Canadian Atheist
Athée Canadien
CIUT Friday morning!
Oct 29th
This is just a quick note for all of those who are still up/waking up.
My rescheduled appearance for CIUT will be tomorrow morning at 9am EST. If you’re in Toronto, tune in, otherwise check online and hopefully we can get an audio copy online afterward.
CFI Skeptics welcome Creationist Dr. Sarfati
Oct 28th
This past week, British Columbia was host to creationist lecturer Dr. Jonathan Sarfati, a PhD in chemistry who gave a series of lectures entitled “Evolution: The Greatest Hoax on Earth.” The title, while pithy enough on its own, is based on the title of the international bestselling book The Greatest Show on Earth by British biologist, professor and novelist Richard Dawkins.
Dr. Sarfati, founder of Creation Ministries International, asserts that evolution is a hoax based on his literal interpretation of the story of Genesis – in which God created the universe in 7 days about 10,000 years ago. One must admire the courage and temerity of a man who looks at pre-human fossils dated orders of magnitude older than that; rock formations dated billions of years old; and abundant cosmological evidence putting the age of the universe even older than the rocks; and says “nope, ten thousand – book says so.” Maybe ‘admire’ isn’t the right word…
What did we do?
Upon hearing that we would be paid a visit by such a luminary figure, British Columbia skeptics decided that if creationist propaganda was going to be spread around our fair province then audience members deserved to hear what the scientific evidence had to say. After all, forewarned is forearmed. Centre for Inquiry (CFI) Vancouver, in partnership with our colleagues at CFI Okanagan, the University of British Columbia (UBC) biology department, UBC Okanagan (UBCO), the UBC Freethinkers and the UBCO Skeptics contacted the venues where Sarfati was scheduled to speak – UBC’s Vancouver campus, The Pacific Academy in Surrey, and UBC’s Okanagan campus – and requested permission to set up an information table in the lobby.
The Pacific Academy, a privately owned venue attached to a Pentacostal Christian school (K-12) in Surrey, declined our request to set up a table. While we were understandably disappointed – especially given CFI’s past willingness to allow creationists to push their propaganda (usually in the form of “if there’s no God, how did all this stuff get here? Therefore, God.”) at our events – we recognized that private businesses have every right to hold whatever events they like. The Surrey event was attended by around 800 people of all ages.
We were able to prevail upon UBC to allow the presence of science within the morass of apologetics by reminding them of their obligation to present information that is consistent with the policies of the university. While creationism might be entertaining, evolution is a fact. We were lucky to be able to borrow on the heft and credibility of our colleagues within the UBC biology department.
The Vancouver lecture was not quite as well-attended, perhaps due to the fact that people in a university environment know a bit more about science than the general public. Many of the students we encountered there attended out of sheer curiosity – having heard about the evolution vs. creation “controversy” (only controversial to those within the creationist camp). They thanked us for being there to present the evidence, rather than… well, we’ll get to that later.
The UBC Okanagan lecture was again not quite as popular as the one held by the Pentecostal Church in Surrey. Our volunteers were present to provide some information to those who might not have a background in biology. Feeling a bit cheeky, some of us wore t-shirts that said “Creationism: a Philosophy of Ignorance”, referring to the argument from ignorance that Creationism is based on (“I don’t know how this works, therefore it must be God’s doing”). Our esteemed presenter wasn’t particularly pleased about that, but we’ll get to that in a bit.
Overall, our presence was welcomed by audience members. We were careful not to force information on people, preferring instead to wait for curious parties to come to us. We were not there to sell anything or to force an agenda, merely to make information available and give people a chance to pre-empt some of the more egregious lies inherent to creationism.
What happened at the lecture?
While the bar for creationist lecturers isn’t set particularly high, either in terms of evidence or persuasive arguments, Dr. Sarfati did his utmost not to clear it. Instead of presenting evidence for the truth of creation (which would be impressive, because there isn’t any), he instead presented a series of shallow, recycled and easily- (and oft-) refuted arguments. Some of the highlights:
- The second law of thermodynamics says that organization can’t increase in a closed system, therefore beneficial mutations cannot happen and evolution cannot occur. Never mind that the Earth is not a closed system, gets regular energy from the sun, and beneficial mutations have been observed to occur (a PhD in Chemistry really should know this)…
- Science comes from Christianity (therefore… God?). Never mind that the Christian church repeatedly blocked scientific progress that was contrary to dogma, that science has explained many things that were supposedly divine “mysteries”, and that during the Dark Ages – when the church was at its height of power – it was the Muslim world that made the greatest contributions to science…
- Noah’s flood explains everything, from the Grand Canyon to the divergence of species. Never mind the fact that contemporary floods don’t seem to have the magical properties of Noah’s flood, that building a ship capable of holding 2 of every animal in the world would require a level of technology we don’t even have today, and that there is no evidence anywhere of a flood that covered the entire world and then carefully planted specific types of animals only in certain places…
- Fish float when they die, therefore they can’t fossilize, therefore fish fossils are evidence of being buried by mud slides from Noah’s flood. Never mind the fact that you do not need Noah’s flood to create mud slides that bury fish. It happens all the time. Never mind the fact that fish sink after their air bladders lose integrity, or that fish without bladders sink right away, or that fossil records are not the only – or even the strongest – evidence we have for evolution…
- If you put a frog in a blender and turn it on, you’ll never see a live frog be reassembled. I’m not even sure if this one is worth taking on, and someone should probably call the SPCA.
After the lecture there was a Q&A session. Dr. Safarti wasn’t too pleased to see our volunteers in the first place (someone put a copy of Biology for Dummies on the podium – perhaps not polite, but certainly funny), and mentioned our insouciant t-shirts a few times in Kelowna. He became even more hostile when we pointed out some of the more egregious fallacies in his argument, interrupting the questioners, accusing us of trying to convert people to atheism (a big scary deal to Dr. Safarti), and assuring us that the answers were in one of his books, but he couldn’t answer it right now. The Vancouver event was attended predominantly by students and evolutionists, who did not respond well to these evasive tactics and cheered on those who took the creationist presenter to task for them.
Our reception was somewhat frostier in Kelowna, where the crowd was not quite as pro-science as in Vancouver. Our questions, rather than being met with tacit approval, were the cause of some consternation to the audience. One attendee, a professor of philosophy, attempted to demonstrate some of the logical problems with Sarfati’s arguments – an audience member threatened to put the professor in a head lock. Perhaps it goes without saying that we didn’t win any popularity contests there. Hopefully we got mentioned in a few church sermons the following Sunday.
Needless to say, Dr. Sarfati was not pleased to have people present who are aware of history, science, and basic logic. His hostility was not saved for skeptics either: he made many disparaging comments about atheists, Muslims, and made disparaging remarks about other Christians who believed in evolution. Perhaps being a jerk and a buffoon isn’t relevant to the fact that his presentation was frankly a big steamy pile of BS, but it certainly didn’t help his cause.
What did we learn?
The British Columbia branches of CFI are working on our “skeptivist” approach – bringing the tools of skepticism out into the open and engaging the public. We were lucky to have partners at UBC, as well as the support of the national branch of CFI. We were once again received positively by most of the audience at the event we attended – a reception we can at least partially attribute to being polite and non-pushy (being a good-looking group of ladies and gents probably didn’t hurt either).
People are understandably curious when someone tells them “the thing you’ve been taught is a hoax”. I’m sure that many of the attendees were either confirmed creationists for whom science is blasphemy, and more than a few were science-literate skeptics present at the lecture for a chuckle. Our mission was not and has not been, to convert the whole audience to one way of thinking; it was to present the actual evidence and allow people to make their own decisions. We are confident that after hearing “both sides” of the creation/evolution issue, reasonable people will choose the side with the evidence on its side over the one that relies on distortions and outright falsehoods to make its point.
Our information tables were visited predominantly by the people we were hoping to attract – science-weak university students who were there out of curiosity. They thanked us for being there, knowing that evolution is embraced by the scientific community but not being too sure about why. While skeptics and atheists are often accused of “preaching to the converted”, we were glad to have an opportunity to “preach” to those whose understanding of biology is less than full.
Dr. Sarfati is perhaps not the greatest challenge facing us in the creationist camp. While folks like Ken Ham at least have some kind of charisma, Dr. Sarfati has pictures of blended frogs and slander against non-believers. However, it is important to counter pseudoscience and fraud whenever it appears, particularly when it’s on our university campuses, no matter how unimpressive the speaker may be. We are happy to have been a part of this, and optimistic that we may have given people some things to think about.
The Dangers of Rhetoric
Oct 28th
I’ve been listening to the audiobook of Sam Harris’s The Moral Landscape…
While I have no doubt some atheists will thoroughly enjoy his neuroscience based advocacy of utilitarianism, so far, I’m less than impressed.
The neuroscience bits are good, and I think he has some interesting things to say about utilitarianism, but for the most part it seems like he’s fitting the facts to his theory, rather than deriving a theory based on the facts. Harris wants a science-based morality, even though the entire idea of ‘morality’ comes to us from a time of superstition. I’m not denying secularists can have ethics, of course, but just as Harris rejects “freewill” in the supernatural sense, I think morality talk is sloppy thinking.
Something that disturbed me, was the part where Harris states equivocally strongly implies throughout a whole section, that religious belief is clinically delusional.
(Edit: Harris states “The boundary between mental illness and respectable religious belief can be difficult to discern.”
This is true with many sorts of beliefs, mental illness has many levels, but his chief examples are extreme and religious.
Harris does end the section with this comment about a specific case: “there is no reason to believe that any of them suffer from a mental illness. It is obvious, however, that they suffer from religion.”
I’ll accept half an *idiot-boy* on this one, my bad for not checking, and thanks to the reader who sent in the text.)
I find this extremely irresponsible.
Some of you will no doubt agree with him.
When Dawkins published his book, The God Delusion, I had similar objections in the conversations I had with other atheists. Some would say, its just a title, he’s just being provocative. Others would go further and say religion was an actual mental disorder.
But I think both are seriously flawed. First, although its true that there are plenty of religious people who are clinically delusional, and some religions may have their origins in delusional individuals, merely believing something strange is nothing like real mental illness. If you’re just going to use this word as an insult, you’ve sunk to the level of calling people names, not to mention trivialized a real medical problem that can destroy peoples lives.
Second, those who state ignorantlyimply, as Harris does, that religious belief is equivalent to delusion, do so, not to address the “problem of religion”, but rather to dismiss it. Using ‘science’ as a tool of discrimination against minorities and women has a long horrible history…
But, maybe, I’m over-reacting, is it really such a slippery slope?. That is history, after all, we’re better now…
In an article published this summer, Mr. Sennels declares that “massive inbreeding within the Muslim culture during the last 1,400 years may have done catastrophic damage to their gene pool.”
“The consequences of intermarriage between first cousins often have serious impact on the offspring’s intelligence, sanity, health and on their surroundings,” Mr. Sennels wrote.
Skepticism isn’t just about criticising others, critical thinking demands we examine our own beliefs too, and with the same veracity.
Cectic stirs the pot
Oct 27th
The great skeptic webcomic Cectic adds a statement about the consequence of being a douchebag:
Of course this exchange seems far more likely in an online forum then in any actual encounter with real human beings, but comics wouldn’t be as funny without stereotypes.
Are we preaching too much?
Oct 27th
There’s an interesting article on the Guardian Science Blog about the UK Skeptics movement and how it’s spending too much time in the pub and focussing on in-group activities rather than public outreach, specifically education of children.
He has a couple good points, but misses a couple key things too.
I like that he draws attention to issues of racism in the groups, especially about the need to reach out to minorities which typically are far more woo-infested than white cultures. We’re all human and we’re all capable of critical thinking, so failing to reach out to those communities only strengthens religion and superstition within their groups.
Similarly, his emphasis on the need for raising more critical thinkers is an important one. While our own Rebekah has started a successful parenting group and secular summer camp, how many other similar programs exist in Canada right now?
Finally, it’s important to remind people to get out of the pub and lecture halls once in a while. Most people likely still conflate skeptics with cynics or deniers, and far too often will claim us to be the closed-minded ones. These are major issues to address, and hosting a bigger TAM then last year isn’t going to change it.
However, without local community groups, online forums and conferences to preach to the choir, many more people are not going to get involved in activism.
Without a core group of people that actually feel a part of the community, it’s very difficult to enact social change.
People need motivation and they need coordination. Grassroots pub events can serve to put enough like-minded people together that an idea goes from being a lone nut trying to change the school system and enact evidenced-based policy to coordinated organizations lobbying for education reform or running for office.
So Alom does remind us to get out of the pub, and to be less racist, but somewhat downplays the importance of community building within the movement.
Best Arguments for the Existence of God?
Oct 27th
What is the best argument you have come across for god’s existence? What argument (if any) have you not been able to debunk in a satisfactory manner?
I stole this idea from a person named Maria Maltseva, because I figured it would be fun to ask here.
There aren’t many arguments that I haven’t found a satisfactory counterargument for. Perhaps the best argument for god’s existence is the argument that I can’t disprove all god concepts. For example, I could say that science has shown no evidence whatsoever for god’s existence. A believer could reply that god chooses to not reveal himself to those who try to find him via science; he only responds to those who try to find him via faith. And, of course, if I try to explain that I can’t seem to find god through faith, theists could explain that I haven’t been faithful enough. What can I do? They could be right. I cannot disprove this specific god concept via scientific methods, because this god, by definition, is beyond the realm of empiricism. Maybe god does only choose to reveal himself to those who are faithful enough. Philosophically, I can poke holes in 
this god concept, but a believer could employ apologetics to try and explain away the inconsistencies. Obviously, I would never assume that said god actually exists, but it’s still possible that it does, and therefore god still has some small room to exist in. It seems to me that the likelihood for the existence of god approaches zero because of all the fancy apologetics theists have to do to rationalize the existence of their particular god concept, but I don’t think I can be sure it ever actually reaches zero…
In that respect, I suppose I consider myself a proponent of “agnostic atheism“.
Anyways, what do you folks think is the most convincing argument for the existence of god?
We won!
Oct 27th
Introducing your 2010 Best Religion & Philosophy Blog in Canada, as vote by you, our readers!
Thanks to everyone who voted for us. It’s been a great couple months since we launched and we hope to continue long into the future.
Defending the tribe
Oct 27th
Like a lot of people, I’ve been following the drama of the climate change debate for some time. And I believe, what seems like an overwhelming consensus amongst reputable scientists that human caused climate change is a reality.
I should say though, that I am not a scientist, and based on my limited knowledge of the difficulties in predicting complex systems, I’m probably more open to criticisms that are sometimes directed towards climate science. I also know that science is a human activity, and I am familiar with how that can cause problems for even the rigorous method of science.
I am a skeptic at heart, and so after reading this article, I’m somewhat conflicted.
Although many of the skeptics recycle critiques that have long since been disproved, others, she believes, bring up valid points—and by lumping the good with the bad, climate researchers not only miss out on a chance to improve their science, they come across to the public as haughty.
Getting the facts right, especially given the global impact, strikes me as being the most important part… but human nature can be an obstacle for even those trained in science. Being skeptical is the hard road.
More strident Episcopalians
Oct 26th
This shrill screed from the hateful quill of Bishop John Shelby Spong:
I have made a decision. I will no longer debate the issue of homosexuality in the church with anyone. I will no longer engage the biblical ignorance that emanates from so many right-wing Christians about how the Bible condemns homosexuality, as if that point of view still has any credibility. I will no longer discuss with them or listen to them tell me how homosexuality is “an abomination to God,” about how homosexuality is a “chosen lifestyle,” or about how through prayer and “spiritual counseling” homosexual persons can be “cured.” Those arguments are no longer worthy of my time or energy. I will no longer dignify by listening to the thoughts of those who advocate “reparative therapy,” as if homosexual persons are somehow broken and need to be repaired. I will no longer talk to those who believe that the unity of the church can or should be achieved by rejecting the presence of, or at least at the expense of, gay and lesbian people. I will no longer take the time to refute the unlearned and undocumentable claims of certain world religious leaders who call homosexuality “deviant.” I will no longer listen to that pious sentimentality that certain Christian leaders continue to employ, which suggests some version of that strange and overtly dishonest phrase that “we love the sinner but hate the sin.”
That statement is, I have concluded, nothing more than a self-serving lie designed to cover the fact that these people hate homosexual persons and fear homosexuality itself, but somehow know that hatred is incompatible with the Christ they claim to profess, so they adopt this face-saving and absolutely false statement. I will no longer temper my understanding of truth in order to pretend that I have even a tiny smidgen of respect for the appalling negativity that continues to emanate from religious circles where the church has for centuries conveniently perfumed its ongoing prejudices against blacks, Jews, women and homosexual persons with what it assumes is “high-sounding, pious rhetoric.” The day for that mentality has quite simply come to an end for me. I will personally neither tolerate it nor listen to it any longer.
Bishop Spong, you’ve given me a word-boner.
Of course we in the atheist community must fall all over ourselves to condemn such hateful rhetoric. After all, he might turn away some atheists who would totes get on the pro-gay bandwagon, but for all the mean words said about religious people. If you believe in your principles so little that you’ll let language be the deciding factor of your involvement, perhaps it’s best that you stay home.
And please believe that Bishop Spong (great name, incidentally) gets better:
In my personal life, I will no longer listen to televised debates conducted by “fair-minded” channels that seek to give “both sides” of this issue “equal time.” I am aware that these stations no longer give equal time to the advocates of treating women as if they are the property of men or to the advocates of reinstating either segregation or slavery, despite the fact that when these evil institutions were coming to an end the Bible was still being quoted frequently on each of these subjects. It is time for the media to announce that there are no longer two sides to the issue of full humanity for gay and lesbian people. There is no way that justice for homosexual people can be compromised any longer.
*Quiver* I’m no longer convinced that being gay isn’t a lifestyle choice, because I’m super gay for the good Bishop right now. I need me some Spong.
This is the power that rhetoric has – it can uplift, it can inspire, it can forge unlikely allegiances. While the Bishop and I would never agree on theology (unless he’s purely a “cultural Christian”, in which case I’ll just scratch my head and change the subject), even a hardened firebrand like myself would be proud to stand next to the author of these words. And it’s not because he’s pandering to my position, or being just s’darn nice about what he’s saying, it’s because he’s unashamed to state clearly what he believes. I have more respect for someone who disagrees with me clearly and directly than I do with someone who pussyfoots around the issues and obfuscates, straining mightily to hold the middle ground at all costs.
While I recognize that not everyone will respond to direct language positively, there is a significant subset of the atheist community that does. My contention is that despite the fact that we may disagree on any number of other topics – from wine to economic politics to the supernatural – we ‘firebrand’ atheists are not so rabidly anti-religious as to ignore good ideas from a variety of sources, even the religious. Plus, when my back’s against the wall, I’m comforted more by someone willing to stand and fight beside me than I am by someone who thinks we just need to compromise with the mob so they’ll put their torches down.
Gnu Atheist Questions
Oct 26th
By Andrew Komar
The factually challenged wingnuts over at the Discovery Institute have asked the scary new atheist movement some questions. I’ll do my best to answer them, but if the courtier’s reply applies, I’m going to use it. I’m an engineer, damnit, not a doctor of philosophy.
1) Why is there anything?
One of the defining principles of quantum physics is the fuzziness of reality, provided you are looking close enough. Call it the uncertainty principal if you want, but nature as we know it has some inherent randomness ’built’ into the universe. One of the stranger aspects of this is seen in the phenomenon of virtual particles, which are bits of stuff that pop into and out of existence in time spans shorter than we generally notice. This weirdness also manifests itself in the decidedly spooky Casimir Effect, but the take home lesson is that points of what we think of as empty space actually are teeming with vacuum energy.
The laws of reality allow matter and energy to pop into existence, given small enough time frames and small enough distances. Our cosmological model has that the early universe being of just this fuzzy size, so small and energy dense that time itself got squished into another spatial dimension (see: A Brief History of Time). This was just before the inflationary epoch. which expanded the size of the universe by a factor of 10 followed by 43 zeroes. If Stephen Hawking and the string theorists are correct, than a self-consistent understanding of physics demands that universes can and will be spontaneously created from nothing. We’re just lucky enough to be in a universe that happens to support our kind of life and allows these questions.
Now, it should be noted that we are beyond any experimental evidence regarding the ‘creation’ event, even in theory. As for the ‘why’ bit, that implies intentionality, which is straight up silly. Try asking gravity ‘why’ it is keeping your butt in the chair. Moving along.
2) What caused the Universe?
Again, ’caused’ implies intentionality, but I think I’ve just explained that the universe is essentially self-caused, randomly, as a necessary outcome of the way physics operates. This question also seems to require time existing independently of the universe, as causality requires time for a sequence of events. Asking about sequences ‘before’ the universe, or what caused the universe without time existing is as meaningful as asking what is north of the north pole.
3) Why is there regularity (Law) in nature?
I’m going to invoke the anthropic principle here, it’s doubtful that we’d be here to ask that question if the universe wasn’t ordered enough for complex life to arise. If our universe is a probabilistic fluctuation in some grander design, than there are also an infinite number of other universes that would not have perceived regularity, because their variation on the laws of nature wouldn’t allow for beings capable of observation. Call it a self-selection bias with a sample of 1.
Besides, just because we call an observed pattern regular doesn’t make it so; ask the financial markets. The two theories that best explain different properties of our universe are mutually incompatible, but we consider both laws. All we can do is attempt to characterize our observations in a systematic fashion, incorporating them into self consistent models that explain and predicting relevant aspects. Science is the endeavor of weeding out the bad explanations based on evidence, but you are still left with models that are limited by what we know, or even can know.
4) Causes in nature proposed by Aristotle (material, formal, efficient, and final), which of them are real? Do final causes exist?
Buh? Anyway, I don’t know what injecting a thinker who didn’t even get inertia has to do with a modern scientific understanding of the universe, but honestly, I have no idea what to say to this question.
5) Why do we have subjective experience, and not merely objective existence?
I think consciousness, an intrinsically subjective experience, is a property of a functioning brain. The specific mechanics of this process are still an active field of research, but I think we have the basics mapped out. We certainly understand the underlying behavior of chemicals, but the 100 trillion or so neurons all interacting with each other in potentially infinite ways is a particularly difficult problem to tackle, but I suspect it is all our neurons firing in a time-dependent fashion that causes our subjective consciousness. That is, mind is what brain does, and consciousness is an epiphenomenon. The fact that it isn’t ‘real’ in some objective sense is no more consequential than the fact that this website is no more than a series of ones and zeroes being interpreted by machinery.
6) Why is the human mind intentional, in the technical philosophical sense of aboutness, which is the referral to something besides itself? How can mental states be about something?
Courtier’s Reply. I don’t really know what is being asked, but if this is some question intended on injecting some mind-body dualism into the mix, I’m not biting. Mental states are, as far as I’m concerned, a product of neuro-biological phenomenon in time, and it is an unnecessary step to include some soul. You are your brain, and your brain is you.
7) Does Moral Law exist in itself, or is it an artifact of nature (natural selection, etc.)
I think it is much more likely that ‘moral law’ is something humans made up to help us make sense of the world as it relates to us. That is, right and wrong are words we use to describe events that happen to humans, as opposed to some set of events that are objectively right and wrong. By this definition, we can understand how moral law has changed through human history (see: slavery, genocide, CO2 emissions) because moral law is simply how we define the rightness of any given action.
However, to assert that your particular preferences on right and wrong are some objective feature of the universe is offensively self-centered. All I can say with any certainty is what I think is right and wrong, and if we agree on those definitions, than maybe we can build a society together that implicitly respects our definitions. We might even build institutions (like a church, or a police force) to enforce those definitions, but they are not, nor have they ever been, objective things in a universal sense.
8) Why is there evil?
Evil is a matter of definition, overwhelmingly as actions relate to us (see the last answer). Sometimes, events like earthquakes happen that affect humans, but the events themselves are not intrinsically evil, because they are the result of a non-thinking process that is incapable of intentionally causing harm. The universe on grander scales is completely indifferent to the trials and tribulations of the little apes on the pale blue dot, but what we do have in our control is how we act towards each other. We are what we choose to be, and if our fellow monkeys choose to act in a way we think is evil, we have the choice to accept or challenge that.
Ultimately though, ‘evil’ will die with the last human being that understands what is meant by evil. The universe got on just fine for 13.7 billion years before us without our metaphysical hand-wringing about evil, and I suspect it will do just fine when the only remains of humanity are our electromagnetic transmissions speeding endlessly through the cosmos.
Any questions?
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