More Alike Than Perhaps We Thought.

[catsittingstill]

Recently Smallship One has come to a realization--insisting that every evidence-free claim be treated equally (and thank you to pockenaomi for pointing it out) means that:

all anyone has to do to shut me up is to claim to perceive something offensive in what I've said

Exactly the problem that atheists would have if we tried to live up to the standard some folks want to hold us to.

Except, of course, that all an atheist has to do to be perceived as offensive is play Jingle Bells in a Christmas Parade. Or wear a T-shirt with an American flag and the word "atheist" on it.

Or, admittedly, compare two evidence-free ideas to each other. I'm not saying I've never done anything I had reason to believe might offend some people, though I didn't do it for the purpose of causing offense.

(I went over the rest of why exactly I believe the post in question was offensive and I won't rehash it here, except to say that I am setting aside the matter of whether the claim of offensiveness is evidence-free for the moment, and assuming, for the sake of discussion, that it is.)

The problem of treating all evidence free claims with equal respect is this: I am doing exactly the same thing.

The difference is that you say "I respect all evidence-free claims equally" and I say "I disrespect all evidence-free claims equally."  But we are both putting 'Jesus died for my sins" and "I found Hrahk'Na the Parsec Squid* in a cherry blossom" on the same level.   And while I agree that my treatment of Hrahk'Na is disrespectful, I don't think yours is any better, because I don't think zie would care for being compared to Jesus.  Or the other way around if that's what floats your boat.

Respect is only worth something if more worthy ideas get more respect.

Okay, I do understand that you (I think) only put evidence-free claims that people feel really strongly about on the same level:  "Jesus died for my sins" and "my dog is the best dog ever" for example, and I don't have anyone who feels really strongly about Hrahk'Na the Parsec Squid to offer (yet)--but I bet I can find people who feel really strongly about the Flying Spaghetti Monster.**   

I do think one thing that might be helpful in this dilemma is to recognize there is a difference between a claim about feelings like "I love you" or "I'm offended" and a claim someone feels very strongly about, like "My dog is the best dog ever, and she would never bite your horrid child!"  Questioning one is obviously kind of insulting because it's a claim the speaker is lying.  Questioning the other is perfectly reasonable, no matter how strongly the speaker feels.

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*Leaving aside the obvious issue that a Parsec Squid is much, much too big to fit into a cherry blossom; obviously it was a vision or an avatar or something.  Plus of course "Hrahk'Na" is a verbal tag that substitutes for a rapidly fluctuating magnetic field humans can't reproduce or even perceive without special equipment.

** Who in my opinion bears a resemblance to a Parsec Squid--that "noodly appendage" stuff?--though there are many Parsec Squids the one I met) and I'm unclear on the numericity of the FSM.

Comments

[keris]

I do think one thing that might be helpful in this dilemma is to recognize there is a difference between a claim about feelings like "I love you" or "I'm offended" and a claim someone feels very strongly about, like "My dog is the best dog ever, and she would never bite your horrid child!" Questioning one is obviously kind of insulting because it's a claim the speaker is lying. Questioning the other is perfectly reasonable, no matter how strongly the speaker feels.

I don't know which way round you think that is. For instance, is it not incredibly insulting to tell a new mother that her baby is ugly when she thinks it is beautiful? How is it any different when a person says "I've had a religious experience" to when they say "I love you"? Neither love nor offense are subject to objective observation (actions done because of them are subject to observation, but the same is true about actions done as a result of a religious experience), and on the other hand there are many things which are true (to an outside observer) which it is most unwise to say to someone who believes the opposite.

(Incidentally, the person's belief about her dog, that it would never bite the child, is easily disproved when it does bite the child with witnesses there or a camera. The belief that is the 'best' dog in the world is not subject to verification or disproof without access to the state of mind of the person who thinks it is 'best'.)

The thing which annoys me is that often (I'd say 'usually' but Ihaven't counted them, and if it isn't counted then it's not science) the same people who ridicule those who are religious[1] also ridicule those who are sceptical about men going to the moon. As far as I can see there is far more evidence (albeit subjective) for deity than there is for people walking on the moon. On the one hand there is an experience some people feel (I don't, or at least I haven't so far; like Z I don't seem to have the "god sensor"), backed up by millions of people who have written about it for millennia, and on the other there are books and pictures which could easily have been faked (indeed, I've seen 'UFO' pictures which looked more real than the 1969 Apollo ones). That I happen to believe both is irrelevant, I can easily see how people can believe one but not the other (in either direction) or to believe neither of them.

In fact I don't see why some people feel the need to mock others either way, let alone feel proud of it (as I've seen one person claim to do at least twice in comments to the recent posts). It certainly comes over to me as trying to claim some sense of superiority, "my beliefs are better than yours", which is just as silly as "my god is better than yours" (or "my dad is bigger than your dad" for that matter).

[1] And no, this is not "all atheists". It may well not be anywhere near a majority, there are millions of atheists I've never met and I have no evidence that they ridicule anyone. It's a condition selecting those who do ridicule others for their (lack of) beliefs.

(And how dare you say that His Noddleness bears a resemblance to a Parsec Squid? I think both of them would be most offended at being mistaken for each other. I can also tell you that the FSM is fully numerate, he can count up to 2 to the power of the number of his appendages, which being infinite is a Very Big Number Indeed. He is also well educated in Reeling, Writhing, and Fainting in Coils, and exercises Himself regularly in all of them. Fnord!)

[catsittingstill]

Sure it would be rude to tell a new mother her baby is ugly out of the blue. If she tried to use the beauty of her new baby to demand preferential treatment, however, then I see nothing wrong with acquainting her with reality.

Maybe I can't disprove "my dog is the best dog ever" but feeling very strongly about that doesn't entitle you to win the dog show. It doesn't even entitle your dog to special privileges that other dogs whose owners feel less strongly don't get.

I will note that the accounts of going to the moon are far more consistent with each other (not to mention being able to find footprints and such on the moon) than the accounts of religious experiences are. None of the moon landing accounts, for example, suggest that one or more of the astronauts was a man with a dog's head. I will also note that as far as I know, moon landing skeptics' objections have a history of being treated with far more courtesy among other skeptics than heresies get from established religions.

I apologize to His Noodleness; I thought the muliplicity of long slender appendages was a significant resemblance but perhaps I was wrong.

[keris]

When it comes to special privileges I'm totally with you. I think that churches, any churches, should be treated like any other organisation legally, and that includes no relief from taxes, no government support, no 'free' airtime, no immunity from investigation or prosecution -- and as much protection as anyone else against things like arson and victimisation. If a church building can't be upkept by its congregation, it should be treated like any other building, possibly acquired by a preservation society if it is architecturally of interest.

Try writing a history of moon landings over centuries, much of it written (or dictated) as memories decades after the event, and translated through several languages, and see how consistent you get. Of course, if the hoax is set up by a few people then it will be a lot more consistent (look at Dianetics), but that's actually a test of overall accuracy (sure, one account says 5000 people with 5 loaves and 2 fishes, and another says 7000 people with 3 loaves and 5 fishes, what boots it? You should hear my mother's recollections of events told by the same person only a few months apart, the details are way more inaccurate).

As for the astronaut with a dog's head, they know their audience. Hardly anyone would believe that these days (but he might have been an alien -- no, back in 1969 they'd have had to explain aliens to most people) so they aren't going to discredit themselves by pretending something like that. Just landing on the moon and coming back was hard enough to believe.

(Actually, I haven't seen any evidence that the Egyptians actually did believe that their gods had animal heads, they seem to have distinguished between icons and reality. The same way that modern pagans don't believe that their god actually is part tree, it's symbolic. But we can't go back and ask the Egyptian peasants what they actually believed.)

[catsittingstill]

Actually, the guy with the dog's head I was thinking of was not Egyptian, but Christian.

Many medieval Christians believed in the canocephali, and some of them believed St. Christopher was a canocephalus.

I hope I spelled that right; I've never seen it written down and I can't make my spellchecker happy with it.

As for inconsistent accounts of happenings the like of which never occur today, if you want to take the position that the right thing to do is to believe them without any evidence, because they were written down decades after the fact and translated through several languages by people certainly unacquainted with the events described, nobody can stop you.

But the inconsistencies are not minor (one example off the top of my head--Jesus' "father" is supposed to be God--in fact that's the whole point--yet the New Testament says in two different places that his father is really Joseph--and it's not a typo; the point of those paragraphs is to establish Jesus's relationship to the House of David through Joseph, *and* there doesn't seem to be any tendency among Christians to even *notice*; does that bother anyone else?) and they concern stuff that isn't consistent with what happens today--people rising from the dead, walls falling down when you blow a trumpet, seas parting, bushes burning without being consumed.

Obviously I think accepting the truth of these events-inconsistent-with-what-we-experience-of-the-world supported only by wildly imprecise (in the sense of a repeatable measurement being precise) witness testimony, if even that, is not the more reasonable course of action.

Nor do I agree with the contention sometimes put forth that it requires an equal amount of faith to accept them or reject them.

Nobody suggests it requires an equal amount of faith to accept or reject Santa Claus, who is considerably less incredible (though still admittedly inconsistent with our experience of the real world) and who is supported by considerably more consistent stories.

Having been a pagan myself, though a solitary, for years, I don't remember anything about the Oak King or the Holly King being actually part tree. The oak and the holly were their symbols, each being green and flourishing at the time of year they ruled. Or are you thinking of the Sun King? Or --wait--the Green Man, that's probably it.

No, I don't recall anything about him being part tree, though I suppose it probably varies from pagan to pagan. The way he's depicted suggests a "spirit of the life-in-plants" rather than a man with a tree's "head" but I suppose artistic conventions may differ.

[lil-shepherd.livejournal.com]

It appears that Smallship1 has not been keeping up with events. Living in a country that is increasingly secular and where you are regarded as a bit odd if you actually are religious, he appears to have assumed it was like that all across the English-speaking and the developed world. That's cos he doesn't read the atheist blogs. Because they're nasty to theists.

[lil-shepherd.livejournal.com]

And yes, I have stuck my nose in this time. His post is right under yours on my flist and it made me slightly cross.

[egoldberg.livejournal.com]

http://atheismresource.com/wp-content/uploads/Debate-Flow-Chart.jpg

;-)

[lil-shepherd.livejournal.com]

I love that flow chart.

[egoldberg.livejournal.com]

I should also add I haven't followed the debate at all - just scanned Cat's comment - so if I've said anything horribly inappropriate by posting it I do apologize!

Eli

[lil-shepherd.livejournal.com]

I doubt that Cat will think so.

A mutual friend claims to be an atheist but thinks we should all shut up because we might offend someone...

[catsittingstill.livejournal.com]

Absolutely no problem!

[tattercoats.livejournal.com]

Pagan here. So not wading in on the main topic in hand, but that flow chart is jolly good. Works for politics so far as I can see - an area in which I do regularly have invigorating and productive discussions.

[lil-shepherd.livejournal.com]

I think the flow chart works on any topic and any discussion, really. It is a thing of beauty.

[tattercoats.livejournal.com]

And to my eye also, a thing of the Dorcas Lane school of snark expressed as good manners, which is perhaps part of its charm...

[randwolf.livejournal.com]

Devout Christians, however, do cite evidence for their views, so that is somewhat of a different problem than the one you are describing.

[catsittingstill.livejournal.com]

Um. They cite the bible, as I recall.

If stories in a book are evidence there is evidence for the existence of a lot of things...

[randwolf.livejournal.com]

There are more developed Christian epistemologies. The religious-right radicals, being more interested in power than truth and compassion, generally do not argue them, because argument makes room for doubt. Science has big questionables of its own: the trust in mathematics in the physical sciences is a huge one. But not a few times, mathematicians have questioned that trust. Radical right believers don't want questions: they want answers. One of the hardest things to defend to these people is that a bit of uncertainty actually is more likely to make for valid theories. Unthinking belief is an answer to existential anxiety ("Where am I going?", "Who am I?", "What is the purpose of life?", "What is the airspeed of an unladen...", er, never mind) and certainties can usually only be had by deception. It's a big uncertain world, people want Truths to cling to, and the radical-right religious leaders are only too happy to provide them.

[catsittingstill.livejournal.com]

I suppose it is unfair to equate "devout" with "religious right;" I hadn't realized I was doing it.

I tried to read something I think was a "more developed Christian epistemology" once--the only part I can remember was "God is what He has." Which I remember because the writer immediately passed on to other things, leaving me thinking "Wait, God is the sum of His possessions? What?" I couldn't find anything for several paragraphs in either direction that explained what the writer was driving at by that.

If that was evidence I am underwhelmed. The sophistication seemed to be that instead of stating unbelievable things outright in simple language, the writer flung out a barrage of uninterpretable statements.

I'm not saying every developed Christian epistemology is like this... just that I haven't come across one that isn't yet.