On Atheism

The last time I posted on the question of a god, I was extremely undecided as to my own stance. Since then, however, I've come down much more solidly on the atheist side of things, often quite strongly and verbally so -- witness me calling the existence of a sentient, all-powerful deity "little short of ludicrous".

There are a few reasons for this change. The obvious one is that, since I cannot agree with the existence of a god as most commonly expressed, I am effectively an atheist. There is, however, a more philosophical reason why I've deliberately made this change.

Whatever my beliefs, I am confident at least that I disagree with the Judeo-Christian conception of a god. However, I worry that many people, having been brought up in the fairly heavily religious culture that I discussed previously, tend to just accept the idea of an existence of a god as a universal constant, whether intentionally or otherwise. They just assume that all civilized or reasonable people share the basic framework of their beliefs. I, personally, feel that it is extremely healthy for such people to have it almost shoved in their face that not everyone agrees with them. I think the society as a whole needs to be faced with the idea of reasonable, intelligent people, who honestly believe the prevailing ideas are mistaken. We can't, nor do we seek to, prove that we are right, nor even to persuade anyone to atheism. All I ask for, and I suspect many atheists agree, is more general recognition that people of our beliefs do exist, and won't be converted. Recognition that whatever you belief about god, you are entitled to that belief, but it is merely a belief, not The Truth, and that they can't necessarily assume anyone agrees with them. This recognition, it seems to me, (again, see the linked post), is far underrepresented in our society, and it is to that end that I sometimes will attempt to force it in peoples' faces, to a degree, that I am in fact an atheist, and do emphatically, but also reasonably and calmly, disagree with the prevailing notions.

Is our children learning?

The New York Times is that high school students in the US are ranked in the bottom half of developed nations for mathematical ability. Now, regardless of whether this figure is actually significant, and there reasons to believe it isn't, it does back up my oft-repeated complaint that students in this country can't do science. Now, while the cynic inside me would love to say this is because we're a country of idiots, there's gotta be a better reason.

There's a definite imbalance in our education system with respect to the sciences. The whole culture values them much less than, say, History or English classes. The sciences (I'm including math in this group, to be clear), tend to be viewed solely as a chore, as something that must be done, but that isn't really relevant, but which you just have to eke a pass out of before you can get onto the real classes. Someone please correct me if your experience has been different elsewhere, but this is what I've observed.

If this country is going to improve its science education, it needs an entire attitude shift concerning them. Students love to ask why we're taking math, but comparatively few seem to question why reading King Lear is worthwhile. Somehow the attitude needs to change, students need to appreciate learning math, or at least accept it as worthwhile. The question, of course, is how to best encourage such a change in attitude. First, we need to figure out exactly why we're teaching math and science, and change the curriculum appropriately. The canonical justification for English classes is to learn to write, and many classes are even structured towards that goal. We need to learn to think of the sciences with a similar goal, rather than as something we teach just because you ought know them.

Most importantly, I think, we need to somehow get students interested in science. Maybe it's just because I'm a geek, but the idea of science is really cool. It lets you explain how and why the world works. Children are invariably born with an incredible curiosity, offering remarkably insightful questions, but as soon as they hit school, they seem to stop caring. Clearly there's something wrong, and it needs to be addressed. (I can't resist a cynical note: Maybe that's why people like religion - it conveniently explains everything without entailing real thought (I don't completely mean that, but I think it's worth thinking about)). And even without that aspect, the scientific method as we understand it is really the core of how we think as a culture. It needs to be taught, not via rote memorization of stages or steps, but in an understandable way. A way that conveys the simplicity and essential brilliance of the ideas of falsifiablility, repeatability, and the other core ideas of how we formulate hypotheses that should apply to any form of logical argument, whenever at all possible.

Cheater.

Reading an awesome story yesterday started me thinking about what "cheating" really means in the context of a casino.

For those too lazy to read the article, the gamblers in question won over a million pounds in a UK casino by using a laser sensor mounted on a cell phone to measure the speed and rotation of the ball, and predict its end position, with about 1 in 6 accuracy. They were arrested after the casino inspected video footage, but were let go without any charges being pressed, and allowed to keep their money.

In Nevada casinos, however, this would be illegal, I believe - laws prohibit the use of any computer to aid gambling in casinos, as I understand it. But, is there really anything wrong with what they did? I think it's clear that they're not unfairly altering the outcome of the game in any way, so they're OK on that count.

The concept of gaining access to unfair information is another possible form of cheating. But this one seems hazier to me. If you reach across while a dealer's not looking and peek at the next card in the deck (obviously unrealistic, but hey, this is theory), that's, to me at least, not cool. But what if the dealer is a klutz and flashes it at you by accident? And not just you, but the whole table, every time, so that if you're watching carefully you'll see it? That, as I see it, is much closer to what's happening here. The information about the speed and movement of the ball is available to anyone paying close enough attention, just most don't take advantage of it. Does that make it wrong, however?

A Culture Of Religion

One nation, under God ...

The Pledge Of Allegiance

I'm putting on my atheist cap for this discussion, since I am one for most practical purposes. Our culture's attitude towards religion and god irks me greatly. It's not even a conscious effort on the parts of those who do it, it's just so ingrained. I don't mean to imply anyone is consciously doing anything wrong, but just to point out a phenomenon which has been bothering me.

References to God are nigh-ubiquitous in our society. In oaths, in songs, in speeches, almost everywhere. Even so-called non-denominational services typically bring up a god with decidedly Judeo-Christian attributes. Even the Pledge of Allegiance has been religified in that way. Hell, it's on every piece of our currency: "In God We Trust"

Questioned about religious references, most people are surprised, even offended at the idea that they could be removed. There's such a casual attitude towards them, such an insistence that they don't mean anything. If they really don't mean anything, then, why do people have such a problem with the idea of removing them?

There's a huge unconscious attitude that, wonderful ideals of freedom of religion aside, we're really all Judeo-Christian in the end. Or, alternately, almost an attitude that believing in a Judeo-Christian sort of God or universe is the norm, and other religions are measured relative to that. It just really gets on my nerves, personally. I do refuse to sing songs or recite things with religious meanings and references, on a matter of principle, and it really is mildly awkward standing silent in a room full of people belting "God Bless America" to be standing silently, not because I dislike America, but because I don't believe in a god, an object to participating in something that implies, even in the most indirect fashion, that I do.

What is magic?

Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

Arthur C. Clarke

I believe the above quote is much more insightful than most people realize. Many people, myself included at first, pass it off as merely witty or "cute". But to me, it raises profound issues about just what magic is, and if there even can be such a thing as magic.

Many people tend to define magic as some variation on "What can't be explained". But explained by whom? If I somehow carried a flashlight 500 years back in time, would it be magic? It would certainly seem magical to the people of the time, but is that enough to make magic? The word loses its, well, magic, if you make it depend on timeframe...

Clarke's quote suggests that advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. But, that means it still isn't magic, just really hard to tell apart from it. But if it's indistinguishable from it, you can't tell the difference. So what is the difference? What is the essential difference between magic and something we just don't understand yet?

Even more generally, and relating to the previous post, can there even be such thing as the "supernatural" at all? If it exists in our world at all, doesn't that make it natural by definition? We might not be able to immediately explain it, but that doesn't make it any more supernatural than unexpected results from some scientific experiment.

My God!

He had discovered that long human words (the longer the better) were easy, unmistakable, and rarely changed their meanings, but short words were slippery, unpredictably changing their meanings without any pattern ... And this had been a very short word."

Valentine Michael Smith, in Robert Heinlein's Stranger in a Strange Land, on God.

I can't decide whether I'm an atheist or agnostic. You might think that uncertainty on the issue would drop me by default into the agnostic category - after all, I don't know, which is what the word agnostic comes from. But the problem is, I don't know what to think, because I don't know what I mean by "god". I do not believe in the existence of some higher sentient being who created the Universe. Other than jokes about the Universe's sense of irony, I don't believe in any "plan" to the world. I don't believe things happen for any specific overarching reason. In short, I disbelieve the existence of the most common perceptions of the word "god". The uncertainty arises, however, from a feeling that someone could conceivably come up with a broader sense of the word, with which I could agree.

The word "god" gets thrown around so much, so that no one knows what it means any more. I think (hope?) it's clear that no one literally believes in the whole bearded wise-old-man in the clouds idea, but I would contend that that image clouds our perceptions to the extent where we can't discuss the idea of "god" without mentally coming back to it to some extent. Courtesy of Christianity, many people now equate God with the idea of a Heaven, Hell, and some form of cosmic judgment. God means completely different things to different people, and yet you can still hear unqualified statements about god or believing in god, without any clarification of what they mean.

Indeed, some people even seem content to make this confusion and vagueness explicit! Arguing with my mom over the existence of some kind of soul or spirit, I got at least 4 distinct impressions of what she meant by the term "soul", and not even anything coherent enough to be worth quoting. But nonetheless she maintained she believed strongly in it, whatever it was. I don't mean to pick on her; I think a lot of people do this, and she's just a convenient example. I understand and agree that faith is, well, faith, and largely outside the realm of logic. But isn't it reasonable to at least have an idea of what you're believing in?