Myers on Plantinga - and the concept of hatred

Over at Pharyngula, P.Z. Myers has a good post on Alvin Plantinga's recent article in Christianity Today, in which Plantinga summarises his well-known argument (not especially original to him) about the alleged incoherence of naturalism. The argument is supposed to show that if naturalism - by which he means the philosophical position that there is no God or anything similar - is true we have no reason to trust our capacity to discover truth about the world. We cannot take such a philosophical position, Plantinga argues, while also maintaining that human beings evolved from earlier forms of life.

This is supposedly because evolution could not give us a reliable capacity to discover truth; it could only give us sufficiently useful behaviours to survive and reproduce. If we trust our capacity to discover truth, so Plantinga tells us, we are committed to believing in a God who can guarantee that our reasoning capacities are essentially reliable.

It's an interesting argument, and there is much to be said about it. In the end, though, it's nonsense. First, it assumes a false dichotomy: either we have a highly reliable (even Godlike) capacity to discover the truth or we have no such capacity. Why not assume that we have a limited capacity to discover truths about the world, and that, thanks mainly to language, we have a cultural capacity to improve on this over historical time (and with great effort)? And why assume that some general-purpose capacity to perceive the world around us accurately, and to model it via processes that conform with basic kinds of reasoning (induction, hypothetico-deductive reasoning, the fundamentals of first-order logic), would not be good for survival and reproduction? Our brains may use heuristics that are misleading outside the contexts in which we evolved, but any organism will do better if, for example, it uses induction when it models its environment. If a small predator makes the mistake of attacking a large predator, gets mauled in the process, and barely escapes with its life, it will be in big trouble if its brain models reality by the equivalent of an argument that it's "due" for success next time. There is an indefinitely vast range of circumstances in which it's better for any organism to model the local environment on the basis of ordinary cogent ways of reasoning.

Myers emphasises the limited part. Our capacity to discover the truth about the world is not Godlike, but very constrained. It takes great effort to get robust findings about how the world works, once we step out of the most everyday observational level.

That's correct, of course, and I should add that what we actually find when we gradually build up knowledge of the past, the very small, and the very distant, for example, may end up being highly counterintuitive. Indeed, over-active agent-recognition heuristics that would have evolutionary advantages might partly explain the popularity and persistence of beliefs about supernatural intelligences.

The human brain is far from being a perfect truth detector. It's so imperfect that it looks far more like the product of evolution than like the design of a benevolent god. But I'll leave readers to have a look at Myers' rebuttal for themselves, since there's another aspect of Plantinga's article that I want to draw attention to.

Plantinga observes: As everyone knows, there has been a recent spate of books attacking Christian belief and religion in general. Some of these books are little more than screeds, long on vituperation but short on reasoning, long on name-calling but short on competence, long on righteous indignation but short on good sense; for the most part they are driven by hatred rather than logic. 

Now, it's true that there's a great deal of righteous indignation in such books as Richard Dawkins' The God Delusion, Christopher Hitchens' God is Not Great, and Michel Onfray's The Atheist Manifesto. There's nothing wrong with that, because righteous indignation has its place. The question in any particular instance is whether or not the indignation is justified. If what is being criticised is sufficiently harmful, then why not? Whether or not it's justified, Plantinga's own article contains a certain amount of righteous indignation. That's all fine, but I do object when Plantinga writes that such books are driven by "hatred".

This use of words such "hate" and "hatred" cheapens them; it takes us to the point where almost any denunciation of ideas and organisations can be described as some kind of hate speech, even though nobody is urging that the ideas and organisations be suppressed or that the individuals adhering to the ideas, or belonging to the organisation be harmed. It's only a step away from characterising your opponents as motivated by hatred to calling for their speech to be banned and branding them as enemies of the social order. These easy accusations of hatred are irresponsible, at best, and we ought to call bullshit on them whenever they appear.

Article 20 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights ("the ICCPR") contains a provision requiring that "Any advocacy of national, racial or religious hatred that constitutes incitement to discrimination, hostility or violence shall be prohibited by law." This requires, among other things, that signatory nations to the convention criminalise speech that can be classified as "religious hatred" but does no more than incite "hostility" to a religion or to its practitioners. Potentially, it's a very dangerous provision. If interpreted too loosely, it could have far-reaching consequences for freedom of speech. Any denunciation of an organisation or a body of ideas is likely to incite at least some hostility. Accordingly, the only thing that prevents the work of Dawkins, Hitchens, or Onfray from being caught by laws based faithfully on Article 20 of the ICCPR is that their critiques of religion do not amount to "advocacy of ... religious hatred".

Of course, they don't; in historical context, the phrase has a different meaning. It doesn't refer to legitimate criticisms of organisations and belief systems. However, there is a tendency in recent times for religious apologists to blur the distinction between harsh criticism of religious doctrines and organisations, on one hand, and some kind of expression of hatred, on the other. Plantinga is merely the latest of many to adopt this meretricious tactic.

I'm not sufficiently paranoid to think that Plantinga is angling to get the speech of his opponents banned. For one thing, he would never succeed in the US, where any such ban would clearly breach the First Amendment. Nonetheless, if it became accepted outside the US that works such as those of Dawkins, Hitchens, and Onfray constituted a form of hate speech, a point would soon be reached where they would be classified as illegal under Article 20 and national laws that are based on it. 

While that sounds like an extreme outcome, it's not such a large step from the current situation where Geert Wilders is already being prosecuted under hate speech laws in the Netherlands, partly over the content of his short film, Fitna. If Fitna is classified as socially-unacceptable hate speech, the line will have shifted, and a fierce critique of religion such as Onfray's The Atheist Manifesto will no longer appear obviously safe from criminal prosecution in such countries as the Netherlands. Wilders has already been excluded from entry to the UK to speak about Islam, though he has never attempted to incite his audiences to violence. 

Tiresome though it may be, we need to point out each time this accusation of hatred is made that the word "hatred" is being misused and debased. Of course, Plantinga and his comrades are too blind to religion's flaws to understand that harsh opponents of religion are not motivated by hatred at all, but more likely by such emotions as compassion for the many people whose lives are blighted by religious dogma. Compassion for those who are harmed may well provoke "righteous indignation", or even hostility and anger, but it is not an anger that settles into hatred. No one has to hate Pope Benedict, for example, to be hostile to many of his beliefs and statements.

Plantinga and others who use the language of "hatred" misunderstand the psychological basis for criticism of religion, perhaps because they can't see religion's harms. Perhaps they don't understand what, apart from something like hatred, could motivate strong criticism of something as benign, as they see it, as religion. I'm not going to be so mean spirited as to claim that they are projecting their own nastier emotions onto others, because I don't know that for a fact. But perhaps Professor Plantinga ought to think about it; maybe he should have a good look in the mirror, before he smears the motivations of others.

Whatever their own motivation may be, it's lamentable when Christian apologists such as Plantinga stoop to claiming that opponents must be motivated by hatred in their hearts.

This is why we call it the Cult of Misery

The Ryan Report, which examined the psychological and physical abuse of young children within Irish industrial schools over a period of decades, found evidence of horrible suffering inflicted by cold-hearted priests, brothers, and nuns. Many children suffered severe sexual abuse, including rape. Countless numbers endured relentless hardship, terror, and emotional deprivation - and this went on day after day for years. This is (yet another) disgusting episode in the history of the Catholic Church, demonstrating yet again how little effect its teachings have in producing compassion for real, suffering people.

In this case, it was young children who were able to feel enduring pain and misery, leading very often to life-long mental scars. This is just the kind of monstrous thing for which we justifiably reach for the extreme word "evil".

But they never learn. Now we have the news story of a senior Vatican official, Cardinal Antonio Canizares, claiming that all this inhuman treatment of real children is nothing compared to abortions. He is quoted as saying "What happened in some schools cannot be compared with the millions of lives that have been destroyed by abortion. It (abortion) has legally destroyed 40 million human lives."

Yes, this is why we call it the Cult of Misery. They just don't get it at the highest levels of the Church. They seriously believe that it is worse to destroy a fetus in a quick operation - either at a sufficiently early stage of pregnancy that there is no pain involved for the fetus, or in any event long before there can be misery, terror, or the slightest understanding of what is happening, or any feelings of confusion if it comes to that - than to inflicting terrible physical and mental harm upon real children ... on young, confused, defenceless people who are nonetheless old enough to suffer exquisitely, day after day, for years that must feel, at that age, as if they will never end.

No words of condemnation are strong enough for this, but Cardinal Canizares evidently doesn't see it that way. This is a kind of moral stupidity or sickness. The Church's so-called morality is not about avoiding and relieving suffering; it is about absurd moral rules that are applied without regard for their consequences for human happiness. The Catholic Church holds itself out as having moral authority, as being able to give us moral leadership, as being a respectable source of guidance to individuals and even governments. It is nothing like that. It's the opposite of all that. Yes, it has some good people amongst its membership. But as an institution, it is morally contemptible. The sooner it is totally marginalised in all societies, the better.

No more teaching!

Yesterday, I wrapped up my teaching for the semester with three tutorials in INT2/3920: Ethics of Global Conflict. I still have some marking to finish, as there are some late essays, and I'll be probably be involved in invigilating a test next week. But that's all my classes for this semester - and for the indefinite future. I've asked not to be allocated any classes in second semester, as I'll be travelling for much of it ... and who knows after that?

Casual teaching ends up being something of a time-sink. You can find yourself doing many hours of unpaid work (being paid a relatively nominal amount of associated time for each hour of face-face-face teaching). Still, I'll miss it, and I'll especially miss my students.

One of the annoying things about much popular discussion in the news media is the way entire age cohorts get stereotyped: whether it's selfish Baby Boomers, whining Gen Xers, or scatterbrained Generation Y. Then there's the silly attempts to beat up stories about some kind of generational war, despite the fact that the huge sort of gap in values between generations that existed 30 or 40 years ago is pretty much a thing of the past (indeed, even the older generations - i.e. the generations even older than boomers like me - have mellowed over time, in my experience). Contrary to stereotypes, my impression of my Gen Y students has been almost entirely positive. It's been a pleasure to deal with the 400, or 500, or more bright young adults who've crossed my path in my various lectures and tutorials in the 10 or so philosophy, bioethics, and international studies subjects that I've been involved in teaching since 2004, while based at the School of Philosophy and Bioethics, at Monash. They've been almost invariably courteous and thoughtful, and considerably more mature than I remember being when I was 18 or 20. I can't possibly remember them all as individuals, but I'll welcome contact with them when we cross paths from time to time in the future.

Sure, there have been various moments that I could have done without, but that's the case with any kind of work. Overall, it's been great, and it looks from here as if the world will be in pretty good hands when Gen Y gets some real power.

Varieties of accommodationism

This post is a bit of a place marker, but I'm trying to get clear the varieties of accommodationism in the religion/science debate. I don't have an exhaustive typology, but there seem to be a few ways that people try to make a truce between religion and science.

1. The NOMA theory - science is authoritative about empirical issues, while religion is authoritative about issues of morality, "meaning", "purpose" and so on.

2. Natural and supernatural - science examines the "natural" world, while religion reports on a supposed "supernatural" realm involving gods, spooks, and so on.

3. God at work in the gaps - there is room for God to work in nature in ways that we can't detect. Science is authoritative about the natural world, but not in a way that excludes the providence of God.

Are there others? Although these are probably related in various ways, they don't seem to me to be all the same thing, and they address slightly different issues. What they have in common, though, is the idea that science gives us findings about which we can feel justified confidence, including findings about the evolution of life over many millions of years, but there is still an important place for religion. More specifically, these are views that someone might adopt if wanting to defend scientific findings that offend some religionists, while not wanting to offend religionists in general or to deny that religion has a valuable social role.

If, like me, you seriously question the value of religion's social role, you're going to be less impressed by great effort in such a direction.

Edit (since Brian's comment): I've been thinking a bit more about this. It does look as if most positions that could be called "accommodationist" fall into one of these three categories. E.g. Gould's NOMA was essentially 1., and something like this is presented very sympathetically by the NCSE on its website. By contrast, the NAS seems to promote 2., while Francis Collins and BioLogos promote 3.

Of these, 3. is the one that is most likely to be damaging to science. Because it wants to locate a space for certain kinds of divine activities to be carried on in certain kinds of gaps, it could have some tendency to discourage research that aims to plug those gaps. Accordingly, it's at least worthwhile drawing attention to the highly speculative nature of specific hypotheses about how God acts in the gaps (such as by using some sort of interference in quantum-level events in order to guide the process of evolution). Even if we can't disprove such claims, we can emphasise that they are contrivances with no scientific backing. They are transparent attempts to preserve pet religious dogmas, and should in no sense be viewed as science. Their only basis is reasoning that: "Something like X or Y must be true or else religious doctrine R will be falsified. But I can't admit that R is falsified, so something like X or Y must be true."

But, while I can see why hard-pressed scientists get annoyed by this sort of thing, I actually have more sympathy for theists such as Francis Collins than I do for non-believers (atheists, agnostics, sceptics, whatever) who adopt a position such as 1. or 2. in order to grant authority to a religion whose doctrines they don't actually believe. This is appeasement - it's ceding important territory to religion without a fight. Religion does not deserve any grant of authority in the moral sphere - it has no such authority, and that should be the end of it. Nor does it have any plausible claim to reveal supernatural truths about such entities as gods and spooks. But it's as if some non-believers are prepared to give religion whatever authority it wants as long as they are allowed to teach evolution.

But that's not the whole game or even the main game. Religion tells us what we can and can't do with our lives, despite the lack of any credible authority to do so. This is precisely where we should be subjecting its claims to harsh, sceptical scrutiny. Just what credentials do religious leaders have that authorise them to lay down the moral law, or attempt to impose their version of it by the exercise of political power? Absolutely none. It's not good enough to tell religious leaders that we'll accept their claims as moral leaders or experts - or as experts on a spooky realm that mysteriously affects our lives - as long as they'll get off our backs and let us teach science. That's surrender. Conditional surrender, perhaps, but still surrender.

These people are not moral leaders or experts, and there is no such spooky realm. Or, if I'm wrong, let's see what they have to say in their defence. How did they come to have authority on moral issues? Why should we believe that there is any such spooky realm? Let them answer those questions if they can. Until they do, we ought to regard them as essentially charlatans, and we shouldn't be afraid to say so.

Melbourne mini-launch for The Priestess and the Slave

This is just to remind those who live in Melbourne of the upcoming Mini-Launch of The Priestess and the Slave this coming Thursday evening, 28 May 2009:

This is part of the 15 Minutes of Fame component of the Emerging Writers' Festival. All welcome!

Venue: Meeting Room 1st Floor, City Library, Flinders Lane (between Elizabeth and Swanston Streets)

Date: Thursday 28 May

Time: 5.30, starting with wine-tasting, then four 15-minute mini-launches from 6pm, including Jenny Blackford, Tiggy Johnson, Hoa Pham for Peril Magazine, and Helen Ross.

Angela Meyer (of the well-known LiteraryMinded blog) will host the launch.

Alas, I won't be able to get to this myself, as I have to work (I have a late afternoon tutorial clashing with this time), but I'm hoping that Jenny gets a good audience.

Who needs censorship, anyway?

This editorial in the Las Vegas Review-Journal last August makes the point nicely: The Jewel of Medina was cancelled even though there were no threats at the time, or protests of any sort, "from any actual Muslims." But Random House was afraid "some Muslim, somewhere, might be offended by the book," so they "told Ms. Jones to keep her [advance of] $100,000 - and her manuscript."

The editorial adds a little snidely: "This cowardice, this reluctance to stand up for free-speech rights against even the remote possibility of offending some Muslim with a rusty sword to wave, somewhere, certainly seems more European than American."

But whether it's European or American or the kind of thing they go in for on the smaller moons of Jupiter, it's a form of cowardice that we can well do without. We expect courage from our publishers. Of course, Random House was never under an obligation to accept Sherry Jones's novel in the first instance - that was purely a commercial decision - but things have reached a sad state when a major publishing house backs down because of fear that there will be reprisals when its chosen authors exercise their freedom of speech.

"As Neville Chamberlain proved at Munich," the Las Vegas Review-Journal's editorial concludes, "nothing more emboldens a would-be tyrant than to knuckle under to his whims and demands, rather than standing up and calling his bluff." Well, yes, but in this case there were not even any whims, demands, and bluffs involved. Nothing had happened except that one person who was sent an advance reading copy for a possible endorsement decided to raise an alarm about the possible consequences. That, of course, was not her role. Her role was to give an endorsement if she liked what she saw, or else to pass up the invitation in a dignified way - not to abuse her position by trying to sink the whole project.

Still, it was not her decision in the end, but that of the management of Random House, who gave in without so much as a single threat from a riled Islamist.

If you censor yourself, then who needs censorship?

Kenan Malik on self-censorship

This essay by Kenan Malik on self-censorship, arising from the ghastly situation with The Jewel of Medina, is well worth reading.

The Jewel of Medina, by American author Sherry Jones, is, as Malik puts it, "a romantic tale about Aisha, the Prophet Muhammad's youngest wife." It was originally bought by a major trade publisher in the US, Random House, which subsequently pulled out for fear of violent reactions from Muslim radicals. This was after the publisher received advice - from an academic, Denise Spellberg, who was asked to provide an endorsement - that it was offensive to Muslims. (Note to self: be very careful who you ask for endorsements.) Subsequently, The Jewel of Medina sold to a smaller publisher in the UK, Gibson Square. Alarmingly, Gibson Square's offices were firebombed as it was about to issue the book in late 2008. Nonetheless, the book is available and apparently doing well.

Ironically, it may not have been such a magnet for violence if it had been published routinely by Random House with no fuss. As a further irony, although the book is apparently something of a bodice-ripper - romantic and ahistorical - all reports suggest that it is not hostile to Aisha, Muhammad, or Islam.

While we rightly fear infringement of our freedom of speech by the might of the state, there are other ways that our thoughts and free expression can be silenced, such as by intimidation, cowardice, toleration of the intolerant, extreme unwillingness to give offence, and a lukewarm social ethos in which free speech is given low priority.

Currently reading: The New Puritans

I'm currently reading Muriel Porter, The New Puritans: The Rise of Fundamentalism in the Anglican Church (Carlton: Melbourne University Press, 2006). This is an account of the conservative social and theological directions taken by the Sydney diocese of the Anglican church, especially since Peter Jensen took over as Archbishop of Sydney in 2001, with his younger brother, Phillip Jensen, becoming the Dean of St Andrews Cathedral in 2002.

The Jensen brothers have taken the already-conservative Sydney diocese in an increasingly evangelical direction, marked from the beginning of Peter Jensen's tenure as archbishop, when he announced in 2001 that the church would carry out a grand project, "the Mission", to get 10 per cent of Sydney's notoriously ungodly population worshipping in "bible-believing" churches within a decade (page 9). Porter sees the dominant theology of the Sydney diocese as a form of Christian fundamentalism, with its emphasis on biblical authority, doctrinal rationalism and purity, charismatic and authoritarian leadership, strict behavioural requirements, tendency to separatism, and commitment to male "headship" (pp. 23-32).

I must say that I'm actually bemused by some of this. To be fair to the Jensen brothers and their supporters, it's not obvious to me that any of Porter's claims add up to evidence of American-style Christian fundamentalism, with its anti-intellectual, literal-minded readings of scripture (imagined to be the inerrant word of God). When words such as "fundamentalism" are thrown around too loosely, they miss the point of what is specifically wrong about fundamentalism in the first place, as opposed to what tends to be wrong with all traditional forms of Christianity (for surely such things as male headship, behavioural requirements, and authoritarian leadership have been typical of Christianity for many, many centuries). The peculiar vice of fundamentalism is its resolute refusal to reinterpret its holy texts to accommodate facts about the world. It clings where it can to the literal words, even attempting to undermine well-established science where science and scripture clash.

It seems to me that the Jensen brothers are not fundamentalists at all, but they are certainly not liberal, or even moderate, religionists. By modern standards, they are hardline, conservative evangelicals who cling to the authority of the Bible, interpreted without the absurdities of true fundamentalists who take the Genesis myth literally, but still with a strong emphasis on specific chapters and verses of the supposed word of God, read at face value wherever this can be done. In particular, they emphasise salvation solely through faith in Christ's sacrificial atonement - but that's not so strange. It's pretty much standard evangelical doctrine, rather than something preached only by crazy fundamentalists.

While Porter sometimes appears to be reacting against evangelical Protestantism itself, rather than against anything especially extreme in the Jensens' version of it, Peter and Phillip Jensen are clearly taking the Diocese of Sydney down a doctrinally conservative and socially reactionary path. This is evidently achieving success in building church attendances, but it also demonstrates that even an apparently moderate religious institution, such as the Anglican Church, cannot be trusted to take modern, liberal stances on such issues as sexuality; the role of women in the family (and society as a whole); and the diversity of acceptable ways of life and views of the good. You might expect that, in a relatively laid-back society such as Australia, religion would be a low-key, harmless thing, thoroughly tamed by the Enlightenment, but that's not necessarily the case. Even here, it is always potentially dangerous.

As I say often, I don't consider genuinely moderate (or liberal) Christians and other religionists to be my enemies. Some may have only a miminal commitment to the existence of a deity, and may be able to interpret their traditions in ways that comport well with secularism. They may be tolerant, and politically progressive. Some of these people may be natural allies - on a wide range of issues - for scientific rationalists, and it would be churlish to spurn their friendship or refuse to work with them on issues of common concern.

However, when it comes to religion, it's never a good idea to grow complacent ... there is just too much in the core traditions of Christianity (and most other religions) that readily lends itself to socially reactionary interpretations.

Evolving Thoughts

John Wilkins' science-related blog, Evolving Thoughts, has migrated over to here. John is always good value, so pop over and have a look.

Coming soon ...

I'm now working on page proofs for 50 Voices of Disbelief: Why We Are Atheists .

Coming soon to a fine bookstore near you ... but there's still a fair bit of work at our end to get it into final shape. It's nice to see page proofs, though. Udo Schuklenk and I are going to be kept pretty busy double and triple checking them for the next few days - squeezing it into the rest of our lives.