Mass marketing dishonesty

“Many religions now come before us with ingratiating smirks and outspread hands, like an unctuous merchant in a bazaar. They offer consolation and solidarity and uplift, competing as they do in a marketplace. But we have a right to remember how barbarically they behaved when they were strong and were making an offer that people could not refuse.”

- Christopher Hitchens (April 13, 1949 – December 15, 2011) -

Without a shadow of a doubt, two challenges we often get, coming from those making the apology of religion are: "Why do we exist?" and "What is our purpose?" To a large number of people, these are generally considered to be serious theological questions dealing with topics that are outside the grasp of scientific inquiry. Because the study of theology claims to have expertise on such subjects, whenever we get into a discussion about whether or not there is evidence of conflict between religion and science, we can almost expect to hear these given as examples. While it is true that science cannot afford to deal with such questions, it clearly has very good reasons not to.

Ambiguous topics like: "What is our purpose?" are loaded with dishonesty; and they happen to be the trademark of religion. This type of questioning is fallacious as it hopes to trick you into accepting a hidden premise that it arrogantly assumes you should accept. In fact, while most supernatural claims appeal to personal experience; knowing very well that our human senses are easily mistaken and very subject to hallucinations; whenever they don't, they rely entirely on subjective presuppositions. You can try to find some that don't; you will not be able to, I promise. If we are to question honestly, it is crucial to ensure our questions are devoid of hidden assumptions.

Being able to formulate a question does not automatically grant that it is going to be a valid one. For example, if I offered you the moon in exchange for being able to tell me why it is that most birds cannot fly, would you think of me as a person worth sharing much of your time with? Chances are that you would picture me as nothing less than a complete moron. I could ask you a slightly more subtle one like: "Do you still beat your kids every Monday afternoon?" You may or may not be able to answer this one. The question implies that you do not work on Mondays. More seriously, it also suggests that you do have kids and that you have in fact beaten them in the past.

At the end of the day (as politicians love to say), it all comes down to a very cumbersome issue with intellectual honesty. Regardless of its supposed authority and expertise, modern theology is rooted in dishonesty; it deserve to be exposed for it just as much as mainstream religion. Studying it should not grant a PhD anymore than being an "expert" about extra-terrestrial ships or unicorns. Instead of asking loaded questions and proposing complex, unfalsifiable answers to them; it could state its hypotheses and shelve them if evidence is determined to be insufficient. After so much deception, religions have no other choice than to keep lying about the honesty of their assertions...

Let us suppose for a moment that you have this very motivating part time employment in which your job is to sell a certain product. No matter what it is and regardless of what its hidden flaws are, it makes perfect sense to highlight its strong points rather than focusing on the rest. A few months ago, you have been asked by your boss to attend special marketing classes. There, you are reminded of good reasons for believing in the product. You also find encouragement in the fact that hundreds of other people are attending; you work for a big company that cares for you. You are often reminded that if you do not really believe in what you are selling, you will never be successful.

You really need this because; perhaps I forgot to mention; the product you are selling is invisible. The people you are selling it to are even expected to join your company and make sure that their children do not question the existence of your product. They are encouraged to attend the same meetings and help the company grow. As salespersons, you have to believe in what you are selling; it is the key to selling lots of it. If you do not have enough faith, you will not do well. That is probably the only thing you really know about your product. In any other context than religion, this situation would be regarded as problematic. But are we being fair, comparing religion to marketing?

George Carlin said it best: As powerful as anyone may claim God to be, somehow he always needs money. He needs it to fund the building of new churches and the worldwide spread of his message, whether it be through television, DVDs or the Internet. As I write this, Islam is pursuing its ambitions of covering the Earth; most of its funding coming from Saudi Arabia; tens of billions of petrodollars. The good new is that there will not be any more oil in a few decades. The bad new is that all three abrahamic religions are anxiously waiting for the end of the world. Add nuclear weapons in the equation and it gets truly tense for those of us who care about reality and its future.

It is quite possible to ask honest, objective questions about religion but those are indubitably not going to be ones of a theological nature. There is no such thing as personal truth or subjective truth and the fact that religion shamelessly encourages such way of thinking is not helping its case. Quite a few thousands of years ago, religion may have been a required step in our evolution; a counter-productive but necessary one that involved postulating hypotheses; drawing imaginary conclusions from these and mixing them up with reality. But as Sam Harris says so well, religions today are at most failed sciences. Truthfulness left to suggestion; usefulness readily substitutable.

Is traditional culture losing its grip?

Throughout history, an innumerable number of cultures have vanished from the surface of our planet and very few of these can brag about their traditions still being around and kicking. To this day, the longevity of ancestral customs is generally praised as a positive thing and mostly considered a sign of national intellectual wealth. Why is the observance of old traditions usually seen positively?

Perhaps do we tend to perceive this lastingness as the obvious result of an ever-increasing pool of accumulated wisdom to which succeeding generations must have gradually contributed over the ages. For example, acupuncturists are often proud to claim that their methods were intuitively developed millennia ago. Do they often realize how little scientific credibility this contributes to their field of work? The survival of old ideas is more than often seen as a sign that these are good ideas; is this a reliable way to evaluate their worth? We ought not to let our intuitions fool us so easily. The reasons why traditions survive are not so often linked to the gift of free inquiry. In most cases, they do so at the expense of other ethnic traditions and because of this simple fact, the ones who endure the test of time rarely turn out to be the most peaceful. Strangely enough, questioning the pertinence of keeping such ideas alive seems scandalous to a lot of otherwise reasonable people...

All ideas are not born equal and when it comes to traditions, a problem is arising. We will have to face it eventually and one would need to be quite stubborn to deny it at this point in history: Different cultures hold to ancient beliefs often so contradictory that they cancel each other out. In each of these cases, they cannot logically both claim to be right without some serious explaining to do first; nevertheless, they just childishly insist that they are. This leads to conflicts that can span over generations. Eventually, people find themselves fighting over issues that have, overtime, become barren of any of their initial value. The only reason left to fight over these outdated issues can be nothing else than vengeance; grief created by so much reciprocal violence. In fact, it was a lot easier to keep these "family" conflicts alive when access to information was limited and tightly controllable. When confronted with conflicting ideas in an age of globalization and increased access to information, does holding to obscure claims made by forefathers make sense anymore?

There are more and more people today who show no interest in being forced to procreate within a pre-established gene pool dictated by ancestors who did not know any better. In fact, if things keep going as they are, we can rightfully question what the word "culture" will mean a few generations from now. Unless we screw up with net neutrality, not so far in the future, global Internet access will have shaped our children's way of living in such a way that, as far as local cultural background is concerned, geographical frontiers will be mostly irrelevant. How will we then be supposed to determine which of all the contradictory sources of ancestral "wisdom" were worth listening to? Should we not all have been able to actively question our parents' teachings in the first place? Could we not have had a conversation that would have enriched us both? When we near the middle of this century, globalization will probably have changed everyone's perception of what an "ethnicity" is. This will be unknown territory and children will need our support rather than stricture.

Besides, why would that kind of enrichment not be a source of intellectual satisfaction for parents? Why should we not be filled with pride, raising critical thinkers capable of surpassing their masters (sometimes teaching us a thing or two)? Being the self-esteem junkies that we are, it seems that when it comes to parenting, we still see children as mere property. We easily tend to chose the much easier path of authority, insisting that intuitive experience equals rightness. For many, successfully raising a child still remains too closely related to how blindly one adheres to the teachings of his parents; there is no room for intellectual development. No more must we remain slaves to our ancestors' way of thinking; we can get past these apish instincts. It seems at this point quite silly that we should allow ourselves to assign so much importance to the longevity of an idea that was never to be improved upon in the first place. We should be ashamed of considering the use of bronze age methods to try and measure our parenting abilities and our children's growth.

If you made the effort of reading this blog, then you are probably not the kind of person who would just dismiss evidence without giving it at least a minimum of thought. When you open you eyes, you can feel the largeness of what you are looking at; both you and me could be wrong. When a child asks if grandma really is in heaven, it takes a lot of intellectual integrity and courage to tell the truth: that we wish we could know. Anything else we say is not based on verifiable proofs but on blind speculation. It takes courage to accept that he may not decide to think like us because it takes courage to admit that what we teach him may be wrong. Is it not because we care mostly about having children who think like us that we often display an overbearing image of certitude when confronted by them with our own ignorance? It is understandable that pride would be an important factor in getting the feeling that we have managed to raise a child successfully; it leaves me uneasy seeing how so many of us would rather just emulate the past than chose to question it.

The dilatory power of prayer

When I think of the Fukushima earthquake and tsunami, somehow I cannot help but remember hundreds of thousands of people "liking" a certain Facebook page called Pray for Japan. Can you?

I also recall seeing several friends' profile images changed into various pictures with the words Pray for Japan embedded in them. It quickly became some sort of a brand name. When I first saw this, I sincerely thought it was kind of cute; I even considered clicking the "Like" button. Being an atheist, I guess you can imagine that I don't pray. For even if there was a God who can hear us, I doubt that any of our prayers would be good enough to convince such an absent being to help with the aftermath of a devastating tsunami, considering that he let the earthquake happen in the first place. What happened in Fukushima made me feel completely powerless. During the later parts of my teenage and for many years after, Japan had been my dream country; and now it was suffering terribly. For a moment, my humanist side got the better of me: "If it can cheer anyone up, then why not?" So I thought about "joining" if only as a symbolic display of friendship and support. Looking back, I am glad I decided not to; although I am certainly not going to blame you if you did.

I started reading and browsing pictures, videos and reports of the damage. There clearly were no signs of an all-powerful being helping to cool down the reactors or preventing radioactive wastes from spreading into the Pacific. He could easily have if he wanted; I mean, isn't it claimed in ancient religious books that he created the universe? Though I knew it certainly wasn't intended to be; at that point; praying for "supernatural support" seemed more like a joke in poor taste. Talks of prayer in a situation like that sounded a bit like saying: "I could donate something, perhaps send a word of encouragement; or write a song and put it up on YouTube; or maybe even send some of my hard earned money to a relief fund, but no; I think I should just close my eyes and say a little prayer before I go to bed. God can handle this for me." Thinking about Fukushima also reminded me of the Haiti earthquake that affected several of my friends' families in 2010; all these powerless devout Christians crying in pain after losing their parents and their homes; wondering how a just God could allow such a merciless series of calamities to devastate an already devastated country.

Religion: Helping children misconstrue reality since the Paleolithic.

Perhaps is it needless to say; there are very few atheists living in Haiti. How a just God would let countries who fear him the most have it like this while at the same time nothing ever happens to us Canadians who answered 68% negatively after watching a recent public debate asking: Is religion a force for good in the world? is beyond religious comprehension. We all know that God's ways are supposed to be mysterious, but this is not mysterious; this is just absurd and saddening. If he would rather spare the infidels and let his own devout followers suffer terrible pain, where is the incentive in worshiping a god like that? If Yahweh is letting an ultra-Christian country eat all the dirt while the millions of atheists and agnostics living in Canada are getting all the pussy, do you seriously think it is likely to get any better in heaven? If a coworker acts like an asshole towards you whenever he gets the chance, do you really think it would improve the relationship if you guys became roommates? Did God chose not to prevent the earthquakes (because he could have) as a punishment for some sins Haitians committed in the past; or were they just forgotten by an all-powerful omnipotent and omniscient being who is supposed to be all-knowing? If I could not yet convince you, I do hope I made my point regarding why I find your imaginary friend a little awkward.

As weeks passed, the more I kept seeing and hearing about this Pray for Japan movement, the more it became pathetically depressing. Obviously, if God never gives any clear priority to those who worship him vs. those who don't, he is probably not going to do much about earthquakes and nuclear reactors either. Why then waste time asking? In fact, the worse the conditions became for the homeless and starving tsunami victims, the more this "online praying" frenzy began to disgust me, big time. I could not get myself to accept that all these young people could seriously see anything pertinent in the unprovable power of prayer. I mean, come on... the power of prayer? You've got to be kidding me. Surely lots of them had joined out of political correctness or to show their mental support. Prayer seems so much like a cowardly excuse to do nothing while feeling that you are actually doing something. It is in my humble opinion the most counter-productive way ever invented to consume the time of honest, well intentioned people. How far can wishful thinking bring anyone? As far as the poorest and most religious countries in the world, perhaps? We both know that it can seem impossible to move on when we are suffering and feeling abandonned; but...

According to statistics, these men are probably both atheists.

But the Japanese know better. They don't need our prayers. Financial help is welcome, sure. Perhaps even psychological help; encouragement; real help; anything that can be measured in some way. Even without it, the Japanese have always been able to get through the hard times without help from the all powerful abrahamic God. Come to think of it, during World War II, they did have something very similar to a religion. Their "religion" was a political one and their demi-God was the Emperor. He was supposed to be able to save them; they were confident that with him they were invincible. As a chosen people, they were destined to rule the world and the sacrifice they were making was just part of a greater plan. On  January 1, 1946, after Emperor Hirohito gave his second public speech admitting that he was not so divine after all, that's when the Japanese people understood what it feels like waking up from centuries of religious delusion. What a coincidence it is that today, roughly 84% of them claim not to have any formal religious affiliation. It is too bad that this kind of truth is not spoken of publicly more often; it could really help. Unfortunately, our average Gods rarely decide to step down and announce that they were fictional.

But doesn't prayer seem to work sometimes? The truth is that, yes, it does sometimes. But it has consistently shown to make the person who does the praying feel better, not those being prayed for. Besides, it may make you feel better but it will never help you learn algebra; nor make you better in bed. If we pray for rain long enough, it does rain eventually, but we all know why that is. Of all the NFL teams who were praying for God to help them win the Super Bowl, only one ended up winning and they probably thanked God for that; such is the absurdity of prayer in modern pop culture. We must realize that improbable things, however improbable, are bound to happen if given enough time to. Somebody always ends up guessing the winning numbers because there are too many people playing for that not to happen. And yet the question we cannot help but ask is: Suppose you knew that no one was up there to hear your lamentations, what would you have tried to accomplish in the meantime? The purpose of this article was not just to depress you or to discredit the value of hope. I think we can both agree on one thing: We can be a lot more productive if we act proactively instead of hoping for an invisible parent to help us share the burden.

Could you guess exactly how much praying was involved in conceiving the ISS?

Sure, prayer can help someone by providing him with hope; the same way that feeling loved by his family can help a patient get better more easily than one who is alone, suffering from depression. Reading your astrology can make you smile if it says that everyone is going to fall in love with you today; but wishful thinking can only do so much when it is someone else who is praying for you. A scientific study on prayer revealed that patients who thought they were being prayed for (whether or not it was the case), got slightly worse, possibly because of higher stress levels caused by the pressure they felt to get well. Other than that, there were no noticeable differences. Recently, a group of people in the UK stopped taking their HIV medication after being told that if they prayed hard enough it would be perfectly fine. Guess what? They are now dying and it is too late; God is not there to help. Tibetans are still hoping for the Dalai Lama to come back and rescue them. What if they could realize that unless they take action, they will never get the freedom they seek?

Don't get me wrong, I may be quite pessimistic about religion in general, but I'm not yet a cynic. When it comes to most religions today, there is an evolution going on and there is room for hope. Religions can become more pragmatic, more realistic and more honest; they could abandon most of their empty claims to divine knowledge and still remain useful. But for most people who live under difficult conditions and rely on faith to find some comfort, praying is a good way to prolong misery while thinking that they are actually working on the issue. Once they realize that praying has no use whatsoever, waking up from their delusion may hurt for a while; but until they finally accept to deal with the facts; and until we all start working together at improving things ourselves; no matter how incredibly difficult it sometimes is; things will keep progressing slowly as always. It is time we start becoming autonomous. Until further notice, we are all by ourselves in this universe.

 dil·a·to·ry
adj
1. tending or inclined to delay or waste time
2. intended or designed to waste time or defer action

Agnosticism vs. atheism: A misconstrued debate

"Atheism is to religion what bald is to hair color."

Have you ever asked any self-proclaimed atheist to define what agnosticism means to him; or vice versa? The more I ask, the more I get the impression that for a majority of people, it is a mere matter of personal preference. Some of us possibly looked it up in a dictionary, found several definitions and memorized one of them. Many theists must have learned it at church during a sermon. For others, it may have been an atheist channel on YouTube; perhaps a web page like this one. To me, what seems to be happening is very quite possibly the result; or should I say reflection; of our human brain's obsession with labeling everything into categories. We say: "Men are like this." or "Americans act this way." We should know that statistically, we are doing it wrong. We are just experiencing sampling bias. Do we realize how many people would need to be polled for us to get anything worthy of statistical validity, not considering the error margin? What sample are my fellow male representatives of humankind basing themselves on when they make ridiculous claims about how they have noticed women are, based on their past failed relationships?

People are like this, they tend to make such claims. But here's a question that I hope you will find interesting: What do you think happens if you try to put a label on something that cannot be labeled in the first place? For example, how would you label someone who does not believe in homeopathy? A homeopatheist? Let's pretend we lived in a world in which "everyone" trusts homeopathy to be able to cure most, if not all, illnesses. As firm believers of the unscientifically proven virtues of homeopathy, we would most likely become critical of anyone's non-willingness to believe. Yet, considering the fact that our belief is based on nothing more than faith, isn't it quite obvious that it would be silly to invent a word for such a specific type of non-belief? What if this man believes in homeopathy but instead says he does not believe in science? Would it make him a something? Perhaps we could call him ignorant about how science works but it would certainly not require any special label. As a matter of fact, there is no label for people who disbelieve the idea that science is a dangerous satanic cult; or those who refuse to accept that Elvis is still alive.

Most of the labels we put on people really aren't that useful...

In this article, I am not going to try and push you to accept any specific definition of agnosticism or atheism. After much debating around this matter, I find that it is counter-productive; besides, I fear that such kind of quarreling does very little, aside from making us forget about more important issues. After all, don't we both know that if no one wants to agree on the meaning of a word anymore, there's a good chance it has already become obsolete? I think what we need is a broader understanding of why there is confusion in the first place. This way, whoever we are dealing with, we will be able to know both what they mean and how to be understood by them. Language was never about trying to convince others that our own vocabulary is better; it is about agreeing on how to name things and trying to be good at it at a given time; all these efforts just so we can be able to understand each other. Who knows; perhaps is free speech some kind of a threat to the traditional concept of language? If we all start feeling entitled to our own personal opinion of what words should mean and start crusading around, trying to convince others that they need to speak differently, this could add quite an unpredicted spin to the evolution of languages.

No longer do we want to submit to an unquestioned authority; we all aspire to be free from rules and this could eventually affect how we view grammar too. How then we would adapt to this seems completely left to chance. Ahh... forgive me; back on topic: In some cases, an irrational debate about what a word actually means can be a problem, especially when that word happens to represent a massive yet unpopular "getting out of the closet" movement. Probably well over hundreds of millions of nonbelievers have spent an eternity hiding, lying, being ostracized, beaten, sued and killed; now they're the latest taboo that nobody really wants to hear about. It seems just like homosexuality was about a decade ago (at least here where I live). When I first heard about the word atheist, it was presented to me as a rejection of God; a denial of something which is real. In fact, a quick web search tells us that the original word used to mean godless, nothing more. So it could either mean one who rejects God(s) or one who doesn't accept the claim that there are any. It could even mean someone who wishes there was one but cannot possibly get himself to believe that. It can carry a handful of meanings, and thus it can easily become quite meaningless.

That our brain would attempt to classify things into simpler categories when confronted with large numbers, is understandable. Actually, the word religion is perhaps the best example of this. For instance, we nonbelievers generally make use of it to represent thousands and thousands of mutually-canceling beliefs and doctrines held by billions of people. This can arguably lead to a pretty shallow definition, once you think of it. As Sam Harris says so well, the word religion is a lot like the word sport. Some are completely harmless while others are quite dangerous or violent. But religious people don't see it this way. Most expect their religion to be the only one while all others are just cults; fakes. To them, there is only one religion; or at least, there is only one that really is true. When I use terms such as atheism and faith, I do this being fully aware that all kinds of people will read the same words differently. Not much can be done about it; except perhaps trying to be as clear as possible... I have to admit that on quite a few occasions, I have wondered what I should call myself. An agnostic-atheist, perhaps? Maybe just a skeptic; or possibly a humanist?

And yet the more I think about it, the more it turns out that I am all of the above. I'm a believer of many things. I even believe in love. I just don't hold to my personal beliefs like if they were some kind of sacred truth; they can be influenced by solid evidence; any day. Some people would like to call that agnosticism, but is it? I'm indeed agnostic about my beliefs; I realize that I don't know whether there is a creator or not; but I also realize that my decisions on the matter bare no effect on reality. I do not think that not knowing something does in any way mean not being able to know, ever. Agnostics I speak to usually assume that since we cannot know at the moment, we should remain neutral; although for any subject other than religion, it remains perfectly acceptable to reject someone's hypothesis if that rejection is based on the fact that he has no clue how he came to his conclusions after being given years to dig the subject. To me, this view is flawed, and it is perfectly normal to believe that someone has got to be mistaken if he has not made an ounce of progress researching an issue, other than being able to say: "I just know it in my heart, okay!?"

No matter how many people agree on something, they could still be wrong.

Ironically enough, the word "atheist" can even be applied to theists. Let us suppose that you are a Muslim. Given the possibility to travel back in time, you end up in Denmark a few thousand years ago. As you are standing there in disgust, you see all these people around you believing in the existence of Thor. To them, you are an atheist. You do not believe in God. Realize that the label is interchangeable, depending on the belief. But how about them? Are they not atheists too because they don't believe in the abrahamic God? Of course, but only in your perception since you come from a future riddled with different traditions. Obviously, I am more atheistic than that; I go "one god further" and my skepticism is greatly influenced by the lack of data that would be required to justify claiming to know so much about these supernatural beings and their personal attributes. That we do not have any more empirical data on "modern" popular deities than on any other ancient deities, is an often overlooked fact. To this day, our reasons for believing in these divine entities are still pretty much the same as for older forms of mythology: Fear of death and hopes of an afterlife.

Still, it seems that the word "atheist" comes loaded with so much negative baggage today that many who share my opinions; although they can relate to the concept; are reluctant to deal with all the social pressure that coming out as such would imply. How many of them realize that the main reasons why they hesitate are social reasons; religious reasons? For most people of strong faith, atheism is nothing more than foolish certainty; it is a form of faith in itself. Is it not paradoxical that theists would view atheism as unreasoned because they view it as faith-based; while at the same time, they view their own faith as a good thing? Well, let's have them deal with their own cognitive dissonance; I have never been too fond of mental projection. As of now (and my mind may change in the future) I feel that the word "atheist" is the best way to describe my rejection of their empty claims. Although the word "theist" can itself bear many different meanings, considering the social context in which we live, so far, I think that defining myself as atheistic is the best way to depict my view that the deities most theists are referring to nowadays, deplorably lack in credibility.

It does take more time for some to realize when they're doing it wrong.

Whenever presented with supernatural propositions like the possible existence of fairies or the unlikely idea that Elvis may still be alive somewhere, we don't waste time making individual labels for each kind of non-belief; even less would we put those in a dictionary. We also don't claim that the only reasonable position is to assume there is an equal probability between yes and no; and teach this as fact to our children; all this just because we know we don't know. All scientific discovery seems to point in the direction that no intelligence was required for the universe to "create itself" out of what we perceive as nothingness. As a nonbeliever of unfounded claims, I simply say that because we have even less empirical data on "God" than we have on homeopathy, we can certainly afford to say that until further notice, all divine claims are just loaded with bull. We should all know by now that there is no viable way to label the act of not accepting a proposition. The stigma around atheism isn't anymore relevant than the ones around homosexuality and gender equality. It truly doesn't matter how many believe or don't; we all know why so many of us still do.

Parents just tell their toddlers that the belief is not a belief; then let them figure out by themselves that it was actually one after all; at which point in their life they have become so convinced already, that the indoctrination is almost irreversible. We could believe an infinity of statements; we all know that if we did on the basis of faith alone, we wouldn't have gotten very far yet. We are all capable of grasping the idea that rejecting a specific belief about any of the thousands of deities that our ancestors were worshiping in the past, is perfectly reasonable. This does not need justification and neither does it require us to stay forever doubtful about any claim that anyone could come up with at any time. Certainly we all have rejected allegations before, based on the idea that these were preposterous and pretentious; this is nothing new under the sun. We cannot help but reject the ones for which there is absolutely no evidence. When it comes to one belief or another, we are all atheists, skeptics, believers and sinners in at least someone else's point of view. These labels are up for us to accept and assume; or to reject and dissociate from. Consequently, whether or not these words and ideas should be fought for or defended, remains bound to our own interpretations.

Facing ignorance and disinterest in science

Is science faith-based? Is truth just a matter of opinion? If we are to believe debates found over the Internet; pitting atheistic and theistic ideas against one another; for people of faith the answer to this question seems to be a unanimous "yes". In fact, there appears to be a strange agreement among an alarming number of religious people stating that science is just another kind of faith. Out of respect for intellectual freedom, shouldn't we just let people think what they want? Perhaps, yes. And yet, what if they plan to indoctrinate their children with this misrepresentation of science? Are any of us in this day and age morally entitled to handicap future generations by spreading confusion about what words as primordial to modern life as "science" and "belief" actually mean?

Of course, there are quite a few clearheaded believers out there; lucid people who can provide rather decent reasons for why they believe. That’s great. But sadly, the general trend seems to be a lot closer to something along these lines: “I realize that truth is not a matter of opinion and that there can only be one truth. But look, this is what I believe. Faith is a personal issue that deals with feelings and personal experience with God. Very deep in my heart, I know God’s word to be truth and faith in my God is what leads me to know that he is true. It is my own personal truth and nobody should try to push his beliefs on me. Why not respect each other and just let people make up their mind about why God is true?” If you’ve never heard about circular reasoning, this is a great example for starters. Considering how much of our daily life is dependent on scientific discovery and how much our future is bound to be directly influenced by scientific advancement, it truly scares me to think that so many people around me would rather not try understanding any of it.

What's so bad about having ape cousins really?

As stated in my previous article entitled The search for guidance, I personally advocate that we should avoid confusing mere ignorance with an actual lack of intellectual faculties; holding this view doesn't make us any better than most theists; besides, it is doomed to be completely biased. Considering our limited time and capacities as human beings, isn't it true that we are all ignorant about an infinity of subjects? The difference is that we actually don't let dogma limit our quest for knowledge. But how are we supposed to face profound ignorance without being at least a little condescending? First, whenever trying to introduce someone to a new idea, it is always better if we don't look profoundly ignorant ourselves about what his beliefs are. We can draw attention to ideas he already believes in and provide enough interesting evidence that contradicts them; if these ideas are presented coherently, chances are that he will want to question them in private. This is not just about us trying to feel good for scoring points during a debate; the primary aim should be to share important information with people who deserve better than what religion has to offer them.

Perhaps should we also focus more effort on breaking counter-productive myths about science, making it clear that many religious questions are well within its scope. Believers are often fond of the idea that science and religion ought to be mutually exclusive; it is a comforting thought for them. They easily forget that centuries ago, there was a lot more that religion not only pretended to explain by supernatural causes but went as far as threatening those who doubted it with eternal suffering in hell. As science gradually figured out naturalistic explanations to an increasing number of subjects, religion was forced to give up on many of its preposterous claims to divine knowledge.

Today, mainstream religion focuses on morals, insisting that we cannot be moral without God. That's because there aren't a lot of subjects left for it to have anything to say about. But it may be interesting to ask: When during the course of evolution did we humans start having an immortal soul and why? What qualified one particular generation of apes for eternal heavenly life that previous ones did not have enough divine worth to be entitled to? Supposing we all go to heaven, will the good bacterias (e.g. probiotics) also be living there with us? If not then on what basis can one species claim to have an eternal soul and not others? Did Neanderthals not have souls too?

Most try to avoid ideas like these because they create cognitive dissonance. This dissonance can easily make us sad and depressed. Quite understandable; nobody likes to feel wrong, let alone having to admit that someone else was right all along. We also avoid most questions about death, probably because they remind us of the people we lost. To a person who is open-minded and curious enough to be reading this, it must be quite easy to realize that the theory of evolution does not say that from one day to another, a monkey mom gave birth to a human baby; or that one fish decided to come out of the water and suddenly realized it could walk. Without needing to consult a science book, you could probably guess that amphibians came in between. But when speaking to people who were never exposed to any of the scientific evidence for evolution, it is often quite difficult to come up with a simple way to explain how evolution works. Often, your interlocutor will simply dismiss the idea as ridiculous by stating overused straw man arguments like: “You've never seen any fish with hands, have you?” or “How can you explain the complexity of the human eye?”

Well... well... what have we here?

As a good conversation starter, let me propose a nice analogy that seems to succeed with most, simply because it bases itself on a concept that anyone even slightly familiar with Europe can easily understand: Language. Let's take the example of Latin which evolved to become several other languages like Spanish, French, Portuguese and Italian. The main thing that sets French appart from Latin is that it's not extinct yet. There was no way to prevent Latin from changing over time and the only reason why we gave each a different name was because we decided to. In fact, French is Latin; and so are Spanish, Italian and Greek. Did one Latin-speaking mom ever give birth to a French-speaking child? Parents simply teach their offspring to speak the language(s) they know. They teach it imperfectly and in turn, children teach it imperfectly too; evolution is inevitable.

Given that your interlocutor is honest enough to admit that he gets it, we could say that you’ve just discovered light in a seemingly very dark room. It wasn’t so hard. It’s now time to help your friend make the connection and realize that children are not identical to their parents either. They can’t possibly be since their parents are both different from each other in the first place. Evolution is a simple, unforgiving and never ending process over the course of which change cannot help but happen. Just like any language can split into a multitude of completely different forms over vast time periods, living bodies adapt to changing environments and eventually end up giving root to completely different species. Suddenly, it turns out that your colleague understood the concept of evolution already. A few late (yet not too late) neural connections have now been made in his brain and for good. Perhaps are you now both in the mood for a little conversation about reincarnation...

"We're made of star-stuff." -Carl Sagan-

I believe it should be a priority to keep this frank but respectful; a dialog between science and religion must be maintained at all cost. Understanding the importance of science, as well as its role in our daily lives, may prove to be vital for our future. The intent is not to hurt anyone's pride but to help others use their mental capacities in a way that perhaps they never tried before (courtesy of religious indoctrination). You could point out that although the concept of immortal soul isn't very plausible, we have all been lifeless for an eternity before we were born. We know exactly how it feels not to be alive; there's nothing scary about it. The atom particles that make up our bodies came from somewhere else in the universe. They don’t belong to anyone; they just travel around. 

We are made from the same components as anything else that surrounds us. This stuff we're made from, which we now know came from stars very long ago, will possibly allow other living beings to survive and thrive long after we're gone, as long as time exists in this universe. For a small instant in time and from an incredibly rare point of view, we are having the privilege of witnessing it happening. Unlike reincarnation, this is more than just unfalsifiable speculation. The fact that all of our body constituents will forever remain somewhere as part of the cosmos is real and demonstrable; much more poetic and stirring than anything that ape-inspired mythology or individualistic wishful thinking could ever hope to rival. We're dealing with truth here; simple truth.

Leaving a cult and its side effects (behind)

If there's one thing I learned from being in the Jehovah Witnesses for 19 years, it's that what people like to refer to as the truth, is very often just misguided hope. The actual truth, considering how little we can really know about it, usually turns out to be slightly less convenient.

As early in life as I can remember, I had to attend boring religious meetings, three times a week. About one-hundred persons in a "kingdom hall" would proceed to read a few pages from a book or article written and printed by the organization. Someone would read out loud, others would take care of carrying a set of microphones along the rows of seats. People would raise their hand to get a chance to share their "personal" answer to one of several questions they were supposed to have prepared for in advance; pretty one-sided questions. This could last up to two hours (including some depressingly repetitive monologues); at the end we had to stay for a while still, to fraternize. Little could I know that what I was witnessing was not Jehovah, but the mind-control tactics of a religious cult. It's not as if I really had a choice; although it taught me quite a bit about patience.

I was made to memorize prefabricated answers to provide when teachers or other children would question why I wasn’t celebrating holidays or why I didn’t want them to sing me Happy Birthday. I was told that the end was near and that every single person on Earth was about to die, except us and those whom we could manage to save. Around the age of 6 or 7, I was warned against making friends with pretty much anyone around me. The reasoning was that if I became close with non-Jehovah Witnesses, I would be very sad watching them die on the day of Armageddon; and Armageddon was coming soon. It’s still coming soon. I’m not afraid about God murdering my friends anymore, but it did teach me about what careless dishonesty can do to the mind of a child.

Being a teenager wasn’t easy either; it was even harder. Before I even knew what an erection is, I was warned against the dangers of homosexuality, masturbation, pornography and adultery. Years before I could even grasp the concept of flirting, I was warned that flirting is a very bad and dangerous thing to do. Useless to say, I was never to have a girlfriend; never to hang out with chicas without adult supervision. One day, I could get married with one single, virgin female, and that wasn’t anywhere close to happening. And so I did what humans do best: I adapted. I masturbated; and felt guilty for it. So here I am, almost 30 years old, never really learned much about flirting techniques, but I have learned that it is always better to be honest than manipulative.

Instead of having fun and learning the skills I could now benefit from as an adult, I spent hundreds and hundreds of hours going door to door, every Saturday morning (and other days of the week too). I would grab all my courage and knock at the door; if given a chance to talk, I would repeat what I was indoctrinated into believing. Thanks to this, I’ve probably faced more rejections during my teenage than you could ever face in your lifetime. It was systematic door-after-door rejection; with a few exceptions. So I missed out on all of the peaceful awakenings (and morning cartoons); but I did learn that it is possible to be incredibly courageous despite being completely terrified.

It was near the end of my teenage that I finally started to rebel. Seeing how I was questioning her faith and refusing to attend church, my mother became frightened, even terrified that I might not be granted eternal life after all. The abominable idea that she could spend the rest of eternity living "happily" in paradise, having failed to save me from her loving God's wrath; that she just couldn't handle. Looking back, I now suspect that my mom was probably suffering from emotional trauma. Having been abused herself, she must have been a perfect target for cults at the time. I do realize that religion wasn't the cause of all her psychological issues; however, it certainly acted as a catalyst and it also prevented her from ever seeking professional help. In the business of witnessing Jehovah, public image is unfortunately more important than anybody's health.

Even today, I'm forced to admit that although I was able to escape by developing some basic critical thinking skills, the mind programming has still been partially successful. I’m not always happy but somehow, I stay under the impression that I should always look as if I am. In social situations involving more than two people, I am often so worried about external judgment that I just shy away from opportunities to make new friends (social anxiety/phobia appears to be a common issue among people who have escaped from mind-control based religions). It makes me mad that even though I've completely changed my mind and try my best to view things rationally, I still sometimes find myself acting exactly the way I was conditioned to, as a child. I can see perfectly well why people would allow others to tell them how to act or think; even a perverted guide like religion can sound attractive if only compared to the frightening thought of being left accountable.

The search for guidance

In my discussions with believers and atheists alike, one of the things that often strike me is how it seems perfectly acceptable for many to believe that most other people around them are simply unable to handle the truth: A very animalistic vision of the world, stating that we must either be followed or followers. Basically, we constantly get this strange and fuzzy feeling that humankind appears to be clueless and in desperate need of guidance; that things just wouldn't work if we didn't have smart leaders out there, pulling the strings. Little do we seem to realize the terrible implication attached to a belief like that: If this assumption was to be true, it would suggest that we just cannot realistically aspire to remain genuine, humble and autonomous at the same time.

It instead suggests that if we truly want to be successful in life, we must hide the truth from most, ensuring that they remain enslaved. Not doing this would basically mean living our lives as sheep, unaware of all the fun we're missing. Finally, any attempt to stay "in between" would condemn us to a life of confusion caused by a lack of both guidance and ruling ambition. It also seems a little strange that the large majority of people around us are, at least in our perception, the ones who we feel are in need of this "guidance". And yet these doomed-to-be "followers" who we are semi-consciously despising for their blissful ignorance, are also quite certainly under a very similar impression about us. Can this possibly be a valid conception of reality?

Speaking of guidance, have you ever wondered what it is that makes certain insects go completely crazy whenever they get close to a lit light bulb? A quite plausible hypothesis I’ve read from the evolutionary scientist as well as best-selling author Richard Dawkins, starts by pointing out that over the millions of years during which these insects evolved, there were no artificial light sources; just the sun and the moon. Naturally, these insects may have acclimated themselves to making use of the latter as a reliable way to orient in space. According to this theory, it seems easy enough to assume why they would become really confused at the sight of an artificial light source, especially in the middle of the night.

Since they’re not used to being so close to the actual light source, it probably fools their calculations, leading them to a painful death caused by the heat generated by incandescent lighting. Let's face it, if you're going to try using the position of the sun to calculate the angle at which you should be flying, but end up thinking that the boiling hot light bulb above you is actually the sun, your trajectory is doomed to be as wrong as wrong can possibly get. To put this ironically, the popular notion that we seem to be “hard-wired” to believe things despite insufficient evidence, does seem to bare some truth, even for insects.

Curiously, when it comes to our human ways of handling such mental guidance issues, defenders of most religions love to use the general observation that we seem "hard-wired for belief". They like to argue that it must mean we're searching for something divine, or at least capable of giving us the feeling of being part of something larger than us: a feeling of transcendence. Perhaps they’re right about the feeling or even about the search for divine revelation; anybody could be right without evidence, even if only by accident. But this feeling does not appear to be exclusive to religious experiences. We've all probably experienced it in one context or another, whether it was seeing our favorite team winning an important sporting event, a large-scale music concert that we waited for years to see, or from practicing meditation alone in a cave for an extended period of time.

It is a matter of fact that most humans crave this feeling, and organized religions, because of their mystical claims and group structures, happen to be very good at providing it; at least, they seem capable to do so for a large majority of people. Let's stay honest though. Can any feeling, however extraordinary is it to the person who experiences it, actually say anything useful about the nature of the cosmos? Is it not true that the same feeling could have just as well been attributed to Poseidon or Osiris, had it been experienced by someone else thousands of years ago? What's much more likely to be happening when we attribute transcendence to a supernatural cause, is that we're experiencing a very common kind of mental miscalculation called confirmation bias. We are naturally inclined to try proving our preconceptions by prioritizing the evidence appearing to be confirming them. Any evidence against is given less, or no importance; therefore, we always feel right. We don't do it only with religion; this is basically the way our brain works. Perhaps is it needless to say: this is also the exact opposite of how science works.

It is also one of the major reasons why the discovery of science has opened a floodgate of untapped potential for humans. Science is about trying to prove ourselves wrong. It is the antidote to the illusion of rightness that has plagued our development since the beginning of times. Now, looking at this from the perspective of another species that spent millions of years developing a working guidance mechanism and is now heading to extinction simply because it cannot adapt to its changing environment, I cannot help but consider the possibility that when it comes to our most basic human instincts, religion could be quite analogous to that kind of misguidance. Those who cannot adapt are just less likely to succeed in a future riddled with change. They would be better off developing a new guidance system rather than trying to rely on an old-fashioned one that works only some of the times. But why is it then that most of us humans hold so passionately to religion, grabbing to the scraps of data that it can still claim to explain, refusing to acknowledge that it explains less and less, day after day? Confirmation bias, perhaps?

Over the course of our own evolution, we have been in the dark about many questions related to human suffering, several of which we now have scientific answers to. We know that for a period roughly estimated to 100,000 years, our ancestors average life expectancy was just twenty years. Life was not about seeking happiness but more like a never-ending horror movie. Seeing loved ones die for all sorts of unexplainable causes, living in constant fear of the next natural disaster, hiding day and night from all kinds of dangerous predators, we were vulnerable and clueless; if a divine creator truly existed, then considering just this, I think we could justly question his compassion. As time passed, we developed increasingly complex models to explain things that were deeply affecting us, in the best way that we could. These models gave birth to religion and later, philosophy. Religions evolved into social structures and became used as ways to keep large communities together, ways to rule over entire countries by claiming power from a divine authority.

Many of us, religious or not, now see all the fabrication and brainwashing tactics used. We understand that the critical reason why the big religions of today are still surviving, is child indoctrination. However, most of us still believe that religion is a necessary crutch for a majority of the "weak-minded followers" we secretly despise (and count ourselves apart from, of course). Even some of our greatest scientists tend to see religion as something like chemotherapy: We know it does a lot of harm but because there's no better treatment available, we don't really have a choice but to go along with it. Too many of us still cannot help but try to conciliate myth with reality. Some literally teach the biblical creation story to their children as fact, in spite of the evidence for evolution. Others criticize science for not knowing everything; the list of absurdities said in the name of religion goes on and on. We just can't seem to be able to adapt. Instead, we've come to accept the terrible side effects of faith, and have learned to live with its complications.

We have also been taught by religion that it is not only okay but necessary to lie about our beliefs when people we know are afflicted by death. We pretend that we know their loved ones are in a better place; worse, that they will meet again someday. But in fact, our own doubts transpire in the way we dread the loss of our own. Rather than being happy that they're leaving for a better place, we cry like we'll never see them again. Most of us have grown up to understand the improbability of life after death but because we are so dependent on each other and because of the social implications of religion, we seem unable to let go, for the sake of others whose feelings we do not want to hurt. In fact, the main reason for which we need religion... is probably religion itself.

For an instant, please reflect upon the educational system of any secular country. Even in such environments, since early childhood, we have all been made accustomed to being grouped and subjected to an all-knowing authority from whom we had to follow instructions and learn without questioning too much. Do you sometimes stop and wonder why it is that most college students seem to find that their philosophy class is biased towards the teacher’s views? The reason seems to me quite simple: our school system, however secular it tries to be, was designed centuries ago by religions, with religious goals in mind. Just like when a company changes its direction, the previous owners may have left already; the business structure remains similar for a while still.

Will there ever be hope for our descendants to build a society in which everyone can be allowed to reach his full psychological, emotional and intellectual potential? It is hard to tell but one thing is sure: the only real answers we'll ever find to the mysteries of life are not located in a book; they lie in the most determining quality that we have come to develop over the last centuries: unconstrained curiosity. How interesting in fact, that curiosity does not require any kind of external guidance. In high doses, it does sometimes kill the cat, as the saying says; but more than often, it is exactly what allows us to break out of the mold and come up with interesting new purposes.

We are by far the most adaptable species alive on Earth today. We have survived for so long, not because we were more aggressive, or stronger, or cleverer than other species, but because we could adapt to change. And change is coming for us; it will keep coming as long as we live. Polls being conducted all around the world suggest that religion is disappearing at a steadily increasing rate. Even in the most religious countries like Brazil, statistics are betraying our unsatisfiable willingness to search further for the truth, no matter how inconvenient it may turn out to be. This trend is observable and understandable. Regardless of the difficulties involved in adapting to the new issues we will face in an increasingly atheistic world, we can already benefit from recognizing the placebo effect of faith and prayer. We have everything to gain from seeing faith for what it is; much to lose if we keep relying on myth in a delusive and fictitious search for guidance.