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We are like birds
Hello all,
One of the questions we get asked often at our Ask an Atheist table is, “Why get together?”—Why have a group at all? So we all don’t believe in the same thing – so what? Why not get on with our lives and do something else with our time?
The answer, at least on some level, is that getting on with our lives means living our lives, and part of living, for humans, means being part of a group. It’s very important for us, as people, to know that we belong somewhere, that we have friends we can count on to understand us and be there for us.
We are social animals, just like dogs, just like elephants, just like birds. We need each other to be happy and be fulfilled. But even more fundamental than that, we need each other to live. Take birds as an example: Why do birds fly in formation?
Canadian geese flying in a V-formation
Research shows that, while evolutionarily unintentional, bird flight formations are not random: Flying in a formation of 25, each bird can increase its range by 71% (!) versus flying alone. This works because each bird (except the front one) flies in the upwash from the wingtip vortices of the bird ahead of it. Migrating birds rotate which bird takes the front position so that none are unfairly doing all the work of holding up the formation. Military aircraft also fly in formation because—aside from the advantage of maintaining visual contact—formations improve fuel efficiency.
As social animals ourselves, we get similar advantages by living in a group. Some animals, like cats, get along just fine living alone, hunting and finding shelter on their own. But we found a different evolutionary niche, and as a result, we’re able to accomplish so much more than cats. Cats will never walk on the moon unless we bring them there. Cats will never explore the bottom of the ocean, or know what stage fright is like before giving a talk in front of a group of their peers.
In his beautifully-written book “The Origins of Virtue,” which I highly recommend to anyone reading this, Matt Ridley tells us that evolutionary self-interest—survival of the fittest—and mutual aid are not at all incompatible. As the publisher puts it, “Our cooperative instincts may have evolved as part of mankind’s natural selfish behavior–by exchanging favors we can benefit ourselves as well as others.” But this is not a cold and calculating process. Natural selection has favored authenticity as a virtue, and we are quite adept at recognizing and regulating those who seek to benefit by keeping too-close track of who owes what. Indeed, as Mizzou anthropologist Craig Palmer puts it, a virtuous act is nearly synonymous with a pro-social and selfless act, and an non-virtuous act with a selfish and antisocial act.
Milton Friedman, the famed Nobel Prize-winning economist, based on an essay by his friend Leonard Read, used a pencil a symbol of human cooperation—not just for the sake of taking handwritten notes, but for the sake of harmony and even world peace:
The reason that atheists get together is that we can accomplish more by doing so. Not just in terms of activism and education—although this is also true—but because, like birds, we need each other. Sometimes there is nothing more useful in the world than a hug, or just being in the presence of people whom you know won’t judge you for not believing in an imaginary friend. Sometimes all you need is a smile from someone who understands what you’re going through. And that is what SASHA is.
If you take away one thing from this post, let it be this: If you’re an “internet atheist,” know that Reddit is great, blogs are great, YouTube videos are great, philosophy books are great. But if you’re reading this, you’re human, and being part of a group is really where we shine our brightest. Join a local group. If you’ve been to a local group meeting and it wasn’t for you, tell the group or group leaders why. We want to be here for you. If you want a group with more women in it, say so. If you want a group with more people your age in it, say so. If you want a group that does different activities besides Skeptics in the Pub, say so. There are lots of types of groups and lots of varieties of groups, but the most important thing is to be part of one. There are benefits to you that you might only begin to realize if you’re not a regular member, most of them emotional, or to reclaim the word from the religious, spiritual.
If you need help finding a local group, you can leave a comment with your city and I’ll do my best to help you find one. The Secular Student Alliance has a list of groups here. American Atheists also maintains a list of over 1,000 groups here, and the Center for Inquiry has a database of centers in the US and around the world here.
I hope that you’re having a good day!
Until next time,
Dave
Dave Muscato is the 2012 Writing Intern for the Secular Student Alliance in Columbus, Ohio. He is also Vice President of MU SASHA. He is a vegetarian, LGBTQ ally, and human- & animal-welfare activist. A junior at Mizzou studying economics & anthropology and minoring in philosophy & Latin, Dave posts updates to the SASHA blog every Monday, Thursday, and Saturday and twice monthly for the Humanist Community at Harvard. His website is http://www.DaveMuscato.com. Opinions posted here do not necessarily reflect the views of MU SASHA, the Secular Student Alliance, nor the Humanist Community at Harvard.
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Ask an Atheist: What’s the point of living if there is no god?
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The following is my personal opinion and does not necessarily reflect the views of the Secular Student Alliance.
Hello all!
My group does an “Ask an Atheist” table pretty regularly, I’d say roughly once a week when the weather is suitable. This question is at least among the top 10 we get. I’m going to give you my answer.
Seth & James at the Ask an Atheist table last spring
In a word, it’s “transcendence.” In 1500 words:
Tuesday is a pretty special day for me. My favorite musician, Fiona Apple, is putting out her new album. It’s been 7 years since her last release.
I’m myself a musician, and I listen to all kinds of music— I like everything from radio pop to classical/art music to funk to mid-20th-century jazz to rock. Lately I’ve been listening to a lot of Hindu classical music. My all-time favorites besides Fiona Apple are Metallica, Ani DiFranco, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Dave Matthews Band, Billy Joel, Wah (the Sanskrit/Hindu mantra group, not the rock band), Bramble, and Gooding. I’ve taken several classes at Berklee College of Music; I taught private lessons myself for years, and I made my living as a musician for several years, too. So when I say she’s my favorite, I’m just saying that I want you to know where I’m coming from.
In philosophy, there’s a subfield called “aesthetics.” It’s not something I’ve ever studied formally so I’m not going to try to get into that. I am going to say why I think music in particular draws so many atheists AND so many religious people, and how this ties back in to the point of living.
I was talking to my boss recently about something strange in our office: A very large proportion of the staff at the Secular Student Alliance has a background in music, my boss included (she has 2 degrees in it). Several of us are former professional musicians out of a staff of 12 + 2 interns. She also mentioned that campus music departments are surprisingly good places to put up atheism group posters, in addition to the old stand-bys of philosophy departments, computer science departments, and so on.
I hypothesized that this might be the case because musicians are accustomed to feeling transcendence in day-to-day life—getting “lost” in the beauty of music—and they understand that it’s because of thousands of hours of practice, effort, energy, and dedication, and not because of anything else.
Any really incredible musician, in my experience, has talent, but they also have skill. They are not synonymous. You are born with talent, but you develop skill by practicing a lot. Not everyone has the neurology and dexterity necessary to be an excellent musician. Of those who do, the ones who actually develop expert levels of musicianship invariable practice constantly.
I’m currently reading Daniel Kahneman’s Thinking Fast & Slow, which I highly recommend and will be reviewing at some point on this blog. He talks about two “systems” of thought, System 1 and System 2. System 1 is the impulsive, intuitive, heuristic-guided system. System 2 is the critical-thinking, rational, slower system—the “upper” system.
There’s quite a bit more to it than that, but one example is driving a car. Most people can hold a conversation while driving. The exception is new drivers (who have not yet gotten the skill down to an automatic procedure), and drivers who are attempting something difficult, something that requires “System 2″ thinking (merging into heavy traffic, doing a U-turn, etc).
Musicians, after lots of practice, are able to go into a state of “flow” while playing their instruments—relocating the concentration required to play from “System 2″ to “System 1.” It certainly takes a level of brainpower to play an instrument, but a musician who has gotten to the point of not having to think about playing can simply let loose and allow emotion and passion to take over, since she doesn’t have to “think” (even though, of course, we are ALWAYS thinking on some level). It’s like driving down a highway with no cars around. You can sing if you feel like it, and you don’t have to worry about crashing your car, because driving is second nature.
Scaramouche! Scaramouche! Will you do the
Fandango?! (I bet none of you are getting this reference.)
Musicians are accustomed to feeling transcendence. It is part of what we do. Because of this, we know that it’s available on tap. When you can do something at will, it takes some of the mystery out of it. That doesn’t mean it’s any less powerful to watch or experience, I think, but it does effect your thoughts on transcendence.
In my experience, there are basically two ways you can respond to this “transcendence-on-tap” thing, as a musician. One is to recognize that you are causing it through your effort and practice. The other is to throw up your hands and say, “I can’t explain this, therefore God.” I have seen a lot of musicians go that route, basically calling it a “God-given talent” or a “blessing” or a “gift” or even a “ministry.” We can explain perfectly well where these things come from – it’s a combination of genetics and hours put in – but some people just refuse to accept that, or just don’t know, or just don’t care.
I first heard Fiona Apple’s music when I was 12. It was the first time I remember feeling transcendence. The song that did it was “Never is a Promise,” which was track 7 on her debut album, “Tidal.” If you want to listen, here’s the video. That song is what made me realize I had to become a musician, rather than becoming a writer, which was what I had always wanted to do up until then. I listened to is at least hundreds of times when I first heard it. I taught myself to play it on my parents’ piano, and later I got out my dad’s dusty old guitar and arranged it for guitar, too. It was an unbelievable experience for me, having music move me like that for the first time.
Meeting my musical hero, Fiona Apple, for the first time – March 24, 2012
Over the years, many other things have caused me to feel transcendence. Art is a major one. I have a modest art collection, but I don’t tend to look at my art—most of it is actually wrapped up rather than hanging—because it can be overwhelming for me. I have a very clear memory of seeing an installation piece in the St Louis Art Museum when I was 16 and nearly passing out from it. I had to leave the room and find a place to sit down, and my heart still flutters a bit when I’m typing this now thinking about it. It was a huge roped-off display of broken glass pieces arranged all over the floor, taking up nearly the whole room, and also sticking out in gigantic pieces from the wall. I know it doesn’t sound like much, but that was the first time I realized art could make me (involuntarily) feel the same transcendence I felt from music.
When people ask me, “What is the point of living if there is no God?” my reaction is generally one of puzzlement. What difference does is make if there is a god or not?! There is so much beauty in the world; what more do you want??
I think that when people ask this question, what they are usually really asking is, “What am I supposed to do with my life if not worship some god, if there is no afterlife?” These are pretty different questions. According to Islam, the purpose of life is to submit to God’s will. According to Christianity, the purpose of life is to give glory to God. (If you disagree, tell me why in the comments).
But if you’re neither of these, what’s the purpose of life? If you don’t believe in an afterlife, why not give up when all seems hopeless?
Because you never know what will happen next, and this is the only life you know you’ll have. And that makes it special, because it’s unique. I value my life more than any Christian or Muslim values his. I can say this because I know how incredibly, ineffably lucky I am that the atoms that make up my body have come together in such a way that I am able to experience my existence consciously. Most atoms don’t get to do that. It’s very unlikely that all the atoms in my body will get to do that again, or even most of them. There is an ancient Buddhist proverb made famous by Carl Sagan that says, “We are the universe experiencing itself.”
Say you had always loved the idea of Paris, and went to visit for a vacation, knowing it would be your only time there. Would you appreciate that trip more, or less, than if you knew you were going to retire there someday? I would appreciate it more. I wouldn’t sleep the whole time. I would enjoy every moment of it, every breath of it. I would meet as many people as I could and see as many sights as I could and buy as many little Eiffel Towers for my friends as I could. You’d have to physically force me to leave.
But if you believe you’re going back to live there in 20 years, what’s the hurry? What even bother soaking it in other than some cursory touristy stuff? Vacations are for having fun and catching up on sleep, right? So you spend 1/2 your time there in and around your hotel. You’re going to live there someday! What difference does it make?
It makes a huge difference.
What makes you feel transcendence? Is it kissing your boyfriend? Is it tucking your children into bed at night? Is it listening to music, or playing it? Is it making the perfect Julia Child strawberry tart, as I suspect it is for my mother?
My mother loves Julia Child and I really think that making these gives her one of the greatest joys in life. This picture is for you, Mom.
Is it praying? For some people, it truly is. It was for me when I used to believe in a god. I can still feel the same thing when I meditate, which I still do on occasion—it’s good for your blood pressure. But the thing is, you can get the same feeling of transcendence from meditation (inward “prayer”) that you can from “actual” prayer. The transcendence is in you, not “out there.”
Daniel Dennett said it very well in this video: “The secret of happiness is: Find something more important than you are, and dedicate your life to it.”
You just have to find makes you feel alive. There is something in your life worth living for. Gods are not needed. If what makes you feel alive is your belief that some agency is out there, watching over you, then let me say I’m glad have found what gives you transcendence. But I hope that you realize that I said “your belief,” not that there is actually someone watching over you.
I think that really, the major difference between theists and nontheists is that nontheists have found something better to live for, and realized that it doesn’t make sense to live for something that may not really exist. For me, the meaning of life is writing, it is art, it is music. For some people, it is family, or cooking, or photography. But whatever it is, find it, and live for it. No gods necessary!
Until next time,
- Dave
Dave Muscato is the 2012 Writing Intern for the Secular Student Alliance in Columbus, Ohio. He is also Vice President of MU SASHA. He is a vegetarian, LGBTQ ally, and human- & animal-welfare activist. A junior at Mizzou studying economics & anthropology and minoring in philosophy & Latin, Dave posts updates to the SASHA blog every Monday, Thursday, and Saturday and twice monthly for the Humanist Community at Harvard. His website is http://www.DaveMuscato.com.
Follow Dave on Google+
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Helpful resources:
Godisimaginary.com – Iron Chariots Wiki – Skeptics’ Annotated Bible / Skeptics’ Annotated Qur’an – AtheismResource.com – TalkOrigins.org
YouTubers: Evid3nc3, Thunderf00t, TheAmazingAtheist, The Atheist Experience, Edward Current, NonStampCollector, Mr. Deity, Richard Dawkins, QualiaSoup
Blogs: Greta Christina, PZ Myers, The Friendly Atheist, WWJTD?, Debunking Christianity, SkepChick
and don’t forget… other SASHA members! We are here for you, too!
SASHA Guest Post: “Capitalism & Freedom” (book review) by Benjamin Schulz
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Today’s article is a guest post by computer scientist and long-time friend of SASHA, Benjamin Schulz.
In the five decades since its original publication, Milton Friedman’s “Capitalism and Freedom” has become a landmark of libertarian politics and neoliberal economic thought. It is a sign of the book’s tremendous influence that many of its arguments are taken starkly for granted in the political climate today. The broad popularity that “Capitalism and Freedom” has enjoyed masks the challenges presented by the climate in which it was originally composed: in the 1950s and 1960s, Keynesian theories of the economy held considerable sway, and memories of the Great Depression provided a powerful political impetus for many of the initiatives to which Friedman’s argument is opposed. If nothing else, the subsequent changes to the intellectual climate in the following decades give considerable force to Friedman’s retrospective on his own work: “Only a crisis — actual or perceived — produces real change. When that crisis occurs, the actions that are taken depend upon the ideas that are lying around.” “Capitalism and Freedom”, an appeal to the general public, marks Friedman as a public intellectual, and his subsequent success in that role is worthy of note by all intellectuals, regardless of their stance toward Friedman.
Friedman’s main argument is simple and very direct: the principles of classical liberalism entail that individuals should be able to exercise as much personal discretion as possible in the conduct of their own business through market exchanges. As a corollary, government regulation of market exchanges should be as limited as possible. While this argument was not new at the time of Friedman’s work, Friedman’s exposition of the ideas is articulate and clear. The subsequent conclusions of the work, that less regulation is both more conducive to smooth economic development, and better in accordance with the liberal democratic ideal, have since become a standard part of the political discourse. Friedman deserves credit as one of their essential forebears.
What distinguishes “Capitalism and Freedom” from many other expositions of the libertarian argument is its distinctly economic perspective. The book’s strongest portions make simple and fairly convincing arguments, for instance, that occupational licensure prevents and undue barrier to gainful employment without increasing the quality of services offered, and that social welfare programs, such as public housing, are less economically efficient than direct cash giveaways. In particular, the ingenuity displayed in the argument against even the licensing of physicians is impressive and, though certainly controversial, is well worth contemplation. Overall, Friedman shows considerable knowledge of the ways in which state-administered programs may thoroughly fail to achieve their intended ends, and skillfully raises important practical considerations in the pursuit of such goals. The book’s argument also touches upon the elements of monetary policy and currency exchange, which are the lesser-known but more essential foundation of Friedman’s economic career. These would perhaps have enjoyed a lengthier treatment. These subjects nonetheless fit well with the other parts of the book, and serve as interesting introduction to some of the related problems.
“Capitalism and Freedom” is weaker, unfortunately, in its philosophical and theoretical elements. Although the book’s popular audience probably makes it unsuitable for a highly technical discussion of economic theory, many of its further flung generalizations rest on much shakier foundations than its more specific points. To his credit, Friedman does a good job of pointing out those specific economic issues on which he is asserting his professional opinion, but about which could be some considerable debate, e.g. tax policy, and the financing of Social Security. There were other points at which I found justification to be lacking, such as Friedman’s lightly argued assertion that a private monopoly is preferable to a nationalized or government-regulated industry. The greater danger, I fear, is that Friedman’s contemporary fame as an economist may be an invitation to overestimate the sophistication of his stated philosophical positions and their underlying assumptions. A prime example of such simplistic assumptions is found in the Chapter X, “On the Distribution of Income”, in which Friedman asserts that “we are generally much readier to accept inequalities arising from chance than those clearly attributable to merit.” Certainly, there can be some honest debate on such an assumption, but it is by no means self-evident. This lack of self-evidence is illustrated by considering that the precise negation of Friedman’s assumption, namely that we are and should be less, not more, willing to accept inequalities of chance than of merit, is the cornerstone of John Rawl’s highly influential work of political philosophy, “A Theory of Justice.” Similarly, Friedman makes irregular, patchwork use of the notion of “neighborhood effects” (costs to persons not willingly participating in an exchange) without more closely examining why they should be applicable in some cases but not others. While a theory dealing with these issues more thoroughly presents a tremendous challenge, and is well beyond the scope of the book, it is important to separate Friedman’s expert economic observations from his occasional political and philosophical leanings.
Perhaps the most interesting feature of the book is Friedman’s impressively principled stances, which occasionally straddle conventional political lines. For example, Friedman argues controversially against forced desegregation of private businesses, while applying the same reasoning to reject so-called “right to work” laws which prohibit the formation of “closed shops”, wherein union membership is required for employment. Although something of an anachronism today, Friedman’s stance against the draft provides another interesting example.
“Capitalism and Freedom”, is still a fairly short work, and would probably be well supplemented with further reading. An obvious recommendation is Robert Nozick’s classic, “Anarchy, State, and Utopia”, which better develops many of the arguments for libertarian theories of property and exchange that Friedman seems to presume. Interested readers would probably also enjoy Thomas Friedman’s (no relation) “The World Is Flat”, a very popular anecdotal discussion of the future of global capitalism. Naomi Klein’s painstakingly researched expose, “The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism”, directly criticizes Friedman’s position by describing many very serious contemporary problems that free markets seem unable to resolve.
All told, “Capitalism and Freedom” is a worthwhile read for persons of all political persuasions. Conservatives and libertarians will find much to sympathize with, and leftist thinkers will find an engaging examination of some of the practical problems that attend constraints on the free market. While I do not personally agree with many of Friedman’s conclusions, it is nonetheless refreshing to read an opposing viewpoint that retains its force and directness while remaining principled and well-reasoned.
Benjamin Schulz is a computer scientist and long-time friend of SASHA whose regular blog, “Hot, Cold, Sun, Rain: Practical Spirituality, Irregular Philosophy, and Personal Civics” appears here.
Helpful resources:
Godisimaginary.com
Iron Chariots Wiki
Skeptics’ Annotated Bible / Skeptics’ Annotated Qur’an
AtheismResource.com
TalkOrigins.org
YouTubers: Evid3nc3, Thunderf00t, TheAmazingAtheist, The Atheist Experience, Edward Current,NonStampCollector, Mr. Deity, Richard Dawkins, QualiaSoup
Blogs: Greta Christina, PZ Myers, The Friendly Atheist, WWJTD?, Debunking Christianity, SkepChick, Rationally Speaking
Dave’s Mailbag: Which Bible translation?
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A friend asks for my thoughts on Bible translations. Here is my response:
Hey Will!
The short answer is:
For English, I recommend the New American Standard Bible. Alternatively, I recommend the Revised Standard Version (NOT the New Revised Standard Version).
For an annotated bible, I recommend this one, which is my usual Bible when I want an English translation:
Note that this is the 3rd edition. There are two considerations when choosing an annotated Bible: The translation itself, and the editor who wrote the notations. Bruce Metzger, Bart Ehrman’s mentor, edited that one and he knew what he was doing. There is a newer version, the 4th edition, but it’s an annotated bible based on the NRSV translation, which is not as good, and it has a different editor (Michael Coogan et al; Bruce Metzger died in 2007 and the 4th edition came out in 2010). Don’t get me wrong, Coogan is extremely competent and qualified in his field; I just prefer Metzger’s tone and the RSV specifically.
If you are interested in an annotated bible (which I recommend), check out the 3rd edition linked above, even though it’s older. The translation itself is just much truer to the Greek.
The Revised Standard Version is widely considered to have the most agreement with the Greek NA27 (the most common text used by Greek NT scholars and seminary students studying the NT in its original Greek). If you’re looking for accuracy in comparison to the most commonly-accepted Greek compilation of sources (the NA27), here is a list of 20 translations, ranked in order of agreement:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Novum_Testamentum_Graece#Influence
If you can read Latin, I also highly recommend the Vulgate.
I am the wrong person to ask about the OT, but if pressed for a recommendation, I suggest the Jewish Study Bible (ed. Adele Berlin et al), published by Oxford.
For quick reference, I also recommend the YouVersion Bible app for Android and iPhone. What I like about this app is that you can select from about 150 translations and swap back & forth if you want to compare them. It has multiple Greek, Latin, English, and other-language translations, including Koine (although unfortunately not the NA27), and allows you to highlight & take notes, and share specific verses on Twitter & Facebook. Although the lack of the NA27 and annotations make it inappropriate for study, the app is free, and it’s useful for speedy access during discussions with people or during debates. To access a specific verse, just tap the top of the screen and scroll to the book you want. It will display, in a series of squares, all the chapters in that book, like a page from a monthly calendar. Click on the chapter you want, and it will display (in a series of squares) all the verses in that chapter. Click the verse you want and it goes right to it. You can access any specific verse in roughly 3 seconds.
The long answer:
This question is one that’s very important to me, and it’s part of the reason I stopped believing that the Bible has any more authority than any other religious text. It was only a short step from there that I stopped believing that any of these books are holy in the first place. More on that in a moment.
As far as which translation is “best,” I would take this fellow’s advice: He is Robert M. Price, one of the world’s leading Bible scholars and a world expert in higher biblical criticism, a Fellow of the Jesus Seminar, etc. Aside from teaching and writing books, he has a radio show where he answers people’s questions. Someone asked him on the radio show’s Facebook page which version(s) of the Bible he recommends; you can read the discussion here:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/thebiblegeeklisteners/permalink/285258728212798/
You might also want to listen to this podcast of his radio show where a listener asks about the same topic (skip to 52 minutes for the relevant part):
http://recordings.talkshoe.com/TC-20430/TS-413626.mp3
Historically, the Vulgate is probably the most influential and important translation. I would go so far as to say it is difficult to overstate the Vulgate’s influence on the history of Western European religious scholarship since the 4th century. It was the basis of more-or-less all vernacular translations and teaching for well over 1,000 years, from its commission in 382 until the Protestant Reformation/modern era around the 16th century, and the time that English began to come into play as mover-and-shaker language. The King James is heavily influenced by the Vulgate (see below), and the Douay-Rheims is a translation from it into English, as well. The Vulgate was (more-or-less) the only Bible available to scholars, priests, and Christians altogether throughout the Middle Ages and Renaissance. Another reason the Vulgate is historically important is that it’s credited with being the first translation of the Tanakh directly from Hebrew to Latin, rather than via the Greek Septuagint – you can lose a lot in a translation-from-a-translation! The Vulgate also had an immeasurable influence on the development of the English language. Many modern English religious words come to us via the Vulgate: creation, salvation, testament/testimony, angel/angelic, evangelist/evangelize/evangelism, rapture, apostle, justify/justification, etc all exist in English because of the influence of the Vulgate.
Ultimately, it’s useful to read multiple translations. The more Greek, Latin, and Hebrew you know, the more you can get out of reading different ones, and understanding the interpreters’ word choices and annotations. (Notice I said “interpreter”: There really is no such thing as a “direct translation”; unless you’re talking about English & Pig Latin, which have direct parallels for literally every word, and the grammar and syntax are literally identical.) It is helpful even just to learn some basic root words and cultural rudiments, whether or not you’re interested in learning a whole new language. Additionally, the more you know about ancient Roman and Jewish culture and history, and Semitic mythos, too, the more you will get out of reading the Bible, annotated or not.
My own usual Bible is this one; it’s the one I bring with me when we do the Ask an Atheist table:
http://www.amazon.com/Interlinear-Bible-Hebrew-Greek-English-English-Hebrew/dp/1565639774
I have a few important criticisms of this one, namely that the NT is based on the (Greek) Textus Receptus, which is hardly my first choice as a source text. Although it was the source text for the Luther Bible and the King James (the missing parts were filled in from the Vulgate as mentioned above, which is why I keep it at the Ask an Atheist table), it is not even close to what I would consider the best that modern scholarship has to offer. The NA27 makes use of a more systematic method of identifying copying errors, and places more weight on older documents versus documents that we have in great numbers.
When you’re talking about which translation is the “best,” there are a couple of important things to keep in mind. Firstly, we don’t have the manuscripts — the original, hand-written documents, as opposed to just copies — for ANY of these books. We only have copies. More accurately, we only have copies-of-copies. In fact, the oldest fragment we’ve found from any part of the New Testament dates to about 125 CE, and it’s a bit from the book we now call the Gospel according to John, which was written last chronologically, of the four canonical gospels.
When trying to piece together ancient history, one thing we like to see is records that aren’t too removed chronologically from the events they describe. The oldest complete copy of the New Testament dates to around 325 CE, or about 250-300 years after the events it describes.
As far as ancient precedent, that’s actually not as bad as it sounds, but when we’re talking about miracle claims, we have to set the bar a little higher. Carl Sagan popularized a wonderful summation of this concept in five words: “Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.”
Ideally, we want independent, unbiased, multiple eyewitness manuscripts. By that I mean, in a perfect world, we’d have multiple people who do not know each other and did not collaborate, and who have no reason to lie, writing in their own hand, about events they saw with their eyes. This is what we have come to expect for news reporting in the modern world — multiple, independent reporters writing from the scene, who employ journalistic integrity to the best of their ability.
We actually do not have any of these things. What we have are copies-of-copies, written by people who most definitely collaborated, whom we know with certainty fudged their accounts, and further, who were not eyewitnesses. In the case of Paul, who wrote [allegedly] 14 books of the 27 in the New Testament, and the case of Luke, who [allegedly] wrote the Gospel according to Luke and also the book of Acts, they tell us explicitly that they are not eyewitnesses and did not know Jesus personally. I might take some heat for this, but I’m willing to say it: The New Testament is pretty much a worse-case scenario when it comes to historical reliability. In the wonderful words of former SASHA president James Pflug, “The Bible doesn’t know anything about anything, and why people listen to it is the only miraculous thing about Christianity.”
We have examples of miracle claims today that meet the modern standard as stated above, but I think it’s important to note that few people actually believe these modern miracle claims, and that’s extremely telling. If people are going to rely on written accounts of miracle claims, they should at least be consistent on what they believe and don’t believe based on the strength of the evidence. As Dave Fitzgerald points out in his book Nailed, we have 1st-edition, 1st-printing copies of the Book of Mormon signed by Joseph Smith himself, which include eyewitness affidavits from 11 people who also signed off swearing that they have personally seen and handled the golden plates. What stronger written evidence could you possibly want? Yet for most Christians, this level of evidence is not persuasive, and they don’t believe the miracle claims of the Book of Mormon. Inconsistently, they believe miracle claims from a series of books that are much, much older, with anonymous and in some cases fraudulent authors, relying on copies-of-copies. It makes no sense.
You might also be interested in this book:
http://www.amazon.com/Life-Year-One-First-Century-Palestine/dp/1594488991
It’s called “Life in Year One: What The World Was Like In First-Century Palestine” by Scott Korb over at NYU. It’s very helpful for understanding a lot of the cultural reasons for certain linguistic phrasings, analogies, metaphors, parables, etc.
Although a departure from Bible translation recommendations, I also HIGHLY recommend this one:
called “Christianity: The First 3,000 Years” by Sir Diarmaid MacCulloch. It’s a history book about Christianity as a whole and lengthy (~1,200 pages), but I just cannot recommend it highly enough: Though it only came out in February 2011, it’s already being praised as one of the greatest non-fiction achievements in the history of English books about Christianity, and I agree with this wholeheartedly–It will be a very long time before this one is outdone. MacCulloch’s scholarship is simply unparalleled in the study of the history of Christianity. I also like his attention to Christianity in non-traditional places, which is often neglected or underestimated in Euro-centric courses and history books.
Hope this helps!
Dave
mail@davemuscato.com
(573) 424-0420 cell/text
Dave Muscato is Vice President of MU SASHA. He is a vegetarian, LGBTQ ally, and human- & animal-welfare activist. A junior at Mizzou majoring in economics & anthropology and minoring in philosophy & Latin, Dave posts updates to the SASHA blog every Monday, Thursday, and Saturday. His website is http://www.DaveMuscato.com.
Follow Dave on Google+
Follow Dave on Twitter
Helpful resources:
Godisimaginary.com
Iron Chariots Wiki
Skeptics’ Annotated Bible / Skeptics’ Annotated Qur’an
AtheismResource.com
TalkOrigins.org
YouTubers: Evid3nc3, Thunderf00t, TheAmazingAtheist, The Atheist Experience, Edward Current, NonStampCollector, Mr. Deity, Richard Dawkins, QualiaSoup
Blogs: Greta Christina, PZ Myers, The Friendly Atheist, WWJTD?, Debunking Christianity, SkepChick
and don’t forget… other SASHA members! We are here for you, too!
Dave Muscato on Dr. Andrew Bernstein, Religion, and Morality
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Hello all,
I gave a talk, “Why Blasphemy Matters,” at the University of Central Missouri in Warrensburg on Monday (90 miles from Columbia). I look forward to giving the talk to more campus groups in the future. This was only the second time I’ve given that particular talk, and although I think it went well, I also think I can improve it. More about that another time: I found out that a philosopher named Andrew Bernstein would be in town the following evening giving a talk called “Religion vs. Morality.” I decided to stay in town an extra day so I could attend.
As it turns out, the Objectivist Club at UCM had scheduled a dinner with Dr. Bernstein before his 8 PM lecture, and I had the fortune of sitting next to him while we all ate. Dr. Bernstein, or Andy, teaches philosophy at SUNY Purchase. He is an objectivist and proponent of Ayn Rand’s work, as well as a philosopher (and novelist) in his own right. He’s written several books about capitalism, philosophy, and objectivism, lectures internationally, and he also wrote the Cliff’s Notes for Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead.
Me with Andrew Bernstein (on left)
At dinner, topics ranged from the current crop of Republican candidates (he plans to vote for “whichever sorry candidate the Republicans nominate”) to how to get into grad schools (his advice: Where you studied isn’t as important as what you have to say). I told him that although one of my majors is economics, I really know relatively little about market forces, capitalism, international trade, finance, etc, compared to most econ majors. I’ve taken a few required courses in those sorts of things, but my interest is game theory. I study altruism and the evolution of morality, especially its interplay with the history of religion, using the tools from behavioral economics & economic modeling. I admitted that this was my first real exposure to what objectivism is all about. He told me that his talk is not about religion AND morality, but more specifically religion VERSUS morality: in his estimation, an either/or proposal. I thought, this should be interesting!
At 8 PM, I joined an auditorium of people on the UCM campus as Angel Munoz Gomez Andrade, the president of the Objectivist Club, introduced Bernstein. Watching Bernstein speak is a real treat: He has a thick New York accent and a raw, passionate tone. Throughout his speech, he spoke with his hands as much as with his voice. The way he rapped his fingertips on the podium, shifted his weight when weighing what to say next, and stood on his toes to emphasize his points immediately brought to mind Al Pacino’s passion and mannerisms. An audience member, during the Q&A, said that he, lacking a philosophy background himself, had trouble following Bernstein on some of the more complex philosophy, but I found myself having the opposite experience: I think Bernstein has a remarkable ability to take complex philosophical ideas and illustrate them with digestible examples in such a way that they are readily understandable [disclosure: I'm minoring in philosophy].
The purpose of Bernstein’s talk, as stated above, is to argue that religion and morality are fundamentally at odds. Religion, because it is necessarily founded upon faith, requires irrational thinking, which Bernstein argues necessarily leads humans away from our values, and results in nothing short of death. There are certainly historical examples of this — he mentioned faith healing a few times, and the abysmal life expectancy of the third-world versus the first-world today. He argued that morality is, in so many words, whatever helps living things achieve their values, which (objectivism argues) are necessarily dictated by nature. These values are neither subjective in the social-consensus sense, nor the individual “whim” sense, nor the religious sense (via sacred text or divine revelation). According to objectivism, we need only look to the facts of what nature has presented to us in order to determine our values: There is, in fact, no need for subjective disagreement on what we “should” value or strive toward, because nature has already spelled out for us what is good and what is bad, whether we consent to it or not. We are living creatures, and what is “good” is whatever promotes life, and what is “bad” is whatever does not.
Dr. Andrew Bernstein presenting on "Religion vs. Morality" at the University of Central Missouri
I’m reminded of Craig Palmer (Mizzou anthropologist) and Lyle Steadman’s (ASU professor emeritus) definitions concerning moral behavior for humans living in groups: Morality is roughly synonymous with pro-social behavior, and immoral behavior is roughly synonymous with antisocial behavior (see their 2010 book The Supernatural and Natural Selection: The Evolution of Religion). A human being in complete isolation is incapable of moral or immoral action, following this line of thinking: Anything s/he does is morally justifiable if it’s a means toward the end of his survival, by virtue of the very fact that lacking are any other living things to harm in the process.
Objectivism, as I understand it, has this to say about the matter: Natural selection has provided every living thing with some sort of tool (insofar as it is necessary, given its biological niche) to aid in its survival. For an elephant, that might be its massive size, thick hide, tusks, etc. For an elk, this might be its antlers and speed. For a tiger or wolf, claws & teeth. Nature has also “provided” (selected for) fur coats to protect some animals from cold climates. In the case of elephants, huge floppy ears are very important for temperature regulation: They have lots of surface area and LOTS of blood volume, such that the elephant can flap its ears to cool down the temperature of its blood, as another example.
What is “good” or “bad” when we’re talking about these animals behavior? Well, what’s “good” for a tiger or an elephant or mushroom or mosquito or bacterium is whatever aids it in its “mission” to survive and reproduce. Moral reflection or indeed consciousness at all is actually unnecessary for this. Any living thing will, quite naturally, do whatever it needs to do in order to survive and reproduce (else go extinct). What’s “good” is what leads toward this, and what’s “bad” is what leads away from this.
In the case of humans, natural selection actually took away our survival mechanisms (claws, sizable canine teeth, fur coats, etc) some time ago. Ancient primates gave up claws for nails a very long time ago (65-85 million years), and we still have a hint of canines and body hair, though nothing even close to that of our ancestors. What we do have, what nature has provided to us via selection, is something far more interesting, and far more useful, in exchange: rational, thinking brains. These are our survival tools. They allow us to innovate, to invent technologies, and to increase our efficiency. We don’t need claws; we have hand-axes (for an EXCELLENT discussion of the importance of hand-axes to human evolution, see Matt Ridley’s beautifully-written The Rational Optimist). As time went on, ancient humans further innovated to produce hafted axes (axes with handles), spears, arrowheads, and much later, metal bladed weapons, etc.
We don’t need costly (in terms of energy input/output and time invested) guts & digestive systems; we have fire. In fact, we are the only animals that cook our food: By doing so, we are basically outsourcing a large fraction of our ancestors’ digestive process. By investing fewer calories (less energy) in growing and maintaining a complex gut, natural selection was able to divert that energy into growing more complex brains, instead, and the process went ’round and ’round in a magnificent evolutionary upward spiral of exponential innovation. From controlled fire (and therefore bigger brains) came an increased ability to ward off predators and stay warm, especially at night (meaning even less need for caloric investment in muscle mass and large, powerful jaws, and less need for temperature regulation via thick body hair), which led to even more freed-up calories for investment in bigger brains, and so on and so on, until we get to anatomically modern humans some 200,000 years ago.
What’s “good” when it comes to humans specifically? According to my understanding of objectivism, it’s not determined by a god (divine command theory), nor by societal consensus (moral relativism), nor by the individual: Values are dictated to us by nature, intrinsic in the fact that we are living things. What’s “good” is whatever helps us get closer to living up to those values. Except for rare suicidal cases, humans (like all living things) naturally value survival, and except in (relatively) rare cases, humans (like all living things) naturally value reproduction. This is more-or-less a restatement of the biological imperative. According to objectivism, as I understand it, this is sufficient to resolve Hume’s is-ought problem. There are other proposed resolutions to this problem, for example, Sam Harris also claims that science [the application of reason to evidence] can answer moral questions in The Moral Landscape.
The argument for reason as the best tool for achieving human values (or any living thing’s values, for that matter), therefore, neatly falls into place. By rejecting all forms of irrationality — religion included — we are necessarily left with the path of least resistance toward the end of attaining that which [nature has determined] is of value to us. The application of reason, Bernstein argues, is the most efficient, healthiest, and most direct way to reach our goals. Since these goals are dictated by nature and emphatically not subjective, it is an open-and-shut case.
Religion, because it embraces faith (and is, by definition, irrational), is therefore directly at odds with life itself. According to Bernstein, “Religion is a philosophical system based in faith, not reason,” and it necessarily includes an unquestioning obedience to God. Religion views humans as sinful, and a failure to obey God is at the very core of what it means to be immoral, from the perspective of religion. This is so fundamental to the Abrahamic religions that it’s in fact the very basis of sin itself, illustrated by the Fall of Man.
As a student of anthropology, I strongly disagree with this definition of religion, although admittedly “religion” is notoriously difficult to define, and Bernstein was upfront about this being a purely working definition. Some religions (e.g. theistic Satanism) place zero emphasis on obedience to God or indeed encourage disobedience as permissible behavior. Note: I’m not talking about LaVey Satanism here; LaVey explicitly denounced “devil worship” or the idea of praying to Satan, and LaVey Satanists are generally atheists. In fact, atheistic Satanism can, I think, rightly be called “ethical egoism with ritual.” Other examples of religions lacking a necessity of obedience to “God” are Buddhism, Taoism, and many American Indian religions. In the case of Buddhism, the Eightfold Path is a rough stand-in for a revealed text from a god, and in the case of Taoism, the idea is to live in harmony with reality through compassion, moderation, and humility. Although supernatural elements are present in each system, a rule-giving god is conspicuously absent, and disobedience is not immoral per se.
Bernstein’s working definition of religion is sufficient for the Abrahamic religions in this context, but I don’t think he adequately makes the case against all religion, just religions that require obedience to a god (which, admittedly, is most of the ones we’re worried about in practice).
During the Q&A, an audience member asked if there was room for faith in any of this. He said that he is a farmer and gave the example of having faith that it will rain within a certain window of time when choosing exactly when to plant his crops. He cited weather patterns over the last few decades as informing his choice of when to plant. Bernstein rightly pointed out that the farmer, then, is not depending on faith — there is no supernatural element present there. I wanted to add to this that perhaps a better way to word it might be that the farmer doesn’t have faith that it will rain: He has confidence that it will, in the scientific sense (evidence informing probability). This is very, very different from trust (an emotion) and faith (non-evidence-based belief), and we should take care to correct people who use the word “faith” when they mean “confidence.” If evidence is leading to your belief, you are, by definition, confident. There’s a big difference, and I applaud Bernstein on pointing this out.
My other main objection is that Bernstein, while simultaneously praising Scandinavia’s rational, secular approach to the rejection of irrationality, doesn’t seem to give credit where credit is due with regard to the success they have had in the application of liberal-leaning public policy. Denmark, Norway, Sweden, etc has some of the healthiest people on the planet in terms of nutrition, lifespan, and other factors for which he earlier criticized the Dark Ages for lacking . Phil Zuckerman, in Society Without God: What The Least Religious Nations Can Tell Us About Contentment, makes strong arguments for why life in Scandinavia is downright heavenly (har har) for rational people, and atheists especially: Aside from long lifespans, they have some of the lowest abortion rates, divorce rates, murder rates, illiteracy rates, corruption rates, etc. Yes, they have very high tax rates, but health care and college is accessible to anyone who wants it (as I understand it). Looking at GDP per capita, a favored metric by Bernstein (who quoted these figures several times throughout his talk), is not necessarily an optimal way to compare the living conditions in one country versus another. While after-tax income of course measures “lower” in countries with high tax rates (and I of course admit the obvious role Pigovian taxes play on disincentivizing innovation), if tax-funded services are provided in lieu of direct income, if this is not accounted for in one’s metric, an individual’s actual standard of living may be more-or-less unaffected, even as the GDP per capita falls. This is why other metrics have come into favor over GDP per capita, which is easier to calculate but provides less information about the overall picture. More informative metrics are, for example, the Gini coefficient (based on the Lorenz curve), the Human Poverty Index (a composite index which accounts for literacy, unemployment, probability of falling below the poverty line, and the probability, at birth, of surviving to age 60), among others. GDP per capita as a metric, perhaps most importantly, only very weakly accounts for life satisfaction and experienced utility (see my previous article on welfare economics here).
I strongly agree with Bernstein’s overall message that religion and morality cannot peaceably coexist. In the words of Sam Harris, “The problem of faith is that it is a conversation-stopper. As long as you don’t have to give reasons for what you believe, you have effectively immunized yourself against the power of human conversation. You hear religious people say things like, ‘There’s nothing that can be said that will change my mind.’ Just imagine that said in medicine. If there’s nothing that can be said that will change your mind, if there’s no evidence or argument that can be educed, that proves that you are not any state of the world into account in your beliefs. The problem with this is that when the stakes are high, we have a choice between conversation and violence.” Bernstein made essentially the same point in his talk, that giving credibility to faith necessarily results in an irreconciliable struggle for (theoretically!) rational animals like us.
Bernstein is a strong public speaker, a good conversationalist, and extremely knowledgable in his field. I recommend him to any campus group interested in guest lectures about objectivism, reason/rationality, or why religion is harmful to societies.
Until next time!
- Dave
mail@davemuscato.com
(573) 424-0420 cell/text
Dave Muscato is Vice President of MU SASHA. He is a vegetarian, LGBTQ ally, and human- & animal-welfare activist. A junior at Mizzou majoring in economics & anthropology and minoring in philosophy & Latin, Dave posts updates to the SASHA blog every Monday, Thursday, and Saturday. His website is http://www.DaveMuscato.com.
Follow Dave on Google+
Follow Dave on Twitter
Helpful resources:
Godisimaginary.com
Iron Chariots Wiki
Skeptics’ Annotated Bible / Skeptics’ Annotated Qur’an
AtheismResource.com
TalkOrigins.org
YouTubers: Evid3nc3, Thunderf00t, TheAmazingAtheist, The Atheist Experience, Edward Current, NonStampCollector, Mr. Deity, Richard Dawkins, QualiaSoup
Blogs: Greta Christina, PZ Myers, The Friendly Atheist, WWJTD?, Debunking Christianity, SkepChick
and don’t forget… other SASHA members! We are here for you, too!
A Christian and an atheist break down an argument for design
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I received a comment on a previous blog article of mine about the argument from design, and wanted to respond to it more thoroughly than a simply reply comment. Below is the submitter’s comment copied-and-pasted, with my full response.
Submitted on 1/25/2012 at 3:27 AM
Unklee writes:
Nice sounding arguments Dave, but which of the following premises do you disagree with?
1. The character of our universe is determined by physical laws and constants.
2. If these laws and constants had been different, life would probably not have arisen.
3. The laws and constants which led to this suitability for life must have been determined by either physical necessity, chance or design.
4. The laws and constants have not been determined by physical necessity.
5. The laws and constants have not been determined by chance.
6. Therefore our universe was designed.
Hi Unklee, thanks for your comment. I’m just going to address this one after another:
1. The character of our universe is determined by physical laws and constants.
- Physics “laws” are just observed patterns of interactions. I don’t think it’s accurate to say “determined by.” The universe has them, from what we can tell, but that’s all we can conclude from that directly. We don’t know if they’re constant everywhere and we don’t know if it’s always had them the way we observe them now. We don’t even know if our observations are ultimately correct, because the only way we can check our work is by repeating the same method we used the first time (i.e. by trusting that information from our senses is a reliable path to knowledge about objective reality, under the condition that this information is consistent or within acceptable margins of error on repeated experiment, otherwise known as science). Also, what do you mean by “character”?
This came up when I googled "character." I don't know why.
2. If these laws and constants had been different, life would probably not have arisen.
It depends on how different those constants had been. It’s certainly conceivable that life would have grown up differently or possibly even not at all, depending on the chemicals available, the amount of time (if a hypothetical universe were to exist for only a few seconds, it’s pretty unlikely life would be able to develop in it), and other factors. I disagree with using the word “probably” here, as we only have a sample size of 1 observable universe and one planet with life that we know of. Since we can’t see outside of our universe, we have no one way of knowing otherwise, and can only speculate.
Even on this single planet we have everything from bacteria and archaea to fungi, blue whales, pterodactyls, humans, beetles, and trees. One study published last year estimates that 86% of species on this planet have yet even to be named. Who knows what kinds of life could be on other planets or indeed other universes? Perhaps there is even non-carbon-based life waiting to be discovered even within our own universe. Just pulling straight from Wikipedia: “While the kinds of living beings we know on Earth commonly use carbon for basic structural and metabolic functions, water as a solvent and DNA or RNA to define and control their form, it is possible that undiscovered life-forms could exist that differ radically in their basic structures and biochemistry from that known to science.”
"ALF" stands for Alien Life Form, although suspiciously, he breathes air, gets around just fine in Earth gravity, and they apparently have cats on his planet, too.
3. The laws and constants which led to this suitability for life must have been determined by either physical necessity, chance or design.
- What’s the difference between physical necessity and chance?
4. The laws and constants have not been determined by physical necessity.
- Need an answer to #3 before I can respond to this one. Do you mean that our universe would not have existed or lasted as long as it has if the laws were vastly different? I agree with that. We don’t know why our universe displays exactly the patterns of behavior that we observe it does, or indeed if these patterns have always been constant or even if they are constant everywhere now. We simply have no way of knowing that.
5. The laws and constants have not been determined by chance.
- I don’t think we have any decent way of ruling this out, but I’m very interested in your reason(s) for thinking that we do, as it seems to be the crux of the design argument in general.
6. Therefore our universe was designed.
- While it’s a possibility, I think it is remote at best, and has the major flaw of introducing an even worse question: If our universe is designed by some intelligence, then where did that intelligence come from? Now we are really getting into ad-hoc territory, speculating about the origin of an entity for which we have only circumstantial evidence of its existence in the first place!
If we’re assuming design, we’ll need to address this question of origin regarding the designer, too: Either this intelligence created itself, has always existed, or was itself created. If it was itself created, than we’re back to square one. If it has always existed, then we are violating parsimony by adding an extra, unneeded step in our logic, rather than the more-reasonable solution: that the universe itself has always existed. (Side note: We have to be careful about using terms like “always existed,” because time itself doesn’t exist without the expansion of the universe, which didn’t start happening until the Big Bang).
The Big Bang (click to enlarge)
Since the always-existed hypothesis doesn’t agree with observation—the universe appears to be about 13.7 billion years old—we can more-or-less rule that out. So, the only answer that’s parsimonious, fits observation thus far, and doesn’t answer the question with an even bigger question, is the provisional belief that the universe “created” itself, although I prefer a term more like “originated” or “initiated,” as these are fittingly less anthropomorphic.
I think the best answer to the question, “Where did the universe come from?”, based on what we’ve covered here, is this one:
“We don’t know, and we may never have enough information to say with absolute, 100% certainty, but the answer that fits all our observations the best so far is that the universe simply came from nothing.”
Lawrence Krauss recently wrote a book explaining why (and how) he believes the universe came from literally nothing, a position with which Stephen Hawking, Leonard Mlodinow, and many others agree. Seeing as they are all qualified astrophysicists, I’m inclined to take their word for it until or unless new evidence comes along that they’re incorrect, which is what I meant above when I said provisional belief.
I think ultimately, the argument from design boils down to what’s known in logic as an argumentum ad ignorantiam, or appeal to ignorance. This is a logical fallacy. Although the argument is generally stated something like, “The universe could not have come about the way it is unless some intelligence did it,” I think a more-accurate wording is, fairly, “I don’t understand how the universe could have come about the way it is, unless some intelligence did it.” In order to conclude that it must have been an intelligence, we would first have to rule out all other possibilities, including a conspicuously more-parsimonious one, which I don’t think we can do at this time.
I encourage you to read the book by Lawrence Krauss linked two paragraphs up, or watch him give this talk (see video below) about the same hypothesis. It should help you understand how the universe could have come from nothing. If, after watching it (or reading the book), you think that you have a way to disprove it, PLEASE post your reasoning in the comments below.
Something to note: As good scientists seeking the truth about how our universe works, we would never say that we accept a hypothesis, only that thus far, we have failed to reject it. This is because of the problem of induction. So even if we were able to absolutely rule out the a-universe-from-nothing hypothesis, that does NOT prove intelligence design nor even suggest it as the next-best possibility. All it would do is narrow down the possibilities from (at least) 3 hypotheses to (at least) 2. Our options are: 1) the universe originated itself through some natural, non-intelligent process 2) the universe has always existed 3) the universe was created by some intelligent entity. Again, there are problems with both #2 and #3: #2 doesn’t fit with observations and #3 just raises the bigger question of where that intelligence itself came from. Additionally, there could be even more hypotheses than these 3 that we haven’t thought of yet. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves: Right now, we have a hypothesis that’s parsimonious, fits the data, and doesn’t introduce more questions than it answers. I think that’s about as close as we can get to knowledge in this area unless or until we find strong evidence that we’re wrong. Ball’s in your court, Unklee!
Aforementioned Lawrence Krauss talk:
Regards,
Dave
mail@davemuscato.com
(573) 424-0420 cell/text
Dave Muscato is Vice President of MU SASHA. He is a vegetarian, LGBTQ ally, and human- & animal-welfare activist. A junior at Mizzou majoring in economics & anthropology and minoring in philosophy & Latin, Dave posts updates to the SASHA blog every Monday, Thursday, and Saturday. His website is http://www.DaveMuscato.com.
Follow Dave on Google+
Follow Dave on Twitter
Helpful resources:
Godisimaginary.com
Iron Chariots Wiki
Skeptics’ Annotated Bible / Skeptics’ Annotated Qur’an
AtheismResource.com
TalkOrigins.org
YouTubers: Evid3nc3, Thunderf00t, TheAmazingAtheist, The Atheist Experience, Edward Current,NonStampCollector, Mr. Deity, Richard Dawkins, QualiaSoup
Blogs: Greta Christina, PZ Myers, The Friendly Atheist, WWJTD?, Debunking Christianity, SkepChick
and don’t forget… other SASHA members! We are here for you, too!
What violence?
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From a dear friend’s Facebook status:
“I prayed that I would live so the world would know his courage and his great love.” – Clara Kramer in Clara’s War, a memoir of her Holocaust survival and a man who saved her and her family, [among] three other families, from the Nazis. Great book. Its much more graphic and intense then Diary of Anne Frank. I am speechless yet so grateful my generation has never had to know true evil.
My response:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rwandan_Genocide - 800,000 killed in 1994
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_in_Darfur
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darfur_conflict#Mortality_figures“Sudanese authorities claim a death toll of roughly 19,500 civilians[150] while certain non-governmental organizations, such as the Coalition for International Justice, claim that over 400,000 people have been killed.[151]“
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genocides_in_history#North_Korea
“Several millions in North Korea have died of starvation since the mid-1990s…”
“Outside observers and nongovernmental organizations estimate that 3.5 million North Koreans died of starvation between 1995 and 1997.”
—-
I truly wish that your last statement was true, and things actually ARE getting better – the world is becoming a smaller place, and things like Twitter, cell phones that record video, etc are making it much harder for dictators to get away with the types of things they used to be able to do – but we do still have a lot of work to do. I didn’t even mention the Middle East in the links above, for instance.
If this subject interests you, I HIGHLY recommend Steven Pinker’s wonderful book, The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Better_Angels_of_Our_Nature
He gave a talk here at Mizzou last spring about it, and he gave pretty much the same talk at TED:
FYI, my friend are I are approximately the same age (27).
Until next time,
Dave
mail@davemuscato.com
(573) 424-0420 cell/text
Dave Muscato is Vice President of MU SASHA. He is a vegetarian, LGBTQ ally, and human- & animal-welfare activist. A junior at Mizzou majoring in economics & anthropology and minoring in philosophy & Latin, Dave posts updates to the SASHA blog every Monday, Thursday, and Saturday. His website is http://www.DaveMuscato.com.
Follow Dave on Google+
Follow Dave on Twitter
Helpful resources:
Godisimaginary.com
Iron Chariots Wiki
Skeptics’ Annotated Bible / Skeptics’ Annotated Qur’an
AtheismResource.com
TalkOrigins.org
YouTubers: Evid3nc3, Thunderf00t, TheAmazingAtheist, The Atheist Experience, Edward Current,NonStampCollector, Mr. Deity, Richard Dawkins, QualiaSoup
Blogs: Greta Christina, PZ Myers, The Friendly Atheist, WWJTD?, Debunking Christianity, SkepChick
and don’t forget… other SASHA members! We are here for you, too!
Brother Jed Week; Bernd Heinrich; event & meeting on Wednesday!
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Hello everyone!
Two things today:
Brother Jed is in town all this week, and will be at Speakers’ Circle every afternoon. We will be tabling all this week, and we also have a special event planned for noon on Wednesday. We’re not saying what it is, but I strongly encourage you to come by Speakers’ Circle and check it out! We are still looking for a few more volunteers as well; if you want to help out, please email me at mail@davemuscato.com or text/call me at 573-424-0420 cell.
Then, at 5:30 PM on Wednesday, we will have our weekly meeting. Although we usually meet in the Agriculture Building room 2-16, this week, we’ll be in the lobby of the Student Center (Facebook event). This will be a “fun” meeting – no guided discussion topic or SASHAtalk this week, more of just a get-to-know-you meeting and a way for our new members and curiosity-seekers to ask questions and learn more about who we are and why we do what we do. There will be games, and yes, there will be CAKE (the food, not the band). See you there!
The cover of the first Bernd Heinrich book I ever read, "Winter World: The Ingenuity of Animal Survival"
Secondly, some of you may have heard me talk before about one of my favorite scientists, Bernd Heinrich. He’s a zoologist who has studied bees and, more recently, birds, specifically ravens & crows. His research, among others’, has contributed to our understanding that birds in the Corvus genus are among the smartest animals in the world. His research focuses on the physiological and behavioral adaptations of animals to their environments. In his 70 years, he’s written 18 books, and if you’re interested in his writing style, think “the scientific passion of Richard Dawkins meets the English mastery of William Butler Yeats.” He is one of the few science writers who, like Carl Sagan or Helen Fisher, while remaining firmly in the non-fiction camp, borders on real poetry. He is a delight to read.
I recently found out there is a documentary about him, released earlier this year. I am most likely going to order it; I think we should set up a time to all watch it! You can watch the trailer here.
See you all at Speakers’ Circle, and at the meeting on Wednesday!
- Dave
P.S. I’ve said before that we get at least 1 hit every day from people searching the internet for “dogs having sex.” Since mentioning this fact on the blog, we’ve now hit a new record: 18 people so far today have clicked through to this blog via the search parameter “dogs having sex.” So, to our 18 visitors looking for (presumably) pictures of dogs having sex, my apologies; this is an atheism/skepticism blog that once happened to post a photo of dogs having sex within an article about sexual harassment. Nevertheless, we do hope that while you’re here, you enjoy your stay. Good luck in finding what you’re looking for, and as we are a daily blog, we hope to see you again soon!
mail@davemuscato.com
(573) 424-0420 cell/text
Dave Muscato is Vice President of MU SASHA. He is a vegetarian, LGBTQ ally, and human- & animal-welfare activist. A junior at Mizzou majoring in economics & anthropology and minoring in philosophy & Latin, Dave posts updates to the SASHA blog every Monday, Thursday, and Saturday. His website is http://www.DaveMuscato.com.
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Helpful resources:
Godisimaginary.com
Iron Chariots Wiki
Skeptics’ Annotated Bible / Skeptics’ Annotated Qur’an
AtheismResource.com
TalkOrigins.org
YouTubers: Evid3nc3, Thunderf00t, TheAmazingAtheist, The Atheist Experience, Edward Current,NonStampCollector, Mr. Deity, Richard Dawkins, QualiaSoup
Blogs: Greta Christina, PZ Myers, The Friendly Atheist, WWJTD?, Debunking Christianity, SkepChick
and don’t forget… other SASHA members! We are here for you, too! 
Review: “What Darwin Got Wrong,” part 2
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The first chapter of WDGW lays out the structure of the so-called ‘modern synthesis,’ which construes natural selection as a two part, single dimensional process: First, genetic mutations arise randomly; second, external environmental factors ‘select’ phenotypes. The authors bring evidence from genetics to bear on this model. They argue that the internal elements of the process are hardly random, and that much of the evolutionary process rides on non-random internal constraints at the genetic level.
Much of the support for their claims comes in the form of quotes from contemporary geneticists, to the effect that much of the ‘filtering’ occurs internally, rather than externally through the organism’s environment. They likewise criticize the idea that variations in one trait are independent from heritable variations in other traits, arguing instead that the packaging of traits within the chromosome is messily interconnected (this is my poor attempt at a summary).
The authors spend much time discussing evolutionary development, or evo-devo. I found some of this discussion fascinating, particularly regarding the idea that entire life cycles are the the objects of evolutionary forces, not merely the adult forms. Rather than the organism’s adult form being the primary phenotype that undergoes selective pressures, evo-devo regards each developmental step as part of the filtering process, from the fertilized egg to the adult.
Much of the material in chapter one is technical, and I found it rather difficult to follow. I’ve re-read it several times, but I still do not grasp all of the arguments.
Chapter two zooms out, so to speak, from gene complexes to entire genomes and more complex systems. The authors continue to emphasize the role internal constraints play in the evolutionary process. They point to the robustness of ‘master genes’ and gene networks, which offer alternative explanations for evolutionary change. Rather than the random phenotype generation plus external filter model, they push a model of shifting internal networks and structures not easily influenced by the environment to any great degree. They take the primary targets of their criticism to be gradualism and adaptationism, of which I know Dawkins and Dennett are champions. I’ll say more about chapters two and three in the next post.
Review – “What Darwin Got Wrong”, Part 1
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Skepticism can be a painful disposition to maintain. A skeptic’s normal relationship with Darwin, evolution, and natural selection, is one of endorsement, and of defense against the creationist masses. However, in order to truly maintain a consistently skeptical disposition, one must be willing to entertain rational challenges to any belief, even those in which one is most confident. That is why I decided to read “What Darwin Got Wrong“, by Jerry Fodor and Massimo Piattelli-Palmarini (not to be confused with Massimo Pigliucci, of Rationally Speaking !)
My formal education in biology extends only through high school, the one ichthyology course I (mistakenly) took my freshman year of college, and the physical anthropology course I took Junior year. My understanding of the necessary concepts is amateur at best. I am capable of defending the theory from creationist attacks, and of explaining the basics throughout. Despite this relative ignorance of the fine details, I endorse the theory of evolution by natural selection with a great degree of confidence. I decided to challenge my confidence in the theory by reading Fodor and Piattelli-Palmarini’s book. I’ll begin this review with some background about the authors.
Jerry Fodor is a great and powerful analytic philosopher at Rutgers. He has contributed immensely to the fields of philosophy of mind and philosophy of language. If you’ve heard of the modularity of mind, or the language of thought hypothesis, then you have encountered his work. He is known for his audacious challenges to commonly assumed positions. When I read his work, I begin with a resolve to find his errors, but I end by begrudgingly admitting, “this shit makes a lot of sense, actually.”
I have never heard of Massimo Piattelli-Palmarini before. If he had written this book by himself, I would not have given it a second thought. I’m sure the publishers felt the same way. Piattelli-Palmarini (this last name is a pain to type) is a professor of cognitive science at the University of Arizona. I know what you’re thinking. “Neither of these guys is a biologist! Who are they to challenge a biological theory?” P-P was originally a biophysicist and molecular biologist, or so says the book’s front cover.
This book presents a challenge to the mechanism, natural selection, Darwin proposed in his theory of evolution. The challenge is two-pronged. In the first prong, Part 1 of the book, contemporary science from molecular biology and genetics is used to evaluate the explanatory power of natural selection. The second prong, Part 2 of the book, is slated to be an analysis of the very concepts involved in natural selection; it is an examination of the logical basis of the theory, and a challenge to its rational coherence. By my lights, Part 1 is mostly P-P, and Part 2 is Fodor’s gig.
Not having a vibrant understanding of genetics and molecular biology, my review of these parts (‘Part 1: What Darwin Got Wrong’) will be weak, and mostly summary. I hope that by presenting the material, some of you who are familiar with molecular biology and genetics may assist me in evaluating it.
However, I am looking forward to reviewing Part 2, ‘The Conceptual Situation,’ because I do have some skill when it comes to analytic philosophy, and I should like to both practice those skills, and perhaps share the methods of analytic philosophy with my fellow skeptics.
Over the next few weeks, perhaps with some irregularity due to paper deadlines and the grading of exams, I hope to proceed through the book and share my progress with you guys. The book is a philosophical and scientific challenge to a position of which I am rarely skeptical. To me, skepticism is all about honest and relentless inquiry, and the willingness to put any belief, or set of beliefs, to the test. It may sting a little.
Here is a philosophy battle between Fodor and Elliott Sober concerning Fodor’s book.
P.S. – Fodor and P-P are both hardass atheists who don’t take any shit when it comes to woo-woo, so you can forget about dismissing them on grounds of religious-bias.
-Seth Kurtenbach
