A Manual for Creating Atheists (27 page)

PB
: Everyone has questions. You have questions. You just called your pastor with questions.

UP
: That’s different.

PB
: How come you’re allowed to have questions but he shouldn’t have questions?

(Long pause)

UP
: He can have questions.

PB
: Now really think about this before you answer, please. We’re two dads in a room—I have two kids, and like you I love them very much and sincerely want the best for them. Do you really, really think your son’s better off having no questions? Is that really the type of life you want for your son? Truly?

(Long pause)

UP
: No.

PB
: Agreed. I don’t want that for my kids either.

(Pause)

PB
: In your son’s critical thinking class, that’s what we do. I ask students to question everything. Everything. I ask questions. Just like I asked you questions today. I never tell you what to think. I asked you questions.

(We finished with a handshake and an understanding.)

Intervention 2

I had the following discussion with a female colleague. She was a psychologist, in her early 50s, and a devoted Christian (DC). She initiated the conversation after she overheard me state that I was an atheist.

DC
: I just can’t believe you reject Christ’s love. Why would you do that?

PB
: It’s ridiculous. Why do you believe your superstition is true?

DC
: The fool says in his heart there is no God.

PB
: That doesn’t answer my question. That’s like saying the number nine is my magic lucky number in numerology.

DC
: I really feel sorry for you. I really do. I—

PB
: That still doesn’t answer the question. Why is your superstition true?

DC
: Well, there are so, so many reasons.

PB
: Just gimme the top three. Better yet, just one.

DC
: God loves you. Without Christ’s love you’ll be eternally damned.

PB
: Okay, do you teach any students who are Jewish?

DC
: I’d never ask a student about that, but I’m sure I have, after all I’ve been teaching a lot longer than you.

PB
: How does it make you feel to teach a student who doesn’t share your faith, knowing that they’ll be eternally damned? After all, Christianity is not a religion that allows people from different faith traditions eternal reward.

DC
: What do you mean?

PB
: Well, if you’re a Hindu, they believe that no faith tradition is exclusive, but that every person of faith deserves tolerance and can achieve salvation.

DC
: I go beyond tolerance. I nurture all of my students. I wouldn’t even be talking to you if I didn’t care about you—your salvation.

PB
: Is it more important to nurture your students or to teach them more reliable ways of thinking?

DC
: I do both.

PB
: But if you had to pick one?

DC
: But I don’t.

PB
: Okay, is it more important to have a reliable way to come to truth, or to hold beliefs you’re sure are true?

DC
: My beliefs are true.

PB
: How do you know that?

DC
: I see it in my life everyday.

PB
: Can you give me an example?

DC
: It’s all around us, everyday, all the time.

PB
: What’s all around you? You mean like trees and stuff?

DC
: Yes, trees, but everything is God’s creation. I see Him in my life everyday.

PB
: Well, what do you mean by that?

DC
: Your problem is that you won’t open your heart and give God’s love a chance to enter your heart.

PB
: If one were willing to open one’s heart to Jesus, would you be willing to become a Hindu? You’d still get to heaven.

DC
: No. I wouldn’t feel comfortable with any other religion.

PB
: What does comfort have to do with it?

DC
: I’ve given my life to Christ. I know His love and I know the feeling I have.

PB
: Just so I understand, you’ve come to the truths of your beliefs because of the way they make you feel? Is that right?

DC
: Yes, I feel His love everyday and it’s made me a better person.

PB
: Okay, but we were talking about truth, and the conversation shifted to the consequences of having faith, like making you feel a certain way. You said that there were so, so many reasons you know it’s true, and I’ve yet to hear one.

DC
: I just know it’s true.

PB
: Isn’t it more honest to say: I really don’t know if it’s true or not, but I know it makes me feel good? Wouldn’t that be a more genuine way to live your life?

DC
: Possibly, but only if I didn’t think it was true.

PB
: But you can’t provide any reasons for why you think your beliefs are true. About matters of fact, your feeling states don’t make your beliefs true. If nothing else, then as a psychologist you can draw upon your years of professional experience and acknowledge that, right?

(Silence)

DIG DEEPER

Article

Peter Boghossian, “Should We Challenge Student Beliefs?” (Boghossian, 2011c)

Books

Paul Boghossian,
Fear of Knowledge: Against Relativism and Constructivism
(Boghossian, 2006c)
¹⁹

Austin Dacey,
The Future of Blasphemy: Speaking of the Sacred in an Age of Human Rights
(Dacey, 2012)

Greg Lukianoff,
Unlearning Liberty: Campus Censorship and the End of American Debate
(Lukianoff, 2012)

Hemant Mehta,
The Young Atheist’s Survival Guide: Helping Secular Students Thrive
(Mehta, 2012)

Alan Ryan,
The Making of Modern Liberalism
(Ryan 2012)

Online Resources

The James Randi Educational Foundation (JREF;
http://www.randi.org/site/
): “The James Randi Educational Foundation was founded in 1996 to help people defend themselves from paranormal and pseudoscientific claims. The JREF offers a still-unclaimed milliondollar reward for anyone who can produce evidence of paranormal abilities under controlled conditions. Through scholarships, workshops, and innovative resources for educators, the JREF works to inspire this investigative spirit in a new generation of critical thinkers.”

FIRE (Foundation for Individual Rights in Education;
http://thefire.org/
): “The mission of FIRE is to defend and sustain individual rights at America’s colleges and universities. These rights include freedom of speech, legal equality, due process, religious liberty, and sanctity of conscience—the essential qualities of individual liberty and dignity. FIRE’s core mission is to protect the unprotected and to educate the public and communities of concerned Americans about the threats to these rights on our campuses and about the means to preserve them.”

Secular Coalition for America (SCA;
http://www.secular.org
): “The Secular Coalition for America is a 501(c)(4) advocacy organization whose purpose is to amplify the diverse and growing voice of the nontheistic community in the United States. We are located in Washington, D.C. for ready access to government, activist partners and the media. Our staff lobbies U.S. Congress on issues of special concern to our constituency.”

The Skeptics Society’s Skeptical Studies Curriculum Resource Center (
http://www.skeptic.com/skepticism-101/
): “A comprehensive, free repository of resources for teaching students how to think skeptically. This Center contains an ever-growing selection of books, reading lists, course syllabi, in-class exercises, PowerPoint presentations, student projects, papers, and videos that you may download and use in your own classes.” (My “Atheism,” “Critical Thinking,” and “Knowledge, Value and Rationality” course syllabi are also available here.)

NOTES

1. While classical liberalism emphasized freedom, social liberalism acknowledged that freedom is curtailed not only by authority but also by circumstance. In other words, social liberalism recognized that certain factors (race, gender, sexual orientation, religion) limit freedom, and thus many social liberals argued for government intervention (e.g., Civil Rights Act of 1964). Social liberals argued that an activist society is necessary to ensure a level playing field and implement the principles of classical liberalism.
   

   Contemporary academic leftism recognizes that another limitation to freedom is social attitude. Attitudes keep certain individuals from opportunities simply because they belong to a particular group. It’s legitimate to request that others be aware of a social consensus that limits people’s opportunities, and to attempt to break up that consensus. There is a difference, however, between prejudice against individuals on the basis of their social group (which is bad because this prejudice is directed at people) and cultural criticism (which is good because it is directed at ideas). American philosopher Austin Dacey (1972–) speaks eloquently about doing people a disservice when we don’t speak up for them when they’re being victimized by their own groups, and as an example he discusses suppression of free speech by Muslims against other Muslims.
   

2. These terms started out as insights of critical reflection—uncovering privilege where no one dared look before—but in their current mutated form they erode the ability for
   critical
   reflection and rational analysis by placing a stranglehold on the values they should represent.
   
3. Historically, philosophy has focused on truth. Contemporary philosophy instead focuses on meaning. Meaning is subjective—it’s a turning away from the world and a turning toward our experience in the world and to the language we use to describe that experience. This is a radical change, a shift, a turn in our thinking—a turn away from objectivity, truth, mindindependent metaphysics, and toward narratives, personal experience, meaning, and subjectivity (Tassi, 1982).
   

   In this interpretive framework, individual experience is privileged over a world that exists independently of the knower (Boghossian, 2011a, pp. 714–715). Interpreted through the primacy of subjectivity there can be no doxastic errors (errors of belief). This is because it is impossible to adjudicate a proposition’s truth or falsity in the absence of an objective world. Without a world that exists apart from a subject, as British philosopher and scientist Francis Bacon (1561–1626) famously stated, it’s impossible to “put nature to the question.” That is, without an independent, objective world, there can be no corrective mechanism that would allow for a proposition to be either true or false. And because the world cannot referee a proposition’s truth or falsity, all propositions acquire the status of matters of taste, even demonstrably empirical propositions like, “Men have one fewer rib than women” or “The Holocaust never happened.”
   

   Every proposition thus has the same epistemic status as propositions about personal preference, such as, “Cherry pie is disgusting” or “Led Zeppelin’s ‘Stairway to Heaven’ is a beautiful song.” Interpreted through a subjective lens, propositions may be true for one knower and false for another (Boghossian, under review).
   

4. Epistemic relativism extends relativism to matters of fact. The best refutation of relativism I’ve read is American psychologist Chris Swoyer’s “True For” (Meiland & Krausz, 1982). In this brief, dense article, Swoyer completely dismantles the idea that something can be true for one person and false for another person.
   

   Often when relativism emerges in the context of an epistemological intervention, it’s usually in the form of, “Well that’s just true for you.” When I hear this I ask my interlocutor where they’d go if they were sick, to the witch doctor or to a Western hospital? If they tell me they’d go to the witch doctor, or that it makes no difference, I tell them I don’t think they’re being sincere.
   

5. Multiculturalism has become a distorted form of pluralism. The term “pluralism” has many meanings. Understood in the current context, pluralism is the idea that minorities (race, gender, sexual orientation, religion) have legal rights (Lamb, 1981). Pluralism has intrinsic merit and is an indispensable component of civilized societies. Multiculturalism and pluralism (in the abstract) are trying to get at laudable social goals—they try to work toward these goals from a description of differences in populations.
   
6. One can think of parenting in these terms. Good parents criticize the acts of children and not the child.
   
7. Too much tolerance entails abandoning critical judgment altogether.
   
8. Incredibly, liberals will state that this is the result of United States’ foreign policy. However, the cause of the state of affairs is not at issue; what is at issue is the accuracy of my description of these societies.
   
9. Another way to think about this issue is that Muslim extremists went on rampages because Western societies didn’t follow rules unilaterally imposed by them. The attempt to unilaterally impose such rules is, of course, itself intolerant. Still, many leftists—and even moderate liberals—interpret the “desecration” of the Koran as lack of tolerance. However, tolerance does not, cannot, and should not mean having to submit to rules of belief systems to which one does not ascribe.
   
10. A leftist could respond that this is an exploitation of the liberal impulse to empathy. In “Indignation Is Not Righteous,” Longsine and I argue that the attempt to shield ideas from contemplation, discussion, investigation, or criticism should be recognized as logical fallacies (Longsine & Boghossian, 2012).
    
11. Contemporary academic leftists don’t withhold making judgments entirely, as do cultural relativists. Rather, they withhold judgment to the degree that a
    culture
    seems foreign and/or alien, or to the extent that they perceive a culture to be misunderstood or victimized by the West. Islam currently occupies the top rung on the contemporary leftist hierarchy of beliefs and practices that should not be criticized.
    

    Leftist academicians fervently judge elements in Western culture. For example, academic leftists take great pride in condemning Western institutions, Western financial systems, and Western corporations. One might see a leftist academic withhold judgment regarding a clitoridectomy in Northern Africa, but loudly decry a gender imbalance in the headcount of speakers at an academic conference.
    

12. I originally encountered this phrase in Australian philosopher Russell Blackford’s (1954– )
    “
    Islam, Racists, and Legitimate Debate
    ”
    (Blackford, 2012a). Blackford credits American philosopher Jean Kazez with this phrase.
    

    “Bullying ideas off the table” is particularly germane in the case of leftism and criticisms of Islam. Contemporary leftists are playing the hero role, morally equating criticisms of Islam (ideas) to, for example, internment of Japanese Americans (people) during World War II.
    

13. To enforce rights and protections of individuals and groups, many colleges have established departments and offices of “Diversity.” These are offices in search of tasks. Often, these departments bypass traditional academic structures, are not housed within particular colleges, and report directly to the president. The fact that the university system has been set up to enable Diversity Offices to bypass traditional academic structures and report directly to the president shows the privilege, the esteem, and the seriousness with which this ideology is held.
    
14. British philosopher Gilbert Ryle (1900–1976) coined the phrase “category mistake” to refer to the ascription of a property to something that could not possibly possess that property. For example, “The chair is angry” or “The number 16 feels smooth.”
    
15. A recommended and emotional read is Ibn Warraq’s,
    Leaving Islam: Apostates Speak Out
    (Warraq, 2003). Warraq provides detailed accounts of people who decided to leave Islam. The narratives he describes are as lovely as they are disturbing.
    
16. The United States Department of State, Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor states, “In particular blasphemy and conversion from Islam, which is considered apostasy, are punishable by death in Afghanistan, Iran, Pakistan, and Saudi Arabia” (United States Department of State, 2011a). Apostasy is punishable by death elsewhere as well. In Mauritania’s penal code, “Article 306 of the penal code outlaws apostasy. It states that any Muslim found guilty of the crime will be given the opportunity to repent within three days and if the person does not repent, the individual will be sentenced to death and the person’s property will be confiscated by the Treasury” (United States Department of State, 2011b).
    
17. A version of this section was originally published in
    The Philosophers’ Magazine
    (Boghossian, 2012).
    
18. Notice that I did not write, “If they still don’t get it.” When teaching, it’s important to frame issues not in terms of student understanding, but in terms of your explanation. For example, I’ll often say, “Am I being clear?” as opposed to, “Do you get it?” This places the burden of clarity on me, and students are more likely to volunteer and engage issues if they don’t think that the instructor believes they have a problem understanding the material. Finally, I’ll often say, “If this is unclear please let me know. You’ll help me to be a better explainer.”
    
19. About twice a month I’m asked if I’m related to Paul Boghossian. I’m friendly with, but not related to, Paul.