Wednesday, October 20, 2004
Hank Fox on Chris Reeve's death
This post is directly lifted from Hank Fox. I'd link to it, but his site is awkward, and makes it hard to link to the content. I hope he forgives me this mild copyright violation. I liked this post of his too much not to share it with my readers. For now, please enjoy his work:
People die.
They do. And they stay dead forever.
It sucks. If you know and love someone, there is very little good about them dying.
I saw this cartoon today in my local paper, and immediately hated it.
I hated it because of how it pushed my buttons: "Awwww, look, Christopher Reeve is flying off to Heaven. He doesn't have to be paralyzed anymore. That's just so nice." Deep contented sigh.
Just for a second, it waylaid me with its smarmy appeal, and I felt GOOD about Reeve's death. I felt that everything was going to be okay. That it wasn't so bad that he was in a wheelchair all that time, and couldn't even breathe on his own.
It was ... release. From the thought of all the years he spent shackled in place by his damaged spinal cord. From the pain of his death. And even from the threat of my own mortality.
Yeah, we atheists feel such things. Don't ever think we don't feel the same escapist urges that godders do. The difference is, we think mass delusion has a lot of very harmful side effects. The difference is, we think the real world is more important. More interesting. More powerful. More ... super.
Take two parallels worlds, almost exactly the same.
In one world, the mind of every person is filled with the deep belief in some kind of life after death. Reincarnation. Immortality in paradise. Joining with the Oversoul. Beaming up to the Mother Ship.
In the other world, every person knows, on a deep, personal level, that you get one life, and when you die, you're gone forever.
On which of these parallel worlds is medical science likely to develop faster?
On which of these parallel worlds are people more likely to rejoice in day-to-day living, more likely to grab life by the horns and LIVE it?
On which of these parallel worlds are people more likely to express their true feelings for each other most often, knowing that they may not always have the chance?
Hell, considering a worldwide population of individuals who know absolutely that you get one life and no more, on which of these worlds is slavery less likely to develop, or last?
Then there was this other cartoon, which I liked very much:
In this one, the man becomes powerful by walking though a door labeled "Stem Cell Research."
The door might just as well have said, simply, "Biology." Or just "Science."
This cartoon doesn't inspire tears of joy, or heart-tugging pathos. What it does inspire is Hope.
Real hope.
Hope that one day, people like Christopher Reeve — not a symbol, not a cartoon, not a shill for superstition, but the real flesh-and-blood guy who wanted to walk again so much he showed the rest of us what real heroes are made of — will someday not have to spend their entire lives in wheelchairs.
It will not happen with tent revivals. It won't come about through the sermons of Benny Hinn. It won't take place in some fuzzy wish-fulfillment fantasy-land in the clouds.
There are plenty of people alive today — all of us, when you think about it — who have ONE hope of getting up out of their wheelchairs, one hope of being free of the daily shots of insulin, one hope of disconnecting their loved ones from the machines AND HAVING THEM COME HOME afterwards.
That kind of hope is not found in a church pew.
It's found in laboratories, in college science classrooms, in funding for research and education, and in getting the luddites — can you say George W. Bush, boys and girls? — out of the way so the science and research and teaching can actually happen.
One final thought: What do you suppose is the ultimate goal of medical science?
It's the curing of disease, isn't it? The curing of ALL disease. Because it's not like medical science is going to stop. Not ever. And sooner or later, ALL diseases will be curable.
The lung cancer that killed your mom. The multiple sclerosis that destroyed the life of your uncle. The heart attack that took your grandfather. The birth defect that spirited away your son. The diabetes or AIDS that claimed the life of your niece. The Alzheimer's that stole away your grandmother ... long years before she actually died.
All that stuff will be curable.
Sooner.
Or later.
For the sake of all the Christopher Reeves out there, for the sake of my friends and loved ones, for the sake of everybody who ever loved someone, I'd rather it be sooner.
posted by Mis-nagid @ Wednesday, October 20, 2004
Thursday, October 14, 2004
I watched last night's presidential debate with only mild interest. However, there was one point where I sat up and took notice. The topic that perked me right up was, of course, religion.
In America, religion cannot be questioned. No matter how absurd someone's beliefs are, as long as it's labelled religious, you must simply bow your head in solemn respect. You can't say that tacking scrolls to your doorpost to bring good luck is supertitious and ineffective. You can't say that that claims of religion are no better than superstition, even though they clearly are.
This sense of immunity is never more pronounced than in the political sphere. Virtually noone in America would vote for an atheist; we're more likely to see a black gay president than an atheistic one. When a American politician is asked about religion, he must profess his faith loudly and clearly, lest the wrath of the populace fall upon him.
Reflect on the absurdity of this situation. To be considered fit for the most important position in the world, a candidate must state that he believes that an invisible being is looking out for him! The top two canditates believe that man who died thousands of years ago can help guide their decisions, if they think about him hard enough. How irrational is that? If you change that belief in the slightest bit so as to nudge it out from under the protective umbrella of religion, he might be institutionalized.
In this vein, I've learned a little trick to highlite the absurdity. When someone is harping on their religion, play word replacement. When it says religion, read superstition. When someone say God, hear aliens. When someone say prayer, hear something equally useless like "drawing pretty circles."
I must warn you that this technique is not for the weak-minded. Putting on your no-god glasses exposes an ugly side to human stupidity that most people are completely unaware of.
Let's try an example. I was reading a book about life in Germany right before World War II. The author describes his harrowing experiences during Kristalnacht. The event that "sparked" Kristalnacht was the shooting of a German ambassador by Hershel Grynspan. In the book, the author describes the Jewish residents' reaction to the news. They immediately realized that there would be a violent backlash, so they started...praying. He describes how they organized round the clock tearful tehillim sessions, which, of course, were to no avail.
Now let's play. Imagine that he had written the following:
"We heard the horrible news, and saw the implications -- our very lives were at risk. We quickly mobilized to stave off the attack by drawing circles. The townspeople drew them in many colors and sizes, and we organized groups to get full circle-drawing coverage. Many crayons were consumed, and the circles were drawn with great concentration, but to no avail."
Given that there's no reason to think that prayer works any better than coloring, why should the original author's version not make you just as angry as the slightly modified version? They were faced with terrible risk to themselves, their family and their property, and they spent precious time on futile superstition.
Now that we've had our warmup, let's try it on last night's debate. Imagine, as I did, that this is what Bush had responded with, and think how likely you are to vote for such an obviously insane man.
MODERATOR: You were asked before the invasion, or after the invasion, of Iraq if you'd checked with your dad. And I believe, I don't remember the quote exactly, but I believe you said you had checked with a higher authority. I would like to ask you, what part does your faith play on your policy decisions?
BUSH: First, my unreason plays a lot -- a big part in my life. And that's, when I answering that question, what I was really saying to the person was that I draw circles a lot. And I do.
And my unreason is a very -- it's very personal. I draw circles for strength. I draw circles for wisdom. I draw circles for our troops in harm's way. I draw circles for my family. I draw circles for my little girls.
But I'm mindful in a free society that people can perform cultic rituals if they want to or not. You're equally an American if you choose to perform cultic rituals to an alien and if you choose not to.
If you're a Gray, Agharian or Roswellian, you're equally an American. That's the great thing about America, is the right to perform cultic rituals the way you see fit.
Drawing circles and superstition sustain me. I receive calmness in the storms of the presidency.
I love the fact that people draw circles for me and my family all around the country. Somebody asked me one time, Well, how do you know? I said, I just feel it. (!)
Superstition is an important part. I never want to impose my superstition on anybody else. But when I make decisions, I stand on principle, and the principles are derived from who I am.
I believe we ought to love our neighbor like we love ourself, as manifested in public policy through the unreason-based initiative where we've unleashed the armies of compassion to help heal people who hurt.
I believe that the aliens wants everybody to be free. That's what I believe.
And that's been part of my foreign policy. In Afghanistan, I believe that the freedom there is a gift from the aliens. And I can't tell you how encouraged I am to see freedom on the march.
And so my principles that I make decisions on are a part of me, and superstition is a part of me.
Would you vote for someone who believes he communicates with aliens in his mind? Why should you react any differently when the superstition changes? What's so special about the claims of religion that make them invulnerable to circumspection? There is no difference, and this game can help you see it.
OK, now it's your turn. Spend a day or two noticing how silly people sound when you remove the absurdly silly thing they believe in from the protective shell of the word "religion." I suggest you start with Kerry's response. Let me know how it goes!
[mis-nagid_AT_blogspot_DOT_com]
posted by Mis-nagid @ Thursday, October 14, 2004
Wednesday, October 13, 2004
Last night, I watched the movie Saved! The movie was about as daringly critical of religion as a major studio release can be. That being said, it never allowed itself to reach the obvious conclusion: religion is a form of madness. People who believe that they have a personal relationship with a 2000-year dead man are rightly labelled insane -- unless they call their bizarre belief "religion," in which case it's labelled "faith." Mad frummies will laugh at a Hopi rain dance, opining, "Silly Indians with their ridiculous dances and chants. Don't they know that to bring rain you have to shake a fruit and intone Birkat Geshem?"
The movie flirts with this angle by portraying religious beliefs as silly and desperate for rational validation, even having Mandy Moore's character chastise Mary (the protagonist) for not praying by saying "Prayer works, it's been medically proven! Everyone knows that!"
There was one scene in the movie that reminded me of something I responded to in this blog. In it, Mary is bonked on the head in the pool, and is drowning. A poolhand dives in to save her, and in her oxygen-deprived state, she perceives him as Jesus, who delivers a personal message to her. This imagined message relieves her of worry about a distressing issue.
Sound familiar? I responded to someone who said a very similar thing. It always amazes me how people can run right past the obvious and correct explanation and dive into the shallow end of the reason pool.
Another line in it irked me. In the movie, Mary is having doubts about her Christian faith. She's grasping around to find something to replace it, so she buys a book on "crystal healing power" and tries that. Her voiceover asks about religions (paraphrasing) "I know there's so many of them, and they can't all be right, but they can't all be wrong, right?"
Wrong. There is no logical reason to exclude that possibility. People often fall back on that fallacy when they finally perceive the cracks in the irrational belief they have been holding. This is the same sort of "reasoning" used by alien enthusiasts when a particular "sighting/landing/abduction" is shown to be a hoax. They say, "Sure, that one was a lie, but there are soooo many reports, some of them must be true!" There's no therefore there, they can logically all be untrue.
Another nit worth picking was the backpedaling at the end. Mary looks at a newborn baby and, disappointingly, stumbles into the divine fallacy by claiming that she can't understand it, so there must be a god. She also says that she feels that there is a God, so one must exist. It's brief, and the movie doesn't dwell on it, but there was no need for such unskeptical blather after such a wonderfully critical movie.
In conclusion, the movie was very entertaining, skewering religious zealotry with great relish. I found it quite funny, and I highly recommend it to my readers.
[mis-nagid_AT_hush_DOT_com]
posted by Mis-nagid @ Wednesday, October 13, 2004
Debate diverts, detracts and distracts
The Jerusalem Report published a debate between Yaron Yadan, a formerly ultra-orthodox rosh yeshiva, and Dr. Jeffrey Woolf, a senior lecturer in Talmud at Bar Ilan Univerisity. Read it here.
Psychometricians have long noted that the way a question is asked affects the answers given. This is one of the reasons why most polls results are absolutely useless.
Look at the question that framed the debate:
"Should we reject religious Judaism if the Talmud is not literally the word of God?"
Notice how it studiously avoided asking about the divinity of the Torah (the more pertinent question) and focused on something that isn't really in question! Noone claims that the Talmud is literally the word of God -- but many falsely make that claim about the Torah.
Yaron mentions this obliquely, but is fighting uphill, since the playing field is slanted: "[...] I concluded that the Torah, the Scriptures and the halakhah are human creations. Your assertion that the Torah authorizes the sages to interpret the text is irrelevant."
Some things to remember:
1) Truth is not decided by debate, nor reality by referendum. You can debate a flat earth to until the heat death of the universe, but reality will not so much as flicker. Check out the book "One Hundred Proofs That The Earth is Not a Globe":
The arguments made in that book are very similar to the sort made by all those who expect reality to acquiesce to their preconceived notions.The core of the book's thesis is not made obvious, but is hidden in "proof" number 50:
"50. We read in the inspired book, or collection of books, called THE BIBLE, nothing at all about the Earth being a globe or a planet, from beginning to end, but hundreds of allusions there are in its pages which could not be made if the Earth were a globe, and which are, therefore, said by the astronomer to be absurd and contrary to what he knows to be true! This is the groundwork of modern infidelity. But, since every one of many, many allusions to the Earth and the heavenly bodies in the Scriptures can be demonstrated to be absolutely true to nature, and we read of the Earth being "stretched out" "above the waters," as "standing in the water and out of the water," of its being "established that it cannot be moved," we have a store from which to take all the proofs we need, but we will just put down one proof - the Scriptural proof - that Earth is not a globe."
W. M. Carpenter believed that his superstitions could shape the world (pun intended), despite all the evidence to the contrary. He'd debate it gladly, and write a book about it, but he's still just as deluded as Jeffrey Woolf.
2) When two people argue, the truth does not necessarily lie somewhere in the middle; one of them may simply be wrong. This logical error is very easy to slide into, and plays right into the hands of the superstitious. For example, the biblical creationists have relabeled themselves Intelligent Design and are trying to get supernatural claims into science textbooks. One of their credos is "teach the controversy," a blatant attempt to leverage this fallacy. Check out the cover article in this month's Wired magazine.
People assume that a controversy implies that each side must have some truth. Not only is this conclusion incorrect, there is no controversy about the whole of evolution - it was settled 140 years ago. However, by debating it they create the appearance of two sides to the issue. It works on people who are not properly skeptical, as evidenced by this snippet from the article:
"'I'm not a PhD in biology,' says board member Michael Cochran. 'But when I have X number of PhD experts telling me this, and X number telling me the opposite, the answer is probably somewhere between the two.'"
If he had said that in front me, I might have slapped him. How is that someone so unskeptical is allowed to make important decisions that affect the future of children? The article continues:
"An exasperated Krauss claims that a truly representative debate would have had 10,000 pro-evolution scientists against two Discovery executives. 'What these people want is for there to be a debate,' says Krauss. 'People in the audience say, Hey, these people sound reasonable. They argue, 'People have different opinions, we should present those opinions in school.' That is nonsense. Some people have opinions that the Holocaust never happened, but we don't teach that in history.'"
Bravo, Krauss. But he's not being understood:
"'Another board member, Deborah Owens-Fink, declares the issue already closed. 'We've listened to experts on both sides of this for three years,' she says. "Ultimately, the question of what students should learn 'is decided in a democracy, not by any one group of experts.'
The notion is noble enough: In a democracy, every idea gets heard. But in science, not all theories are equal. Those that survive decades - centuries - of scientific scrutiny end up in classrooms, and those that don't are discarded. The intelligent design movement is using scientific rhetoric to bypass scientific scrutiny."
So, while the debate in the Jerusalem Report is amusing to read, it sheds no light whatsoever on the question at hand. It merely serves to perpetuate the illusion that there really is something to both sides' claims.
3) Developing solid critical thinking skills is crucial for being able to dissect these sorts of issues. Don't even approach the issue until you've learned how to correctly wield the power of logic. It's very easy to be misled when confronting complex issues. You need training in logic just as surely as you need training in physics. It's just that everyone assumes that they're natural-born thinkers, so no tutelage is necessary.
Forget about reading about evolution until you've read about skepticism. Put down the Jerusalem Report and read "How We Know What Isn't So" and "Innumeracy." You can always come back to the issue when you're better equipped to field it.
[mis-nagid_AT_hush_DOT_com]
posted by Mis-nagid @ Wednesday, October 13, 2004
