The argument from fine-tuning, destroyed

I'm a big fan of coelsblog. The frequency of posts is pretty low but the quality is high. (I've posted before about previous posts on religious tolerance versus respect and his destruction of the myth that Hitler was an atheist Darwinist.)

In a post from November last year, A fine-tuned universe argues for atheism, Coel goes after a classic argument made by Intelligent Design advocates and the like:

"A favourite and fashionable argument for God is the argument from a fine-tuned universe. The argument is that, were it not for many aspects of our universe being “just right” for us to exist, then we wouldn’t be here, therefore [and that "therefore" is the big leap] the universe must have been fine-tuned to produce us."

His response is devastating and draws attention to six major flaws in that argument.I've touched on bits of this before (although with considerable less eloquence) but I recommend reading the coelsblog post for the full six. (It's not that long.) Coel's 3b is my new favourite, though:

"The occurrence of things for which their environment was NOT “just right” would be a far better indicator of intelligent intervention. For example, an animal in a zoo is indicative of intelligent intervention; an animal that fits perfectly into its ecological niche is not an indication of intelligent design, but instead is amply explained by non-intelligent processes such as evolution. Thus, if we found ourselves in a universe that was not suited to creating us then that would be far better evidence for intelligent intervention!"

As he points out in another great post from Jan 2, Science can indeed answer “why” questions, it's not "that science cannot give answers involving gods", it's just "that science does not give such answers". Science also remains open to the possibility that, ultimately, there is no "why" at all. It is not that science has decided up-front that there are no gods, it is just that it currently has "no need for that hypothesis". Many atheists, myself included, are the same.

AHS Southern Conference 2012, this Saturday at The University of Southampton

The National Federation of Atheist, Humanist and Secular Student Societies (AHS) have their Southern Conference 2012 this Saturday, Dec 1st. It's on Highfield Campus at The University of Southampton, hosted by the Student's Union Atheist Society. One of the speakers is The Tippling Philosopher, whose blog I frequent when time allows (and who also reposted one of my posts on ID Creationism). Nice to see that they're heading to The Crown - my favourite pub near the Uni - afterwards for a pint or two and dinner. (Mmmm... Crown Burger!)

Although I am a member of The Rationalist Association, I've never actually attended an atheist or Humanist event since moving to Southampton, so I will try and get along if I can. If you're in the area, why not check it out?

Five Minutes with Ben Goldacre

After yesterday's post about an interview with Richard Dawkins, author of two of my favourite books - The Selfish Gene and The God Delusion - it seemed appropriate to post today about an interview with the author of another of my
"must read" books, Bad Science.

A bit shorter than the Dawkins interview, Five Minutes with Ben Goldacre is a quick-fire tour of:

"bad science", dealing with critics, the importance of randomised trials, whether God exists and Twitter.

I particularly liked Ben's description of himself as an "apatheist". Due to my background, I have quite an interest in religion and think quite a lot about my atheism (although I don't quite consider myself as a "New Atheist") but I think it is always useful (for strident atheists and religious types alike) to remember that there are people out there who really don't care and don't consider it to be that important.

Ben's real passion is clearly science and how to do it properly - particularly in relation to medicine - and I really cannot recommend Bad Science highly enough. Although bordering on ranting at times (but always in "righteous anger"!), the early chapters in particular provide an excellent and accessible introduction to why science - and proper use of statistics - is so important. It is the number one book I recommend to my first year tutees studying Biomedical Sciences, as well as A-level students at Open Days.

Ben now goes beyond being a sterling advocate of evidence-based medicine, however, and also has some interesting ideas regarding "evidence-based policy" and how randomised trials can be applied to government policy. My reading list is quite long at the moment (particularly with the recent ENCODE release) but I think I will be adding his Cabinet Office paper: Test, Learn, Adapt: Developing Public Policy with Randomised Controlled Trials.

The whole Five minutes with series is really good and Matthew Stadlen is an excellent interviewer. I am surprised by the breadth of topics they manage to cover in five minutes without it actually feeling superficial. I guess there is often something to be said for "cutting to the chase".

I only recently discovered the series (thanks to my lovely wife) but another notable episode is that with my most recently discovered heroine in Five Minutes with Caitlin Moran. There's a whole host of others, though, and I look forward to working my way through (most of) the list! (Another BBC triumph!)

The Life Scientific of Richard Dawkins

Richard Dawkins is one of my personal heroes. Although I do not always agree with everything he says, I usually agree with most of it and he has been a source of inspiration at many points in my life. Reading his classic book on gene-centric evolution, The Selfish Gene, was like having a light switched on. I was fascinated in evolution and genetics before then - I was in the first year of a degree in Genetics at the time - but suddenly it all just made sense. It's still a book I recommend.

Another one of my favourite books of all time is The God Delusion. It sums up the position of a rational agnostic atheist incredibly well. A lot of people argue against it, and vilify Dawkins because of it, but I have never actually seen a good argument against what he writes. (Usually, people are arguing against something that he didn't write. I sometimes wonder whether any of the anti-Dawkins crowd have actually read anything by him.)

If you are one of those people - or a fan, like me - then I strongly recommend downloading this week's episode of The Life Scientific and listening to his half hour interview with presenter Jim Al-Khalili. I am always impressed about how calm and rational he is, and not at all strident as his detractors proclaim in ignorance. This is a man who clearly loves nature - the magic of reality - and loves science - the "poetry of reality". Another great BBC podcast.

Atheism is not a club, a community or a movement

Today, I came across something that seemed very strange to me - a group of atheists over on Freethoughtblogs.com are creating (or have created?) a new "movement" called "Atheism+". In essence, it seems like a fairly sound premise underneath it - they would like an atheist community without a bunch of bigots spouting hateful comments. Fair enough. Perhaps I am missing something, though, but the solution to this seems to be to post somewhere else or - like Skeptic Blogs - start a new site where hateful commenters are not welcome. In contrast, trying to create some kind of super-atheism - "Atheism Plus" - that combines atheism with (as far as I can tell) liberal Humanism seems, well, somewhere between pointless and just plain wrong.

For one thing, Freethoughtblogs.com is not atheism. (I'm an atheist and until today I am not sure that I had ever spent any real time of FTB.) Calling something "Atheism+" as if you are trying to take atheism and make it better, as if it is yours to make better, makes me feel rather uncomfortable and slightly insulted. It also seems to miss/misunderstand a fundamental point about atheism.

Atheism is not a religion. It has no creed. It is not a club that you join. It is not a community and it is not a movement. Sure, there are atheist communities and atheist movements - plural - but that is not what atheism is. Clubs and "movements" that seem to be trying to redefine or own the word "atheism" are not helpful.

Atheism is a lack of belief in gods - particularly theistic gods. Everything else is up for grabs. Yes, atheists are more likely to be rational, skeptical, pro-secular and/or Humanist than religious folks but atheism in neither necessary nor sufficient for any of these things - and vice versa.

There are people who are atheists for irrational reasons. There are atheists who embrace other kinds of superstition. There are definitely atheists who oppose secularism and think that religion should be banished from, well, everywhere. There are sexist atheists, racist atheists and homophobic atheists. Unlike religion, atheism itself has nothing really to say on any of these things - it is the philosophical and political views of those atheists that determine these things. I do not want to be tarred with the same brush as other atheists just because we both happen not to believe in god. That may be the only thing we have in common.

That's not to say that atheism does not influence these things - it does. (Well, if you want it to - some people actually don't care and don't think about it. It does for me.) But I am fairly sure that atheism is a consequence of the underlying philosophy of atheists and not the cause. (At least, if you are being a proper skeptic/rationalist/materialist it should not be a cause.)

Perhaps the Atheist+ers (what do you call someone who has signed up to Atheism+?) would agree with that and say that's why it's Atheism plus - it has extra stuff. But that's just pointless. We already have Atheism+ with words like "liberal", "socialist", "Humanist" - or whatever else you need to describe your political, philosophical and/or moral stance on various issues. Just adding "plus" alone, makes no sense.

Although I agree with many, even most, of the liberal inclusive - Humanist - views of Atheism+ (although I am not 100% sure what they stand for), I do not consider these to be an inevitable consequence of, or necessary requirement for, atheism. I am also more that a little concerned by the rejection of Humanism by Atheism+ on the grounds that it is not atheist enough. Humanism has some room at the table for people with religious views. These are mostly secular Deists as far as I can tell but, either way, I fail to see how their presence is a bad thing if they otherwise hold (largely) the same ethical/moral views. The "echo box" criticism of online communities is a valid one and the smaller you make your box, the greater the risk of self-reinforcing superiority and bigotry. For all these reasons, I for one will not be calling myself an "Atheist+".

I'm an agnostic atheist - and I don't need faith for that

Following yesterday's assertions about needing "faith" to believe in the Higgs boson, today I read another article espousing the old chestnut that atheism is a position of faith. I've already laid out in brief why I consider my atheism to be neither faith nor a religion. I think it worth revisiting though because this particular piece nails what I perceive to be the common misunderstandings, albeit from the position of apparently holding those misunderstandings as a self-evident truth on which to base an argument.

In a piece entitled "Dear atheists...", Francis Spufford lays out his case for "mutual respect between believers and atheists" because we are all "wild romantic creatures" that "rush instead [of pragmatic agnosticism] to positions of faith on the subject [of God's existence]."

The problem is, as he lays out at the beginning of his piece, he bases his whole argument/appeal on an erroneous caricature of what an atheist actually is - or, at least what most atheists probably are. (There are a lot of convincing arguments that the current rise in self-reported atheism is at least partially due to more people being willing to call themselves atheists rather than the actually losing their faith.) Atheists are not necessarily not agnostics. Some may not even be adeists. We are atheists. We reject a theistic god even if we cannot ever know for certainty that no kind of possible god exists.

This is further compounded by the other common error among religious apologists - the argument of evidence: there cannot be evidence that god does not exists ergo we cannot know whether god exists (agnosticism) ergo it is equally likely that god exists as he doesn't ergo atheism is faith.

But agnosticism does not mean that it is equally likely that a god exists as it doesn't. And if we define "faith" as anything for which we do not have 100% certainty then essentially everything becomes faith and it becomes a useless term. Crucially, even if ultimate (dis)proof evades us, there is still legitimate evidence that one would expect to see if god existed, and the absence of that evidence makes a theist god's existence less likely - to the point of near certainty.

They are both arguments that are covered quite thoroughly (and most excellently) in The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins. Francis Spufford obviously hasn't read it (or hasn't understood it) and says this:

"We believe there is a God. You believe there isn't one. Meanwhile, nobody knows, nobody can know, whether He exists or not, it not being a matter susceptible to proof or disproof. The most science can do is to demonstrate that God is not necessary as a physical explanation for anything, which is very much not the same thing as demonstrating that He isn't there. So the natural, neutral, temperate position would be a agnosticism: a calm, indifferent not-knowing."

I would agree with the last line - with the caveat that it depends exactly what you mean by "indifferent". This is a statement that sums up many atheists, including myself, when it comes to the objective question over any god's existence. I am indifferent to the existence of 1+ gods. What I am not indifferent to is people being encouraged to behave in particular ways on the basis of ideas about said god(s).

Science can actually do more that "demonstrate that God is not necessary as a physical explanation for anything". It can provide compelling evidence that God is not a physical explanation for something. If, in turn, god is expected to be a physical explanation for that something, voila, you have evidence against god. This is a similar question to whether science and religion are compatible. Just as certain types of religion are incompatible with science, certain types of god would be expected to produce visible evidence and the lack of that evidence is indeed disproof. For example, if you believe that your god has a human(ish) form, literally rides around on a cloud and hurls lightning bolts, we can test this. If you think they live at the top of a specific mountain, we should have evidence of that mountain and their abode. (It is interesting how the gods of fables are always so much more visible and interactive than modern deities.) For me, there is no evidence of any theist god and there should be if they existed.

Neither is there any evidence for a deist god. There can't be. Nor can there be any evidence against one. That does not, however, mean that my failure to believe in one is an act of faith. Were I to be insistent that there definitely was no deist god then, yes, I would be demonstrating faith. I have never met an atheist that would insist that. When it comes to deism, we are mostly agnostics. There is no contradiction. (And who really, honestly, cares if there is a god out there who does essentially nothing?)

Agnosticism does not mean, however, that you have no opinion on whether god exists, it just means that you think it is something that, ultimately, no one can know. That is, we can conceive of deities that would be impervious to detection. But not knowing with certainty is not the same as thinking that the two possibilites are equally likely. We can never know anything. We can, however, reach a certain level of certainty where the tiny amount of doubt is effectively zero. (Again Dawkins explains this well.) Perhaps atheism is an opinion rather than a belief? In my opinion, there is no god. I do not believe that there is a god. I'm not sure that is the same as actively believing there is no god - just that the kind of god there could be (in my opinion) is not worth considering as, for all practical purpose, they are the same as no god.

The important thing is that the necessary agnosticism regarding deism does not extrapolate to theism. We would not expect evidence of a deist god. We would expect evidence of a theist one - at least, all the popular theist ones that I know about. Yes, you can contrive reasons why a god would hide themselves or remain deliberately undetectable but (to me) it just seems so much more plausible and consistent that there is no god.

If I expect to see evidence that something existed and I see no evidence then it follows that I am not going to think it exists. I am not really sure how you can call that faith.

[Edit: This post originally included the statement that I was not an adeist. I don't actually think that's true, even though I am much more ambivalent about the matter (it still seems to contravene Physics as we know it) so I have since removed those claims.]

Is belief in the Higgs boson an act of faith?

There's a slightly odd piece in the Nature "World View" column today: "Sometimes science must give way to religion". It's about what role the Higgs boson can play "in providing a rational explanation for the Universe" and an argument that we need religion too. [Picture credit: boingboing.net.]

Ed Yong tweeted "I'm not anti-religion but this piece doesn't make it's case". I would have to agree with him and it seems rather muddled to me. Take the last two paragraphs, for example:

"Challenges to the cultural and political authority of science continue to rise from both ideological and religious directions. It is tempting to dismiss these as manifestations of ignorance or scientific illiteracy. But I believe instead that they help to show us why it will always be necessary to have ways of understanding our world beyond the scientifically rational.

I am an atheist, and I fully recognize science’s indispensable role in advancing human prospects in ways both abstract and tangible. Yet, whereas the Higgs discovery gives me no access to insight about the mystery of existence, a walk through the magnificent temples of Angkor offers a glimpse of the unknowable and the inexplicable beyond the world of our experience."

The emphasis is mine. I have seen this and similar arguments before but they always seem to come down to this same point and I always have the same confusion/objection: how does "a glimpse of the unknowable and the inexplicable beyond the world of our experience" constitute a "way of understanding our world"? It doesn't. It just points out and/or explores stuff we don't know or understand. (Yet?) And why do we need religion for this role? What about art? Poetry? Science Fiction? (Science Fiction beats religion hands down in my experience!)

The statement that really made me baulk was this one, though:

"For those who cannot follow the mathematics, belief in the Higgs is an act of faith, not of rationality."

I have a similar issue with this as with the claim that Atheism requires faith and for similar reasons. I cannot follow the mathematics. (Well, I have never tried but I can take a good guess!) But then I am not sure that I can follow the mathematics necessary to engineer the MacBook I am now using, or to send Curiosity to Mars (and have it land safely!) or upteen other triumphs of modern science (especially if the word "quantum" is involved). But I don't need faith to believe that they are likely to be right, I just need trust. The Higgs is just an extension of that.

I trust that all these mathematically-able particle physicists are getting their sums right because they have another bunch of mathematically-able particle physicists looking over their shoulder and criticising their every move. I suspect that there are just as many people who were a bit disappointed at finding the Higgs as there were excited by it - some even touted it as the death of particle physics if memory serves me right.

There is a big difference between faith in the unknown/unseen on the basis of some kind of "ancient wisdom" and trusting in the efforts of numerous real people applying methodologies that have yielded numerous empirically falsified results. Does that make science infallible? No. Does that mean that the scientists claiming we have discovered the Higgs boson cannot be wrong? No. But there is a "relativity of wrong" in science that just isn't found in faith and, as far as I can tell, is missing from most religion too. That an atheist can imply otherwise - and in Nature of all places - beggars belief a little.

I'm not a subscriber to the school of thought that science and religion are necessarily incompatible, although I think it is vital in this context to define which religion before entering such a debate. I do, however, agree with the notion that religion does not provide "another way of knowing" and this article does nothing to convince me otherwise.

A great intro to Humanism by the BHA

Continuing this month's celebration of things that make me proud to be British, here is a lovely (and short) video by the British Humanist Association explaining (a) what Humanism is, and (b) why you don't need religion to have morals or to give life meaning.



I particularly like the quote from Richard Dawkins:"Science is the poetry of reality."

A flowchart for choosing your religion

I'm not sure where this originally came from but it's a classic! (I'm not rich and insane.)

The Relativity of Wrong

Isaac Asimov was a polymath and prolific writer. As well as writing and editing over 500 books, he contributed numerous letters and articles to magazines. Although I must admit that I cannot recommend his joke books(!), I can recommend the piece he wrote for The Skeptical Inquirer called The Relativity of Wrong.

Here's a taster:

The young specialist in English Lit, having quoted me, went on to lecture me severely on the fact that in every century people have thought they understood the universe at last, and in every century they were proved to be wrong. It follows that the one thing we can say about our modern "knowledge" is that it is wrong. The young man then quoted with approval what Socrates had said on learning that the Delphic oracle had proclaimed him the wisest man in Greece. "If I am the wisest man," said Socrates, "it is because I alone know that I know nothing." the implication was that I was very foolish because I was under the impression I knew a great deal.

My answer to him was, "John, when people thought the earth was flat, they were wrong. When people thought the earth was spherical, they were wrong. But if you think that thinking the earth is spherical is just as wrong as thinking the earth is flat, then your view is wronger than both of them put together."

Although written in 1989, this is still a great piece and worthy of a read now and again, especially if challenged about trusting current scientific explanations because they are "all wrong". Take evolution, for example. Whilst the details of evolutionary theory - a body of work, not a single theory - are subject to change, we can be as certain as we are of anything that the essence will not. Although conceptually evolution can be disproven by new evidence, the likelihood of such evidence is vanishingly small and diminishes further all the time. We may not have all the details but we can be confident that evolution is not "wrong".

Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed - No Integrity either.

Some time ago, I saw (and blogged) the terrible, terrible film "Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed". At the time, I thought its main failing was simply that it was vacuous crap, with all the intellectual content of the Jeremy Kyle show. The coverage of Intelligent Design - supposedly the focus of the "film" - was woeful and uninformative, for example. Instead, the filmmaker, Ben Stein, decided to spend a lot of time attacking evolutionary theory, and atheistic Darwinism in particular, as naturally leading to such atrocities as Nazi Germany and the holocaust. (A classic Godwin's Law violation, if only he had restricted such crap to an Internet forum.)

Whilst in many ways it really makes no difference whether Hitler was an atheist or not, or subscribed to "social Darwinism" - any idea can be corrupted and abused, after all - the fact is that there is no good evidence to support Stein's position. Worse, if one actually researched the source material - as presumably a reputable and honest journalist surely would? - one would actually find a great deal to support the opposite view.

In a great piece, "Nazi racial ideology was religious, creationist and opposed to Darwinism", Coel Hillier at coelsblog dispels this particular myth in no uncertain terms by doing exactly that and going to the source. With quotes from original sources throughout, the author neatly knocks down the lies that Hitler was an atheist or a Darwinist and, instead, reveals him as a(n albeit twisted) Creationist and Christian.

Does this in itself mean that Christianity or Creationism are bad? Of course not - no more than arguments about Hitler being an atheist or Darwinist would make atheism or Darwinism inherently bad if they were true. Let's face it, it was obviously plausible enough for people to believe it. Nevertheless, this is one myth I would love to see the back of. It would certainly be good to remove this particular attack strategy from the playbook of certain atheist-haters and anti-evolution lie-mongers; even if you don't understand the science well enough to appreciate the lies they tell on that front, this is a clear-cut integrity failure for all to see. (I think Godwin's Law is still safe, though!)

Are science and religion compatible?

There's been a bunch of stuff flying around the net recently following the "debate" between John Haught (Catholic theologian) and Jerry Coyne (Evolutionary biologist & atheist). I am yet to watch the video, although I intend to, but I thought I would add my twopenneth to the discussion. (It will be interesting to see if I feel the same way after watching the video.)

My initial thought was that I felt a little uncomfortable with this topic as a debate - although upon further reading it seems that it wasn't really meant to be a "debate" in the usual sense. Nevertheless, there was a "for" (Haught) and "against" (Coyne) position. This implies that the answer is "yes" (they are compatible) or "no" (they are not). This, I feel, is a mistake. The answer depends on another question: which religion?

From what I have read, Haught seems to pull out some fairly standard arguments about "different types of explanation" (how versus why). This only holds if there really are different levels of explanation for the phenomena  being discussed, although this weakness in the argument can be ignored when one is only interested in compatibility. Even assuming that there are different levels of explanation for the Universe (there may be no "why"), however, this only allows compatibility if the religious position stays in its different realm and does not encroach into that of science - the what and how. (Actually, I think science can sometimes also answer the "why?" questions but probably not all of the "why?" questions that religions and philosophy attempt to address.) In other words, this holds true all the time that religion is not interventionist - if god leaves no trace.

Science and religion are compatible in the sense that one can conceptualise a scenario in which a deity exists and science does not know/care. I believe it's called Deism. (One can conceptualise them, yes, but conceptualisation does not make them true.) One can also conceptualise a different scenario in which god is regularly intervening, performing miracles, healing the sick etc. This type of god would leave traces that are in the realm of science to detect - traces that we simply do not see. (As an extreme case, think Young Earth Creationism.) These religions are not compatible with science, without a lot of intellectual gymnastics that raise serious questions (for me) about the nature of such a god.

The important thing is that not ALL religion is compatible with science and, for me at the least, the religions that ARE compatible are largely pointless and/or irrelevant. I'm yet to watch the video (although I will) but it sounds like Haught knows this and is playing the game of talking about a deist-like non-interventionist god, while at the same time trying to imply that is is also true for other religious positions, such as Catholicism. (I don't mean to pick on Catholicism, it's just the one that Haught is associated with.) From what I have read, he gets caught on this in the Q&A and has to reject Catholicism (in essence, if not explcitily) to maintain his position. 

It is right to attack his defence of universal compatibility and force him to explicitly recognise that not all religions - including most of the major ones - are compatible with science. On the other hand, I think the atheists need to be careful too. In "The God Delusion", Dawkins defines "God" (and hence religion) in a very particular way - Deist gods are excluded. (Who cares, or can say anything, about a god that does nothing?) This is useful for such a book and enables reference simply to "god" or "religion" but when targeting the wider population with the notion that "religion and science are incompatible", one has to remember that this is only true for some (albeit probably most) religion. Otherwise, one paints oneself into an uncomfortable corner where on has to start attacking legitimate (if, arguably, pointless) positions to maintain an over-zealous statement. (As I say, I have not seen the video yet, so I am not suggesting Coyne does this. I have seen it happen on discussion boards etc. though.)

So, are science and religion compatible? I think they can be but, personally, I would seriously question the value of the religion that was. If other people choose to believe such things then that, of course, is their decision. And here lies another area where I think atheists need to be careful. A lot of religious folks just don't care whether their religion is compatible with science. They don't care if their religion is apparently logically inconsistent. It's all part of the great "mystery" and not meant to be understood. This is not a position that I myself could maintain but they are not me. Furthermore, as long as they are not trying to structure society, impose moral values, or educate children based on these beliefs, I don't care what they want to believe. 

My atheism in a nutshell: no evidence, need or desire for a deity

In a response to a comment on another post, I stated that I was a atheist because I had neither evidence nor need nor desire for a deity, in that order. Here, I thought I would expand briefly on this statement.

Evidence first, for this is what came first for me. It is also the simplest to express. Quite simply, everything I have ever experienced makes more sense to me in the absence (versus presence) of a deity. Furthermore, everything I know of the world - including religion itself - makes more sense to me in the absence of a deity. Personally, I don't rate "personal revelation" as a particularly reliable or trustworthy source of evidence. (As a scientist, quite the contrary in fact. We wouldn't need statistics otherwise.) When it comes to "evidence" for the divine/supernatural, I have simply never encountered any other kind - and even experiential "evidence" has been limited to that of other people. (And not from lack of trying, I might add.)

The lack of evidence is probably reason enough for me to be an atheist but I think it is important to acknowledge that there are other factors too. I think people often assume that atheism is a very negative and reactionary thing. Whilst I admit that my rejection of Christianity was negative, I see atheism itself as very positive. It is, I believe, embracing the true nature of the universe. There is more than enough beauty and wonder in this reality for many lifetimes of exploration and curiosity. There is power in shaping our own destiny, purpose and meaning. I just have no need to look to ancient texts for these things, although is interesting to see what ancient cultures thought. I feel like I have been there, tried that and life's too short. I prefer to spend my time pondering mysteries that might be solved in my lifetime. If I'm lucky, I might even solve some myself! This is really what I mean when I say that I don't need a deity/religion (although I also mean that I don't feel the need for one to "explain" anything nor to define morality).

It goes beyond just not needing a deity, though. I have no desire for one. And this lack of desire itself goes beyond my personal philosophical position that, if a god exists, it is either mean or insiginifacnt, and I am interested in neither. For me, a deity or supernatural element belittles and diminishes the true wonders of the natural world: the human brain; the way that unseeing, unthinking and uncaring molecules can interact to produce something as amazing as an ant, or a cat, or a person (or a bacterium etc. etc.); the way that unseeing, unthinking and uncaring cells and molecules can ultimately evolve into something as amazing as an ant, or a cat, or a person (or a bacterium etc. etc.); the truly awesome size of the Universe; the enormity of time; the insignificance of Man in the grand scheme of things but the ultimate significance of a man to a select few; true altruism. You get the idea. I know that my religious friends feel sorry for me and think that I am missing out on something but that's OK: I feel the same way about them.

In the same way, it goes beyond just not needing some externally imposed sense of purpose or meaning or, yes, morality. It is actively desirable that these things come from us, from people, explicitly and with all the limitations that comes with. No (sane) person ever claims to be omniscient. We will not get man-made ethics and morality "right" - there is no absolute "right" - but we can do our best and change our best in the light of new findings or situations. In the (hopefully immortal) words of Tim Minchin: "I don't go in for ancient wisdom. I don't believe just because ideas are tenacious it means that they're worthy." I'm proud to apply 21st Century knowledge and reasoning to 21st Century problems and come up with morality and ethics that may be flawed but can be explained and reasoned and changed if necessary.

Location:Southampton,United Kingdom

What's the atheist equivalent of RIP?

It's always a little strange when a truly famous person dies, especially one made famous by being so bloody brilliant at their job; even more so when the results of that job genuinely change the lives of millions. There are few people that really change the world - even most world leaders don't really make an awful difference in the grand scheme of things. Steve Jobs undeniably changed the world and I can't help feel that the world is a poorer place today for his loss. (Even with all the monopolising and money-grabbing that makes me moan about the "evil" Apple corporation from time to time.)

I was going to title this post "RIP Steve Jobs" as the general sentiment - a respect for the deceased and their memory - is right. The implied sentiment - that Steve Jobs is still hanging around in the giant Apple Store in the sky - is certainly not right, though. This is a problem I've encountered before: what is the atheist equivalent of "RIP"? I'm yet to find something that carries the same sentiment but without the baggage. (It's funny how, like Apple products, the influence of religion pervades all things even when you are "on the other side". (Traditionally, I'm a PC/Windows man!))

Anyhoo... I love my iPhone. I love my iPad. I wouldn't have either without Steve Jobs. Hopefully his memory will inspire others on to greatness. It may be tough in the modern age but one man can still change the world and make it a better place.

The Origin of Life - interesting but not a problem

I've just read an article by a Rabbi Moshe Averick attacking Dawkins for focusing on evolution rather than the origin of life and, essentially, having no evidence against "Intelligent Design" as a result. The original ancestor of all extant (evolved) life is itself incredibly unlikely, therefore needs an explanation, for which a deity (an "Intelligent Designer") is the best, or so the argument goes.

Rabbi Averick is entirely right that the issue of the origin of life is different from that of evolution. Dawkins and others argue about evolution because Creationists and IDers attack evolution, though, not because they are trying to create a smoke-screen. Dawkins acknowledges that we do not know how life arose, only that it did. Throw in a few chemists who calculate the probability of self-replicating molecules arising to be vanishingly small and the Rabbi considers his position solid enough to proclaim as if it is some new and revolutionary truth that will have atheists ducking for cover and/or converting to ID in their masses. It isn't and it won't.

We have no scientific explanation for the origin of life. (Yet?) True. This does not make ID right, though. Any derivation of probabilities are hand-waving in the extreme – this is a one-off (as far as we know) event that happened over 3 billion years ago in conditions very different from our own. It may well be that we never know how it happened. Does this mean it could not have happened? No. Does this mean that I need faith to believe that it did happen? No. It is simple extrapolation from current experience. No life that we have encountered needed divine intervention as an explanation. Nothing in the modern world makes more sense with a deity than without. Why should the past be any different?

By the way, the Bayesian probability of life spontaneously arising is 1.0 because we know that life exists, so all scrabble-board arguments are pointless. They only work if you are outside the system. (The fact that we are here taking about it alters the probability that it happened in our Universe/timeline to be a certainty.) Unless you know how many planets, galaxies and universes there are, it is impossible to say that a one-off event is so unlikely that it could not have happened by chance. In fact, as the number of planets and universes tends towards infinity, so does the probability of anything happening.

You also have to ask yourself the question: so what if a deity kicked everything off 4 billion years ago and then watched? This is fundamentally different to a deity-free universe how, exactly? There is no need to invoke such a being in the first place and, if you do, their existence is pointless. (And then there is the boring old chestnut of where did THEY come from and what is the probability of THEM spontaneously arising?) Is an ageless ever-existing deity REALLY more likely than an infinite number of universes? Not to me.

Hopefully, Creationists and IDers will read the Rabbi's article and leave evolution alone. (They won't - Young Earth Creationists need evolution to be wrong too.) Until they do, he cannot expect Dawkins and others to stop writing books about why evolution is a fact, irrespective of life's origins.

Location:Southampton, UK

Atheism: not faith, not religion

Two common misconceptions I encounter about rational atheism are this:

1. It requires just as much faith to be an atheist as to believe in a god.

2. Atheism is a religion.

Here's why this is not true, at least for me.

Atheism does not require faith. I suspect that some atheism requires faith - not all atheists are atheist for rational reasons. The argument cannot be levelled at atheists such as myself, however, who believe there is no god based on rationality and experience. A bold claim? No. But to see why, we first have to understand where this idea comes from.

The theist believes that their deity created this and that because their religion/priest/deity/scripture told them so. It therefore follows that the atheist believes that no god made this and that because their atheism tells them so. Atheists "have faith" that there is no god and therefore that there is a godless explanation for everything. They ask atheists whether we believe certain things that cannot be proven - such as the spontaneous origin of life without divine intervention - and then cry "Haha! Faith!" when we acknowledge that we do.

This is wrong. It is wrong because they are making the ancient and oft-repeated mistake of confusing correlation with causation. I do not believe that life spontaneously arose without divine intervention because I am an atheist. I belief that life spontaneously arose without divine intervention and I am an atheist for the same reason. Nothing that I have experienced in my life (including my 18+ years as an evangelical fundamentalist Christian) has required a deity to explain it. More than that, nothing I have experienced could be better explained with a deity than without. The rest is simply extrapolation.

I do not need faith to believe that gravity will not switch off during the night and that I am safe not tying myself into my bed; I simply extrapolate from a lifetime of experience. For the same reason, I do not need faith to be an atheist or believe that there is a god-free explanation for life; I simply extrapolate from past experience. Every satisfactory explanation for anything I have ever encountered has come from science, not religion. Only science, in my experience, honestly and openly adapts its position in the light of new data, and rejects assumptions found wanting. Only science produces predictable, testable and demonstrable outputs, including all the modern technology that makes my life convenient and all the modern medicine that makes my life longer. I don't need faith to believe in these things. For me, atheism is simply an extension of that. No faith needed. (Does this mean that additional evidence or experience could lead me to reject atheism? You betcha. Although it would have to be quite spectacular at this stage!)

There is no "Atheist Religion". This is a simpler one. Atheism is not a religion because it has no dogmas, churches, priests or creeds. There is no atheist scripture or Chief Atheist telling us what to believe. There is one unifying idea - the lack of the existence of god - and that's it. It annoys me when forms have "atheism" and "no religion" as two options under religion. Atheism is not a religion, it is a (lack of) belief! You can have atheist buddhists and theists without religion. Humanism is probably the closest to an atheist religion, fulfilling many of the same roles as religion, but even this is not right because you do not have to be atheist to be a humanist nor humanist to be an atheist.

So, criticise my atheism all you like. Take issue with my materialism and unwillingness to accept certain "alternative forms of evidence". But please, don't accuse me of having faith or religion; I have neither.

Location:Southampton, UK