#inconsistent scepticism

“Tell a devout Christian that his wife is cheating on him, or that frozen yogurt can make a man invisible, and he is likely to require as much evidence as anyone else, and to be persuaded only to the extent that you give it. Tell him that the book he keeps by his bed was written by an invisible deity who will punish him with fire for eternity if he fails to accept its every incredible claim about the universe, and he seems to require no evidence whatsoever.“

Not believing in gods doesn’t protect you from other faith-based beliefs.

Unholy Union: Atheists & Christians | Peter Boghossian & David Silverman

Boghossian: So, what is your take on the substitution hypothesis? [i.e. religiosity as a default human tendency, Woke as a substitute for traditional religion]

Silverman: It's scary, okay, and the implications of it are really scary. Of course, my fear would be, okay I was an atheist leader, I did a lot for atheists, I have been very proud of my accomplishments. Did I do bad, right? Did I cause harm, because now we've got this very persuasive evidence that shows that, yeah, we're going to move from one to another.

And back in 2009 when I heard this idea, which wasn't called the Substitution Hypothesis, it was just called that the default position is religious, I didn't realize that by taking away, that by fighting religion, I would just make way for something else.

Boghossian: I didn't realize it either.

Silverman: A wise man once said, everybody does everything for exactly the same reason. You think it's a good idea at the time. [..] I am afraid that it's true. I'm afraid that it's true. I am afraid that the fight to fight ignorance, the fight to fight mythology, is a never-ending and possibly ultimately losing fight. And that is a hard pill to swallow. Because Dawkins is right, it's a sad world to be in when you don't have data, when you don't have respect for information.

Boghossian: Yeah, when you don't value data, when you don't value evidence, when you won't have a conversation about data and evidence. [..] Let me just be clear about this: on a social level, it's always better to have people participate in a more benign delusion. There's just no question about it. But I don't think that that means that we should encourage people to participate in delusions. All it means is we would just step aside and let their cognitions, let the memetic spread of a less toxic ideology take root in the society. Because if the Substitution Hypothesis is correct, I see no alternative to that.

Here's one: The Amazing Atheist.

Silverman: Yeah, because they're changing the words. They're changing the words to cloud the issue. They're clouding the issue because they don't want to study, they don't want to actually tell people, no. This is the Coddling of the American Mind on steroids. This is exactly what happens when you take away the ability to tell people no. No, you're not actually a woman. No, you can't go into the women's showers. No, you can't compete against actual women because you're not an actual woman.

You're completely allowed to live and do and marry and adopt as you see fit but, no this is where we cross the line. The left can't say that. The left is those helicopter kids are now grown up and now having kids, completely unable to say no to their children's whims. In fact, they absolutely defend those whims.

And the idea that that we are transitioning children is fucking killing me. As young as 12 are getting damaged by activist parents who want to use their kids.

Boghossian: Double mastectomies.

Silverman: It's insane. It's insane that we are allowing our kids to be damaged like this. And when we fight that, when we fight the insanity, we're called bigots, we're called assholes, we're called TERFs and transphobes.

I am a pro-choice person, I have been left of center my entire life. I lobbied personally, at the local, state and federal level for trans rights and I'm an anti-trans person because I don't think you should cut a child, because I don't think a child can consent to permanent change? This makes me a bad person? It's insane what the left is having.

And this is our atheism. This is what's happening in atheism now. And when I say, no wait, let me explain, what do they do? They shut me down, they shout me out, because they'd much rather have the very very easy path of hate, because hate is so easy. Dismissal is so easy. And skepticism is hard. Too fucking bad, skepticism is hard. Do it anyway.

[..]

Boghossian: What are you fighting now?

Silverman: Lies. Immorality. I've taken a humanistic turn in my life. Humanism is important to me, it's always been my driving force, I've never really spoken about it, but it's always been... I believe that we have a pseudo-objective good in the reduction of suffering, every living being flees from suffering on the planet, no it's not really objective good, but it's as close as we get, and the existence of that mandates a morality around it. And that's kind of my position as kind of a firebrand humanism type of thing.

By: Angel Eduardo

Published: Sep 12, 2022

Once, when I was home sick from school, I noticed something odd: none of what was on TV was meant for me. The programming was either cartoons for kids under four or talk shows and soap operas for adults way older than me. I wasn’t the target audience for the advertising, which allowed me for the first time to observe things more critically. I began to see the ways bright colors, an ebullient announcer’s voice, and fast and flashy editing were being used to get young kids to want this or that toy. I saw the different ways those same tools and tactics were employed when trying to get adults to want products that I, being about ten, couldn’t have cared less about.

Something cracked open in my mind that day, and I could never close it again. Whenever I watched TV from that point on, I couldn’t help but notice the ways I was being influenced. I wasn’t totally immune to it—I still wanted all the toys and gadgets other kids wanted—but I did start to recognize the subtle manipulations being used to hijack my thoughts and desires, and I began to resent them.

This was the beginning of my skepticism.

In the years that followed, I called out lies and inconsistencies in my parents, teachers, and peers with increasing confidence and indignation. I questioned every fact I was told, every rule I was expected to follow, and every norm I was meant to hold sacred. I also actively sought out people and art that did the same thing: George Carlin; Rage Against the Machine; Fight Club. And it was good for me. My skepticism allowed me to abandon my religious upbringing. It gave me the ability to recognize the oversimplified history I was taught in school. It got me to see the ways our systems often worked against our interests despite being designed to help us.

My skepticism opened my mind, and I became addicted to it. Anything that defied convention, anything that flouted authority, anything that exposed a hidden reality that “they” didn’t want me to know, I took to like a moth to a flame. I use that cliché intentionally, because the very same fire that had set me alight when I was a kid ended up burning me as a young adult. See I didn’t just question authority, I rejected it entirely. I didn’t just keep an eye out for bullshit, I actively wanted there to be bullshit. Rather than make me a true skeptic, this tendency made me credulous—more credulous, even, than many of those I scoffed at for “believing what they’re told.” I saw Michael Moore’s Fahrenheit 9/11 and accepted everything without question. I read Dan Brown’s The DaVinci Code and thought it was revealing real secrets, despite the disclaimer on the very first page noting that it was a work of fiction. I was hopelessly drawn to “secret knowledge” and “hidden truths,” to the point where I ignored and avoided evidence against my suspicions—even if they were staring me in the face.

It took seeing a more extreme version of who I’d become to finally shake me awake. One night, a group of friends and I watched the 2007 movie Zeitgeist. It was broken into three parts, the first of which seemed almost tailor made for me. It railed against religion and religious belief, using clips from George Carlin routines to bolster its criticisms of Christianity and dispute the historicity of Jesus. The second part, though, focused on September 11, 2001, and asserted that it was either orchestrated or allowed to happen to justify the War on Terror. I was willing to believe that political opportunists took advantage of the attack for their own gain, but I struggled with Zeitgeist’s portrayal, which went much further. I lived just over the river from New York City. I knew people whose family members died that day, and I had trouble believing anybody would or could—in the case of the comically inept Bush administration—intentionally manufacture or allow such a thing, no matter how much they stood to benefit.

Despite this, it was really the third part of the film—which all but advised viewers not to pay their taxes and alleged that the Federal Reserve System is run by international bankers who have orchestrated global disasters to further their nefarious agenda—which lost me completely. It all seemed too insane, too convoluted, too convenient. And I’m grateful that it did. Something cracked open in my mind again when I sat through that movie. I started to see more clearly the way it used its music, editing, structure, and even appeals to authority (with the inclusion of Carlin, one of my counterculture heroes) to influence me. This was just another version of the daytime television I’d learned to see through as a kid. The movie was giving me something I wanted—rebellion, secret knowledge, a reason to be angry and cynical—and using that desire to do to me what it wanted.

I went home that night disgusted, both with the movie and myself. I had been duped, and worse, I’d been duping myself for years. I suddenly saw all the signs I’d ignored: the disclaimer at the beginning of The DaVinci Code; the things Fahrenheit 9/11 clearly exaggerated or got wrong; the ways Rage Against the Machine oversimplified much more complex realities. I realized that all this time I hadn’t really been skeptical at all, because I had never stopped to be skeptical of myself. It finally struck me just how wrong I’d been about everything despite my unshakable confidence, and I was humbled by it.

Skepticism is a valuable thing, and self-skepticism is probably its most critical manifestation. We are hard-wired for pattern seeking and pattern making. It’s an ability that has brought us great fortune, but which misfires far more than we often like to admit. In the realm of empirical knowledge, we’re fortunate enough to have devised science as a tool to mitigate our subjectivity. But in the social and interpersonal arena, where mere data can’t hold the kind of sway that a good story does, humility is the thing we really need to help see us through.

As a result of my misadventures, I’ve come to develop a near-physical aversion to certainty. The moment I think I’ve got something or someone figured out, I stop, consider all the possible ways I could be misunderstanding, and proceed with that caution in mind. It’s been long enough now that, when I see the colossal levels of smugness and condescension some people have—particularly online—I can barely fathom their bravado. At this point, I’m all too aware of how easy it is for us to fall into old habits and patterns of thought, to think we’re too smart to be taken for a ride, and for that to be the very reason we get taken completely.

From conspiracy theories to mistrust of others to denying objective reality, there’s no limit to what we can convince ourselves of if we aren’t careful, no matter how smart we are. Some of the most brilliant people I’ve ever known have also been the ones who succumbed to the most ludicrous ideas I’ve ever heard. I’m trying my best to constantly check myself and avoid being one of them. I’d advise everyone reading this to do the same—especially if you’re smirking right now thinking, “I’d never fall for any of that.”

Are you sure? I was.

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Believers immediately become experts in fallacies like presupposition and circular reasoning as soon as it’s about a religion that’s not theirs.

Believers can be rational, but the debilitating affliction of “faith” creates a blindspot, an event horizon beyond which there is only the eddy of irrationality.

This is something that's increasingly visible and concerning.

Atheism deals with the god claim and only with the god claim. It doesn't stop atheists from believing in UFO abductions, crystal healing, anti-vax, homeopathy, conspiracy theory, Flat Earth or Woke ideologies.

Just because you're an atheist, don't presume that you're a skeptic.

Don't go only by one source. Don't be suckered in by a slogan. Don't succumb to other needs or desires, such as a sense of community or tribalism. Be particularly suspicious if it's something you want to hear and especially if it's framed to make you angry or targets your favorite hobbyhorse. And you can always withhold forming a conclusion at all and reserve judgement.

Aren't these (some of) the reasons we reject religions, after all?

Some of the people who laugh at those who believe in invisible, undetectable forces that steer and determine everyone’s lives, granting the preferred cohort special favors, believe in invisible, undetectable forces that steer and determine everyone’s lives, granting the preferred cohort special favors. The only difference is one is divine, the other is "systemic”.

Some of the people who laugh at those who believe in a disembodied ghost-in-the-machine sense of self that is independent of the bounds of biological physicality, believe in a disembodied ghost-in-the-machine sense of self that is independent of the bounds of biological physicality. The only difference is one facilitates a mythological afterlife, the other requires pronouns.

Have you traded one religion for another?

"Faith" isn't any more valid when it's called "other ways of knowing," "I feel it in my heart" isn't any more legitimate when it's phrased as "lived experience," “God did it” doesn’t fly any better when it’s branded as “systemic,” and “Intelligent design” isn’t any more sound when it’s framed as a “social construct.”

One of the earliest, swiftest Woke projects was the collapse of New Atheism, a schism that still persists a decade later. Because atheism deals only with the god question; it doesn’t make you a critical thinker, and it doesn’t mean that you don’t hold other beliefs based on faith.