the principles of the school, etc. My image came tumbling down. I stonewalled. I just stopped responding. I can't really recall if I was angry or just embarrassed or what. I got put in the corner. A lot of feelings that probably never really left started festering. My mind went to work. I hated it there. I didn't want to be there. I just wanted to go back home and live life how it used to be.

I decided to run away. This was a fairly common occurrence. Kids would bust out during the day or, more frequently, at night from the dorms. I put some warm clothes under my bed, drank a ton of water so I would wake up, and went to bed. I awoke to go to the bathroom, got dressed in my bed, and made my break. Keep in mind, though... this was January in upstate New York. The main fault of most runaways is to stay on the road. Rural NY doesn't have much going on and thus the main road is constantly littered with staff members who pick up runaways and bring them back. I was smarter: I stayed in the woods. The problem was that there was about 18" of snow. I managed to make it nearly into the nearest town when I came upon a house in my path. I didn't want to trek all the way around it (deeper into the woods), and so I got on the road to bypass it. Within minutes, two staff members passed by going opposite directions and both stopped. I gave up and went back. By the end of my journey my feet were freezing and my hamstrings were cramping every time I lifted my feet out of the deep snow to take a step. Running away sucked. Why couldn't I have gotten in trouble and runaway in the summer?

Once back at the school, I got in some more trouble but was able to ride a common assumption toward receiving better treatment: that a runaway experience is cathartic in some way. Essentially, most runaways tend to have "gotten it out of their system" and do rather well afterwards. I think this is how many thought of me. I was more or less left alone for a couple of weeks until a close friend asked a simple question, "So, have you made a decision yet?" He was referring to a somewhat lingering loose end about my getting in trouble and breakdown, having to do with me wanting to "just go back to how it was." He wanted to know whether I'd really decided to cash in my past-life chips and move on, committed toward sobriety... or whether I still wanted to just live my old life. I told him that I didn't know. The next day, I was brought up in front of the group again. Enough was enough was the word. I'd been there too long to skate by and not make a decision. I clammed up again and was angry. They told me that I'd now be put on a standing sanction to try and force me to make a decision. Right then I knew I'd be running away again. I was more determined than ever to be done with the Family School. The best part was that a lot of snow had left since the last time, even though it was mid February. That night, I did the same thing I had previously. I left and would not return for several days.

At this point, this post has become longer than I anticipated. I'm bumping my story up to span four posts as a result. My apologies for this being a bit of a jumbled read. It's quite hard to describe the world I lived in for two and a half years since it is like about nothing anyone has ever heard of before! Stay tuned for my climactic initial conversion in Part 3.

Plans to "come out" soon!

2011-10-31T22:33:00.000-07:00

I've got a lot of things cooking lately.

As you may have noticed, I started an index for Letters to a Doubting Thomas, which means a lot of work writing up thoughts
I've got comments to write for The Agnostic Inquirer as well
I've got two posts to finish on Faith and Certitude from more than a year ago
I'm working on a second draft of my analysis of Fortune Hi-Tech Marketing
I've been slacking on homeowner duties... rebuilding snowblower carburetor (I'm in MN, remember?), putting film on any leaky windows, taking out window AC units, etc.
Did I mention I'm a husband with two kids?

Nevertheless, I'm really pushing to get my "statement of nonbelief" finished and sent to those who still don't know. My wife and I were involved in a Catholic campus outreach which led us to become lifelong professed members of a community for Catholic singles and families. Many of these folks (probably in the couple of hundreds) still don't know after almost two years that I no longer believe in god. Heck, even my non-immediate family doesn't know -- I got asked to lead Thanksgiving prayer a year ago and that certainly didn't feel like the time to say something, so I just made something up on the spot.

One could make the case for having done this sooner, perhaps especially with family given the situation above. It's just so awkward and difficult... and I don't want to have the same one on one conversation over coffee many hundred times. Thus, I settled on a document/statement format.

I'm at the point where I'm comfortable enough in my non-belief and don't foresee anything changing unless something really radical occurs that I'd like to inform them of my non-belief in the very near future. I now have a completed draft I've been showing around a bit, and hope to have the final draft done in a couple of weeks. At that point I'll mass email it around and brace myself.

I'm wondering if any of my readers would like to take a look at it and provide feedback. I've done this with a few already, but I'd be particularly interested in hearing from any who have been through this sort of thing and could provide input as to my approach, format, verbosity, etc. I targeted a very non-debate-inspiring document almost entirely devoid of any specific reasons for my deconversion. At least one person who's read this disagreed with me and made the point that this might be the only time that some actually see arguments against the faith. I definitely got the point, but I've just had such bad experiences when conversations turn to specifics, that I'm still fairly firm in my original decision. I want this document to be primarily about understanding what I went through. My intuitions (which can and have been horridly wrong) have led me to imagine someone reading my statement (again, about understanding me), coming to my list of reasons, popping open a draft email or notes program, and starting to type rebuttals and lists of books that prove me wrong. At that point it's game over for the mission. It's now a debate focused on the content only, not the understanding I want to build between myself and those around me.\

In any case, comment with an email address if you'd like to take a look at my draft (and please conceal it, for example: "jw [dot] hendy; I use gmail"). I'm excited to finish, and think that it will mark a significant turning point in my journey -- I appreciate the assistance and support of others I've had along the way.

Many thanks and stay tuned for the final document.

Cumulative Case: My Story (3 of 5)

2011-10-26T21:33:00.000-07:00

This is part of a series in which I present a cumulative case for why I don't believe in god. The series index is here.

This particular post presents my personal story as background information and is one of five parts. Part 1 covered my early life through some of high school. Part 2 covered my first year at a Twelve Step boarding school. This post will present my initial conversion experience. Part 4 will document my time at college and early years in marriage and part five will present the events surrounding my deconversion.
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When we left off, I had just made my second escape from the Family School. I was more determined than ever to never return. I stayed to the woods, which were much more friendly this time due to much of the snow having melted. On my first trip, I failed to mention that I passed by a cabin in the woods. My feet had been freezing at the time and, after knocking on the door to verify that no one was home, I rested on the porch for some time, trying to massage my feet into a warmer state. I came upon this cabin again. It seemed like someone's summer residence, as there were no tire tracks in the snow, no footprints, no sign of anyone living there. I knocked again just to be sure. From where I'm not exactly sure, but an idea arose in my mind. Rather than limit myself to the porch, I decided to break in. I heaved a rock through the basement window and crawled in. Unfortunately, I found the door to the upstairs locked. After trying various ways to get it open, I crawled back out and threw another rock through the living room window. I went in and began to explore. My main goal was to get drunk. I had been at the school for a year, was incredibly angry about my existence there, and think that in addition to simply feeling the effects of intoxication (to escape), I also wanted to do something that would "give a middle finger" to the school. As counter-intuitive as that seems, that's what was going through my mind. Somehow I concluded that I could exact some kind of emotional revenge by doing what they didn't want me to do.

In any case, I did find some alcohol. It was somewhat surreal. I actually found what I hoped for and it came time to decide whether I was really about to throw my year of sobriety down the drain. I did. I found a radio and listed to some classic rock for a while and then packed a bag with helpful supplies (extra socks, bread, water, alcohol) and left. I made it into town late that night and had no idea what to do. I walked all the way through the town (it only takes about 20min) and came up on a highway department site right before the on ramp to the highway. There were a lot of yellow service trucks there and several happened to be open. I slept there for the night, though it wasn't good sleep at all. It seemed I had traded less snow for colder temperatures. It was about 10F (according to the outside thermometer at a nearby bank), and my pained feet would wake me up after a short time and I'd have to pace around and stomp them to keep warm.

The next day I entered the town's diner and just sat there. I asked for water with no money to buy anything. They tend to know a runaway when they see one and, for whatever reason, take kindly to them. They gave me some coffee and a sandwich for no charge. I was warned that staff would be coming in throughout the day to look for me (like I said, they must have quite a lot of experience with runaways). This ended up happening later that afternoon. A staff and student came in and sat down on either side of me. They said I looked like crap and asked if I was ready to go back. I said I was and we walked out to the car. Just as we got to the car, though, I ran off again into the woods. I hid there until much later that night and then returned to the diner. I should mention that throughout this time I was drinking the alcohol I stole -- I was in somewhat of a perpetual buzz.

While in the restaurant, a younger gentleman came and sat down. It came up that I had run away from the school and he started expressing his distaste for it (it seems that quite a few of the townspeople don't like it, actually). In any case, he was quite kind to me and gave me some cigarettes. Somehow it came up that he had some pot and I asked if I could get high with him. He agreed and once the restaurant closed, we left together. We drove off somewhere and I got high. It was quite odd. I recall the feelings being very similar to how they had always felt, but at the same time would almost describe it as being able to watch myself with a more "mature mind," knowing full well that this was pointless and wrong. One other way to put it would be, perhaps, that I was unable to fully enter in to the experience -- a part of me was shaking it's head even as the other part was partaking.

I slept in another pickup that night, and returned to the diner the next day. Soon enough, a staff and two students came in, but this time not so cordially. I made a break for the back door but couldn't unlock it in time to get out. I was more or less seized and not released until I was in the back seat with a student on either side. Once we got back to the school, I contemplated making a break for it one more time, but in trying to decide if I could outrun everyone and whatever other micro-evaluations were going on... I lost my chance.

My face was red from the cold. I hadn't showered in a few days. I didn't have much sleep in me, either. I looked and felt like crap -- this was only intensified by having to face everyone who was still back at the school -- disappointed staff and students. It's like it all sinks in over several hours: shame, helplessness, some despair about ever leaving... It's an awful feeling. The repercussions for a second runaway are quite a bit more severe. My shoes were taken and I wore only shower flip flops (to reduce the likelihood of me gallivanting through the woods again), I was on "double shadow" (where two students have to monitor me all day, everyday), and most importantly, I was put onto what is known as "work sanction." Work sanction entails being temporarily suspended from classes to do work. This is typically done when someone is perhaps failing classes or so rebellious that they aren't putting any effort toward school anyway. There can be several aims: to punish you for not doing what you're supposed to, to "get the body working so the mind will follow", or to show you the pointlessness of your rebellion (e.g. a student may be made to clean rocks outside with a toothbrush all day and then just throw them back afterward). For the family group I was in, work sanctions were simply automatic after a second runaway attempt.

For a week and half, I would spend all morning in study hall to read AA literature, and I spent the afternoon paving a dirt road with pebbles. There was a huge pile of rocks and I would fill two 5 gallon pickle buckets with pebbles, carry them several hundred feet, and then dump them out on the dirt road to pave it. We did this for several hours every afternoon. I did this in flip flops. In February. Needless to say, you're quite tired at the end of the day. I was also in the corner and standing, which only added to the difficulty.

For whatever reason, I couldn't contain my secret anymore about the house. I confessed to having broken in. This brought about quite a lot of activity. I had to make a statement and be formally arrested for the crime (handcuffed and brought before a judge to be arraigned). I was informed that my charges were to be 3rd degree burglary, a felony, with the potential for a six year prison sentence. It was crushing news. It also began my conversion.

I want to spend a brief moment discussing my spiritual journey thus far in the story, which I've left out so far. Recall that I became Catholic in Part 1. The Family School had a parish priest who spent an immense amount of time and energy with the kids at the boarding school. He held confessions, talked to anyone who requested his time, said Mass on Wednesday mornings and Sunday evenings, and held retreats every single weekend for Family School kids. He was insanely generous and probably one of the most loving, caring, passionate, spiritually energetic, disciplined, wise, and kind men I've ever met. That statement stands regardless of whether we still line up on views about the supernatural realm. He was one of my heroes. During that first year, I did try to take the faith life more seriously. Despite becoming Catholic, religion was previously a way for me just to fit in and avoid feeling awkward. It really did start to become something I took interest in. The priest there helped that, and the immense spiritual/prayer focus of the school in general also inspired this. I tried praying sincerely and tried "living my life for god." I guess I don't recall if I had any sense of what that was or meant, but I tried nonetheless. I began having an awareness of god, at least, to the extent that I was "meta-aware" of when I did things I thought were probably not pleasing to him (saying something inappropriate or looking at a girl's butt or chest, for example).

Back to my conundrum. I would caution one from taking a simple "foxhole" categorization view of this event. I don't consider that my response to all of this was as simple as, "god, get me out of this and I'll never drink again." It was more than that. For the first time, I really had to admit that I had screwed myself purely for the sake of getting drunk. Yes, everything I put my parents through was horrible, but I think there was some degree of thinking that I wasn't "that bad" compared to others at the school, or that I never got any "real consequences" from my actions. Well, here it was. I had just done what I never would have thought I was capable of. I broke into a house to get drunk and now faced some incredibly serious charges. I should also mention that the Family School sends kids on a tour (kind of like Scared Straight) regularly and I had attended one of these tours a few months previous. Having seen a prison, I was fairly sure that I would never live through one. This brought about the realization that I had literally forfeit my life through my actions. I had some very intense times of prayer, and they weren't of the foxhole type -- they were simply an admission of complete powerlessness (I had literally put control of my life into someone else's hands) and an admission that god was god and I was not. I surrendered my life unto god (I would say this was, essentially, declaring my allegiance to live according to god's ways).

I went to court for my sentencing and received what's known as a Youthful Offender status: my felony was reduced to a misdemeanor and my record would be sealed and erased contingent on certain conditions such as completing my time successfully at the Family School and completing three years of probation (no drugs, good grades, attending AA meetings, etc.). Obviously this was quite the reprieve. I was overjoyed. I believed that god had given me a second (or nth) chance to live a good life. I devoted myself to god, to the twelve steps, and to a path of sobriety. I became even more devout and intent on being spiritually healthy and living a live pleasing to god. Despite still having to work out of some messes (still in the corner, on work sanction, and behind on school work), I couldn't have cared less. I would have done about anything. I regained trust fairly quickly -- others could see a real change and knew I meant it this time.

I finished out the rest of my time at the Family School and graduated in December of 2002. My parents were able to take me home to visit some colleges toward the end of that year, and I chose the University of St. Thomas (UST) in St. Paul, MN, primarily because of a charismatic Catholic community called Saint Paul's Outreach (SPO). One of the teachers at the Family School was a St. Thomas alum and was involved with SPO. They had houses around UST where Catholic students would live in order to grow in their faiths while at college. I had been away almost two years at this point and was a bit nervous about spreading my newfound sober wings at college. My sobriety and faith were more important than ever and these Catholic houses sounded like the perfect way to help foster both.

I wasn't set to start college until the fall of 2003, so I made the choice to stay and work as a staff member at the school from Jan 2003 - June 2003 instead of going home where staying sober might be a bit more difficult. This also was a way to "give back" to students. It can be a powerful message to see a graduate staying by his own free choice in a place one considers to be a precursor to hell. I shared my story and witnessed and tried to give other students hope. I was quite a role model for the students and I'm sure I provided the staff with hope as well. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the success rate for addicted kids isn't that great. It can do a lot of good for staff members, who spend their waking hours pouring their hearts out to help troubled kids, actually see fruit develop from their work. It was a great six months.

Thus ends another part of my saga. Continue on with my summer at home, my college years, and early marriage in Part 4.

Cumulative Case: My Story (1 of 5)

2011-10-26T21:27:00.000-07:00

This is part of a series in which I present a cumulative case for why I don't believe in god. The series index is here.

This particular post presents my personal story as background information and is one of five parts. This post presents my early life through some of high school. Part 2 and Part 3 present my experience at a Twelve Step boarding school. Part 4 will document my time at college and early years in marriage and part five will present the events surrounding my deconversion.
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I'd like to kick off this cumulative case with my story. I think it's important as background information, and it will definitely be a part of the "mini-book" I'd like to finish this year so this will get some of that writing out of the way. I write this for two reasons. For one, I've found that non-believers who have always been so are quite often baffled by the fact that anyone could be a believer. I've also found that believers can be skeptical that de-converts were ever "true" Christians. I want to provide insight to the non-believer while simultaneously debunking potential accusations of "fake" belief. I'll be breaking this up into a few posts to make it more digestible. And so the story begins, "It was a dark and stormy night..."

I was born in Milwaukee in 1984. I have a half-brother who is 15 years my senior. He was out of the house after he graduated high school and before I had any memory-retaining consciousness. My dad is remarried; my parents have been the only two I've known and are still married today. They started their own graphic design business (back in the day, this meant developing pre-PowerPoint presentations, developing film, mounting it in plastic slides, and putting their physical slides into carousels for projectors). The business ran out of our basement until I was in 3rd or 4th grade or so when it moved to a rented space in Wauwatosa, WI. I attended a public school in inner city Milwaukee for k-5th. Apparently it is now closed! I then went to St. Benard's grade school in Wauwatosa for 6th-8th grades. My parents picked this location as it was only about 1.33 (repeating, of course) blocks from their business. I think they also might have thought a Catholic school would have better academics and/or students and faculty.

I can't speak for the academics since I've no grounds for comparison to a public school, but if they've ever been wrong about any hunches... that about Catholic students is the one. I can't think of a time when I've been surrounded by more power-hungry, spite-infested, vulturous, and simply mean spirited kids. Most of those in my class had been together since kindergarten, so I was naturally the "fresh meat" of the class. I couldn't tell you how many times my mom would pull up in front of the school to drop me off and I'd cry and beg her not to make me go. I also got glasses and braces that same first year, so my looks weren't doing me any favors.

I think this phase was extremely crucial and transformative in a negative way. What did I do in this environment? I adapted. I've never been above-average for height/weight or strength (in order to threaten others with beat downs), so I took to mastering the art of comedic relief and mischief to both build my reputation and keep the negative attention away. I learned to mock others for their abnormalities. I learned to steal. I learned to make horrid insults about teachers and other students alike. I became a sort of linguistic murder expert. Nothing was too foul, vulgar, or obscene to leave my lips. I honestly think that prior to this I had been a pretty darn good kid. Innocent (for the most part), sensitive, naive, etc. My parents might disagree (after all, I did insist that our cat, Spunky, was the one responsible for the side of the bathtub being covered in crayon at one point...), but I think I was pretty good-natured. These three years really transformed me and contributed to later troubles.

I took up occasional smoking in 7th grade and also experimented a little with drinking with a friend of mine. I continued smoking pretty much from here on out whenever I could. This often entailed finding older kids to buy me cigarettes, or (more often) stealing cigarettes from people who smoked. I got caught a few times in grade school which was quite upsetting to my parents. Smoking was always quite an addictive type of behavior for me. I craved them. I started to obsess about when I could smoke next. Getting caught only inspired me to try harder not to get caught. I just wanted to smoke.

Before I move onto high school, I should mention that my parents were never really aligned with any particular faith/religion. My mother was raised Catholic and my father Baptist. Both left their respective faiths. We attended Unity Church for a while (I think this is the one) and then something I vaguely recall as "Science of Mind." We spent most of our time, however, participating in Siddha Yoga. My dad was also engaged in Eckankar during most of my life, though he more recently fell away after their scandal was uncovered. Faith never really played a big part of our lives. I would lay in bed each Sunday hoping that we weren't going anywhere or that by me not getting up I might make us late enough that my parents would abandon the mission. Once at St. Bernard's, I was suddenly in the extreme minority. The whole school attended Mass each Wednesday morning, and I was one of just a handful in the whole school who had to turn their knees to the side to let all of the communion recipients through. I felt very left out. At some point RCIA was mentioned and I looked into it. It just didn't end up happening at St. Benard's, but the seed was planted.

Then came high school - Marquette University High School, another Catholic (Jesuit, actually) school. Very good academics and great sports. I played soccer from age nine onward and like to think I was pretty good. At age 11 I joined a traveling team, the Milwaukee Nationals. It was a great experience for me, but I can't figure out how my parents did it. We had weekend trips all the time to surrounding states like Illinois, Iowa, Indiana, and Ohio. We travelled as far as Texas for the Dallas Cup. I played on that team for four years, and in 1998 we won the Wisconsin State Cup (1998 for U-14 boys). I played soccer at Marquette as well. I didn't make it to playing varsity (story to come), but Wikipedia can tell you why Marquette was a good choice for soccer!

We had a second German foreign exchange student live with us my freshman year (the first lived with us the previous year). The first was a pretty straight shooter, but the second was, shall I say, a little more "supportive" of my smoking and alcohol discovery. I got home from school before my parents got off work and he and I (or just I) would sometimes help ourselves to a portion of the "spirits" they kept under the kitchen sink. I wouldn't do this every day, but definitely with regularity. My smoking also increased. I was able to walk to a Walgreens near my high school and loiter outside until I saw someone I judged to be willing to buy me cigarettes. After a few tries, I always found someone. I got caught plenty more times, and smoking became quite the feud arena between my parents and I. They are quite honest folks and would report me to Marquette authorities each time I got caught since I was required to sign an Athletic Honor Code agreeing not to smoke or use illegal substances. I never did get caught during my two soccer seasons there, so I would join up with an off-season sport to serve out my athletic suspension. I joined track the first time and cross-country the second. I ended up not being too bad, though I'll take the 400m to a 5k any day of the week.

Sophomore year is when it all changed. It was homecoming. I managed to find someone who would go with me from the female equivalent to Marquette, Divine Savior of Holy Angels (oh, I forgot to mention that Marquette was an all-boys school). I don't even know if I can remember her name. In any case, there was a sleepover for the guys at a friend's house and a sleepover for the girls at someone else's house. Someone happened to have a bit of pot with them at the party and I was anxious to try it. High school was pretty much my first time ever having a real opportunity to try it and I can distinctly recall wanting to try it quite early after realizing it was a possibility, but the possibility never arose until that night. I smoked it but didn't feel anything. I'd heard it took often took a few times to feel the effects of marijuana, so naturally I dedicated myself to trying it until I felt the effects. I knew someone who sold it, bought a bag, and smoked outside my bedroom window from a tin foil pipe for several days in a row until I got high. And I definitely got high.

After that, I was pretty much off to the races. I smoked cigarettes whenever I could, drank when I could, and tried my damndest to get high every weekend. Like my relationship with cigarettes, my usage began to take over. I didn't want to wait until the weekends anymore. I would get high after my parents went to bed so I could lay on my back and stare at my bedroom light while listening to Dark Side of the Moon. I'd try to detect the exact moment I heard the opening and closing heartbeat in Speak to Me and Eclipse. I'd make faces at myself in my bathroom mirror for quite a long time. Living the high life, right? My parents eventually found out the following summer. By that time I was probably getting high at least a few times a week. They were obviously quite disappointed but more than that I'd say that they were simply concerned. They didn't want me to adversely affect my life, future, talents, etc. They asked if I'd be willing to enroll in an outpatient rehab program, and I agreed. To this day I'm not exactly sure why. Really wanting to change? I'm skeptical about that. I lean more toward the theory that I was doing something finite duration (3 mos.) which I thought I could endure yet which would produce a substantially longer lasting return (renewed trust from my parents).

During all of this mess, wouldn't you know that an opportunity to enter RCIA came up. I had now been in Catholic school for about 3.5 years and still felt left out. Now I got to feel left out among a group of about 1,000 instead of just a few hundred at St. Bernard's. There were monthly Masses and other Catholic things to remind me that I didn't fit in. I joined an RCIA program with our local church and became Catholic on the Easter Vigil in 2000. I was already baptized thanks to my Baptist grandma (my dad's mom). She freaked out when she found out that I hadn't been baptized when I was visiting her in Florida on summer. I was seven and her pastor came to the house and asked me if I had any Bible verses memorized. We learned John 3:16 together, he asked me if I would like to be baptized, and I said yes even though I had no idea what I was doing. That was that. With RCIA I sealed the deal with the Catholic Church.

During rehab I stayed clean except for one relapse during those three months, which, during a flash of inspiration, I told my parents about on my own. I don't think very highly of the program (I recall drawing cartoons and words on the inside and outside of paper bags to represent what we felt on the inside compared to what we portrayed to the world) and still don't think very highly of outpatient programs. They comprise an extremely minimal commitment (2 or so hours three nights a week) and don't alter any of the typical daily patterns -- "negative" friend interaction, usage opportunities, peer pressure, etc. In any case, when the rehab period was over, I stayed clean for another three months or so. This was essentially in hopes of getting back together with a girl I had dated (I won't go into that), but when that possibility vanished, I also lost my inspiration to abstain. I started getting high again.

A short time after that I was arrested. My mom and I were on our way home from school, and I had a bottle of vodka in my backpack (same loitering technique used with cigarettes applied to the local liquor store). I'm still not sure if she just suspected that I was under some type of influence due to my attitude or if she heard the boggle "glug" in my backpack, but she made a detour to the local library, called the police from inside (while I waited in the car), and then drove to the police station to have my searched. They found my unopened bottle of alcohol, but also a marijuana pipe and some pot. Big game changer for me. Rather than respond rationally (hmmm, these activities seem to be burdening my life quite a bit, perhaps I should course-correct), I entered a downward spiral. I essentially engaged in an all out power struggle with my parents. I began getting high every day, going and coming whenever I cared to, stealing as much money from them as I could, and so on. The language wasn't too pretty, either (as you'll recall, I had been working on my linguistic assaults since grade school thanks to the Catholic kids). The arrest resulted in an initial court visit where they prescribed 50 hours of community service, $500 to cover initial legal fees, and a clean drug test, all to be completed in 90 days. I was arrested on January 6th, 2001, and over the next month did absolutely nothing toward accomplishing those requirements.

Another game changer came on February 7th, 2001 at approximately 5:30 in the morning when T.J. and Brian from a custodial transportation service woke me from slumber, drove me to Mitchell airport, and joined me on a flight to the Family Foundation School in Hancock, N.Y. But that segment of my saga is for Part 2...

Book Series: Letters to a Doubting Thomas | Layman

2011-10-24T09:02:00.000-07:00

In the following series, I'll be posting my notes on Letters to a Doubting Thomas by C. Stephen Layman.

Introduction
The book takes an interesting format; rather than the typical monologue, we have a dialog between an inquisitive skeptic, Thomas, and his former college friend, Zach. Zach is said to have been a philosophy major in college, and so when Thomas gets bitten by the "god question," he turns to Zach for input. The two dialog back and forth in letters about various questions. What I like about this format is that it does create a partial feel of real world exchanges -- Zach might make a case and Thomas will question it, or think of an alternative hypothesis and put it forth. I will say that it's a bit artificial. Zach monopolizes the boook, and Thomas' questions are usually only a few lines compared to Zach's paragraphs of philosophical explanations. Furthermore, usually after the first explanation from Zach, Thomas responds with, "After reading your last letter, you have sold me on X." He's somewhat of a pushover during the book, despite this conclusion (final letter from Thomas):

Dear Zach,

You've given me a lot to think about! As you know, I'm not a person that changes his mind very easily or often, so, frankly, I'm still in a state of doubt... But I will admit this much: You've convinced me that Theism has a lot more going for it than I supposed.

The book came highly recommended via Common Sense Atheism for my own Truth-Seeker Challenge. I've since decided to pretty much abandon that goal, but I'd already purchased this book, and so I read it. I'll be putting together comments by chapter, which each correspond to a line of argument presented by Layman via his philosophical apologist character, Zach.

Posts in this series

Ch 1: Theism and Naturalism
- Zach puts forward that to really compare two things, you need to compare apples to apples. Thus, he says, that one needs a positive case for something as an alternate to theism. The two agree on naturalism and then Zach puts forward definitions for both theism and naturalism. They discuss the prior probabilities of each.
Ch 2 and 3: Religions Experience
- Zach suggests religious experience as a basis for increasing the probability of theism. They discuss types of experience and whether they, as a category, are reliable as far as material for inferences.
Ch 4: Cosmological Argument
- Self explanatory; a discussion about the origin of the universe.
Ch 5: A Design Argument (in actuality, a fine-tuning argument)
- A discussion of the fine-tuning and what better serves to explain this phenomenon -- theism or four naturalism-compatible alternatives: coincidence, necessity, percentage of possible worlds, or the many-worlds hypothesis.
Ch 6: Free Will
- Zach approaches this dialog from the angle of free will. What is it? Do we have it? (He thinks yes.) Given that we have it, what better explains it -- theism or naturalism?
Ch 7 and 8: The Problem of Evil
- Zach takes a chapter each for theism and naturalism to examine how one might explain evil in the world.
Ch 9: A Moral Argument
- What's right and wrong? How best can we explain the "moral order"?

Thoughts on my first prayer meeting in a while

2011-10-23T22:02:00.000-07:00

My wife and I are/were (respectively) lifelong committed members of the Community of Christ the Redeemer, an organization which fosters various activities to build the faith lives of Catholic singles and families. These activities primarily consist of "gatherings," held bi-weekly, which consist of a talk and praise and worship time. (Oh, re. "praise and worship" in the same post as the word "Catholic," this group began as a descendant of the Catholic Charismatic Renewal from the late 60's, so things like belief in "inspired words," healing, prophecy, speaking in tongues, and expressive praise are all present.) My wife continues to attend these gatherings, but I haven't attended regularly for some time, perhaps a year or more. I do show up when there's something a bit more on the social end of the spectrum, such as a picnic or dinner for the married folks. This fulfills the desire of my wife for me to be present sometimes, as well as allowing me to see some of the friends I don't see outside of such events.

We had such an event last night. It's a few-times-a-year event in which a subset of the Community who serve or used to serve with Saint Paul's Outreach (SPO) get together for an evening. SPO is an evangelistic missionary group that carries out various events for college students in an attempt to build Catholic faith on campuses. My wife and I were both involved during out time in college, and I worked as a missionary for them 30 hrs/wk the year after I graduated. In any case, we debated whether or not I should go or stay home with the kids. She really wanted me to go, so I agreed. It's typically a fairly "low key" event anyway. Some welcoming praise and worship, an update about SPO, and then fellowship and snacks. Instead, the event turned out to be almost all praise and worship, a bit of inspirational/theological talk, and not so much social time. It was such an interesting experience that I thought I'd write about it.

First, regarding the praise and worship, I was reminded of how insanely awkward it feels to be the only person in the room not doing what everyone else is doing. Singing, raising hands, praying out loud, etc. That used to be me and some present don't know about my non-belief. I find myself constantly wondering who's looking to see if my lips are moving. I did sing quietly for a little, as I still know the songs, they're catchy, and I like to harmonize... but it just feels wrong. I don't believe the words I'm singing, and so I find myself compelled not to sing at all.

Interestingly enough, as I debated whether or not to leave and spend some time on the phone with my parents or someone else until they were ready to snack and talk, I was struck by another thought: I used to have no problem at all being strong in my Catholicism in the few times I was at some other type of religious service. It might have been a bit awkward, but I recall that it was a simple mandate: I was Catholic, so I did A, B, and C and I didn't do X, Y and Z. Now I'm a non-believer, so I just don't sing these songs or make the sign of the cross. That's that. It was one of those "Aha" moments that's a bit hard to put into words. I guess I'd just say that I seem to have re-felt a bit of the force of my new identity. This is who I am and I shouldn't be ashamed to act accordingly. I never used to and I shouldn't now.

Next, there was a talk. It was given by a friend of mine. We still get together every 2-6 months and catch up. He's a lively guy and we have a blast at our catch-ups over coffee. The talk was on praying in auto-pilot mode and how the word "worship" is tossed around as just something that happened. "We worshipped," "the worship was alright," etc. He called those present to recall their smallness in comparison to god and how great of an opportunity it is to give honor to the lord. To imprint this, he used Isaiah 40:12-26:

Who has measured the waters in the hollow of his hand,
  or with the breadth of his hand marked off the heavens?
Who has held the dust of the earth in a basket,
  or weighed the mountains on the scales
  and the hills in a balance?
Who can fathom the Spirit of the LORD,
  or instruct the LORD as his counselor?
Whom did the LORD consult to enlighten him,
   and who taught him the right way?
Who was it that taught him knowledge,
   or showed him the path of understanding?

Surely the nations are like a drop in a bucket;
   they are regarded as dust on the scales;
   he weighs the islands as though they were fine dust.
Lebanon is not sufficient for altar fires,
   nor its animals enough for burnt offerings.
Before him all the nations are as nothing;
   they are regarded by him as worthless
   and less than nothing.

With whom, then, will you compare God?
   To what image will you liken him?

[...]

Do you not know?
   Have you not heard?
Has it not been told you from the beginning?
   Have you not understood since the earth was founded?
He sits enthroned above the circle of the earth,
   and its people are like grasshoppers.
He stretches out the heavens like a canopy,
   and spreads them out like a tent to live in.
He brings princes to naught
   and reduces the rulers of this world to nothing.
No sooner are they planted,
   no sooner are they sown,
   no sooner do they take root in the ground,
than he blows on them and they wither,
   and a whirlwind sweeps them away like chaff.

“To whom will you compare me?
   Or who is my equal?” says the Holy One.
Lift up your eyes and look to the heavens:
   Who created all these?
He who brings out the starry host one by one
   and calls forth each of them by name.
Because of his great power and mighty strength,
   not one of them is missing.

Now, I get the point. I will say that I have an entirely different set of lenses on at this point in life. For one, some things that struck out to me are some of the questions that made sense back then but that don't anymore. For example:

Who has measured the waters? We have. It's "1.4×1021 kg, which is about 0.023 percent of the Earth's total mass"
...or with the breadth of his hand marked off the heavens? We have. It's "The observable universe is thus a sphere with a diameter of about 28 billion parsecs (93 billion, or 9.3 × 1010, light years). Assuming that space is roughly flat, this size corresponds to a comoving volume of about 3.5 × 1080 cubic meters."
...or weighed the mountains on the scales? I couldn't find exact data, but we probably have the tools.

Along these same lines are things like god sitting "above the circle of the earth" and "stretches out the heavens like a canopy." These are probably references to poor understandings of the cosmos back then.

The second thing that struck me is the demeaning way in which the Old Testament talks about people. I get that humans are small in the theological view. Anything is when you think god is infinite and omni-max. But referring to humans as "grasshoppers" or referring to him blowing on them (which connotes choice and intent to me) and causing them to whither just doesn't jive with Jesus' more tactful ways. He can say things like, "Why do you call me good? Only god is truly good" (Luke 18:19). That doesn't quite say the same thing as "Before him all the nations are as nothing; they are regarded by him as worthless and less than nothing." God just ends up sounding like a power hungry prick with questions like "To whom will you compare me? Or who is my equal" (stated as quotes form the holy one). Seriously? God is omniscient and omnipotent... he already knows the answer. To ask it anyway when you know you're the most powerful being is just silly, especially when you created these beings to share in loving relationship with you. Why are Old Testament passages like this never quoted in the Catholic Catechism during the ooey gooey parts (see numbers 1-3)?

The speaker used the phrase "getting on our knees, literally and figuratively" to call those present on to reverent prayer. As soon as he used this phrase, I thought it would be entertaining to predict how many would feel called to actually get on their knees on that tile floor. I predicted 25%. I was a bit high, as I counted seven out of the ~30 present. Two behind me, though, sat down in reverent posture. Perhaps they would have kneeled if they could.

Throughout the ordeal, I stared at the clock in front of me. I couldn't believe that this 7:30-9:30p event was getting done with the talk and prayer time shortly after 9p. I was saddened. I came to enjoy the company of people I don't get to see very often. Instead, I stood as the single immobile one during more than an hour of praise and worship. It just felt like such a waste of time. I could have been learning something new or simply enjoying the company of another human in tangible interaction. Instead I was thinking about things like the above, and hearing wrap-up exhortations to "gaze upon the lord like he gazes upon us" and thinking, "You mean gazing upon him like a piece of worthless dung?"

The cherry on top is that my wife was a wreck, as the event really brought to the surface the difficulty of our non-shared belief. So she spent her night crying with a friend afterward. I'll be trying to find out in advance what the prayer to social time ratio is for these events in the future, if I ever attend again. For religion being the vehicle intended to bring us to heaven, god has surely created one of the most divisive sorts of human categorization that exists today.¹ And that's a painful state of affairs.

-----

¹ I've written a bit about this elsewhere, too. Some might say that this is the product of man, not god's intent. That might be. But god still delivered the scriptures that he did with the words that he used, which is what man uses as his guide. One must at least concede that some very well-intending Christians think scripture supports cutting one's self off from non-Christians. Like this guy.

Letters to a Doubting Thomas: Argument from Design

2011-10-23T20:55:00.000-07:00

Back to series index >>
This is part of a series of posts in response to "Letters to a Doubting Thomas" C. Stephen Layman.
---

Chapter Five of Layman's book is entitled, "A Design Argument." By this time in their dialog, Zach (our curious agnostic) and Thomas (his college philosophy major friend) have covered a priori probabilities for theism and naturalism, suggesting that naturalism comes out ahead due to its simplicity (lower numbers of both entities and types of entities), but that the two end up tied because naturalism is required to complicate itself due to arguments from religious experience. They then move on to cosmological arguments. Both of these will be covered in other posts; for now, we'll just pick up with design.

First he lays out what he means by "fine-tuned" (summarized from pages 111-112):

If the big bang hadn't "banged" with it's precise force, the universe would have either collapsed on itself or expanded so rapidly that no stars would ever have formed. In either case, no life providing energy would have been present from entities such as our sun.
Similarly, the balance between gravitational pull and electromagnetic forces need to be precisely what they are (not differing by more than 1 in 10⁴⁰ or the sun would not be stable
The nuclear force needs to be what it is for diversity of elements
And so on. He states that, "Over twenty such physical parameters must have values that fall within highly restricted ranges in order for life to be present."

Before I present Layman's list of hypotheses he thinks are the candidates for explanations of fine-tuning, I want to present what I take to be his criteria for judging said candidates. Zach points out that not everything may have an explanation, and Thomas agrees:

Not everything can be explained. Whatever view we take, there will be some ultimate hypothesis—the claim that some entity has such-and-such features, and for this we will have no explanation.

But we are looking for an ultimate metaphysical postulate that will explain as much as possible. We want to go as deep as we can. Why are things as they are? (p. 114)

From here, he lists our choices for such postulates:

Coincidence: Our universe might have had many different basic structures, the vast majority of which would not be life supporting. The actual structure of the physical universe is simply a coincidence.
Physical necessity: The ultimate physical structures can be of only one form, and that is the form our universe takes.
Percentage of possible universes: Some large percentage of the total number of possible physical universes is life-supporting (i.e., the basic structures in those possible universes would support life if the universes were actual). Hence, any actual universe has a good chance of being life-supporting.
The many-universes hypothesis: Some (rather special) part of physical reality generates multiple universes. Call this part of physical reality the universe generator. The universe generator generates many universes, with their basic physical structures (laws, constants, and initial conditions) varying at random. And since there have been or are many actual universes, it is not surprising that at least one supports life.
Theism: The universe supports life because life fulfills certain divine purposes (or at least is a means to their fulfillment).
Naturalists are free to adopt explanations 1 through 4. (p. 115-116)

Zach dismisses coincidence, as it has no predictive power. One expects nothing one way or the other by suggesting that a life sustaining universe is a "coincidence." While Thomas hasn't asked for an explanation of how theism fares better than naturalism yet, Zach tosses in this diddy at the end of the letter dealing with coincidence:

Life in general, but especially conscious, intelligent life, is an extraordinary phenomenon, one that commonly evokes a sense of wonder. It is also something an intelligent being might well be interested in producing. And of course a life-supporting universe is a means of producing life. (p. 117)

Already, I predict the same general form of theistic argument: "It appears that we were given a privileged place in the universe. We are so wonderful when we contemplate ourselves that surely there is some special intent behind our existence given that we don't understand how we came to be in such an apparently improbable place!" This is an issue with intuitions. The same types of arguments plague the moral realm. "Things just seem so right and wrong -- they must be!" I'll quote from LessWrong's Eliezer Yudkowsky:

Besides, as a Bayesian, I don't believe in phenomena that are inherently confusing. Confusion exists in our models of the world, not in the world itself... I am not going to tell you that quantum mechanics is weird, bizarre, confusing, or alien. QM is counterintuitive, but that is a problem with your intuitions, not a problem with quantum mechanics. Quantum mechanics has been around for billions of years before the Sun coalesced from interstellar hydrogen. Quantum mechanics was here before you were, and if you have a problem with that, you are the one who needs to change. QM sure won't. There are no surprising facts, only models that are surprised by facts; and if a model is surprised by the facts, it is no credit to that model.

I love this quote, as it beautifully suggests that we need to stop bringing our intuitions to the table as good indicators of what we should be looking for. This applies both to the negative view on physics as well as the positive view on god. For example, as a non-believer, I find it ludicrous to suggest that "...conscious intelligent life... is also something an intelligent being might well be interested in producing." This is painting god in the human image. We find it intuitive to be enamored with ourselves and thus think that a being like ourselves, but with much greater power and knowledge, would literally find conscious life so wonderful that he/she/it would create an entire universe just to witness life on one planet amidst a sextillion of them? I just want to point out that even if our intuitions aren't satisfactorily fed concerning hypotheses 1-4 (and intuition is what I read Layman's comment above as describing concerning an intelligent being's desires), this doesn't mean that our intuitions were ever the target in the first place.

Now Layman lays out his case for theistic explanations for design:

As we've noted previously, a perfectly morally good being would be loving, and a loving being would be generous. A generous being would have reason to create entities with whom to share good things, that is, things that merit a response of wonder, admiration, and/or delight... So God would have reason to create conscious beings who can enjoy good things as well as reason to create the good things for conscious beings to enjoy. It seems especially clear that a loving God would have reason to create intelligent conscious creatures along with things for them to enjoy, such as beauty, interesting and significant activities, physical and mental pleasures, and satisfying personal relationships—for these are all of great value. (p. 118-119)

He then goes on to ask whether such beings need to be embodied (probably in response to the objection that god could have simply created heaven, inhabited with just souls/heavenly bodies, or perhaps been satisfied with the angels and called it a day). He says yes:

Yes. First, physical life is a good thing, in the sense that it merits a response of wonder, admiration, and/or delight... Second, a fine-tuned universe is a means to creating and sustaining embodied life... Third, as already noted, God would have reason to create intelligent living things capable of interesting and significant action...We can now combine the second and third points: A fine-tuned universe is both a means for producing (and sustaining) intelligent agents and a suitable stage for their actions. Therefore, since God has reason to create intelligent embodied life capable of interesting and significant action, God has reason to create a fine-tuned universe too... Fourth, if God creates life by means of a fine-tuned universe, then the creation of life carries with it at least two additional goods: (1) the aesthetic excellence of the physical universe... (2) The marvelous intricacy of the universe as a "mechanical" (i.e., nonteleological) system: I don't see how anyone can read a book on physics without coming away with a feeling that, if the universe is the product of design, it's a pure "marvel of engineering." (p. 118-120)

Long quote, I know, but it's nice to have everything we're working with out on the table. I also do this, as I think there's some serious issues going on above. I'll leave the first premise alone, but it falls into the category I mentioned above. In other words, "Gee, since I really love my physical life, clearly a good being would also think physical life is swell and therefore would create a universe that could give me just that."

I find the second reason a bit circular. It seems like one could reword it like so: "Would god create physical life? Yes, because a fine-tuned universe is just the sort of thing that god could have used to create physical life." But the whole chapter is trying to consider whether god is a good explanation for a fine-tuned universe (i.e. one that supports physical life). So he's asked whether god would create specifically physical beings and then used the unstated assumption that god, indeed, is the reason for the fine tuned universe to answer in the affirmative.

I find the fourth as a repeat of the first and third. Aesthetic pleasures seem mixed with "wonder" and "delight;" so would a fascination with the intricacy of the universe. I may be misreading the first, though. Perhaps he's stating that physical life (i.e. bodies) merit delight and wonder in themselves. But if that's the case, it would seem that we'd be delighting/taking wonder in the aesthetics and superb mechanics of their functioning... so the fourth still seems redundant.

Even having said this, I don't see why the above is unique to physical beings. Why couldn't there be spiritual analogs to "wonder, admiration, and/or delight," interesting and meaningful action, or aesthetic appreciation? The paragraph wants to validate god's intentions as a valid hypothesis to explain fine-tuning an entire universe; it seems that the reasons support non-physical existence as well, or at least provide no barrier to it. Thus god could just as well have not fine tuned and instead created some other type of reality that didn't require such fiddling.

They delve a bit into the other two non-theistic explanations above: the "percentage of possible universes" and "many universes" hypotheses. Layman isn't satisfied with these. The percentage argument states that there are many possible universes, and some percentage of them could lead to life. Thus, perhaps the actual universe that exists isn't that unlikely due to its supporting life. This is criticized because the named percentage of life supporting universes would be arbitrary. Layman says we have no way of knowing. Some don't think so. The main necessity for life supporting universes is a range of elements and energy providing stars. At least two individuals have run simulations over a range of cosmological constants to determine how likely such universes might be. Victor Stenger has the probability at about 50%, and Fred Adams has it at about 25%.¹

His case against the multiverse is that we 1) don't have any evidence to support the hypothesis and that 2) it multiplies entities by number and kind. As to the first point, as far as I know, he's correct. As for the second, he says that entities are multiplied in number due to the vast increase in numbers of entities, and that the hypothesis increases the kind of universe in that they are now unobservable universes postulated in addition to the one observable one.

My understanding of Occam's razor is that it's not really a strike against the multiverse hypothesis that numerous universes are postulated because it's a single hypothesis that entails such large numbers of entities. Similarly, science didn't increase in complexity each time entities that were once thought to be irreducible (say, a substance such as water) were revealed to be made up of countless numbers of molecules, which reduced to even more atoms and even more subatomic particles. No. The theory got simpler, despite entailing the existence of these entities. One theory now explained far more than coming up with individual reasons for each "essential substance." Similarly, a hypothesis that entails a multiverse isn't having to define the reasons that every single universe exists -- physics would simply entail that this is the reality of the system.

Next, Thomas asks Zach for an explanation for god. Thomas responds that the question isn't valid because god's existence is postulated not only to explain fine tuning, but also because others have had "theistic experiences." Thus, because there are other supporting reasons for god's existence, he can't be questioned simply because he's an explanation in this case. That's all that is said about the "explanation for the explanation," and it's a shame. Regardless of what other reasons are used to support god's existence, this is one being used, and it's an argument hypothesizing that only a being such as god could have the knowledge, power, and intent to being about the precise physical constants that would eventually bring living things to inhabit the earth. A fantastic examination of this hypothesis and a response can be found in Dawkins' God Delusion as well as this wonderful summary at "Omnis affirmatio est negatio". The response is called the "Ultimate 747 Gambit."

This rebuttal beautifully ties in with a point I made earlier: we just love to use our intuitions to make assumptions. If one is to apply this fairly, we need to use our background information about knowledge, power, and intent. The only experience we have with any of these is in the physical world. If we are to extend what we think is wonderful, delightful, interesting and significant about our existence as what god would also want, we need to extend what know about the hardware and software on which these perceptions operate. The only minds we have experience with are those in brains. Power, depending on how it is defined, is inherited (strength, intelligence), learned, or designed (such as a powerful device like a piece of machinery). Intent exists only in conscious beings, and our experience with consciousness is limited to beings that are alive and have attached heads (with brains inside).

The use of god as an explanation for fine-tuning is made to look simple by asking questions like, "Well, wouldn't an all good god have great reasons for creating wonderful creature such as us?" But this entails that even if he did, he would have the intent, power, and knowledge to bring a universe into existence and pre-program it with these delicate and massively improbable physical constants. Imagine what a human would need to know or build to accomplish such a task. As this is our only frame of reference, it gets sticky to start coming up with reasons why god would not have to do such things to accomplish the same task. Simply defining god outright as powerful by definition because that's what he would have to be seems unfavorable.

In the end, I personally have no answer for the why behind our existence. In my deconversion, I bit down on some hard potential truths. I had to deal with the fact that atheism might entail a life with no "ultimate purpose," or that morality might be only what humans defined it to be by consensus and enforcement, or that I had no answer to life's "deep" questions (I haven't come to the conclusion that these actually are entailed by atheism). This is one of those issues. I am here, alive. That much I can say. If science answers the question somehow, that would be fantastic. Even if it can't, however, it doesn't mean the above constitutes a good answer. Frankly, it all seems to take the form of "Look at this conundrum! Science doesn't know how to account for it. But god, with his desires that probably want things like us to be alive does account for it. Therefore god is the best explanation!" For now, I'd rather just not know.

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¹ See Victor Stenger's "Is The Universe Fine-Tuned For Us?" and Fred Adams' "Stars In Other Universes: Stellar structure with different fundamental constants". The Adams article is not freely available, however the probability he finds is mentioned in Wikipedia's article on fine-tuned universes.

The Agnostic Inquirer | Introduction

2011-10-10T19:59:00.000-07:00

1) If it is not highly unlikely that a world-creator exists, then investigation of the contents of revelatory claims might well show it is probable that a good God exists and has revealed.
2) It is not highly unlikely that a world-creator exists
3) So, investigation of the content of a revelatory claim might well show it is probable that a good God exists and has revealed.
4) So, a negative conclusion concerning the existence of a good God is not justified unless the content of a reasonable number of leading revelatory claims has been seriously considered.

The world might have popped into existence
The world might have caused itself
Am immaterial minor cannot interact with the physical order
There is no need to examine revelation due to the problem of evil
No method exists for examining revelatory claims
Revelatory claims lack explanatory power

Story (3 of 4)

2011-10-09T17:14:00.001-07:00

This is part of a series in which I present a cumulative case for why I don't believe in god. The series index is here.

This particular post presents my personal story as background information and is one of three parts. Part 1 covered my early life through some of high school. Part 2 covered my first year at a Twelve Step boarding school. This post will present my initial conversion experience, and Part 4 will document my time at college and early years in marriage.
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When we left off, I had just made my second escape from the Family School. I was more determined than ever to never return. I stayed to the woods, which were much more friendly this time due to much of the snow having melted. On my first trip, I failed to mention that I passed by a cabin in the woods. My feet had been freezing at the time and, after knocking on the door to verify that no one was home, I rested on the porch for some time, trying to massage my feet into a warmer state. I came upon this cabin again. It seemed like someone's summer residence, as there were no tire tracks in the snow, no footprints, no sign of anyone living there. I knocked again just to be sure. From where I'm not exactly sure, but an idea arose in my mind. Rather than limit myself to the porch, I decided to break in. I heaved a rock through the basement window and crawled in. Unfortunately, I found the door to the upstairs locked. After trying various ways to get it open, I crawled back out and threw another rock through the living room window. I went in and began to explore. My main goal was to get drunk. I had been at the school for a year, was incredibly angry about my existence there, and think that in addition to simply feeling the effects of intoxication (to escape), I also wanted to do something that would "give a middle finger" to the school. As counter-intuitive as that seems, that's what was going through my mind. Somehow I concluded that I could exact some kind of emotional revenge by doing what they didn't want me to do.

In any case, I did find some alcohol. It was somewhat surreal. I actually found what I hoped for and it came time to decide whether I was really about to throw my year of sobriety down the drain. I did. I found a radio and listed to some classic rock for a while and then packed a bag with helpful supplies (extra socks, bread, water, alcohol) and left. I made it into town late that night and had no idea what to do. I walked all the way through the town (it only takes about 20min) and came up on a highway department site right before the on ramp to the highway. There were a lot of yellow service trucks there and several happened to be open. I slept there for the night, though it wasn't good sleep at all. It seemed I had traded less snow for colder temperatures. It was about 10F (according to the outside thermometer at a nearby bank), and my pained feet would wake me up after a short time and I'd have to pace around and stomp them to keep warm.

The next day I entered the town's diner and just sat there. I asked for water with no money to buy anything. They tend to know a runaway when they see one and, for whatever reason, take kindly to them. They gave me some coffee and a sandwich for no charge. I was warned that staff would be coming in throughout the day to look for me (like I said, they must have quite a lot of experience with runaways). This ended up happening later that afternoon. A staff and student came in and sat down on either side of me. They said I looked like crap and asked if I was ready to go back. I said I was and we walked out to the car. Just as we got to the car, though, I ran off again into the woods. I hid there until much later that night and then returned to the diner. I should mention that throughout this time I was drinking the alcohol I stole -- I was in somewhat of a perpetual buzz.

While in the restaurant, a younger gentleman came and sat down. It came up that I had run away from the school and he started expressing his distaste for it (it seems that quite a few of the townspeople don't like it, actually). In any case, he was quite kind to me and gave me some cigarettes. Somehow it came up that he had some pot and I asked if I could get high with him. He agreed and once the restaurant closed, we left together. We drove off somewhere and I got high. It was quite odd. I recall the feelings being very similar to how they had always felt, but at the same time would almost describe it as being able to watch myself with a more "mature mind," knowing full well that this was pointless and wrong. One other way to put it would be, perhaps, that I was unable to fully enter in to the experience -- a part of me was shaking it's head even as the other part was partaking.

I slept in another pickup that night, and returned to the diner the next day. Soon enough, a staff and two students came in, but this time not so cordially. I made a break for the back door but couldn't unlock it in time to get out. I was more or less seized and not released until I was in the back seat with a student on either side. Once we got back to the school, I contemplated making a break for it one more time, but in trying to decide if I could outrun everyone and whatever other micro-evaluations were going on... I lost my chance.

My face was red from the cold. I hadn't showered in a few days. I didn't have much sleep in me, either. I looked and felt like crap -- this was only intensified by having to face everyone who was still back at the school -- disappointed staff and students. It's like it all sinks in over several hours: shame, helplessness, some despair about ever leaving... It's an awful feeling. The repercussions for a second runaway are quite a bit more severe. My shoes were taken and I wore only shower flip flops (to reduce the likelihood of me gallivanting through the woods again), I was on "double shadow" (where two students have to monitor me all day, everyday), and most importantly, I was put onto what is known as "work sanction." Work sanction entails being temporarily suspended from classes to do work. This is typically done when someone is perhaps failing classes or so rebellious that they aren't putting any effort toward school anyway. There can be several aims: to punish you for not doing what you're supposed to, to "get the body working so the mind will follow", or to show you the pointlessness of your rebellion (e.g. a student may be made to clean rocks outside with a toothbrush all day and then just throw them back afterward). For the family group I was in, work sanctions were simply automatic after a second runaway attempt.

For a week and half, I would spend all morning in study hall to read AA literature, and I spent the afternoon paving a dirt road with pebbles. There was a huge pile of rocks and I would fill two 5 gallon pickle buckets with pebbles, carry them several hundred feet, and then dump them out on the dirt road to pave it. We did this for several hours every afternoon. I did this in flip flops. In February. Needless to say, you're quite tired at the end of the day. I was also in the corner and standing, which only added to the difficulty.

For whatever reason, I couldn't contain my secret anymore about the house. I confessed to having broken in. This brought about quite a lot of activity. I had to make a statement and be formally arrested for the crime (handcuffed and brought before a judge to be arraigned). I was informed that my charges were to be 3rd degree burglary, a felony, with the potential for a six year prison sentence. It was crushing news. It also began my conversion.

I want to spend a brief moment discussing my spiritual journey thus far in the story, which I've left out so far. Recall that I became Catholic in Part 1. The Family School had a parish priest who spent an immense amount of time and energy with the kids at the boarding school. He held confessions, talked to anyone who requested his time, said Mass on Wednesday mornings and Sunday evenings, and held retreats every single weekend for Family School kids. He was insanely generous and probably one of the most loving, caring, passionate, spiritually energetic, disciplined, wise, and kind men I've ever met. That statement stands regardless of whether we still line up on views about the supernatural realm. He was one of my heroes. During that first year, I did try to take the faith life more seriously. Despite becoming Catholic, religion was previously a way for me just to fit in and avoid feeling awkward. It really did start to become something I took interest in. The priest there helped that, and the immense spiritual/prayer focus of the school in general also inspired this. I tried praying sincerely and tried "living my life for god." I guess I don't recall if I had any sense of what that was or meant, but I tried nonetheless. I began having an awareness of god, at least, to the extent that I was "meta-aware" of when I did things I thought were probably not pleasing to him (saying something inappropriate or looking at a girl's butt or chest, for example).

Back to my conundrum. I would caution one from taking a simple "foxhole" categorization view of this event. I don't consider that my response to all of this was as simple as, "god, get me out of this and I'll never drink again." It was more than that. For the first time, I really had to admit that I had screwed myself purely for the sake of getting drunk. Yes, everything I put my parents through was horrible, but I think there was some degree of thinking that I wasn't "that bad" compared to others at the school, or that I never got any "real consequences" from my actions. Well, here it was. I had just done what I never would have thought I was capable of. I broke into a house to get drunk and now faced some incredibly serious charges. I should also mention that the Family School sends kids on a tour (kind of like Scared Straight) regularly and I had attended one of these tours a few months previous. Having seen a prison, I was fairly sure that I would never live through one. This brought about the realization that I had literally forfeit my life through my actions. I had some very intense times of prayer, and they weren't of the foxhole type -- they were simply an admission of complete powerlessness (I had literally put control of my life into someone else's hands) and an admission that god was god and I was not. I surrendered my life unto god (I would say this was, essentially, declaring my allegiance to live according to god's ways).

I went to court for my sentencing and received what's known as a Youthful Offender status: my felony was reduced to a misdemeanor and my record would be sealed and erased contingent on certain conditions such as completing my time successfully at the Family School and completing three years of probation (no drugs, good grades, attending AA meetings, etc.). Obviously this was quite the reprieve. I was overjoyed. I believed that god had given me a second (or nth) chance to live a good life. I devoted myself to god, to the twelve steps, and to a path of sobriety. I became even more devout and intent on being spiritually healthy and living a live pleasing to god. Despite still having to work out of some messes (still in the corner, on work sanction, and behind on school work), I couldn't have cared less. I would have done about anything. I regained trust fairly quickly -- others could see a real change and knew I meant it this time.

I finished out the rest of my time at the Family School and graduated in December of 2002. My parents were able to take me home to visit some colleges toward the end of that year, and I chose the University of St. Thomas (UST) in St. Paul, MN, primarily because of a charismatic Catholic community called Saint Paul's Outreach (SPO). One of the teachers at the Family School was a St. Thomas alum and was involved with SPO. They had houses around UST where Catholic students would live in order to grow in their faiths while at college. I had been away almost two years at this point and was a bit nervous about spreading my newfound sober wings at college. My sobriety and faith were more important than ever and these Catholic houses sounded like the perfect way to help foster both.

I wasn't set to start college until the fall of 2003, so I made the choice to stay and work as a staff member at the school from Jan 2003 - June 2003 instead of going home where staying sober might be a bit more difficult. This also was a way to "give back" to students. It can be a powerful message to see a graduate staying by his own free choice in a place one considers to be a precursor to hell. I shared my story and witnessed and tried to give other students hope. I was quite a role model for the students and I'm sure I provided the staff with hope as well. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the success rate for addicted kids isn't that great. It can do a lot of good for staff members, who spend their waking hours pouring their hearts out to help troubled kids, actually see fruit develop from their work. It was a great six months.

Thus ends another part of my saga. Continue on with my summer at home, my college years, and early marriage in Part 4.

Long lost me!

2011-09-28T19:59:00.000-07:00

It's been a loooong time since I actively blogged on this site. I think I'm coming to a point where I will resume, at least for a short time. I don't have anything substantial at the moment, but wanted to list some nice updates!

Things have vastly improved on the home front. I'll be adding another post to my unequally yoked series shortly to explain. It might actually wrap that series up!
I've finished The Agnostic Inquirer, a laborious, heady, frustrating book... but one that came highly recommended. I'm not exactly sure why it was so highly recommended, but my aims and those of it's proponents might be different. I hope to post some commentary in the very near future. For now, let's just say that the book was the most hesitantly worded thing I've ever encountered ("And if we could say X, we just might find that Y," "We don't have time to consider X in full detail, but just know that from what we've said, one just might find it likely that Y if they were to head down that path," and so on).
I've started Letters to a Doubting Thomas. Yay!
It's very, very likely that I will abandon my full goal of the Ultimate Truth Seeker Challenge (Easy Version). I've simply come to a point where I don't see much hope in being swayed and would like to get on with things of more practical benefit. If god would like to change my mind, he's got about 40 years, 50 if I'm strong. I plan to depart from the overtly atheistic vs. theistic mind suck and embark on learning about the fascinating world in which we find ourselves in -- evolutionary theory, physics, probability... and more!
My "coming out" statement is in progress. I will be going live with my non-belief in the very near future, so stay tuned for that. I'm taking [what I think is] a tactful approach. No debate-instigators or the like. I'm trying to simply tell my story. What happened, where am I now, where am I headed. I will at least summarize what gives me some intellectual troubles, but don't want to go into so much detail that the end result of the statement is to invite seething debate and revenge for others feeling insulted. I don't see much point in debate, honestly. Thus, the best I can do is to summarize where I am and why and get on with life. I also added a section on what I believe others can do to see me rightly rather than judgmentally or angrily. On that note, the statement will inform many others of this blog. Prior to going live, I will be doing some "pruning." I hate to exercise my dictatorship, but I will be revising some statements to be kinder to some of the individuals highlighted, and I will probably trash a few comments that come to mind. They served their purpose (to vent and express what I took to be victimhood), but will produce any benefits if those in my circles can pick up enough details to figure out who I'm talking to. Thus, some things might go bye-bye.

I think that's about it. So... getting there! I'm not sure about the long term direction for this blog. I may just stop blogging! It's work to maintain and keep up with comments, and it's served it's purpose. I've gotten my thoughts out on paper and met some great virtual bloggers with similar interests and stories, and now it seems like time to move on. I'll probably invest more heavily in the LessWrong community, increase my investment in kids/wife, and time spent on learning/hobbies.

We'll see. In any case, stay tuned, as I have some definite things I'd like to post very soon.

Cumulative Case: The PoE and the "Impossibility of Evil"

2011-05-02T14:37:00.000-07:00

This is part of a series in which I present a cumulative case for why I don't believe in god. The series index is here.
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The problem of evil is a very popular and well-known (and hotly debated) argument against the existence of god. In general, the problem is broken down into two categories: the logical problem and the evidential problem.

The logical problem attempts to argue that any existence of evil whatsoever is logically incompatible with the existence of a being, called "god" who is said to be concurrently all good, all powerful, and all knowing.

The evidential problem of evil attempts to find actual examples of undesirable states of existence that are so apparently horrible that one cannot think of any possible greater good that god might be bringing about as a result of its occurrence.

I'm painting a highly simplistic picture here, but think that the summaries are reasonable. Typical apologetic responses (which, when attempting to explain how evil can exist given a good, omni-max good, are called theodicies) are free will, soul-building, and ignorance of god's reasons.

There are others, for sure, but these are the most common "buckets" I've seen answers fall into. The free will defense can take some various avenues, but typically implies either a) that removing all evil from the world would violate our free will (and god values this human-only property too much to do so) or b) that the non-existence of evil would make free will meaningless, since the only way to evaluate the level of "goodness" in a freely choisen action is by comparison with it's antithesis. Even another route is that c) no matter what possibly world god created, every single one of them in which humans have free will entailed that we would do evil. Some take a step further and imply that perhaps this is the best possible world. Others imply that perhaps god couldn't have known exactly what would come about when creating his free willed creatures (somewhat of a limited omniscience). In all cases, free will is valued higher than the existence of evil for various reasons.

Soul building implies that the existence of evil brings about the building of virtue as humans struggle through it, thus better preparing us for the possibility of heaven.

Ignorance is typically the last stop on the route. If no answers have proven satisfying to the inquirer, the appeal to divine ignorance is a surefire win -- we can't possibly know why god allows x, y, and z, but we can trust that he has good reasons, well, because he's god. I don't see this as much of a viable option since the very evidence being used to determine whether "god" is synonymous with "all good, all powerful, all knowing" is being explained by the fact that god is, in fact, synonymous with these properties. I may not understand it entirely, but for now it strikes me as circular and essentially as playing "the faith card" (I don't have to understand, just believe).

Enough of the prelude. All one really has to know is that some find the existence of evil troubling when told that an all good, all powerful, all knowing being also exists and created this world... and that others respond by essentially saying that it couldn't have been any other way for various reasons.

I came up with something a bit back that originated with a comment at Common Sense Atheism HERE. The free will defense was presented along the lines of it being necessary for god to allow us the freedom to do evil, which really got me thinking.

Really what I'm getting at is (aside from evil): am I free to jump over a 100ft building?

I see a dilemma here for the free will defense. One horn is that, "Yes," I'm free, but simply unable. I honestly don't know entirely what that means, but could see it meaning that I'm "free" to want/will it, but due to physical limitations I can't actually carry it out. The other horn is that, "No," I'm not free to do something if I'm only able to think it but not carry it out.

Applied to evil, this means that:
- I'm either free to will any evil, but not able to carry certain acts out... or
- I'm not free to do any evils that I can only think about but not carry out.

What does this have to do with the Problem of Evil? Well, it means that when one states that god had to make it this way, that there's already a whole category of stuff I can will/imagine/desire, but not do. I can't (yet) carry out a sci-fi death fantasy on someone I hate by shooting them with a Star Trek phaser set to kill. Or hack someone's arm off with a real light saber.

I continued extending this idea at CSA, and summarized my idea of "the impossibility of evil" HERE.

I really, really liked it and hadn't heard it anywhere else. In essence, my thesis is that god could have created us wholly free, but essentially made actually doing evil a technical problem so advanced that we wouldn't ever figure it out. Imagine evil was on par with figuring out all the details of quantum physics. We were scratching the surface ages ago trying to figure out what the cosmos was about, why the planets moved like they did, and eventually have come to trying to understand the circumstances surrounding the origin of the universe. Many think we're close... but we're not there.

How about this with evil? Imagine being able to conceive of ending someone's life or hurting them, but literally having it be so intellectually challenging that it would take us until we developed artificial intelligence to solve all the necessary technical details. Heck, why couldn't we have remained so ignorant of biology that we didn't even understand that sufficient physical injury would bring about death? What if it never even would have occurred to Cain that picking up a rock to smash Able's brains would stop him from living?

My point is that we could easily have been wholly free, but unable. Just like I'm wholly free, but unable, to shoot someone with a phaser. This way of thinking opens up a lot of middle ground for ways in which this world could be better as well. As far as I know, this needs to be the best of all possible worlds, though I could be wrong. In my understanding, an omni-max god couldn't be said to have created a sub-optimal universe more prone to evil/suffering than another, at least without some greater good coming out of it.

My idea doesn't necessarily apply to natural disasters or evils like that -- just the evil brought about by humans, which some apologists claim is responsible for all the natural disasters, birth defects, and sicknesses anyway, perhaps which entered the world at the fall. Even were we just to focus on all the human vs. human evil that is brought about, consider a spectrum of evils with mass slaughter being at one end and implanting a speck of dust in someone's eye at the other end. Could god not have made the more severe evils even more challenging to bring about than they already are? Or the development of explosives and firearms more challenging in order to reduce the amount of deaths that could be brought about in a short amount of time?

Or what about providing every humans with a force field that prevented them from being killed. Let all humans be free to will anything they want. Then let them be prevented from actually killing another human by our inherent force fields.

The point is that I can imagine quite a few ways in which we would "free" to want/desire/will evil, but unable to actually bring it out. Period.

I can also see reducing the amount of human-cause evil by this route, even if it wasn't eliminated entirely. Make more significant evils more technologically challenging, or simply seem more challenging to our brains. Keep humans ignorant of how and/or why people die to prevent them from figuring out how to bring such a circumstance about -- humans could have just known that death happened when you go old and died in your sleep rather than knowing that we were susceptible to various toxins, organ damage, or fluid loss.

In this way, an omni-max god could have created a world filled with less human-instigated evils while still allowing the retention of "free will."

"God-ordained" events in the life of a non-believer

2011-04-28T10:51:00.000-07:00

I just have to post this. I attended a newbie night with the Minnesota Skeptics last night. It was fantastic. I'm trying to remedy the fact that my social network has shriveled considerably and I simply find life pretty lonely at times. I still have great friends who are believers, but it's quite difficult when you think about religion and god a vast majority of the time, but can't share those thoughts for fear of offending others.

I've been trying to branch out to groups like the MN Skeptics and the Minnesota Atheists to find companions who are open-minded and receptive to my venting and sharing about my situation. This phase is taxing to both my wife and I, but I think she's far more well-supported considering she still shares common belief with everyone and is still in her weekly-meeting couple's group (which I was asked to depart from). I don't have such types of support, and would also add that the support she receives is much more "empathetic" (I'm so sorry you're enduring this, god has a plan, we're here for you, etc.) while mine tends to be primarily focused on accountability/challenging (remember -- you're still obligated to be a good husband, are you reading the right stuff?, how are you caring for your wife?, you do realize this is really hard on your wife, right?, why don't you want to raise your kids believers?, etc.). This can be taxing.

So, I'm at this meeting last night at a cafe, and the meetup organizers were introducing the group, what it's about, an intro to skepticism/rationality/critical-thinking, etc., and then had everyone introduce themselves. I shared a bit about my history and also mentioned the name of the outreach group I used to be affiliated with, Saint Paul's Outreach, as well as the lay-community of Catholic Families that I made a life-long commitment to, Community of Christ the Redeemer. This was actually a bit atypical; I hardly ever actually mention the names, at least online, but I guess since it was a local face-to-face meeting I did.

Guess what happened next? One of the organizers pipes in and says that he used to belong to both groups! What are the chances of that? Were I still a believer and ran into a former member of these groups (assuming he was still a believer, too) in such a small group, my heart would have warmed at the thought of how crazily "providential" such an occurrence was.

I felt compelled to mention this event because many still find it extremely difficult to dismiss apparent "miracles" or "acts of divine providence" when it comes to the possibility that god might not be real. This is just one example of how such things continue on. Unlikely things still happen... just not as often as, well, likely things. Because such events are out of the ordinary, we feel compelled to find a "why" behind the "what."

I don't think this is necessary any longer. The world is not revolving around you or I, and that's okay. Acts of "providence" (the atheistic kind) still happen to me (the event above is not the only time something like this has happened post-deconversion). Perhaps we simply see only what we look for.

Taking a break

2011-04-25T13:11:00.001-07:00

I'm announcing a short-medium term break for a while. I have a lot of reading to do and am quite prone to distraction. I plan on attempting not to follow any blogs until I finish "my chores" which I think will keep me more on task and especially out of the o-so-tempting comment dialogs I careen into!

Once I finish some rationality-improvement exercises, I'll be starting on my book list and will definitely be posting my summaries for those just like some of my others.

So, after I post this, I'm un-following all blogs except the comments thread on this one. I still want to respond to any readers who stop by to visit or post.

Some Updates + Plan Forward

2011-04-16T13:12:00.000-07:00

It's been a while since I've posted. I've decided to set some goals for my "quest"... and then accomplish them.

Much of this renewed vigor came from some requests for advice from various sources. I primarily asked for comments regarding the petrified-ness I experience when we have to be among a lot of members of the religious community I used to participate in (and with which my wife is still involved). I hate the idea of my non-belief coming up and starting an uncomfortable discussion, people learning about my non-belief "through the grapevine" and being offended that I didn't tell them, or entering into pointless and heated debates.

Probably the biggest suggestion I received was to finish "my statement" and make it available as a quick way to get out of a sticky situation. In other words, instead of having to risk a pointless debate, when asked what prompted my non-belief, I can simply respond, "Why don't I just send you my summary when I get home?" That way, there's no face to face pressure of thinking one of us needs to be conclusively demonstrated to be wrong right then and there, and they get to read my reasons at their own pace and without feeling like there needs to be an immediate rebuttal. Also, this has the added benefit of allowing lots of sources to be provided, since in face to face debates I often find myself stating something, being challenged, and then being without computer access to show them my source. This makes one look foolish, but then again I don't think it's reasonable to be expected to have a mental catalog of everything you've read ready for quoting!

This re-energized me to finish THIS.

And that led me to want to re-attack THIS. Finishing that list will help with a lot of things. I want to read those books anyway, just to know more, but it will also be something tangible to point to when challenged about being biased concerning my information uptake. My wife likes to point out that I read solely atheist blogs, which is true. On the other hand, she doesn't read non-devotional materials, believer or non. If she did, I think it would be more apparent that it's pretty difficult to read either side without being made aware of the other. Yes, you're primarily hearing the "last word" from someone on a certain side, but it doesn't mean you're ignorant of any and all apologetics offered by "the other side." For example, you're not going to google "the problem of evil" and read an atheist's discussion of it without hearing mention of the free will defense, soul-building defense, or the like from the theist's position. You may read it such that the atheist addresses those responses while you don't get to hear a theist's responses to those counter-arguments, but I think there's definitely some credit to give to anyone intently reading anyone's side of the issues.

Anyway, the point is that if I can polish off some more books, at least I'll be able to point to a set goal I've met regarding the reading of both sides of the story. I think I'll be changing some of those books. A lot of them aren't at the library, and I don't want to buy them, either.

Also, I've pretty much fallen in love with LessWrong. That sounds odd to say, but it's true. People are so supportive and caring when needed, and quite admirable in their discussion of topics with one another -- seeking to offer counterpoints and challenges and striving to agree on the best possible approximation of The Territory. I also just love the content and approach of the posts. Eliezer Yudkowsky (site founder) is a pleasure to read and I always learn something or see something differently when reading his posts on how to be more rational.

I want to think better. I'm want to have the most reliable approach to evidence and the world that is possible. As such, I've committed to reading through some of the sequences at LW, particularly Map & Territory, Mysterious Answers to Mysterious Questions, Reductionism, and How to Actually Change Your Mind. I'll be taking notes through these and will probably blog my notes. Following reading all of these is when I'll re-start my book reading.

So... there you have it. When I finish the LW posts (with notes), my book list (with notes), and final statement... I think I'll be about done :) Once those are out of the way, I may very well concern myself with other things as best I can. I'm about tired of thinking about religion and god all of the time. I've tried, and think I've tried fairly valiantly to pursue this area. Should I finish the above, I think my attempt will have been even more valiant. At the end of the day, though, I want to get on living and making an impact, and don't think that my religious beliefs actually affect my potential for impacting the world much at all; it just affects the lens I see through while going about actually "doing."

Mommy, who's Jesus?

2011-03-17T13:33:00.000-07:00

Both "preach" conflicting views (I boldly proclaim my non-belief while she boldly proclaims her belief)
I say nothing while she raises our daughter to be a Catholic
We educate her about all religions while teaching only that which has proven to be reliable (science, history, logic, etc.)

I think the first would be the most harmful. I'm primarily opposed to the second (though I don't know that it's not unintentionally playing out as we speak), and think the third is by far the best choice given the situation (and in general). Part of my objection to raising them as believers is that none of the later-developed "filters" and thinking mechanisms for evaluating reality are in place at their age. My daughter once stated, "Jesus is in mommy's heart" or something to that effect. She has no way of evaluating what that means. How is a person inside the functioning organ of another person? Is Jesus a person? If he is, does he have a body? Do all people have bodies? Does Jesus both have a body but also not have a body?

Also, my even larger opposition comes about due to what one desires to teach. When my wife says she wants to "share the faith that she loves so much" with our children... it means sharing all the fluffy, warm, ooey-gooey goodness that she thinks is so great. I know these things and, yes, they would have been exciting to me as a believer to instill into my children.

God is so great!
Do you know how very, very much god loves you, honey?
God is the most powerful ever, and he thinks just about you all day long
Isn't [that sunrise, baby's birth, happiness-producing-occurrence, fill-in-blank] so amazing? It's because god is so amazing and can work miracles like these whenever he wants!
And many more...

You get the point. It's all the things you learn in Sunday school that I find parents want to "share" with their children. But why not start at the beginning? Why not teach them that god is omniscient, must have known it was likely for his beloved creatures to fall, created them anyway, let them breed in wickedness, and then killed them all off in a flood? While you're at it, teach them that god created vast amounts of water, flooded the earth with it, and then removed that extra water from existence and covered his tracks by erasing any geological sign that such a flood ever happened!

Perhaps that's a silly example as a lot of denominations don't take the flood literally. You get the point, though. No one is teaching their kids the hairy reality of the apologetical landscape. No, I think they deliberately want to use the impressionable nature of their minds to instill their beliefs into their children. This doesn't have to be malicious -- parents are just trying to share what is near and dear to their hearts and what they think is the greatest thing they can with their children. But when it comes to my current mindset, I obviously don't think this is the greatest thing one can share, nor do I think the theistic debate has reached a level of universal "resolvedness" to be teaching things like this as facts, especially when most of those around me can't defend the things they consider to be facts in the first place.

My greatest fear is that teaching Christian beliefs to a child will reduce their ability to objectively survey the theistic evidential and intellectual landscape when they grow older. I have a hunch that when someone is "raised a Christian," it severely limits their ability to ever be open to being wrong down the road. I fear that going down that road plants a seed of irrational certitude that is extremely difficult to remove. When whatever recipe came together that allowed me to actually doubt and think that I might be wrong about the very thing I'd based my entire life upon... I finally saw that I really didn't have any solid reasons for believing what I believed.

And I decided that I never wanted that to be true about anything again.

Now, surely there will forever be nooks and crannies of ignorance in my life, but I consider that awakening to be one of the best things that's ever happened to me. I'm "meta" aware. I'm more centered on careful rational analysis when presented with some new information or argument. I feel as though a switch was flipped that has allowed me to realize that I was really standing on air. I may have only reached this rare state (being able to doubt) because I only became religious at the age of 16 or so. What would I be like had I been saturated in religion-as-truth since birth?

And so, this is my fear for my children. I already know that they can take in anything -- see shameless plugs HERE and HERE for proof of my scientific indoctrination on our oldest :) I think that is combined with the fact that my own efforts in this area have continued to leave me unsure about my position. Thus, when others who I know have not put in such efforts want to proceed forward with a plan of raising a child to believe x, I'm quite opposed. At the bare minimum I want them to recognize that the subject area is quite far from a cut and dried case. When I do this with my wife, the typical response is simply that she "really, really cares about and believes in" religion. I love my wife... but that's not going to cut it!

This got a bit long... again. I'd like to end by following up on my comment above about my daughter being raised to believe perhaps occurring unintentionally as we speak. My wife stays at home while I work. I have very little "face time" with my daughter (perhaps an hour each morning and a couple of hours at night, and weekends). Combine this with the fact that non-belief really has no "outward signs." I have extremely little passive impact on this area, whereas my wife has tons. She sings praise and worship songs around the house and my daughter later will request them to be sung by name. She prays using a Bible and my daughter sees that. She prays with a rosary, which my daughter sees. My daughter the other day exclaimed, "Holy..." (and I swore she was going to finish with "crap" or something similar) and ended the phrase with "Spirit!" I wondered where in the world that came from! So... she's definitely saturated in a religious environment, but it's probably mostly because religious activity has outward, visible signs of participation. All of my "non-belief" is simply due to opting out of things. I stay home with my oldest while my wife and youngest go to Mass. I don't make the sign of the cross or pray at meal blessings anymore (I mostly try not to even bow my head). Things like that. I feel that the scales are quite tipped against me when it comes to this. Yet, even if I did have outward signs of some sort... I'd still be torn (revisit the three options above). I don't want my daughter conflicted about which parent to side with when it comes to belief. I just kind of want her to grow up as she grows up and at a later date when she has the inclination and mental capacity to dive into this mess of a field of study, she can! It's messy, ugly, and upsetting. To teach her the fluffy goodness of religion by bypassing and ignoring that fact is horrible, in my mind. It's sect-centric -- ignoring the fact that others believe wildly different conclusions just as strongly as you believe in your own! Teaching the Bible as the ultimate authority without explaining how someone across the globe has looked at it, and tossed it in the garbage in favor of his/her own holy text. Or teaching strict rules about something like contraception while leaving out the fact that the Jones' down the street, who are lively, righteous Lutherans who have "sold out" for the Lord... think contraception is perfectly permissible. These are my objections.

I know some read this blog who are in similar situations. What is your current practice in this area? This one is eating away at my wife (and therefore, me, too) and it would be fantastic to come to a resolution. How are you handling this? What do you think of my objections? Are they irrational and/or ill-founded? Should I lighten up? Should I address it more firmly? I appreciate your input!

The argument from "anti-miracles"

2011-03-17T09:30:00.000-07:00

The recent tsunami in Japan has sparked at least a couple of references to what it implies about god's existence (or lack thereof). I've personally seen mention of it at Debunking Christianity and He Is Sailing's blog. I absolutely understand the tempting implication from such events: with such horrors and terrors, there's no way that a loving, powerful being who has us as his primary objects of love would let us be killed and maimed by an enormous natural disaster. I've thought along these lines myself. But is this really an effective argument? I'm going to make the case that it's actually, not and will call this the "argument from anti-miracles."

The Argument from Miracles

First, let's look at the underlying argument behind using miracles as apologetic tools. My "vernacular" summary would be something like this:

A stance that atheism/materialism/physicalism best describes the world entails set X of all possible occurrences
This miracle is outside of set X
Atheism/materialism/physicalism is false since a deviation from its allowable set has occurred
Furthermore, this miracle contains certain characteristics that make it aptly covered by theistic set Y of possible occurrences
Therefore, it is more likely that theism is true

Hopefully that was reasonably clear. Essentially, theists point to a miracle, then illustrate how some aspect of it falls outside of what atheists/materialists/physicalists think is possible (thus attempting a refutation or challenge of said world views), and then (typically) proceed to illustrate how their particular formulation of god/theism says that such an occurrence is completely explainable (thus attempting a positive case for theism variety X).

Most atheists I know don't bite. There are plenty of ways around these types of arguments. Most miracles are poorly documented, occurred in a time and place when people still believed loads of ridiculous things, and involve being removed by several degrees from the evidence. A miracle suffering from these symptoms might be dubious already

Another area of debate centers around miracles philosophically. Are they even possible? Some might simply say that if science is that which describes the happenings we observe, and then we are faced with a well-enough documented aberration to these descriptions (a miracle), then science would simply be forced to update. So... a miracle might, by definition, be impossible. Others might take some cues from Hume and argue that the evidence provided for the miracle would need to be of such a high quantity and quality that for it not to be a miracle would become more miraculous than the miracle itself. That's a pretty darn heavy weight of evidence. Or, lastly, some point to the double burden of proof -- to claim a miracle, one needs to explain exactly how it occurred... but the more this is done, the more is understood and the less "miraculous" it becomes.

In any case, the roots of the whole argument hinge on the second point: "This occurrence falls outside of set X, what atheism/materialism/physicalism says is possible." The obvious response to this is, "Yes, what you describe is currently unexplainable. I have no idea how that's possible, but maybe we'll find out someday." I have been faced with some pretty crazy stories. For example, in listening to Gary Habermas debate, he referenced some Near Death Experiences (NDEs) and Out of Body Experiences (OBEs) that were pretty darn amazing. For example, someone almost dying from a heart attack and then waking up to provide details about a car crash blocks away that was later verified. Or someone in surgery who supposedly left their body and saw a basketball on the roof which was later found. I really have no answer for these. I haven't actually been able to find their origin in my google searching, but even if I could... my answer would simply be that I have no idea how such things happened. My trust of science would rest on its historical success and I'd have to concede that if such occurrences really occurred, then they fall outside of my "set X" at the present moment.

The Argument from Anti-Miracles

If you're a non-believer and use any of the answers above, what do you think about using the tsunami as an example of why god's existence is improbable? In my thinking about this, I believe the argument is actually of the same form and equally flawed. Here's a similar "vernacular" summary of this argument:

A stance that theism best describes the world entails set X of all possible occurrences
This disaster is outside of set X
Theism is false since a deviation from it's allowable set has occurred
Furthermore, this disaster/tragedy contains certain characteristics that make it aptly covered by atheist/materialist/physicalist set Y of possible occurrences
Therefore, it is more likely that atheism/materialism/physicalism is true

Look familiar?

I just recently came to think of these as pretty much equivalent. The argument is revolving around what characteristics are proposed by each belief system and then looking for ways that witnessed occurrences contradict those characteristics.

So, atheism is (mostly) said to describe a world in which nothing exists except matter and energy, governed by physical laws that do not change. Theists respond with examples of healings that contradict what we know can happen in the human body. Or someone immediately regaining sanity or mental health. Or an accident-in-progress that appears to have deviated from the laws of physics.

And theism says an omni-max being rules the entire universe and loves nothing more in creation than human beings. Atheists respond by pointing to examples of horrible things happening to these sentient beings and the apparent lack of action of this hypothetical being to prevent such occurrences or alleviate their aftermath.

The response? This is treading on problem of evil ground here, so any standard response to that probably holds here. Theists may claim that the world didn't used to contain such atrocities, but that now they are present due to our initial transgression. Or that somehow natural disasters are the result of free will. Or that god won't intervene in some cases because it would override free will. Or that god is limited in his control over the natural world.

Or... theists may ultimately simply claim that they already believe in theism for other reasons, and thus the will suppose that god has an answer to these things that they will eventually know in the afterlife.

Is this really that different from atheists who claim that they already believe science holds for other reasons and thus that it may eventually be able to explain something that is currently perplexing?

I think the two are pretty similar and thus think that, taken as an argument by itself, pointing at things the "other side's" beliefs can't currently explain isn't very effective. Perhaps it's logically coherent, but I just don't think it's effective -- there's always an "out."

Caveats

I'll end with one disclaimer to my statement of equivalence. I think that for the equivalence to hold, a theist needs to be essentially apathetic to apparent miracles. Pretty strong claim, huh? I say this as the "out" to why god would apparently not act above probably reduces to a plea of ignorance. "We just don't know." That's my current stance with science on certain aspects, and I think it would be odd to follow up a response of "I don't know" to NDEs or OBEs and then declare that something else makes them impossible. Sure, I still think they're unlikely, but I don't think it's fair to argue from a system I just said was unable to explain a phenomenon... and then use the same system to argue that such things are impossible.

That might be confusing. What I mean is that for a theist to claim ignorance about why god would not prevent a horridly disastrous occurrence from killing his beloved children and then turn around and declare that they absolutely know that he healed such and such's hip socket at Lourdes is a bit difficult for me to swallow. One either knows how god acts... or one doesn't.

I don't really think that the arguments from miracles or anti-miracles succeed, but I do think that both limit their respective recipients to consistency. If one claims that their current world-view/explanatory-tool is limited in a given area, then live that out. Be patient and refrain from arguing from that same limitation toward declaring something else with certainty.

This is why I stand by my "anti-miracles" argument HERE. Someone claimed that god specifically healed people at Lourdes. That's claiming knowledge about why and under what circumstances god does what he does. But how does that knowledge proclamation jive with the fact that pilgrims traveling in several buses, a train, and a plane were not prevented from meeting their deaths despite their good intentions. Either god is protective and rewarding to pilgrims or he's not.

Again, to simply say, "Well, god doesn't always do this or that. We just don't know" is a plea to ignorance, which is absolutely fine. But then stick with that ignorance. It doesn't work to say that you have no idea when or why or what god does and then to immediately declare that you know specifically what and why he did in case x.

What do you think?

Arch linux installation guide: btrfs + encryption

2011-03-03T21:24:00.000-08:00

I've been running Arch Linux for quite some time now, and I love it. For various reason I've been looking into disk encryption and finally took the plunge recently to get a fully encrypted system up and running. I decided to make a one-stop-shop for the process, partially to give a nice customized reference to myself, but also to help anyone else googling the subject. The Arch Wiki is great (I contribute!) but sometimes it's nice to have a separate reference. I often use the website as well as others' blog tutorials to fill in any missing pieces between one reference and another, or to see another way of doing something that might seem simpler or more appealing.

So... let's embark. I decided to give btrfs a try while I was in the business of re-installing, so that's covered here as well. It wasn't easy!

Preparation

You've surely heard it before... but the most important thing you can do before you start tinkering is to back up your data. Seriously, if you haven't done that... just take a deep breath, resolve to abandon whatever impatient and silly motives have convinced you that you need to do this now, at 2am, and go backup your stuff. To illustrate that I practice what I preach, I created a config directory in my home folder and copied any system configs I thought would be helpful upon reinstallation (conky.conf, rc.conf, 10-synaptics.conf, 10-monitor.conf, mkinitcpio.conf, and whatever else struck me) and then rsync'd my home folder to 1) my work network share and 2) an external hard drive. I try to keep two copies of data at all time. If you're wiping your computer... that means you need two other locations for things to reside.

If that's all covered, we can have some fun. Get a decently recent copy of the Arch install ISO; I recommend the netinstall version, but you'll need internet for that to work. Just go camp out by your router. Burn that to a CD and boot from it. I had an older-ish copy laying around and had issues with btrfs and perhaps something else... though I can't recall what. I do know that the older version used kernel 2.6.30, and that was too old for what I was trying to do (should have written down the issue). Downloading a new version worked great.

Next you're going to erase your hard drive. I did a pass of zeros using:
# dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sda bs=1M

Then, you'll want to generate random data if you're encrypting. This eliminates any chance of data being recovered or being able to identify where the data resides on the disk (you're creating "background noise" to mask the encrypted data amidst the disk's free space).
# dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/urandom bs=1M

You can use /dev/random (will take muuuuch longer) or the badblocks method discussed on the wiki.

Alright. With your disk filled with random data, let's move on to partitioning and setting up encryption!

Partitioning & Encryption

Boot up from the install disk. If you have Intel based graphics, make sure you press the tab key from the "Boot Arch" option and add this to the end of the boot options:
i915.modeset=0

Kernel mode setting was made mandatory in kernel 2.6.32, and if you don't have the right modules loaded, you'll get a black screen when you should be seeing the login screen. There maybe another way to fix this, but the solution above is what I used and is discussed on the Arch wiki. We'll also cover how to build it into your initramfs later on for proper setup.

Once booted, log into the Arch installer with "root." Run "cfdisk" and partition your disk. I'm not covering that here, since it's covered far better and more plentifully elsewhere. All I did was to create two partitions: one for /boot and one for the rest of my system. My boot partition is 128M. Set the non-boot partition (or one of them) to bootable, write the table, and exit.

Now to setup encryption. You need to format your data partition(s) as encrypted space using cryptsetup. To access the right encryption tools, run:
# modprobe dm_mod

Now run some variant of this:
# cryptsetup -c -y -s luksFormat /dev/

This formats the partition as and encrypted device. Per the Arch wiki, I used the aes-xts-plain cipher, and a 512 bit key. Thus, my command looked like this:
cryptsetup -c aes-xts-plain -y -s 512 luksFormat /dev/sda2

For reference, I'm using /dev/sda1 for boot and /dev/sda2 is the rest of the drive. Use whatever partitions make sense for you in place of my commands.

You will then be prompted for a passphrase, and then again to confirm it. There are lots of other options covered in the Arch wiki about using keyfiles (like a file on a USB drive) so that the keyfile needs to be present at boot. You can always add more passwords and keyfiles later, though (HERE).

Once the partition is setup, we need to unlock/open it to be able to do anything with it. To do that, run this:
cryptsetup luksOpen /dev/sda2 root

This uses the passphrase you enter to unlock the partition for mounting. It uses a device mapper to make the unlocked partition available at /dev/mapper/root. That "root" at the end of the above command is a label. You can use whatever you want; then just access it via /dev/mapper/whatever-label-you-used).

Setup network

At this point you should set up your network. Plug into a router or access wireless somehow (I'm still not familiar with how to do that with protected wireless, so I always use unprotected or turn off my password temporarily on my own router and then use: ifconfig wlan0 up, iwconfig wlan0 essid router-name, dhcpcd wlan0).

Btrfs and manual installation

Next, I made a btrfs filesystem on /dev/sda2. If you don't do this, you can skip ahead to the automatic installation part (a lot less interesting). To do this, I followed most of a blog post I found HERE. It was quite difficult to find simple, clear-cut instructions on exactly how to use btrfs and set it up for installation, but what I did worked, so here goes...

You need btrfs filesystem tools first. Sync pacman and get them like so:
# pacman -Sy btrfs-progs-unstable

If you get flagged and asked to upgrade something else first (like pacman itself), go for it and then just rerun the above command (you can run it without the y flag).

Now create a new filesystem on /dev/mapper/root:
# mkfs.btrfs -L label-you-want /dev/mapper/root

Make a directory to mount /dev/mapper/root to:
# mkdir /broot

Mount it!
# mount -o noatime,defaults /dev/mapper/root /broot

Now we want to create some btrfs subvolumes. I went with the naming convention discussed at various places in the Arch forums and wiki as well as the blog I referenced above.
# btrfs subvolume create /broot/__active

And now we mount that:
# mount -o subvol=__active /dev/mapper/root /mnt

Then we can create some sub-subvolumes which will function like separate "partitions" in our btrfs pool:
# btrfs subvolume create /broot/__active/home
# btrfs subvolume create /broot/__active/usr
# btrfs subvolume create /broot/__active/var

Subvolumes are created with default permissions of 700; you'll want them to be 755. Run:
# chmod 755 /mnt/[dir]

for __active, __active/home, __active/usr, and __active/var.

I'm still not positive on exactly how this works since (as you'll see later) they aren't explicitly mounted in fstab. The blog post I followed as well as an Arch forum post (same author, I think) mentions that with btrfs, subvolumes of a higher level subvolume get mounted automatically.

I do believe this is the case, and with our current setup, the system will look likd this:

/
|-__active (main subvolume for working root)
  |- /bin
  |- /boot (/dev/sda1 mounted here)
  |- /dev
  |- /etc
  |- /home (separate subvolume)
  |- /lib
  |- /lib64
  |- /media
  |- /opt
  |- /proc
  |- /root
  |- /sbin
  |- /srv
  |- /sys
  |- /tmp
  |- /usr (separate subvolume)
  |- /var (separate subvolume)

I was wondering if /home, /usr, and /var were really mounted btrfs subvolumes or if they were just directories in __active. I put this to the test and did this (from my running system):

# mount /dev/mapper/root /mnt
# btrfs subvolume snapshot /home /mnt/home-snapshot
# btrfs subvolume list /mnt

This showed that home-snap was, indeed, a new subvolume at the top level, which confirmed that my active /home directory was actually a snapshot (trying to snapshot non-subvolumes doesn't work). So, be confident that whatever subvolumes you create under the top-level __active subvolume will function like it's own entity and let you have control over it for snapshots, rollbacks, or whatever else you want. While I haven't tried it yet, you may be able to pass separate mount options to these sub-subvolumes as well, though I have not been successful wtih anything like this:
# mount /dev/mapper/root -o subvol=__active/home /mnt

That gives an error for me. Perhaps one can only mount top level subvolumes? Anyway, I've gotten ahead of myself. Moving on, let's actually install Arch!

Pacman will complain about not having a directory to work in, so create it:
# mkdir -p /mnt/usr/lib/pacman

Also, mount your boot partition in the right place so that when we install the kernel and grub you get the right things in there (though it's no big deal to copy them later if you forget):
# mount /dev/sda1 /mnt/boot

Now run this and relax for a while:
# pacman -r /mnt -Sy base whatever-else-you-want

This will run pacman and install the base system. I'd add on some or all of these:
- base-devel (almsot a necessity)
- wireless_tools (I booted up the first time and didn't have iwconfig. Bummer.)
- btrfs-progs-unstable (you'll need this on the new system)

Once that's one, it's time to configure things. I think it's easiest to just chroot into the new system and use it so you just edit things normally (like /etc/rc.conf instead of constantly doing /mnt/etc/rc.conf). To do that, setup sys, proc, and dev:

mkdir /mnt/sys /mnt/proc /mnt/dev
mount -t proc /proc /mnt/proc
mount -o bind /dev /mnt/dev
mount -t sysfs /mnt/sys
chroot /mnt

We need to install the grub bootloader. On my system, the proper files were not in place to run grub setup, and in looking around I found instructions on how to get the right files in place on the wiki.
cp -a /usr/lib/grub/i386-pc/* /boot/grub/

Then manually install the bootloader to the MBR:
grub

which will open a grub shell. Then you need to point grub to the bootloader files. For me, this is on disk 1, partition 1. Since numbering starts at zero, this equates to:
root (hd0,0)

If you have several hard drives, alter the hd# bit. If it's a different partition, then change the second number after the comma. Now install the bootloader:
setup (hd0)

If this runs successfully, you're all set. I had some issues the first times I tried. If you need to troubleshoot, perhaps make sure that the partition you're using as a boot partition is mounted properly (if you're in the chroot, it should be at /boot relative to the chroot environment, which is really at /mnt/boot). You can also check to make sure that /boot/grub contains files like STAGE1 and STAGE2. Other than that... google is your friend.

While we're talking grub, edit /boot/grub/menu.lst so grub knows how to mount everything at boot. This is what my section looks like:

# (0) Arch Linux
title  Arch Linux  [/boot/vmlinuz26]
root   (hd0,0)
kernel /vmlinuz26 cryptdevice=dev/sda2:root root=/dev/mapper/root rootflags=subvol=__active ro
initrd /kernel26.img

Do whatever you usually do, but make sure you have cryptdevice= and the rootflags= parts right.

Let's handle the next most important thing that's necessary to boot: building an initramfs that has the right options in it for encryption and btrfs. Edit /etc/mkinitcpio.conf:
# nano /etc/mkinitcpio.conf

For the modules section, you want to add intel_agp and i915 for the Intel kernel mode setting we talked about earlier, and crc32c for btrfs. The line should look like this now:
MODULES="intel_agp i915 crc32c"

Also, we need to add the encrypt hook to be able to mount the encrypted partition at boot. Scroll down and make the hooks section look like this:
HOOKS="base udev autodetect pata scsi sata encrypt filesystems"

Just make sure that encrypt is before filesystem. The above is just an example. I didn't do anything except add encrypt; the rest was just left alone.

We need to rebuild the initramfs with these new options now:
# mkinitcpio -k 2.6.37-ARCH -c /etc/mkinitcpio.conf -g /boot/kernel26.img

Moving on, let's edit fstab so everything gets mounted in the right place:

/dev/sda1 /boot none defaults 0 2
/dev/mapper/root / btrfs noatime,defaults,subvol=__active 0 0

Alright, that should handle the important stuff. Tackling the rest:

/etc/rc.conf
- edit your timezone
- set the hostname

/etc/locale.gen
- uncomment your locales (for example, uncomment both en_US.UTF-8 UTF-8 and en_US ISO-8859-1
- run # locaele-gen

/etc/hosts
- add the hostname you set in /etc/rc.conf to the end of both lines.

/etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist
- uncomment your preferred mirror

root password
- run passwd root and enter a password twice.

At this point, you should be able to reboot and give 'er a whirl. Exit out of the chroot, unmount stuff, and reboot!

# exit
umount /mnt/{dev,proc,sys}
umount /mnt
reboot

If all goes well, the system should run through some of the boot process and you should see a line asking for a password for /dev/sda#. If that happens, you're good to go!

Post install stuff

If you're already familiar with this stuff, you can probably go on your way. I add it here partly for myself, as having a record of my install process helps me have an all in one reference. For newer folks, it might help to have another user's process for comparison and to fill in any gaps (sometimes I just need to read something more than one way before I get it!).

Once up and running, add user for yourself. I use adduser and just follow the prompts. You probably want to add yourself to these groups: audio,lp,optical,storage,video,wheel,power.

My typical setup involves installing a whole lot of stuff and then adding various tidbits as I go. For example, I usually forget to setup alsa (sound) until I try to watch my first youtube video on a new system and don't know why I'm not hearing anything :)

In any case, I ended up installing yaourt by adding this to /etc/pacman.conf

[archlinuxfr]
Server = http://repo.archlinux.fr/x86_64 -> /etc/pacman.conf

and then running
pacman -Sy yaourt

Some other stuff you might want to install:
- xorg
- xf86-video-[your driver] (I install xf86-video-intel)
- touchpad driver (xf86-input-synaptics)
- a window manager (openbox for me, along with lxappearance and obconf)
- a panel (tint2)
- office suit (libreoffice)
- a terminal (rxvt-unicode)
- fonts (ttf-bh-font, ttf-bitstream-vera

Heck, I just tossed on all of the stuff I could think of for myself (texlive, libreoffice, wicd, rxvt-unicode, openbox, xorg, lxappearance, obconf, conky, tint2, ttf-bh-font, ttf-bitstream-vera, and whatever else came to mind).

Installing without btrfs

If you're not using btrfs and just doing encryption... just follow the the wiki and use the installer, paying attention to selecting /dev/mapper/root instead of /dev/sda2 for the root partition. The installer is quite simple, makes sure you remember what files to edit and so on. I think it's possible to do this with btrfs (by just mounting things in the right places ahead of time... but I didn't do it that way).

Post Series: On Unequally Yoked Marriage

2011-02-23T10:52:00.000-08:00

Here's a list of the running series on unequally yoked marriage. It will be updated sporadically when I feel like it's time for another post. Here is the current list:

On "unequally yoked" marriage | Part 2 of ?

2011-02-23T10:49:00.000-08:00

Wishy washy: of the sites and people providing advice that actually try to be helpful, most of what is provided is not very concrete, direct, or specific. "Bear with it," "hang in there," "be patient," "respect one another" and so on.
Bail-out: A good number of posts and discussions simply ask/say this: "Do you have kids yet? No? Run for the hills." Nuff said.
My spouse doesn't care: The ones discussing staying together often do so from the point of relating personally with the type of situation but are often in a form of it in which the other spouse is only a believer for social or emotional reasons and doesn't actually care if the spouse believes or not

I'm still not satisfied with this advice. There are others who I'd say feel similarly about such advice and who also aspire toward some better solution, like LikeAChild, DoOrDoNot, and HeIsSailing (among others). Perhaps our mutual blogging, sharing, and commenting can help not only us, but others as well. Here goes...

Summary

I'll start by saying that this has still not been much fun with respect to the pure "Quest" aspect of things. I just don't know as much as I'd like. I'm unconvinced that Christianity is true and actually have significant doubts that it even could be true. I don't know that I'll ever be able to prove it, though. I think I've come to accept that fact more. I still find that many believing friends don't really like that fact. It seems that their approach toward me can, at times, be one of "If you can't prove it's false, then you should believe." Perhaps the insinuation is that if I can't formally prove Christianity is false, then I had no grounds for walking away. Maybe so. Then again... I just don't believe anymore. That's that. What should I so about that?

I'm still firmly in the belief-is-not-chosen-but-just-happens-inside-a-black-box camp. I feed in inputs (books, blogs, thoughts, ponderings, conversations, etc.) and out comes some resultant "yay" or "nay." So far, it's been "nay."

I'd also state that our circle of friends has pretty much dropped any contact with me outside of formal events where we are brought together physically. There are about five friends I can think of right now who still get together with me regularly and would seek me out to make something happen. With the rest, if I didn't see them or they didn't have religious engagements with my wife... I'm not sure I would really ever see or hear from them unless they wanted something (most of the emails I get are requests to events, something having to do with prayers for someone sick, or something involving donating money to the outreach I used to be a part of).

Franky, my plans to embark on the Truth-Seeker Challenge have all but fizzled. I hope to pick it back up, but it's quite difficult. I have lost much of the urge I originally had to burn through books at a rapid pace. I've begun to really get into woodworking, including making my wife a Christmas picture frame and making my good friend a cribbage board for his birthday. I'm working on another cribbage board right now and honestly find it more tangibly rewarding than going over the variants of "free" will, the nuanced opinions of what constitutes a reliable testimony when it comes to the gospels, how some violent/scandalous OT act was actually good and holy or didn't really happen like that, and so on. Wood working is satisfying; internal debate about how to interpret differing theological opinions is like the worst ice-cream headache in the world.

Marriage Specific

---( Counseling )---
My wife and I have begun to see a marriage counselor. This is probably the most significant development since the last time. He was recommended by our Catholic friends and I was a bit cautious about this, not knowing how he would advise us in our situation. I was also cautious in general... simply because I had nothing to go on except for recommendations from a small sample size. In our first meeting with him, he had my approval. I liked his approach in general -- very specific questions followed by a great job listening with an occasional interjection of affirmation (you say, "And this makes me feel x," and he says, "Of course, because it's natural to feel x in a situation like that because...) just to show you he understands. I also was very glad he focused on specific goals toward the end of our first meeting by asking, "If we were to have 'success' in these meetings, what would the outcome look like?"

Going in, I was apprehensive about paying >$100/hr for a high priced "friend" to listen to us dialog. I wanted to pay for what he was skilled at, not what I could have someone else do for us for free. Discussing goals and targets reassured me that his focus was on results and outcomes, not just on the process itself. Some goals that came up were:

Improved communication: when discussion religion related issues, we both tend to get pretty upset. I get defensive if I feel challenged on my non-belief, and she gets hurt if I insult her belief or imply that it's ill-founded.

Unity: I have noticed that we both retreat to outside sources of comfort. She typically seeks comfort from other married women when she's having a hard time with the fact that the marriage and life she envisioned isn't happening. I tend to retreat toward other non-believers (blogs, my parents, or Minnesota Atheist activities) because it's the only forum where I feel like I can speak my mind, discuss objections to Christianity/religion, etc. without offending someone.

We've certainly lost some common ground that united our relationship, but we both voiced a desire to "rebuild" around something or anything in order to mend this issue. I don't know what the solution in this area would look like, but we both recognize the lack of closeness that used to be there. She probably feels it far more, as she has lost the part of me that could comfort her "spiritually" (say by praying over her for healing or bringing up some inspirational passage to help her through hard times) and lead our family as a Christian (call her on to serve god, teach our kids the faith, etc.). That's a big hit to take. I realize that something was lost, but I'm hoping that the counseling can help us recognize that a) perhaps the "hole" doesn't need to be a "hole" (perhaps there were reducible components to what the religious common ground provided and we can redirect there instead of fixating solely on religion being lost), b) we can acknowledge the hole but side step it and wander off into new territory together (some new topic, books, games, method of sharing/consoling), or c) I don't really know where else I was going. The point is that anything to rebuild the connection and mutual bond/comfort provided through our relationship was a huge goal of the counseling.

Kids: my wife raised the issue of how to raise our children. This was an interesting one, and increased my opinion of the counselor, because he denied addressing this as it was not really his specialty. I liked that he didn't have any qualms about immediately making that known. He said he could provide some book suggestions and perhaps discuss the issue slightly but didn't want to make it a focus. Thumbs up for humility, honesty, and not taking my money for something he doesn't think he can help with.

Acceptance:I brought up a theory that some kind of acceptance of our situation would help tremendously for both of us. For my wife, I think of my non-belief like a bruise. Every time she sees a couple who are friends of ours and is reminded that we don't have that kind of relationship anymore... I think of it as someone whispering in her ear, "You don't have that anymore, your husband isn't a believer" or the like. Because the situation is so raw, it's like a bruise and it hurts to get poked. This leads to tears and upsetness. I have mine, as well. I get quite defensive when challenged or when I think others think something is wrong with me, that I'm stupid, or unjustified, etc. in my non-belief. I'm not comfortable in my "new skin." I suggested to the counselor that "true acceptance" would produce the same reaction to these religious situations as being told that the sky is blue. They are simply a fact of life and are what they are.

Maybe my view was too simplistic and the sky will never have the emotional impact of changed beliefs in a relationship, but nevertheless I thought that something like this would help a lot. Or, if not (and the counselor didn't seem to agree with my model but I don't recall him suggesting a different one at the time)... something that could help give the emotions some cushion in these situations so that they weren't as "charged" as they currently are for us both.

I'm sure some other things came up, but I'm not thinking of them right now. These were the biggies

We've been to two counseling sessions so far. The last one went quite well also. We discussed how things go when I'm attending something religious. I talked about how it was awkward for me to see all these people we both know and how my wife typically does not empathize with me but typically tells my why the events shouldn't be awkward, which gets me upset.

We also talked about a conversation we had which went very, very well. My wife talked about an experience she had in her woman's group in which she didn't think she had shared her thoughts very well, and I mainly asked a lot of questions to better understand why she felt like she did, what she thought the cause might be, and how she might avoid that happening in the future. While apparently I made the classic mistake of actually trying to help her fix the situation... she nevertheless really, really enjoyed that we had the long discussion. I talked about how I think I share my thoughts constantly with her but how I don't think she does the same with me. I said that I really wanted to know what was going on in her head and life but that it just didn't seem like she was motivated to share much unless I actually asked and kept the conversation going. She shared that it's usually that I'm busy and she doesn't want to bother me for fear of me getting annoyed. Fair enough! I do think that most of the times when I share, it's when I track her down and start a conversation no matter what she's doing, or over some common event like dinner in which I dominate the conversation with respect to time. And, yes, when she interrupts me woodworking or on my computer, she usually gets a sigh of impatience. I told our counselor that the "short sighted me" is definitely impatient, but that the "big picture me" needs no convincing, whatsoever, that communication and listening to my wife is extremely important (hence me being aware that I already want my wife to share with me but don't feel like she does as much as I'd like).

Anyway, my homework was to schedule time to talk so that it was not an interruption but a planned activity and hers was to simply hear me if I said something was going to be awkward to attend. If he hadn't moved right into the next appointment scheduling, I would have added that I could do a better job of not being a pain in the ass at such events... not only are they awkward, but I make it far more obvious than I need to that I don't want to go (or be there when we're actually there). I guess I am still a little kid at heart...

---( Kids )---
This is still a recurring theme. We somewhat pendulum swung since the last time. Originally, my wife felt very strongly that she wanted to raise our children Catholic. I didn't like that idea. I discussed this in my last post when I said:

The alternatives? She insists on raising our children Christian and me having no say. Or I insist that she doesn't even teach them about her faith while I only teach them secular/naturalist principles that can be established via science. Both of these are win-lose scenarios, but I hypothesize that these types of situations will actuall kill the marriage long term. I honestly don't know if I could stick around were I in a relationship where my spouse literally asked me to keep my mouth shut about something I put so much work into for no other reason than she believed in it. I equally don't expect she'd put up very well with me telling her to keep something extremely important to her completely to herself and to never speak of it.

I still think that some kind of agreement to teach only universally agreed up on and proven foundations of human knowledge (science, logic, philosophy, mathematics, inquiry, etc.) while teaching them about (not as fact) various religions makes the most sense.

About a month ago (or perhaps less), this came up again and she said that she wasn't planning on raising our kids Catholic. I was about speechless. I couldn't believe it. She said that she had decided that if our kids asked her what something was or what she was doing (she prays in front of them and we have various religious artifacts around our house) that she would teach them about such things/actions but not teach them such things as facts. Wow!

Fast forward a few weeks and she's back to really wanting to raise them Catholic. We got into a pretty good argument over this that was quite similar to the others we've had, which brings me to setting aside an entire section toward it...

---( Belief based "right of way" )---
So... spouses hold mutually exclusive (mostly) beliefs x and y. Who wins? What do you teach the kids? My wife quite often returns to the statement that she really wants to raise the children Catholic because... she thinks it's really important. I remind her quite often that this issue is quite important to me as well and am uncomfortable with raising them Catholic because I don't know what kind of hindrance to free thinking this will produce in the future. My wife, however, is quite pained by the fact that she values her faith so much but might not be able to share it with our children. She expressed that she just wanted to be able to share the faith with them so much that it made her miserable thinking about suppressing that desire.

I don't know if I helped or hurt the situation by beginning to ask child-like questions...
- Who is Jesus? Jesus is god's son.
- Who is Jesus' father? Jesus has two fathers.
- Which one got his mom pregnant? God did.
- Where did the sperm come from? There was no sperm.
- Really? How did a baby come about without sperm? Hey -- our daughter would never ask these questions!
- Fine... Why did god flood the earth and kill everyone? She wouldn't ask that either.

You get the point. Or maybe you don't? My point, I guess, was that when my wife says that she wants to teach our daughter(s) the faith, I take that to mean a kind of generalized feel-good theology that makes a kids eyes wide about how awesome god is, how he can do everything, that Jesus is a super-hero for saving the world, and how god is just so darn ooey-gooey filled with buttery goodness that we should love him more than our night-time teddy bear, popsicles, or bath time. No one teaches their children "the faith" -- they get them started with a completely blind opinion of someone, and that opinion is completely formed by the parents.

Anyway, then my wife brought up something quite interesting... my original promise was that I would raise my children Catholic. I promised this in our wedding. She suggested that this gave her more weight in pursuing that end than my say in some other direction and asked what I thought of that. I'm still working through it but have two ideas:

First, unfortunately I'd have to say that I made the promise in ignorance. I'm not sure how else to say it than that. I made the promise under the belief that Christianity was true and that it was the right way in which to raise children. What do I do now that I don't believe it? I'm not sure how a prior promise, made completely upon the foundations of a belief can be binding if such a belief system is now believed to be false.

I tried to illustrate this with her by asking what she would do if hypothetically, Catholicism was definitely true, but at one point she thought Mormonism was true and made a promise to raise her children as Mormons prior to discovering that Catholicism was true. I think she actually might have said she'd still be obligated to raise her children Mormons. I disagree. Or what if you promised to kill some enemy of the US as a soldier and then discovered that you had been set up to kill someone purely for financial gain -- would be obligated? I'm assuming that most of us would say, "no" to the second. Maybe the fact that it involves more of an "evil" consequence strikes us stronger than simply two beliefs in the same category. But the second has a similarity to my position -- I literally think that raising children to believe something as true may forever affect their ability to choose otherwise in the future.

Secondly, I think that one could view a promise as having underlying reducible components, such as "it is right to raise one's children to believe in the truth." In that sense, promising to raise them Catholic is really a continuation of the underlying component. The one I listed, coupled with "Catholicism is the truth" leads to the conclusion "it is right to raise one's children to believe Catholicism."

If such a view of promises can be true... then not believing Catholicism is true undercuts the conclusion and thus it is no longer binding. Perhaps others will disagree, but that's how I've been thinking about this

As a side note, I'll still add that despite not having read as many books as I would have liked to... I've still busted my a** over belief and theology more than almost everyone I know in my circles. I find it somewhat insulting and frustrating to be told that one has more of a right to proceed with instructing a child on something which is believed, essentially, out of ignorance. I don't think I'd say that I've even read myself "out of ignorance" at this point, so I have a hard time believing others who try to convince me that they have justified their stance. Most of them believe based on personal experience or because someone they respect and have confidence knows more than them believes and thus those respected persons can't possibly be wrong, which leads to a confidence-umbrella provided when basking in their shadow.

---( Conclusions )---
I think that about wraps it up. I think we've become more stable, but I still think we "stumble" into both bad times and good. I'd like to find a more predictable "recipe" for marriage success given our situation and be able to achieve the goals listed in the counseling section.

I also would like to find some resolve about children. What do you think? What is your view on the question of "right of way" based on prior promises and beliefs no longer believed?

Lastly, I've recently entertained the idea of stopping to learn about religion altogether and simply focus on self-improvement, loving, doing, and living. This could be an unbelievable time-suck and frustration. So far it has been. I know a lot more, but I can't say that my study has produce a tangible positive return quite yet. I'm thinking I may go hard toward the truth-seeker challenge again and then may quite reading about religion altogether for quite a while and simply focus on living my life. I guess I've obviously been doing that somewhat all along, but I've felt a bit paralyzed to apply principles without knowing what they should be based on (secularism or Christianity). Maybe the time has come to take up my desire to get into meditation, finding a practical set of moral principles/moral system, etc. rather than floating in the wind. I'm still sorting that out, but thought I'd add these thoughts in as well for any comments about how you have or have't found balance, what you think the end result of your studies will be, etc. Where are we going with these long book lists and taxing drives to read tons of blogs and expend effort in commenting? What's the result?

My goal is certainty but I don't know if I'll ever get there. If it's not realistic and no matter how much energy I put toward this I'll never attain it... perhaps I should cut my losses and develop other relationships or skills instead?

Thanks for reading -- I realize that these posts on marriage and life in general can be quite long.

Recent woodworking [2 of 3]: cribbage board

2011-02-20T09:03:00.001-08:00

Continuing on from my last post, I wanted to post some pictures of another recent project. I made my first cribbage board for a friend of mine's birthday and was really pleased. I played cribbage with my father-in-law over Christmas and got the idea to make him one for his birthday (which I will). My very, very good friend showed some interest in cribbage shortly after while were were talking about it and, I thought I'd get my feet wet by making him one first for his birthday. I looked around for some ideas and got most of my ideas from the designs of a guy named Minnesota Mitch.

I created a pattern using LaTeX and TikZ and designed my dimensions around that. When playing with my father-in-law, we were actually playing four handed cribbage, which is where you play on teams of two. My wife's grandma and I were on the same team, and my wife's siter's husband (brother-in-law-in-law?) was playing with my father-in-law. There were a couple of instances where I couldn't believe how far ahead we were and it made me wonder if grandma had started pegging the wrong direction (when playing on a board with two tracks of 30 holes each, you go down and back twice -- if you were supposed to be doing down and suddenly think you're on your way back already... you can suddenly have quite the advantage!). Due to this, I decided to put in some helpful yet decorative inlays to indicate track direction, up the outside, down the inside.

Without further adieu, here's the final product:

The middle inlay was completely unfinished and rough on top when I glued it in. I was incredibly pleased at how figured it ended up being when I sanded it down!

I made an end cap and threaded receiver on the lathe and inserted into the end of the board. There is a deep drilled hole behind it for peg storage:

I need to make special mention of the pegs here. I got them from tchristy0 on ebay. I just searched for "cribbage pegs" on ebay and found some called "Irish crown-top" pegs and just loved them. They come in a set of six, three brass and three stainless steel and just look amazing in the board. Better yet, they were only $5.00!

A peg close up:

They are tapered and probably fit down about 3/8" of an inch, leaving about 3/4" of an inch above the surface.

I got started on the board kind of late and had to make the holes and peg storage "chamber" pretty much "blindly" since the pegs hadn't come in the mail yet. I can now report that all six fit into a 31/64" diameter hole that was 2.5" deep. To make it, I actually drilled a 3" deep hole 31/64" in dia and then used a 5/8" end mill to counterbore it 0.5" deep. The counterbore then received the metal insert I made via woodglue (after using a punch to mar up the outside of the metal a bit for some texture for the glue).

Anyway, the board turned out fantastically and the pegs were just an awesome touch at the end. I don't play much cribbage, nor have I surveyed the cribbage peg landscape before this. I had no idea you could get such cool looking pegs for one's projects! I highly recommend tchristy0's selection -- he has quite a large one (Christy's Cribbage Supply). I was also incredibly impressed that he included a handwritten note in my package, wishing that 2011 would be my "29 year". I'll be buying a lot more pegs from him in the future!

Lastly, thanks to where I work... I happen to have access to a CO2 laser which came in quite handy :)

Maybe I can sell these for money for all the books I want to read. That and solid state hard drives, tools, and whatever else :)

Recent woodworking [1 of 3]: Christmas picture frame

2011-02-20T06:49:00.000-08:00

I've become somewhat of the woodworking hobbyist over the last few months, mostly due to my dad's gift of a table saw over Thanksgiving (early Christmas present) when they visited us from Florida. As you can see from my most recent story post, I'm somewhat of the artsy-craftsy type. I'm not sure if that's atypical of the analytical/engineering type, or not!

Anyway, I thought I'd share some of my recent projects. I conceived of the idea of a picture frame for my wife for Christmas sometime shortly after Thanksgiving (kind of a late start!) and had a vague idea of making it from bands of two different woods. Kind of a layered construction. Being an absolute woodworking novice, I was hoping to find some instruction as to how to cut the thin strips the best but didn't even know what to google. For some reason I must have searched "inlays" because I found this instructables post. That changed the whole game. I quite love guitars and happen to have a handmade one. I'm familiar with beautiful inlay work but never knew how they did it. Once I went through that post, I could't believe that the method shown was how they actually did it. Moreso, I wondered if I could do it... and what better to try on than the picture frame! I found one more instrumental video by The Wood Whisperer that was absolutely what I needed to be confident I could do this. It's HERE.

I think my original design was going to be a single frame -- four sides and a picture in the middle. To pull of an inlay, however, I needed somewhere to put it. I adjusted my design to be a two-up 8x10" frame -- two pictures side by side with a wide divider between them where the inlay would go.

I went and got some wood from a nearby lumber store. I didn't really need much, and wood can be expensive. After wandering through their short/wide scrap bins and not finding anything long enough and not wanting to buy a full board (8-12" wide x maybe 10' long which would have been a lot), one of the employees showed me their rip scrap (cutting a board long-ways leaves a long, skinny piece as the excess). They were perfect -- he gave me a piece of maple, a piece of walnut, and a small piece of mahogany (for the inlay) for $6! I got to work.

I put the main pieces of wood together with the following pattern: 1/8" walnut, 1/4" maple, 1/8" walnut, 1" maple, and 1/8" walnut. Here's the pieces all glued up and in the rough layout:

I also wanted a very thin strip of wood between each piece of walnut and maple, just for an added effect. I think it drew from my love of guitar woodworking, where thin strips of alternating materials/colors are often used for the banding around the body of the guitar or fretboard. I had the idea to use iron-on veneer strips, intended for covering up the edge of plywood:

With the rough layout done... onto my first drawings (left) and final design for my inlay attempt:

The next step was to cut the design out into pieces and get it traced on the middle piece of the frame:

I also went out and got a coping saw and, after tracing the outlines onto the inlay wood, I started cutting my inlays:

The next step is to double-side-tape the inlays onto the receiving wood and trace them with an X-acto knife to make nice outlines to follow when routing. I have two of the leaves traced here and ready for routing!

After some careful routing and cleanup work with the X-acto knife, I had two leaves (hickory) and the tip of the flower in:

Some more work brought me to this point:

A quick note on the darkened edges you might notice. In the Wood Whisperer video I linked to above, he talks about "sand shading." This is a technique where sand is heated in a vessel of some kind and the inlay piece is inserted into it. The hot sand creates a gradient charring of the wood to create a shadow-like effect. I used that on my petals to give them some depth and was pretty happy with the results.

Well, after one more petal and a loooooooot of work on getting the 45 degree corners cut and everything glued together, I had a heck-u-va Christmas present. Here she is:

The whole package:

An inlay close-up:

Another:

And a close up of a corner, showing the banding I was talking about:

There you have it. The back of the pieces have material removed along their inner edges so that a piece of 8x10 glass fits right in. Still have to get pictures in it and then I'll use some little "tabs" I found at Rockler Woodworking to secure the picture, glass, and probably some thin cardboard in place. I'm going to pick up a "sawtooth" shape hanging mount at some point and get that attached, too. Obviously... the frame isn't finished finished. But the hard part is, by far, over. Just thought I'd share the project.

imgur, my new image hosting solution

2011-02-19T12:24:00.000-08:00

I'm not sure what the rest of you use, but I have been using various google services for my image hosting. I started with google sites but then switched to google docs due to it allowing me to arrange things into "collections" (folders) as well as set individual permissions rather than having to have the entire site public. My temper has been flaring as of late, however. It seems that no matter what I do with the permissions (setting "anyone with the link can view" or "public on the web" or checking the "anyone can edit without signing in")... the image links keep asking for logins. When I email, this is just an annoyance for those trying to view them. On a blog, however, they just show up blank.

It's hard to test these, as I need to log into google docs, get the links open in a browser, then log out, quite my browser, and then re-open to see if the links are still viewable. If not... log back into google docs, fiddle with settings and start again.

Well, enough with that. I have settled on imgur. I think I actually ran into it via one of Luke's News Bits posts at CSA but I can't find the post. Anyway, the site is ridiculously simple. The links are amazingly short compared to the ridiculously long google docs links (though, I suppose I could pipe them though something like tiny url). In reading through their FAQ, things seem pretty straightforward. They cut down sizes to about 1MB upon upload, keep your images as long as they get 1 view every three months, and you can upload as many as you want. I dig it.

Oh, the other thing that has irked me with google docs is that I have proven that after fiddling with permissions, they change the link address to an image. This means if you email someone a picture, realize there was an access issue and then change it... the link you sent is useless. With imgur, you can edit the image and the link remains the same.

I'm loving it.

P.S. What do you use and are you satisfied with it? Have I been hassling myself with google docs unnecessarily all this time?

What, exactly, is belief?

2011-02-10T18:52:00.000-08:00

I've had a lot of conversations with friends about my situation and the nature of "belief" seems to come up quite a bit. I'd like to re-create a conversation I recently had with a friend in which he was quite adamant about the nature of choice in belief. In one discussion, we had this exchange (paraphrased, but quite accurately):

Me: I wouldn't describe my situation as a choice, exactly. I'd say that it's more like I've simply begun to ask questions, looked around, and what I've learned combined with however my mind receives the data has formed my non-belief. I'd say that I've more been led or brought to a state rather than looked at a fork in the road and freely chosen an outcome. I'm not convinced that there's much choice involved in belief.
---
Him: Sure there is.
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Me: Well, let me put it this way. What if I asked if it was possible for you to choose to believe in Islam right here, right now. Do you think it's possible? Maybe... but I don't think it would really mean anything to you. Do you agree?
---
Him: No. I could choose to believe in Islam right now if I wanted to.
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Me: Really? But what would it mean to you? Would it mean anything?
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Him: Absolutely. I'd start reading the Koran and going to services.
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Me: But those are external things, not belief. Do you think you could really choose to believe in Islam right now?
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Him: Absolutely. I can choose to believe anything.
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Me: Hmmm. What about this: could you choose to believe that the sky is green?
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Him: Yes. I can choose to believe anything. I have free will.
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Me: But somewhere inside you're not going to be able to ignore the fact that your eyes see blue. On some level, wouldn't those just be words or a statement? You couldn't possibly actually believe it, could you?
---
Him: No. Absolutely, I could. I have the will to believe anything.

I pretty much couldn't believe my ears. Perhaps it's obvious that I strongly and entirely disagree. Put so strongly as he did (my hunch is that it was purely or mostly out of defensiveness, not as the result of an actual cognitive processing exercise), belief essentially means nothing. If one can literally believe that the sky is green simply by choosing it... then what does it mean to say that he believes in Jesus Christ as Lord?

Less intensely, I also had a discussion with a very close friend recently about the more "subtle" nature of belief-choice interaction. I re-proposed my theory that "belief" is more like a definition of a state, comprised of available facts, my biases, whatever causes certain interpretations/reactions to those facts, etc. The inputs are what they are... I'm the "black box"... and "belief" is what pops out.

The objections that he kept bringing up were along the lines of scenarios where people seem to make a decision against the intuitive implication of certain facts because they choose to, say, take someone's word. For example, I tell you that I have a dragon in my garage with a straight face. You weight the facts/background information (having no experience of dragons, believing strongly that they are only mythical creatures, thinking that even in mythical portrayals they are too big for my garage, etc.) but choose to believe anyway because you think that my trustworthiness is that good.

But this isn't really choosing for an arbitrary reason to believe. All that's happning is you, the black box, are weighting my trustworthiness against the improbability of the statement... and you find me more believable.

I also theorize a few other items:

Many times when we say we're choosing to believe someone despite a lack of supporting evidence or in the face of contradicting evidence... I think that we're really saying that we're okay with choosing to act in a certain way. This isn't belief in my book. We're "going along" with someone's pleadings or insistence simply because the action doesn't require that much investment... but in our minds, we're not convinced.
On that note, I think we have a far lower barrier for "belief" or "belief-based-investigation" when the stakes are low. Relatively meaningless propositions about what someone did during their weekend or at work today pass through the BS filter and get integrated with our network of beliefs. There's nothing at stake to investigate.
Obviously, the converse is the opposite. When extremely high risks are at stake, we're far more cautious. Just "going along" with a dragon-believing-friend is one thing. Him telling you to bet your life on its existence and then holding a gun to your head as you prepare to open the garage door is far different.

What does all this mean in the context of something like believing or not believing Christianity? I'm not exactly sure! For one, however, I'd at least like to put forth that I don't think my non-belief is anywhere near chosen to the degree that believers would like. I can't believe the number of conversations about this that have skirted the "choice" issue when it comes to belief -- why did I choose to go down this path in the first place? Why can't I just choose to suppose Christianity is true and then research from within the framework of belief? And so on.

Perhaps I'm just self-deluded, but this is not how I've experienced my journey at all. I just started reading and found myself troubled by the fact that for every issue I began reading about, I found that the arguments/propositions/facts of non-believers struck me as far more likely than the apologetic-hoop-jumping I would read on the other side. Of course, it took a heck of a long time (nine years) for my radar to even get set off to the fact that Christianity might not be true! Prior to whatever recipe brought about The Quest, I would say that my belief in Christianity was not chosen, either. My background beliefs, environment which constantly reinforced that Christianity was true and real, and my interpretation of the facts (which were nearly unanimous in arguing for Christianity) led me to continue believing for nine years that Christianity was absolutely true. But I wasn't choosing that. I would say that I was choosing to live my life according to that belief -- praying, going to Mass very often, frequenting confession and adoration, etc. -- but I'm not sure what choice had to do with the belief in the first place.

I'll end by saying that I think we can indirectly influence beliefs. To work on biases, irrational reactions to reasonable arguments and evidence in favor of a contrary position, and being aware of both sides of an issue and as much information about these sides as possible all should help one's belief be aligned with "what is." I still don't think you can choose that belief, but you can help work on the input stream (evidence, arguments, information) and the "black box" (you: biases, tendencies, gut reactions, intuitions, etc.) to help make sure that what comes out the backside is as accurate as possible.

What do you think? Do you "choose" belief?

Cumulative Case: My Story (4 of 5)

2011-02-07T09:00:00.000-08:00

On the back of it, I wrote the meaning of the icon for me:

Yes, I'm an engineer with an artsy side (which will only become more obvious in this post!). In any case, I finished out my semester of working as a staff member at the boarding school and went on a pilgrimage to Lourdes, France, with a small group of graduates. It was fantastic. We were there for almost two weeks and worked as members of what's known as the "Hospitalite" -- a monstrous organization of volunteers who, essentially, help Lourdes run. There are six million visitors a year, many of whom are sick, and the Hospitalite loads and unloads them from the planes, trains, and buses they arrive on, wheels and/or carries them to and from the baths, Masses, and other sites, helps organize the evening Rosary Procession (all the little lights are people holding candles). I got to assist the sick into the baths (called the piscines) where many pilgrims immerse themselves in the water believed to have healing abilities. It was an intense time filled with much prayer at the grotto where Mary is believed to have appeared to the young St. Bernadette.

Following my time at Lourdes, I went home for the summer before I was to start college. I got a job doing landscaping as well to keep busy. I don't recall an awful lot from that summer other than it being a bit frustrating to be back home with my parents. I think after leaving at 16 and not returning until two and a half years later took a bit of a toll. I recall really hating when things would be asked of me that I thought were below my newfound maturity. I wanted equality and think anything that felt like they were dealing with the snapshot version from years past grated on me quite heavily.

Then, off to college it was. The University of St. Thomas was wonderful. I studied Mechanical Engineering, and lived (as said in Part 3) a house with other devout Catholics who were part of Saint Pauls Outreach (SPO), an evangelism-focused organization in St. Paul that has chapters (i.e. student clubs) at several local colleges/universities. It was a bit of a shock for me, though. My current faith life had been very "traditional", and I soon found out that SPO was highly charismatic. In other words, they prayed in tongues, prayed "expressively" (hands raised, dancing, spontaneous prayers out loud), believed in healings, gave prophecies, etc. It was a little weird at my first event to vaguely recall the leader saying something like, "Let's pray," me bowing my head in response, and then to hear everyone around me start praying out loud very... passionately. I sat that one out.

Eventually, however, I grew to love charismatic prayer. It seemed to make sense (at least in how it was explained to me). The Psalms feature fantastic examples of using one's whole being to pray -- clapping, dancing, singing, raising one's voice, etc. We have been given bodies and find it natural to express ourselves with them. Why not do the same for God, who gave us our bodies? It also was an outlet for the emotional side, I found. I had extreme gratitude and felt a need to be very strongly devoted and humble before God. Praying in my own words seemed more satisfying than using something like the Our Father. I became quite a committed member of the group. I went to their prayer meetings, participated in small groups, helped lead events, tried some "recruiting", and went on the retreats.

One event I want to relate has to do with my first retreat, which occurred about six months into my first year with SPO. It was called a "Fan into Flame" retreat, named after 1 Timothy 1:6. The retreat featured about 6-8 talks which essentially walked participants through salvation history. God created perfect, we fell and are without hope, which is why God sent Jesus. Jesus' life, death and resurrection brings about an offering of salvation, and through acceptance of that gift we are able to have new life in Jesus that is made alive through his gift of the Holy Spirit. The retreat climaxes at the Saturday night prayer meeting where participants are "baptized in the Spirit." Essentially, you make a profession of faith and then retreat leaders lay hands on you and pray that the Holy Spirit be released in your life. The profession of faith is much like a renewal of baptismal vows where one is asked if they believe in God the creator, that Jesus is the son of God and rose from the dead, and if they reject Satan and all his works and empty promises. For the first time (I had said these promises before), I felt a twinge of doubt about whether I believed that Jesus had risen from the dead. It wasn't a "real" doubt -- I just noticed for the first time that I wasn't sure I had ever really swallowed that truth. I told this to the prayer leader and he told me to pray the verse from Mark 9:24: "Lord, I believe; help my unbelief." I did that repeatedly but it didn't seem to help. They finished praying over me with no real result and I went back to my chair and the doubt began to envelop me -- did Jesus rise? Is the Bible true? Is God real? All kinds of things. Everything had been yanked out from under me.

But, I need to point out something odd about those doubts. They were never doubts that actually wondered if they were true (religion/Catholicism/Christianity was false). I recall distinctly that they were all essentially doubts that I thought implied something was wrong with me. I didn't actually question whether everything was true... just that my doubting meant I wasn't getting some piece of the puzzle. The rest of the retreat was miserable. Tons of people shared that night and the next day during "Glory Story" time that they had been brought to God-given uncontrollable laughter, been given the gift of [praying in] tongues, a gift of prophecy, and the like. I had been given the gift of... doubt?

Over the next two or three weeks, I became obsessed with trying to fix my doubt. I strongly recall not debating if any competing religions were true. I was sure of Catholicism due to the surety of those around me... I just didn't understand why I didn't get it. Particularly, I wanted to understand why we earned death through original sin and why Jesus' death fixed that. It was suggested that I read Stephen Clark's Reddemer, a hefty volume on this particular subject. I know Steve personally and have met with him post-doubt. He is insanely knowledgeable and his book seemed to help at the time, but I was still confused. After about three weeks, I was talking with the leader of the house I was living in who was a probably 15 years my senior about my dilemma. Despite the seemingly intellectual nature of my issue, I think it really came down to the fact that I didn't feel inside what I saw externally in those around me. I thought that if I really "got it"... then I would also feel the charismatic excitement and jubilation they seemed to be saturated with. The house leader seemed to sense that I was pretty torn up about this, and I was. I felt like I was broken somehow and was extremely frustrated that I couldn't "learn myself out of this." He said that faith was a gift and that I couldn't will it to come about. I was relieved on one hand (not something wrong with me), but confused on the other (when would this gift decide to give itself??). He said we could pray for that gift, and so we did. He said some prayer over me that I don't recall, and then I just balled my eyes out while proclaiming that I wanted to know Jesus personally and just knew he was there but couldn't find him. I remember expressing that through those three weeks I just knew that I could live powerfully for Him if I could just bypass my doubt.

This moment of prayer would fuel my next several years of Christian living. I felt tremendous relief and consolation in that prayer and took that to have been me experiencing the risen Lord personally. I no longer doubted his resurrection, as I believed he was clearly alive and well. I became bolder in prayer (out loud, expressive, etc.), my prayer shifted to more of a discussion and constant awareness of His presence. I attempted to prayer constantly. I was set on fire.

So it would be from the spring of 2004 until Christmas of 2010. I lived in those household programs my entire four years at college, right up until the summer before I got married in December 2007. I became a Student Missionary, which meant that I gave a certain number of hours each week to help explicitly with the mission of evangelization at St. Thomas -- event administration and setup, setting up coffee and handing out ads for upcoming events, giving talks, leading praise and worship, etc. I attended all the retreats and even led/assisted with some. I gave up my only income -- summer work -- in part or in full to participate in the longer summer training programs SPO offered. I was sold out for the mission. Granted, I had my issues. I often debated about whether it was in fact a good idea to give up practical needs like money for theological training. But I always gave in for the mission. It seemed like the trusting thing to do.

In fact, at one point when I was out several thousand for a particular semester, my parents suddenly said they would give me a no-interest loan to cover my debt!

On another occasion, I had been praying about tithing and spent hours trying to figure out how much I needed to donate to make up for all the times in my life I hadn't tithed. I arrived at $750 (I'm positive I rounded up). I made the decision to be generous to the Lord and wrote out two checks for two different causes. $750 was about all I had to my name. I walked out of my room and checked the mail. There was a letter from my grandma, from whom I had also borrowed money from, in the amount of $4,000 for school. I always half-hoped that a letter from her would announce the early forgiveness of my debt to her, but it was always just a nice card or letter. I opened up the letter this time, however, and there in front of my eyes was the agreement I had signed and sent her, signed by her and annotated, "Paid in full." Not only that, but apparently she was "liquidating" and sent each of her grand children $5,000. She had cancelled my $4,000 debt and included a check for $1,000. This was minutes after deciding to give away all I had to tithe. Unbelievable, huh?

During another extremely brief bit of doubt, I did a classic "Bible-flip-open" and landed at the the closing of Matthew 28 where Jesus announces, "... and behold, I am with you always, even to the end of the age." Seemed too perfect.

Many things like this happened. Perfect scriptures, perfect "prophetic words" given, perfect song played at a prayer meeting, perfect conversation at the perfect time. It really was an amazing time.

Right after my "meeting of Jesus" in 2004, I met my future wife. We started dating shortly after -- probably too soon, and definitely against the counsel of those in the outreach. "If you're not ready to be married, you shouldn't be dating" was the common prescription. I think it's good advice to this day. In any case, we were quite serious very fast, but immaturity (at least mine) was also quite quick to surface. Awesome highs, horrid lows was the defining characteristic. I thought she was wonderful and would be brought to tears at the thought that God might entrust such a beautiful soul for me to care for. I made her this the following Thanksgiving while I was home on break:

Cheesy, I know. It now hangs in our kitchen. We dated for about a year and then decided to break indefinitely. There was no [stated] expectation that we would get back together. I always hoped for it, but we both knew that to grow we couldn't crutch along thinking that no matter what happened, we would end up back safe and sound in a relationship. That began the most miserable year of my life, though this past one has debatably topped it. I was in anguish. Primarily, SPO taught a process called "discernment" -- discerning one's vocation, or call, based on God's will rather than assuming it was one particular path or another. In layman's terms, does God want you to be married, a religious (priest, nun, brother), or "single for the Lord" (which essentially means to profess lifelong chastity but to serve God's kingdom from the position of laity). I had never done this, and it gnawed at me while dating the more I heard talks about it. What if God wanted me to be a priest, I would wonder? I should mention that the summer after my sophomore year, I returned to Lourdes for another pilgrimage with the graduates from the boarding school and my favorite priest. It was fantastic again. I loved unloading the trains. You were lifting the sick and disabled from the train cars about four feet up down to the platform so they could be wheeled to buses and taken to the pilgrimage site. You were lifting humans from fairly high heights again and again, but I never felt tired. The joy on their faces was fantastic. You were the first person they saw on what might be the best trip of their entire lives. It was also humbling to see individuals in physically worse shape display such joy when contrasting that to my own negativity despite being perfectly healthy.

In any case, several "oddities" occurred on that trip -- people asking me if I was a priest, or suggesting it -- that added to my confusion about the "discernment" thing. That, along with the increasingly bad valleys of immature emotional displays (stupid fights more frequently and longer reconciliation times) led us to split for a time of growth. Nothing ever swayed me from the hope I saw in our relationship. She was a fantastic potential wife -- great with kids, unselfish, attentive to the needs of others, etc. We also (in our highs) got along unbelievably well. There was no one I'd rather spend my time with. But... I knew I had a lot of things that contributed to the "muck." I spent that entire year apart trying to "detach" from her. I thought that to truly grow and seek what God wanted, I needed to be completely free from any desire to be together again. I prayed for God to remove my attraction to her, to make it clear if we were never to be together again, avoiding her, etc. It was awful. I never got an answer. I would have rather had God just tell me I'd never be in a relationship with her again and cry for a week and be done than go on not knowing for a whole year. Eventually, I found some solace. I was particularly inspired by reading Frances de Sales, Finding God's Will for You. He was the first person I ever heard talk about the integral nature of passion and desire in God's will. I always thought my passion was to be crushed. de Sales made the point that God has no intention of trying to constantly combat our own passion and desire -- He's the one that gave them to you. John Eldredge's Wild at Heart contained a similar message. Essentially, don't sin... but otherwise, do what you want.

Toward the end of that year, I embarked specifically on a time of intentional discernment. I spent most of the year just trying to work on myself, develop virtue and habits of daily prayer, etc. A year from when we parted, I specifically started praying about marriage vs. single/religious life. I set a date to decide -- I picked the eve of my Confirmation saint's feast day, July 31st, the feast day of St. Ignatius of Loyola.

For some time, I had been in the practice of meditating through one chapter of the Bible each day for my daily prayer. I started with the Gospels and when I finished, I looped back to Matthew and made it two chapters per day -- one in the Gospels and one in the NT. Then I added a Psalm. When I finished all the Psalms, I started in Genesis (continuing to loop the Gospels and NT all the while). I did the same on July 30th in Adoration when I had my night of discernment. I simply read my readings for the day. I happened to be on the story of how men were wicked and God flooded the earth, which I decided wasn't something that particularly spoke to me that night! The Gospel reading was about the Parable of the Talents, but what was interesting is that it struck me in an entirely different way that night. I had always heard the spin of being wise with your time, talents, and treasure, not squandering them, etc. For the first time, however, what stuck out to me was the fact that it must have been extremely hard to double your money back then -- even moreso than today. In addition, I was intrigued by the fact that the master was angry specifically because the third servant did nothing out of fear. My NT reading happened to be 1 Timothy 1. This chapter contains his verse about fanning into flame the gift of God which I'd heard from the Fan into Flame retreats I mentioned above, but what I hadn't ever heard was the verse that followed: "...for we have not been given a spirit of timidity, but of power, love, and self-control." I was speechless -- my entire year had been one of fear. I had never felt a call to be a priest but agonized over it anyway specifically because I didn't want God to be disappointed in me for choosing wrongly. I paralyzed myself and as a result it was hard to do anything, just like the third servant. 1 Tim, though, brought me the message that I could trust that God had given me his Spirit and could be confident in acting -- he had given me the gifts to live marriage out and I should trust that call. It was quite a powerful night for me.

I went on to ask my future wife on our first "re-date" on September 2nd, 2006. On Feburary 25th, 2007, after a fancy steak dinner, I proposed from bended knee in a chapel filled with candles via a song I sang while playing guitar. I don't think it could have been any better:

I also made another signature art piece out of a picture of her newly ringed hand and a small bit of my proposal song lyrics for her birthday a few weeks later:

We were married on December 1st, 2007 and had our honeymoon daughter on September 15th, 2008. I worked for Saint Paul's Outreach for my first year out of college. I was fairly sure I was going to end up in engineering (my degree), but wanted to serve God in this capacity while we were [shortly] childless and able to sacrifice financially like that (I received a stipend... but it wasn't much). My wife was the Executive Secretary for the same organization and worked up until a month before our daughter was born. I landed a job at a fantastic company as an engineer and started on September 2nd, not two weeks before out daughter was born! We had morning prayer in our apartment, prayed together, kept attending various religious events and retreats together, and so on. I strove for daily prayer and holiness. We wanted to be saints together. A kind of "parent" organization to SPO features a community of Catholic families who are also charismatic and get together bi-weekly to do praise and worship and listen to talks. It would be complicated to describe it all, but just think extremely committed religious people who do small groups, lots and lots of prayer, and pretty much have as their social circle those in this community. We somewhat passed through SPO into that group and discerned becoming lifelong members. I publicly committed to be a member of that group for the rest of my life along with my wife the summer of 2009.

I think I need to bring this train to a halt -- it's getting harder and harder to figure out where to end it! This has obviously been quite a monstrous post and I think I'll end up bumping things to a definite 5th part to describe my onset of doubt and may even break this post up so that it's more digestible. Thanks if you stuck around this long. Maybe its irrelevant, but I at least enjoy reading about other people's lives, especially those who have entered a time of similar doubt. Perhaps some will enjoy my story as well.

Here's one last artsy piece to finish things off... For our 1st anniversary, I engraved our wedding vows into the picture glass of on of my favorite wedding pictures. Here's the whole thing:

And here's the closeup where you can see the "frosted" calligraphy of our vows in the glass:

One year and counting... what would I do differently?

2011-01-05T17:53:00.001-08:00

Some of DoubtingThomas' questions led me to write this post. I thought it would be interesting to think back over my year of "Questing" and write some pointers/suggestions based on how I think I might do it differently if I could go back and do it over.

First of all, some disclaimers:

I probably heard most this list myself and didn't do it... thus it was probably not genuinely learned/internalized
Given that advice given to me may not have affected my method/path... I don't expect this post will affect any readers, necessarily, either
I don't even know if I can say that I follow these recommendations at present!

Anyhow... what would I do different? These come to mind (attempted to rank in order of significance/importance):

This is not going to be easy/fast/simple: I list this first, as upon walking in, I had no idea the question of god's existence would be so taxing, time-consuming, spread out over such a vast area of subject matters, agonizing, murky, complex, and anything but a quick endeavor. Remind yourself of this fantastically often. It probably contributed the most in my early frustrations. I began to doubt and expected that a few google searched articles would clear the air. Then I put my hopes on discussions with the smartest Christians I knew. Then books... and I'm still not cured! If you are doubting your faith, you are in for a long ride. It's okay -- it just seems to go down like that. The earlier you can try and accept this fact, the easier things well be on you psychologically.

Comfort your spouse if you have one: I should have been better at this. Instead, I let the fire burn. She was hurt about my non-belief and I didn't think she had any right to be hurt, since I didn't think I'd done anything wrong. If she ever criticized me, I'd launch a counter-apologetic attack on her... not pretty. Just leave this area alone and out of the debate. Reassure your spouse that even if you don't believe in god anymore you won't become a satanist. Just kidding -- but seriously, reaffirm them that you want to be a model example of a spouse. You want to raise moral children. You want to grow close with them through the years and improve one another as members of society. Things like that. I think my wife connected non-belief with a lot of unnecessary things. Granted, she was quite right that we may never again share the spiritual connection we once had (I can recall very emotional times of praying or singing praise and worship together or even "after dark" events that had a very powerful spiritual component), I think she also added a lot of panicky baggage onto the occurrence as well. That's natural for believers. We should do our part to remind our spouses that we still love them an are committed to them as cherished persons even if beliefs differ.

Don't debate, especially with friends: I'll rank this fairly high as well. Early on, I was fired up with new facts and arguments against god and was too willing to enter into debates/heated discussions with others on topics. This opened things up for hurt feelings on both sides. Both sides end up upset and confused that their debater isn't convinced by any of their points. Moreso, they take non-belief/subscription personally and get offended. Relationships are strained. My new rule is essentially not to debate outside a very small set of individuals who have been through something similar to this or at least "get it." In all other cases, I rarely even go into things and don't get attached to the discussion (e.g. nodding my head or conceding as plausible things I don't really agree with). Yes... this is perhaps "weak" or even misleading sometimes, but I consider it the lesser of evils (damaging relationships).

Prefer books vs. the internet... I write from my computer with my poorly handled book list! Yes, this is one where I'm a hypocrite but at least know what I think I should be doing. Something struck me at Common Sense Atheism once. Luke was writing about William Lane Craig and noted that he doesn't concern himself with the internet. He pays attention to the current published literature (journals/magazines) and books instead, since anything of worth is likely to be there and only replicated online. That has always stuck with me. This is my aim, though I don't stick to it very well. I definitely want to read great works that help me become more of an expert in various areas. However, the internet is fast and available. It's just plain easy and luring. I will end on a vote for the internet, especially in blogging/commenting in that books don't bring anything to the table with respect to the communal aspect of "the quest."

Find support! Which brings me to my next point... get supportive people around you! My parents have never been consistent believers in anything. Today I would describe them as fringe new-agers, if anything. This was an immense consolation to me. What divided us during high school/college (religion -- when I was converted and a fervent Christian) suddenly united us! I later found the Minnesota Atheists who have turned out to be about the best group of people I could have hoped to find. They were, and are, and absolute refuge. That group (and the internet) is about the one place where I really and truly speak my mind unfettered. Any other time I restrain my thoughts to a degree out of fear of hurting feelings or starting a debate (see the previous point). I think a lot of us come from extremely Christian backgrounds/communities and suddenly feel completely alone upon doubting. None of us are... and living while thinking we are is just unhealthy. Find some support and some arena for freely expressing all that's rattling around in that head of yours and let it out!

Make a plan: I kind of wish I had actually made a list of various subjects and stuck to learning about them one at a time. Something like this, at least. I did join the Ultimate Truth-Seeker Challenge, which is somewhat like this, but not exactly. I more wish I could create some sort of guidelines about my learning, perhaps, to keep me on some sort of schedule along my path. On the other hand, without what I consider the "biggie arguments" a year down the road, I don't know that I would have been able to make such a list back then. Doing something like the Ultimate Truth-Seeker Challenge isn't a bad way to let someone with more experience offer some guidance.¡

Have a sense of humor: let yourself laugh about this stuff a bit. Perhaps mostly with non-believers. Find some way to be comedic about your non-belief and how hard everything is. How ridiculous you might find it that the creator of the universe is so hard to discover, perhaps? Watch some Non-stamp collector perhaps? I think this is a helpful activity. Maybe just watch it alone where you can be free to laugh a little in sacrilege without offending anyone else.

I think that's about it for now. If I think of some others, I might update this. I think I covered the biggies and this would be my advice if a close friend approached me with doubt and showed all the signs of frazzlement that I once did. DoubtingThomas, hopefully this helps a little? Honestly, I would say that really trying to let the very first point soak in would have spared me 70% of my woes. The second is quite important, too, if it applies... but the general principle of having patience and accepting that you may never know for certain is the biggest. That might have spared me some months of sleepless nights!

Post Series: My Cumulative Case (Index)

2011-01-04T13:00:00.001-08:00

I'd like to start "putting on paper" why, exactly, I don't believe anymore. I think I'll find it helpful to articulate what I've come too see as the key arguments for me thus far and also think this will serve as a "storage tank" for material for my "mini-book" I'd like to write as a definitive statement of non-belief to be released this year in PDF format. This goal is part of my list of hastily put together resolutions for 2011.

I'll keep this index updated/linked as my list of sub-posts develops. My current brainstorm is as follows:

My story
The PoE and my "impossibility of evil" argument
Arguments from cosmology
The properties of god
The fall and original sin
Biblical issues
Problems with Jesus and history
The problem of evil: a summary
The problem of geographic diversity
A response to the challenge of nihilism
What of miracles?
Is believing even chosen?
Adjusting my personal story
What would make the god debate like that of a flat vs. round earth?

Update 2/7/2011: After thinking about this more, I came to the decision that I would also like to include a section covering the areas where my jury is out -- where I have no explanation, am unsatisfied with any explanation, or just plain don't know.

Morality/ethics
Determinism/free-will
The origin of life
Materialism/physicalism and consciousness

I think this sounds like quite a nice topic list. I'm hoping I'll be able to get some good feedback and criticism. I'm also aware that I'm doing this somewhat in ignorance; much of my book list remains unread. Believe me, I would love to vanish for months and read all of those books and blog through each in detail. I'm not sure that this is realistic, though, and I wonder if the best approach is to just start the mind on a path and course-correct as I move forward.

We'll see what comes of this. Hopefully it will be at least entertaining to my few readers!

Christmas debriefing

2011-01-01T17:52:00.000-08:00

Christmas went pretty well for me this year. We went down to my in-laws for the weekend and everything was fairly wonderful. We went to Mass on Christmas and Sunday, and these went reasonably well for me. As an aside (I don't know if I've written it before), I haven't been attending Mass on Sundays for probably 3-4 months; my wife now takes our youngest with her (4mos), and I keep the 2 year old.

Having not attended in some time, it was an interesting opportunity to note my own internal dialog. I don't look down in shame to hide my stationary lips during professions of faith or other responses (not as much, anyway). To back up, I don't speak professions of faith or responses I don't believe in any more. In other words, I take this to mean that I have become more comfortable seeing myself as one who does not belong in such a ceremony. I don't really care to "play along" anymore and think I have come to accept that my stance is okay and not to be ashamed of amongst Christians. Sometimes it's just helpful to remind myself that I can tangibly show that I care about this area -- I want to have reasons for my beliefs; I want to read and learn about Jesus/Christianity; I want to know the correct stance on god's existence even if it means god doesn't exist. Those around me, for the most part, don't care nearly as much. And they may never care. But they remain confident that I am wrong. I think I'm becoming more comfortable with that.

I will share one tidbit that stuck out to me. The gospel reading was from Matthew. This part has always puzzled me (Mt. 2:19-23):

After Herod died, an angel of the Lord appeared in a dream to Joseph in Egypt and said, “Get up, take the child and his mother and go to the land of Israel, for those who were trying to take the child’s life are dead.”

So he got up, took the child and his mother and went to the land of Israel. But when he heard that Archelaus was reigning in Judea in place of his father Herod, he was afraid to go there. Having been warned in a dream, he withdrew to the district of Galilee, and he went and lived in a town called Nazareth. So was fulfilled what was said through the prophets, that he would be called a Nazarene.

This isn't the first time I've wondered about this, but I just find it so odd every time I hear this passage that Joseph would be told it was safe to return from Egypt by an angel because Herod was dead... then then was "updated" via another dream that it actually wasn't safe because Archelaus was reigning in the land to which he was headed. Omniscient god "updates"? It just makes me think of god sitting behind some command center and receiving some "urgent intel" from the field and needing to get an immediate update out to his special ops team in the field to change course.

This doesn't even get into the issues with the historical Nazareth written about by Rene Salm or the potential existence of the phrase, "Jesus of Nazareth", as the result of a mistranslation in the first place. Anyway...

All in all, Christmas was quite nice. I'll end with a fun note. We got a wonderful present from Grandma and Grandpa (my wife's parents) for the eldest on Christmas and I made a fun video of the assembly. Thought I'd post it. We had a blast and she's been cooking up a storm.