Not A Blog™

Previously:
Bad Atheist Responses to Christianity
Update to Bad Atheist Responses to Christianity

The question was raised as to why I bother debating Christians at all. If logic doesn’t work, what’s the point? It’s an excellent question, and one I feel the need to elaborate on. As I mentioned on Wednesday, I do not believe it is a futile effort, but I do think it needs to be approached in a certain way.

First of all, I have to elaborate a bit on how I view the human condition. I work from a premise that may be controversial—and of course it may be wrong—but which I do firmly believe. I’ve talked about it before in a few articles, namely Scientific Literacy and Faitheist. The premise is this: the scientific method is the default way in which the majority of people approach the world. Everybody is a scientist within the domains they understand.

The scientific method is really nothing more than the ability to learn from mistakes. Science is more rigorous than how we apply the scientific method in daily life, but it happens every day. In fact, I believe natural selection must necessarily favor an intuitive sense of the scientific method. If groups don’t sufficiently learn how the world operates from the mistakes they’ve make, they’ll die out. The ability to hypothesize, experiment, analyze and conclude general rules from this is, I believe, more innate than it’s often given credit for.

Even so, it is clear that certain people have a propensity for logic while other are utterly mystified by the rules. Logic and the scientific method are related in a way which I haven’t sat down and thought about (I should). People who are illogical often reject legitimate science and/or embrace pseudoscience as legitimate. However, these people can still manage to not die (often for surprisingly long periods of time), and so there is something they are able to evaluate with the scientific method, or they wouldn’t make it so far.

Additionally, there are people who exist simply as leeches on civilization: they take hand-outs their entire life, while not generating any significant production in return. This can be for any number of reasons—laziness, sense of entitlement, or true disability—however, I believe these people are a small subset, and can be disregarded for now. I’ve met people like this, and I don’t bother to debate them. It is, quite literally, impossible.

But I don’t believe the majority of people are this way. Even when folks are religious, within their domain of expertise they are scientists. (Excluding, naturally, the clergy.)

I also need to mention that theology is necessarily defined outside of the natural world. Both atheists and Christians may be thinking that it doesn’t matter how well developed our naturalistic logical faculties are if we can’t use them against the supernatural. Appealing to an inborn sense of logic doesn’t matter in this context. Indeed, I believe that precisely because it doesn’t matter is why so many people can be wrong about religion. Consider: if you don’t learn sufficient lessons about the natural world, you’re dead. But if you don’t learn sufficient lessons about the supernatural world, then what happens? Well, nothing. You still pass your genes on and everything else. Religion may even help this process along, encouraging irrationality. After all, natural selection doesn’t care about logic, it cares about survival.

People can be grossly misinformed about any world they care to be, and as long as it isn’t this one, it doesn’t matter in terms of species perpetuation.

This brings me to my second presumption when entering a debate: the majority of people, including those who regularly practice religion, have not seriously thought about it in a non-religious context because they’ve never needed to. Many Christians seriously think about their religion quite a bit—in church on Sunday morning. But this is constant reinforcement, not critical thinking. To be sure, most Christians are told that thinking about Christianity in anything other than a positive, Biblical way is a terrible danger because it’s so easy to be deceived. It is important to recognize and understand this mental construct. I think this can provide clues as to the best way to structure one’s approach.

First of all, you will not change anyone’s mind. This goes for both the Christian and the atheist. Have you ever had the experience of leading someone all the way through from utter belief (or disbelief) to being totally on your side? I’m sure a few people have done this over a period of years, but it does not happen in the span of a few conversations. (And if it did, you’d probably be wondering if the person was sincere.) My guess is that very few people have ever done this, and those who have, have done so with a very few number of people, probably one.

Here is where I believe the atheist can learn something from the Christian. It is the idea of sowing a seed. (Admittedly platitudinous, but apt.) As Christians proselytize, they are used to the idea that they are going to get many no’s. Even the yes’s follow a string of no’s. I was brought up hearing about how most of the witnessing one does will be (to use the cliche) sowing the seed and not reaping the harvest. The pastor of the church I attended said, “someone may need to hear the Word of God fifty times before they accept Christ. If someone says ‘no’, you’re just one of the 49 who helped to sow the seed.”

Ironically enough, that is something I learned in church that’s useful to me as an atheist. I figured out pretty early on that trying to force people to think logically often didn’t work. But I still believe most people have some innate capacity to think scientifically, because they do so in daily life. So I changed my tactic from trying to make people see the logic, to trying to make them consider some aspect about religion that they haven’t thought about before—and by extension, this would be something for which they do not have an automatic snap-response rationalization. In other words, my goal is to make them think.

This is not for everyone. For one thing, you can never be sure you were successful. If that bothers you—if you need to see progress—you’re going to have a hard time accepting that this method has any worth at all. But I believe it’s possible to get someone thinking along lines they hadn’t before considered, and this is the crucial step forward.

I could say that my goal is to increase someone’s cognitive dissonance, but it needs to be a bit more subtle than that. Most people’s defense against dissonance is one of a few predictable behaviors: mockery, anger or other sudden emotional outbursts, “shouting down”, etc. If you make it a point to be the cognitive dissonance gadfly, you’re going to find yourself on the receiving end of a lot of something nasty. Plus it won’t work.

More specifically, I want to get people thinking before they raise their defenses, and thereby get them to confront conflicting beliefs on their own. One reason I don’t think theological discussion on the internet is likely to achieve results is because both the atheist and the theist enter the debate thinking they know exactly where the other person stands. This makes it difficult for either side to genuinely listen to what the other person has to say. Most “debate” of the type found on internet message boards is hardly debate at all. It’s more akin to a complex yet carefully scripted series of dance moves. Both sides expect certain behaviors from the other. The Christian especially is going to come prepared with their cognitive dissonance shields on full alert, and confirmation bias confounds critical thought. On the other hand, debate in real life tends to be more respectful and carry more weight—and it can be more Socratic, if you play your cards right.

Now, if any Christians have read this far, I’m going to bet you’re the type who has indeed thought long and hard about your beliefs, and you find them to be absolutely real and true. In the same way there is a small percentage of people who will never be able to think in a deep, meaningful way, so too is there a small percentage of people who have given serious consideration to their beliefs and still believe. If you have indeed given approximately equal time to both sides (that is, read a book by an atheist author for each book you read by a Christian apologizer), I have a lot of respect for that. Most people read only what supports their view. I’m still going to try and make you think, and the approach to debate is going to be different, but I’m not initially trying to change minds. I’m fine with planting seeds.

To recap, I believe the majority of the human population carries the mental acumen to critically think; I believe the majority of the population hasn’t bothered to do so; and I believe that it’s possible to get people to do so if they’re not immediately put on the defensive. If this seems somewhat manipulative, I suppose it may be. But rhetorical manipulation is just like any other tool: it can be used to improve the state of humanity, or harm it. If either side—atheists or theists—believe that getting people to simply think critically is a bad idea, well, then maybe we really are in trouble.

-Ted