I really want to apologize to every one about being so slow with my blog postings. I’ve just been feeling kind of “down” as the kids say. You see, a few years ago, they changed the name of my favorite toilet tissue. I know, I know. It’s been a while, and yet it still bothers me. My favorite, that I used for years, was MD Tissue. “MD Tissue.” What a regal sounding name! So definite and positive! So full of assurance and confidence! When compared to other tissues on the store shelves it would stand out as a beacon of trust and boldness! Cottonelle. Charmin. Quilted Northern. Scott. Andrex (huh?). Elite (posers...). None had the authority of the simply-named “MD.” And then they changed it. It’s now merely a pale imitation of its old self. Thinner. Weaker. Where’s the trust? Where’s the conviction? And the name they chose? “Angel Soft.” Angel Soft. Can you believe it? What does that even mean? Are Angels even soft? The book of Daniel describes an angel with arms and legs resembling polished metal and precious stones, and a face like lightning. Ouch. But let’s, for a moment, just assume that all angels are soft. Why associate it with toilet paper? I can’t even imagine being in the board room when this decision was made. “Well sir, it’s like, uh, angels are really, really soft, right? So our toilet paper should be called “Angel Soft.” Cause it’s like.... Well, it’s kinda like.... Ummm. Oh! It’s like wiping your butt with an angel!” “Excellent Jenkins! You’ve done it again! Drinks all around!”
Needless to say, I’ve changed my brand of toilet paper to Charmin. “Extra Strength,” naturally.
In my desire to ramble on about whatever strikes my fancy, I’d like to dedicate a blog entry every so often to one of my favorite subjects: religion. What fascinates me about religion? Aside from the fact that the earliest evidence we have of the psychology of humans is a religious one (intentional burial of the dead with items accompanying the body), the subject of religion encompasses so much that makes us human. Psychology, sociology, anthropology, history, art. Even how we write music today harkens back to the way monks in the middle ages notated gregorian chants. What I find the most fascinating is biblical exegesis, principally textual or historical criticism. Who wrote the books of the Bible? What did each author intend? In what context were they written? How have they been changed over the years? What was the historical context that made necessary any changes, and, subsequently, a viewpoint different from that of Jesus’ own time?
But before we get to the good stuff, there’s about a ton of preliminary stuff to cover. On second thought, forget it. The main thing to remember is that our brains are always screwing with us. We all distort reality in myriad ways. We blame failures on external circumstances, take credit when it’s not warranted, and revise history so that our failures were the result of particularly harsh challenges. We remember best those moments when we were kind, charming, witty, and personable, and less those moments when we were obtuse or mean. And all of us who believe in heaven think we’re going there. One of the worst ways our brains mess with our heads is confirmation bias. Once we think we know how something works, we stress and seek proof that upholds that explanation, while throwing out or willfully declining to look for proof that contradicts it. Making us happy in our ignorance of how the real world operates. That’s what our brains are all about.
So how do we combat this intentional deceiving of our brains on us? How do we find the truth in a world of self-deception and joyfully-willful ignorance? How do we even communicate amongst ourselves if everyone is left to his own interpretation of reality? Ah, there you go. We need to come up with some universal way of agreeing on what constitutes a valid exchange of ideas. Surprise! We’ve already done that! It’s called logic.
Logic is the study of correct thinking. Anything that violates these laws of thought is logically impossible, and whatever is logically impossible cannot exist. For example, we know that there are no square circles and no married bachelors, because such things violate the law of non-contradiction; they attribute both a property and the negation of that property to a thing, and thus are self-contradictory. By definition circles are not square, and not even smoothest bachelor who can recite the entire Greedo vs. Han Solo scene is married (although he would certainly make a yummy catch! Am I right ladies? Ladies?). Therefore, the laws of thought determine both the bounds of the rational and the bounds of the real. Whatever is real must obey the law of non-contradiction. The German logician Gottlob Frege called logic “the study of the laws of the laws of science;” The laws of science must obey the laws of logic.
In the philosophy and mathematics world there are two camps. Those who think that mathematics describe the physical world, and those who think that the physical world follows the rules of mathematics. Likewise, some people think that nothing is impossible; everything that happens in the physical universe is just contingent on probability. It’s not impossible that your Weimaraner puppy will suddenly start howling the 1812 Overture, it’s just extremely unlikely. I don’t subscribe to this idea, and I certainly don’t define things in variations of probabity. Some things are just flat-out impossible. I think it’s safe to say that Greta Garbo coming back to life, transforming herself into a giant mole rat, balancing the planet Venus on her nose while dancing the Macarena on the surface of the sun, is not only extremely improbable, it’s downright impossible. Never gonna happen. Some things can’t possibly be true, while other things can’t possibly be false. Necessary truths are, going back to our more conventional examples, such things as “2+2 =4,” “all bachelors are unmarried,” and “red is a color.” Necessary falsehoods are such statements as “2+2=5,” “all bachelors are married,” and “red is not a color.” The Greek philosopher Aristotle was the first to systematize our knowledge of necessary truths. The aforementioned laws of thought are the most fundamental; the ones on which all other truths rest.
The law of noncontradiction: Nothing can both have a property and lack it at the same time.
The law of identity: Everything is identical to itself.
The law of excluded middle: For any particular property, everything either has it or lacks it.
So why am I wasting time with all this techno-babble when I’m supposed to be discussing religion? Because without the laws of thought, communication would be impossible. And before we discuss a subject that too easily discourages empirical data, we have to set some ground rules. In order to communicate, our thoughts and sentences must have a specific content. Without the law of non-contradiction there would be no way to distinguish one thought or sentence from another, and every claim would be equally true (and false). Without the law of non-contradiction, we can’t believe things to be one way rather than another.
So definitions are, of course, extremely important in conveying one person’s ideas to another. Equally as important is the idea that logic and reasoning and critical thinking make for much better arguments than appeals to emotion. I plan to cover this idea later in an upcoming blog on logical fallacies, but for now the only other point I’d like to make is from Aristotle’s Posterior Analytics about trusting the scientific process over our senses.
“Nor can scientific knowledge be gained by means of sense perception, for even though perception may give information concerning a thing’s quality as opposed to its concrete existence, yet an act of perception must indicate the existence of the object in a particular place and at the present time. The universal on the other hand and that which is present in every example of a subject cannot be perceived by the senses, for the universal is not a particular thing visible at the present moment, for then it would not be a universal at all, seeing that we mean by Universal that which is eternal and omnipresent. Since the demonstrations rest on the universal, and universals cannot be perceived by the senses, it is clear that one cannot acquire scientific knowledge by means of sense perception. Even if we could have perceived that a triangle has its angles equal to two right angles, we should certainly have gone on to search for a demonstration of it, and should not, as some assert, have already known the fact by means of perception alone. Perception as an act must deal with the particular alone, while scientific knowledge consists in learning the universal. Thus even if we were on the moon and saw the earth shutting out the light, we should nevertheless be ignorant of the cause of an eclipse. We should indeed see that the moon was being eclipsed at that particular moment, but we should not know the cause of an eclipse in general, for our perception would not be of the universal. I do not deny that after seeing the same phenomenon occur repeatedly we might search out the universal law, and thus attain to demonstration, seeing that knowledge of the universal results from repeated acts of sense perception. But the value of the universal lies in its showing the cause of particular phenomena, and consequently the universal is more important than the perception of particular cases or the immediate apprehension of such things as have for cause something other than themselves. Of self-caused primaries we are not now speaking. It is then clearly impossible to acquire scientific knowledge of any demonstrable thing, unless the meaning of ‘scientific knowledge acquired through demonstration’ be attached to the phrase ‘act of sense-perception.’”
Aristotle. He’s the man!! One example that shows what our Greek buddy is alluding to is the Sun revolving around the earth. Everyone can see that the Sun revolves around the earth! What are you, nuts? That’s just common sense! But way back in the 16th century Copernicus created the first predictive model of the heliocentric system of the universe. Also, contrary to (probably) most people in the United States (sigh...), even the early Greeks knew that the earth was round. From the 6th century. BC. Even our buddy Aristotle chimed in on that one. He’s the man!! Eratosthenes, in the 3rd century BC, did a little scientific experiment of his own and showed that the Earth was, indeed, round. Both of these ideas were brought about by using the scientific process of observing and testing, leading to, as The Man himself says, ideas of universal attributes.
Holy crap, there are so many other things to cover that would be even better ways to set a foundation for discussions into logic and reason. Hopefully I can squeeze a lot of them in as I go. I would just like to close this entry with some thoughts on why we need to bring logic and reasoning into a discussion of religion at all. To quote a casual discussion on Reasonable Doubts (one of the best atheist podcasts out there), religion structurally exempts itself from rational criticism. It requires everyone to not criticize it, and makes the idea of questioning certain things an immoral act. This is the perennial tactic of the bully, of the dictator, of the domestic tyrant. The only time you need this argument of immoral questioning is when you want to behave unreasonably or irrationally. What we should be doing is committing our ideas to scrutiny, seeing if they can actually live up under difficult tests, and be willing to change our opinions as new and better ideas come up. That’s the scientific method. And I think it’s the only way worth exploring to settle conflicts.