You are currently browsing the monthly archive for July 2008.
Just before heading off on holiday, I had to share this. Atheist bloggers may be wondering why they aren’t getting many hits from Birmingham – now you know.
Should you wish to get in touch with the Council about this, here’s the form with which to do so.
Time for a short vacation. I will be away from the internet until Monday (I know! Isn’t it awful?), since Wifeshui and I are going on holiday.
(To East Anglia. I spoil that woman, I really do…)
Anyway, I’ll be back after the weekend. Play nice!
A recent post of (((Billy)))’s got me thinking about that age-old creationist argument; “Science is just another religion.” On the face of it, the claim seems ridiculous, but it seemed worth a more detailed examination. To what extent, then, can science-based atheism be considered a “faith” position?
First off, I should admit that I’m no scientist. My qualifications from A-level onwards are in arts and humanities; all the science I know comes from avid reading and a PhD-wielding father who drummed science into me at every opportunity when I was a child. That said, I consider myself fairly bright, and although I have a bit of trouble getting my head around quantum theory, most scientific concepts filter their way into my brain with little difficulty. With that in mind, I’m able to understand scientific arguments, see how conclusions have been drawn from a given data set, and recognise potential flaws in the reasoning. Thus, a piece of research is only valid to me if it demonstrates a solid line of logic from the original experimental evidence to the conclusion.
An example, admittedly an obvious one, of a set of conclusions that I emphatically do not accept would be the Intelligent Design thesis. The process of reasoning that leads from “life is complex” to “God did it” is riddled with more holes than an Emmental cheese at a shooting range. Rebutting every stage of the argument would take more time and effort than I’m frankly willing to commit, but I’d direct interested parties towards Answers In Genesis Busted and The Panda’s Thumb for a thorough dissection of the ID movement.
However, I suppose in a way that a certain sort of “faith” is required for my acceptance of scientific knowledge. I have to believe that the experimental data is accurately reported, for example, and that it was correctly collected in the first place. In other words, I have to trust that what scientists are telling me is true. How is this different to trusting what a priest or imam says? Is this not just a case of choosing one argument from authority over another? In trusting Richard Dawkins over Pope Benedict, I am making a decision as to what criteria I will accept as delineating my theory of knowledge. In effect, I am choosing to believe the statements of science over the statements of religion, and thus have no tenable position from which to criticise those who choose to encompass their epistemology with religious faith instead.
The difference, I would argue, lies in the reason behind my acceptance of scientific arguments over religious ones. In essence, the arguments of theism are based on attempts to reach an already assumed conclusion, “God exists.” If one looks everywhere for proof of something in the certain expectation of finding it to be so, one is liable to find a whole stack of supporting evidence. Scientific arguments, however, do one of two things instead. Either they assume a hypothesis and attempt to dis-prove it, or they begin dispassionately with a set of data and look at the conclusions one might draw from it. To my mind, these methods are self-evidently more likely to yield unbiased, accurate results, and so I am more willing to accept them as a basis for my worldview.
Why should alternative therapists be properly regulated? Well, they just might turn out to be war criminals… Something to think about next time you feel the urge to go visit a homeopath.
Sometimes I find myself wondering, “why am I doing this?” Not just when I discover myself eating a whole Black Forest Gateau on my own, or when it occurs to me that perhaps bungee-jumping was not the best thing to do after a few pints of scrumpy, or even when I wake up in a total stranger’s bath forty miles away from home, with no idea how I arrived there. I ask myself this question about Right To Think, and atheist “evangelism” in general.
Why should it matter to me what other people believe? Why should I put so much effort into convincing them otherwise? Why does religion get me so irate? It’s an argument that many will recognise as a theist favourite: atheists are so dedicated to arguing against religion, so there must me something to it – otherwise, why would they bother?
Well, my answer – to myself as well as to the theists – is twofold. Firstly, on a personal level, I see many of my friends wasting time and money in the pursuit of their myths. It upsets me a little to think that some of the most intelligent people I know insist on reining in their minds rather than challenging these culturally instilled beliefs. On a purely personal level, then, I blog (and argue!) in the hopes that I might embed some seed of questioning in the minds of those I love and respect – I don’t ask that they eschew their faith, just that they have a good, long think about why they believe what they do.
Secondly, and more importantly, religion has effects beyond the personal. If it was confined to the brains of the faithful, I doubt I’d have too much of a problem, but part of the memetic structure of any theistic system is the instruction to propagate – to “go forth and multiply”, if you will. That, more than anything, is why I am always ready to speak out against theology.
This is why I blog. And this. This too, Not to mention this, this and this. And of course, this. I could go on indefinitely, but I think my point is clear. Religion is like smoking – if you do it in the privacy of your own room, well, it’s bad for you, but that’s your choice. When you start forcing your carcinogenic fumes on your children, your neighbours, your friends, people you meet on the street – then it becomes my problem, and everybody else’s. So if you follow a faith that has even an inkling of proselytising in its creed, then understand that all socially conscious atheists will challenge you every step of the way.
Right, having spent about 24 hrs slathered in Tiger Balm and performing very gentle stretches, I now have enough feeling in my upper body to compose the post I wanted to put up yesterday…
In the years I spent as a t’ai chi adherent, obsessive and instructor, I witnessed some quite incredible displays of physical prowess. I remember Master Wee Kee Jin propelling me from my solidest stance into a wall some thirty feet away, apparently without effort. I recall push-hands routines with Master Alan Peck, who appeared as insubstantial as the air itself when I pushed him, yet threw me backwards as though I was as light as a feather. I myself had students who were astonished that they couldn’t shift me from my stance, no matter how many of them tried. It’s all tremendously impressive stuff, and gives credence to the theory of “chi power” which so permeates the art of T’ai Chi.
For those unaware of the woo-tastic nature of chi (or “ki” in Japanese), it’s best described by analogy. You know the Force in Star Wars? Yeah, think along those lines…. “an energy field created by all living things. It surrounds us, penetrates us, and binds the galaxy together,” as Sir Alec would have it. The idea of chi in martial arts is a common one, and is often used to explain some of the seemingly impossible feats performed by practitioners. Unfortunately for those who spend hours, even years, “training their chi“, it’s also bollocks. Every amazing martial arts technique can be attributed to three factors: mental focus, body alignment and psychological impact. All three are interconnected – one’s focus is expressed through physical alignment and has a psychological effect – but to a greater or lesser extent, these three elements are what make the fancy-looking stuff work.
I came to this conclusion only after years of fervent belief in chi. It was, in many ways, harder for me to give up my faith in chi than it was my faith in God – chi was palpable, I could see and feel its effects, it appeared real to me – so I was a long time in finally admitting defeat. In the end, though, I found that a decent understanding of biomechanics and balance achieved the same ends without any unnecessary hippy nonsense, and all my t’ai chi swordsmanship couldn’t compete with Occam’s Razor. Chi went by the board, and my practice improved substantially as a result.
Just to give you a taster of the effects that good focus, mechanics and psychological superiority can have, here are a couple of clips:
Here’s Aikido founder O Sensei Morihei Ueshiba in his seventies, demonstrating just how postural alignment and timing can defeat youth and strength:
Here’s T’ai Chi Grandmaster Huang Shen Shyan showing how to master someone else’s balance:
And here’s some footage of modern Ba Gua Zhang Master Bruce K. Frantzis:
All three are (or were – Ueshiba and Huang are no longer with us) keen believers in the power of chi, but the fact that they ascribed their skills to a nebulous non-existent Force doesn’t detract from the awesomeness of their skill.
I’ve been a bit slack with the posting today, but in my defence I’ve spent much of my morning being repeatedly slammed into some rather unforgiving tatami matting… This new Aikido instructor Wifeshui and I have found is great, though – I knew I was going to like him when in his first demonstration he added the caveat, “Nothing mystical about this, mind, ’s just how yer body’s organised.” A full post on my thoughts about martial arts woo will follow either tomorrow or Monday, but right now I hurt too much to type…
Jon Krakauer is most well-known for his books on survival and mountaineering, notably Into Thin Air. With Under The Banner Of Heaven, he shifts his focus to look at Mormonism, specifically through the lens of a brutal double murder in 1984. The deaths of Brenda Lafferty and her baby daughter Erica lead Krakauer on a lengthy journey through the mindset of Mormon Fundamentalism, giving him a starting point from which to examine the history of the Mormon faith and the mentality of some of its adherents.
Mormonism is unique in being the only major religion to have developed in the modern era. Its strange blend of Christian mythology, American supremacism, personal revelation and sci-fi has proved enduringly popular over the last century-and-a-half, and it can lay claim to being the fastest growing religion in existence at the moment. Part of this potency, Krakauer discovers, is the in-group nature of the faith – outsiders are emphatically excluded, and in many cases, shunned entirely. Questioning the dictates of the faith is a surefire route to apostasy, and this has resulted in many splinter groups forming (judging from Krakauer’s account, a new offshoot formed virtually every time anyone disagreed with the church elders). It is these fundamentalist scions that the book interests itself in primarily, particularly those engaged in the practice of polygamy.
Polygamous relations, and their place in the Mormon faith, is a fairly central tenet of Under The Banner Of Heaven. Polygamy has been the cause of most of the major rifts in the faith, and has contributed substantially to the outsider’s view of Mormonism (along with magic underwear…). Using this as a connecting thread, the author explores the development of modern Mormon fundamentalism, anchoring his story in the various characters who played a major role in the 1984 murders. This approach results in a very grounded piece of investigative journalism, as Krakauer interviews those involved with both the faith and the crime, and lets them tell the story in their own words. It makes for a riveting, attention-grabbing and very human tale; I would even go so far as to say that Under The Banner Of Heaven is almost up there with In Cold Blood as the major American true-crime book of the last century.
The history of the Mormons is a fascinating one, especially so since very little speculation is required by historians to piece together the facts. This, after all, was a faith birthed in the age of the printing press and the telegraph, and so was well documented throughout its formative existence. Krakauer intersperses his modern narrative with stories of Joseph Smith, Brigham Young and other luminaries of early Mormonism, and shows how the schisms which would later result in the deaths of Brenda and Erica Lafferty were all but inevitable. Founded by a huckster occultist, formulated by an overbearing megalomaniac and enforced by a cold-blooded serial killer, Mormonism is a chaotic mess of a faith, held together by the charisma of its leaders and the unquestioning obedience of its indoctrinated masses; it has been steeped in blood throughout its short life.
Jon Krakauer’s exhaustive research has born fruit in a terrible tale of blood, delusion and savagery. It raises provocative questions about the very nature of religious belief, and I would strongly suggest it to anyone interested in American religion today.
I am a complete board game geek. Most notably, I’m an obsessive player of Go, so much so that Wifeshui knows the best way to get into my good books is to offer to give me a game (that’s not even a euphemism, by the way…). I love chess, although I’m not especially good at it, and also play a reasonable game of Shogi, but reserve my main chess-skills for Xiang Qi. In my time, I have also been known to play Hnerfetafl, Mancala, Nine-Men’s-Morris, Senet, Backgammon, Halma, Draughts, Scrabble, Lines of Action and a whole host of others – I’m currently trying to get my head round Rithmomachia, which is truly insane…
Speaking of truly insane board games, I was stunned to come across this today. A Buddhist board game? It smacks of creepy indoctrination, but part of me is tempted… Unfortunately they haven’t posted the rules on the site, which makes it hard to tell if it’s worth playing or not; as far as I can see it’s a sort of religious cross between Monopoly and Snakes & Ladders. I think I shall stick with my tried and tested games.
Incidentally, should you wish to play me at any of the above, I can be found most days on Brainking – just do a search for “yunshui”.
John “Beefheart” Evo has a rather interesting post up at Evolutionary Middleman concerning the fear of death as a religious motivator. I remember being terribly, terribly afraid of dying as a child. It seemed like such an awful concept, the idea that this collection of thoughts and opinions and neuroses that was me would one day cease to exist. Strangely, I found little comfort in Christianity – there was always the fear of hell in the background, and heaven seemed, well… a bit dull, actually. I wanted to live forever, and although my faith guaranteed that, even put it in writing (John 3:16, sports fans!), I could never get anyone to actually sign the guarantee…
When I discovered Taoism in my late teens, I found a much more palatable (to my mind) approach to death:
“Chuang Tzu’s wife died. When Hui Tzu went to convey his condolences, he found Chuang Tzu sitting with his legs sprawled out, pounding on a tub and singing. ‘You lived with her, she brought up your children and grew old,’ said Hui Tzu. ‘It should be enough simply not to weep at her death. But pounding on a tub and singing-this is going too far, isn’t it?’
“Chuang Tzu said, ‘You’re wrong. When she first died, do you think I didn’t grieve like anyone else? But I looked back to her beginning and the time before she was born. Not only the time before she was born, but the time before she had a body. Not only the time before she had a body, but the time before she had a spirit. In the midst of the jumble of wonder and mystery a change took place and she had a spirit. Another change and she had a body. Another change and she was born. Now there’s been another change and she’s dead. It’s just like the progression of the four seasons, spring, summer, fall, winter.
“‘Now she’s going to lie down peacefully in a vast room. If I were to follow after her bawling and sobbing, it would show that I don’t understand anything about fate. So I stopped.’” Watson, Burton. Chuang Tzu: Basic Writings, page 113
If you fish out the hokey references to “spirit”, you have a pretty good idea of my current attitude to death and dying. Death is a natural part of life, as much so as eating or breathing. To panic about something so inevitable and sign your existence away in exchange for some nebulous promise of an afterlife is to miss the awesome actuality of the universe, to ignore the fact that you, and I, and everyone around us are no more than fleeting ripples in the infinite ocean of reality. You are not important. Eventually, you will die and be forgotten. What matters is how you spend the time you have. As I’ve said before, in many ways it is the transience of life that gives it meaning, and the failure to understand this is, as Evo suggests, at the heart of much of modern religion.
Recent Comments