In praise of contradiction

Scientists usually don't like contradictions. A contradiction in experimental results is like a canary in a coal mine. It sets off alarm bells and compels the experimentalist to double-check his or her setup. A contradiction in theoretical results can be equally bad if not worse. It could mean you made a simple arithmetical mistake. Contradiction could force you to go back to the drawing board and start afresh. Science is not the only human activity where contradictions are feared and disparaged. A politician or businessman who contradicts himself is not considered trustworthy. A consumer product which garners contradictory reviews raises suspicions about its true value. Contradictory trends in the stock market can put investors in a real bind.

Yet contradiction and paradoxes have a hallowed place in intellectual history. First of all, contradiction is highly instructive simply because it forces us to think further and deeper. It reveals a discrepancy in our understanding of the world which needs to be resolved and encourages scientists to perform additional experiments and decisive calculations to settle the matter. It is only when scientists observe contradictory results that the real fun of discovery begins. It’s the interesting paradoxes and the divergent conclusions that often point to a tantalizing reality which is begging to be teased apart by further investigation.

Let's consider that purest realm of human thought, mathematics. In mathematics, the concept of proof by contradiction or reductio ad absurdum has been highly treasured for millennia. It has provided some of the most important and beautiful proofs in the field, like the irrationality of the square root of two. In his marvelous book "A Mathematician's Apology", the great mathematician G H Hardy paid the ultimate tribute to this potent weapon:

"Reductio ad absurdum, which Euclid loved so much, is one of a mathematician's finest weapons. It is a far finer gambit than any chess gambit: a chess player may offer the sacrifice of a pawn or even a piece, but a mathematician offers the game."

However, the great ability of contradiction goes far beyond opening a window into abstract realms of thought. Twentieth-century physics demonstrated that contradiction and paradoxes constitute the centerpiece of reality itself. At the turn of the century, it was a discrepancy in results from blackbody radiation that sparked one of the greatest revolutions in intellectual history in the form of the quantum theory. Paradoxes such as the twin paradox are at the heart of the theory of relativity. But it was in the hands of Niels Bohr that contradiction was transformed into a subtler and lasting facet of reality which Bohr named 'complementarity'. Complementarity entailed the presence of seemingly opposite concepts whose co-existence was nonetheless critical for an understanding of reality. It was immortalized in one of the most enduring and bizarre paradoxes of all, wave-particle duality. Wave-particle duality taught us that contradiction is not only an important aspect of reality but an indispensable one. Photons of light and electrons behave as both waves and particles. The two qualities seem to be maddeningly at odds with each other. Yet both are absolutely essential to grasp the essence of physical reality. Bohr codified this deep understanding of nature with a characteristically pithy statement- "The opposite of a big truth is also a big truth". Erwin Schrödinger followed up on his own disdain for complementarity by highlighting an even more bizarre quantum phenomenon- entanglement- wherein particles that are completely separated from each other are nonetheless intimately connected; by doing this Schrödinger brought us the enduring image of a cat helplessly trapped in limbo between a state of life and death.

The creative tension created by seemingly contradictory phenomena and results has been fruitful in other disciplines. Darwin was troubled by the instances of altruism he observed in the wild; these seemed to be contradicting the ‘struggle for existence’ which he was describing. It took the twentieth century and theories of kin selection and reciprocal altruism to fit these seemingly paradoxical observations into the framework of modern evolutionary theory. The history of organic chemistry is studded by efforts to determine the molecular structures of complex natural products like penicillin and chlorophyll. In many of these cases, contradictory proposed structures like those for penicillin spurred intense efforts to discover the true structure. Clearly, contradiction is not only a vital feature of science but it is also a constant and valuable companion of the process of scientific discovery.

These glittering instances of essential contradiction in science would seem perfectly at home with the human experience. While contradiction in science can be disturbing and ultimately rewarding, many religions and philosophies have come to savor this feature of the world for a long time. The Chinese philosophy of Yin and Yang recognizes the role of opposing and contrary forces in sustaining human life. In India, the festival celebrating the beginning of the Hindu new year includes a ritual where every member of the family consumes a little piece of sweet jaggery (solidified sugarcane juice) wrapped in a bitter leaf of the Neem tree (which contains the insecticide azadirachtin). The sweet and bitter are supposed to exemplify the essential combination of happy and sad moments that are necessary for a complete life. Similar paradoxes are recognized in Western theology, for instance pertaining to the doctrines of the Trinity and the Incarnation.

The ultimate validation of contradiction however is not through its role in life or in scientific truth but through its role as an insoluble part of our very psyche. We all feel disturbed by contradiction, yet how many of us think we hold perfectly consistent and mutually exclusive beliefs in our own mind about all aspects of our life? You may love your son, yet his egregious behavior may lead you to sometimes (hopefully not often) wish he had not been born. We often speak of 'love-hate' relationships which exemplify opposing feelings toward a loved one. If we minutely observe our behavior at every moment, such observation would undoubtedly reveal numerous instances of contradictory thoughts and behavior. This discrepancy is not only an indelible part of our consciousness but we all realize that it actually enriches our life, makes it more complex, more unpredictable. It is what makes us human.

Why would contradictory thinking be an important part of our psyche? I am no neuroscientist, but I believe that our puzzlement about contradiction would be mitigated if we realize that we human beings perceive reality by building models of the world. It has always been debatable whether the reality we perceive is what is truly 'out there' (and this question may never be answered); what is now certain is that neural events in our brains enable us to build sensory models of the world. Some of the elements in the model are more fundamental and fixed while others are flexible and constantly updated. The world that we perceive is what is revealed to us through this kind of interactive modeling. These models are undoubtedly some of the most complex ever generated, and anyone who has built models of complex phenomena would recognize how difficult it is to achieve a perfectly logically consistent model. Model building also typically involves errors, of which some may accumulate and others may cancel. In addition models can always be flawed because they don't include all the relevant elements of reality. All these limitations lead to models in which a few facts can appear contradictory, but trying to make these facts consistent with each other could possibly lead to even worse and unacceptable problems with the other parts of the model. Simply put, we compromise and end up living with a model with a few contradictions in favor of a model with too many. Further research in neuroscience will undoubtedly shed light on the details of model building done by the brain, but what seems unsurprising is that these models contain some contradictory worldviews which nonetheless preserve their overall utility.

Yet there are those who would seek to condemn such contradictory thinking as an anomaly. In my opinion, one of the most prominent examples of such a viewpoint in the last few years has been the criticism of religious-minded scientists by several so-called 'New Atheists' like Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris. The New Atheists have made it their mission to banish what they see as artificial barriers created between science and religion for the sake of political correctness, practical expediency and plain fear of offending the other party. There is actually much truth to this viewpoint, but the New Atheists seem to take it beyond its strictly utilitarian value.

A case in point is Francis Collins, the current director of the NIH. Collins is famous as a first-rate scientist who is also an ardent Catholic. The problem with Collins is not that he is deeply religious but that he tends to blur the line between science and religion. A particularly disturbing instance is a now widely discussed set of slides from a presentation where he tries to somehow scientifically justify the existence and value of the Christian God. Collins's conversion to a deeply religious man when he apparently saw the Trinity juxtaposed on his view of a beautiful frozen waterfall during a hike is also strange, and at the very least displays a poor chain of causation and inadequate critical thinking.

But all this does not make Collins any less of an able administrator. He does not need to mix science with religion to justify his abilities as a science manager. To my knowledge there is not a single instance of his religious beliefs dictating his preference for NIH funding or policy. In practice if not in principle, Collins manages to admirably separate science from storytelling. But the New Atheists are still not satisfied. They rope in Collins among a number of prominent scientists who they think are 'schizophrenic' in conducting scientific experiments during the week and then suspending critical thinking on Sundays when they pray in church. They express incredulity that someone as intelligent as Francis Collins can so neatly compartmentalize his rational and 'irrational' brain and somehow sustain two completely opposite - contradictory - modes of thought.

For a long time I actually agreed with this viewpoint. Yet as we have seen before, such seemingly contradictory thinking seems to be a mainstay of the human psyche and human experience. There are hundreds of scientists like Collins who largely manage to separate their scientific and religious beliefs. Thinking about it a bit more, I realized that the New Atheists' insistence on banishing perfectly mutually exclusive streams of thinking seems to go against a hallowed principle that they themselves have emphasized to no end- a recognition of reality as it is. If the New Atheists and indeed all of us hold reality to be sacrosanct, then we need to realize that contradictory thinking and behavior are essential elements of this reality. As the history of science demonstrates, appreciating contradiction can even be essential in deciphering the workings of the physical world.

Now this certainly does not mean that we should actively encourage contradiction in our thinking. We also recognize the role of tragedy in the human experience, but few of us would strive to deliberately make our lives tragic. Contradictory thinking should be recognized, highlighted and swiftly dealt with, whether in science or life. But its value in shaping our experience should also be duly appreciated. Paradox seems to be a building block in the fabric of the world, whether in the mind of Francis Collins or in the nature of the universe. We should in fact celebrate the remarkable fact that the human mind can subsume opposing thoughts within its function and still operate within the realm of reason. Simply denying this and proclaiming that it should not be so would mean denying the very thing we are striving for- a deeper and more honest understanding of reality.

And you wonder why atheists bristle when the religious call them 'intolerant'

A very reasonable religious woman writes in on a show to ask Pat Robertson how she could strike a middle ground between herself and her boyfriend who is an atheist. He has stuck by her for a long time and the two obviously are quite close. Do we need to guess how the Reverend Robertson responds? Remember that this guy is still worshipped by millions of people. And they say Richard Dawkins is 'intolerant' of religious people.

THIS JUST KEEPS ON GETTING BETTER!

I don't know how many heard of the ludicrous tale that is being woven around a Christmas nativity scene in the Washington State capitol. In short, someone put up a little exhibit illustrating the baby Jesus Christ (born from a virgin mother of course)as part of the Christmas celebrations in the state capitol. After a couple of days, atheists put up an atheist sign which basically said that religion is senseless and that there is no God and there are natural causes for everything etc. etc. The sign was then duly stolen by someone and later reinstalled.

I personally think that there was no need for atheists to do this; there are much better ways in which they can make their point. At the same time the Catholic League went off on its own deluded trajectory. But anyway...as was expected after this, an entire troupe of ranting loons, pious evangelicals and people with their own agendas have essentially lined up with their own signs. The implication is clear; if you respect Christianity and atheism and give them a platform, why not respect every other worldview out there? Foremost among the loons were members of the viciously anti-American, anti-gay, anti-Catholic, anti-Muslim, anti-virtually everything Westboro Baptist Church who brought a sign saying "Santa Claus will take you to Hell". Let them put it up I say!

But the creme de la creme was a Festivus pole that someone brought to the capitol and demanded that they be allowed to put it up. That's right. Festivus. The fictional annual holiday invented in a famous Seinfeld episode. My jaw muscles are really hurting from all the laughing.

This is what happens when you mix church and state. Everybody wants to be heard then. I personally am still on the side of the FSM. The capitol should be draped in his noodly appendages.

THE REAL PROBLEM WITH DINESH D'SOUZA IS..

...nobody knows. Nobody knows if D'Souza's real problem is self-delusion, political pandering or plain ignorance. It's probably a complex combination of all three, demonstrated colorfully as in his latest piece, "The real problem with Darwinism". Note that by saying "Darwinism" in the title D'Souza has already created the illusion that it is some dogmatic school of thought like postmodernism. D'Souza's contention is commonly trotted out by religious conservatives these days since it conveniently sets up a limp straw man which these brave defenders of truth then pummel to death.

The rest of D'Souza's piece proceeds along similar insipid lines. The opening statement sets the tone:

"The real problem with Darwinism in the public school classroom is that it is often taught in an atheist way. Textbooks by biologists like William Provine and Richard Dawkins routinely assert that evolution has done away with the need for God"

Ok, now there are two issues here. Firstly, no biology professor in his right mind would rant about atheism in a science class. However, the real important point is that a careful study of evolution must lead, and in fact beautifully leads to the conclusion that you don't need to believe in a supernatural creator of the world to understand the diversity of life. In so far as that conclusion is "atheist", teaching evolution without explicitly stating that conclusion nonetheless can lead any intelligent person to believe in atheism, at least as it applies to the creation and functioning of the world.

And as far as D'Souza's second statement is concerned, D'Souza must be confusing the good professor with someone else. At least I am not aware of any school biology textbook written by Dawkins. The least this exuberant intellectual can do is get his facts right, right?

Moving on, there is one thing on which I wholeheartedly agree with Dinesh, that Christian evangelicals have not made any dent in the teaching of evolution (although their efforts are admirable):

"Typically evangelical Christians seek to counter this atheism by trying to expose the flaws in the Darwinian account of evolution. This explains the appeal of "creation science" and the "intelligent design" (ID) movement. These critiques, however, have not made any headway in the scientific community and they have also failed whenever they have been tried in the courts. Fortunately there is a better way."

Just one thing, this ineffectiveness in getting religion across is not because of some dogmatism on the part of scientists but because of the sheer bullheadedness of the evangelicals' wayward arguments. But is there really a better way for evangelicals to forcibly impose their views upon secular education? I am all ears now...

Yes!, says our resourceful Dinesh:

"I'd like to see Christian legal groups suing school districts for promoting atheism in the biology classroom. No need to produce creationist or ID critiques of Darwinism. All that is necessary is to parade the atheist claims that have made their way into the biology textbooks and biology lectures. The issue isn't the scientific inadequacy of evolution but the way in which it is being used to undermine religious belief and promote unbelief. If the case can be made that atheism is being advocated in any way, then the textbooks would have to be rewritten and classroom presentations changed to remove the offending material. Schools would be on notice that they cannot use scientific facts to draw metaphysical conclusions in favor of atheism.

Note how D'Souza flippantly mentions the "scientific inadequacy" of evolution as if it were a given. This is about the time when sensible people give up reading but let me make a feeble effort to react before I walk away with disgust. First, prove your goddamn assertion! Don't just say that biology professors "teach atheism". I have a proposition; sit in biology classes around the country for a year, maybe you can even send undercover students to do your dirty job, and note how many professors "preach atheism". However, this is really another straw man, a favourite staple of D'Souza. As I mentioned before, a careful teaching of evolution and examination of the evidence compellingly leads to the conclusion that the world has no need for a supernatural designer to prove its existence. So now D'Souza wants to sue us even if it's the evidence and not our beliefs or opinions that lead to atheism.

And

"Schools would be on notice that they cannot use scientific facts to draw metaphysical conclusions in favor of atheism"??

No, schools don't use scientific facts to draw metaphysical conclusions in favor of atheism. All they do is draw logical conclusions based on the very much physical world. If these conclusions inevitably point to a world without design, it's not our problem that they bother your timid, paranoid minds. Grow up.

Past posts on D'Souza's dazzling erudition: 1, 2, 3

IRONY DRIPS TILL IT DROWNS THE WORLD.

This is what a "Reverend" said after Borders playfully handed out books about atheism with the tag "O come here all ye faithless".

"Christians have always been used to being punch bags but I would have hoped that, in a society in which we are seeking to show respect to all people and beliefs, we might have grown out of this kind of nonsense."

So you force people to accept something written in your little book, you prohibit them from marrying the person they love because their act defies your unsubstantiated scripture, you lobby your government and courts to change laws that would restrict other people's freedom, and you talk about respecting people and beliefs?

This is probably what is most appalling of all to me about so many Christians and religious people in general. They display in the most blatantly obnoxious manner a quality which their own saviour spoke against- hypocrisy. Enough to drown the world.

RAVI ZACHARIAS IS POSITIVELY APPALLING

Just when you think you have heard from all the evangelical, anti-atheist lobby, there suddenly comes to your attention a new candidate who has been groomed to speak against atheism. However, you would think that he at least does it with some more reasoning and some less rhetoric than Ravi Zacharias.

I had never heard of Zacharias till an acquaintance alerted me to his upcoming talk at IISc. (Bangalore) in December. Zacharias is an Indian Hindu who converted, and has given talks at "many prestigious institutions including Oxford, Cambridge, Harvard and the UN General Assembly", as if his appearances at these places by themselves make him infallible and worth listening to. Zacharias has written books against atheism, and the reviews of his books suggest the kind of obvious fallacies and cherry-picking he indulges in. But it would not be fair to judge someone based on second-hand knowledge, so I saw some of his videos on YouTube and they appalled me to be frank. There are many there, but here's one that's particularly galling.



Zacharias appalled me not just because of his aggressive, soulful rendition against atheism, but because of his remarkable ignorance about atheism and his nauseating and judicious cherry-picking of examples that apparently serve to "disprove" atheism in his opinion. Zacharias also has that kind of persona that religious leaders have, so unfortunately his ineffectual and straw-man arguments seem to enrapture an already compassionate audience. Here is another set of videos of a talk he gave at Penn State and the ensuing questions. Seriously, it's the fawning audience of thousands which buys into his rhetoric that's scarier than Zacharias himself, whose image is projected on a huge screen behind.

There are several fallacies that Zacharias repeatedly commits, but there are some that are so spectacularly misguided that they are worth representing. First, he talks about some talk that he gave where there was a student with two of his atheist friends. After the talk, the students asked his atheist friends why they did not ask the questions they had prepared for Zacharias. The atheists supposedly answered that Zacharias's points were so persuasive that they simply couldn't counter them. So what does this prove? That atheism is wrong? Or that those two students simply lacked the logic and knowledge to counter Zacharias's ingeniously specious arguments? (As many arguments about faith are). Zacharias's enunciation of half-truths is despicable. Zacharias seems to take their inability to counter his points and their still reiterating their lack of belief in God as proof that even atheism is based on faith, a common strategy used by religious people these days when they know they cannot beat atheism on its own territory.

In another case at the Penn State talk, Zacharias talks about a speech he gave to atheists in Russia. At the end of the talk, a man asked him, "Just what are you asserting"? Zacharias retorted, "Just what are you denying?". His point is that atheists don't even know what they are denying, so their "beliefs" about the lack of God are as much based on "faith" as anyone else's. Actually, the answer to Zacharias's question is simple. Atheists are denying any existence of a supernatural deity who performs supernatural acts. But there is a reason for the question. The question "Just what exactly are you asserting?" actually means to ask, "There are so many Gods and so many religious explanations for so many things in the world. There is no consistent religious worldview shared by everyone in the world. So just exactly what is it that you are asserting when you say 'God' when the word has so many diverse and in some cases, contradictory, meanings?". Again, Zacharias cleverly skirts the question and impresses the audience with what he thinks is a diabolically clever counterquestion, which ironically should trump faith, not atheism.

Zacharias is trying to make a very common kind of allegation against atheism as noted above. And I think we will see this allegation increasingly, given the fact that atheists are being more outspoken. What would be the best way for people of faith to debunk atheism? It's pretty clear that if religious people can brand atheism as being akin to religion, as being based on faith and belief as much as religion is, then it would serve as a first nail in atheism's coffin in their opinion. Zacharias's emphasis continually seems to be on proving that in the end, atheism is as much about belief and faith as anything else. He seems to ignore the simple but important fact that most atheists would be willing to accept the existence of God if provided with due evidence. We cannot reiterate this enough number of times; atheism is a lack of faith, it's not "faith in a lack of faith" as Zacharias and others would have everyone believe. And you know what, I am pretty sure Zacharias knows this. What gets my goat about these people is that they seem to be smart people who would know such things, but still insist otherwise for asserting their faith. As Richard Feynman says, it's dishonest people, not honest fools, that really aggravate us.

Zacharias also keeps on gratuitously neglecting the simple concept of burden of proof. I mean, really, how hard is it to understand that the burden of proof is on the person making the positive assertion? Zacharias keeps on trotting out ad nauseum the assertion that "science has not disproved the existence of God'. Apparently, Zacharias has already freed himself from the burden of proving the existence of God.

And lastly, Zacharias just like others cannot seem to help flog the many-times-dead horse; that atheism and immorality are in some way related. Right from arguments that evolution and the lack of purpose somehow mean that there is no possible reference frame of morality for atheists, to regurgitating the tired old nonsense about Stalin and Pol Pot being atheists, people of faith just cannot stop spouting this nonexistent connection between atheism and immorality. Zacharias as others have done, conveniently neglects the moral travesties in the Bible and other holy books, and also conveiniently neglects the countless moral things that atheists have done. Frankly for me, this connection between atheisms and immorality or religion and immorality is a connection that's after a certain extent neither here nor there, but atheists have to argue about that connection only because of religious people's allegations that immorality and atheism are connected.

In the end, Zacharias uses techniques that any charismatic religious leader worth his or her salt does; use rhetoric and elegant language to sway people, erect as many fallacies and straw men as possible to confuse the audience, cherry-pick away to glory, constantly generalise on the basis of individual incidences, make non-existent connections, and after assuming false premises, use the most impeccable internal logic to draw reasonable-sounding conclusions. It's deplorable. Zacharias needs to be severely reprimanded. And it would be nice if bloggers could expose his hollow arguments and strident rhetoric. In the end, Zacharias is nothing more than a polemical preacher.

A ROMP THROUGH SOME "ATHEIST LITERATURE"

As I have mentioned before, I highly disapprove of the phrase "atheist literature", because it makes it sound like just another politically fashinable school of thought that advocates its own beliefs which have nothing necessarily to do with reality. In any case, I thought I would summarise some of the books from this "genre" that I have read in the past one year. I would heartily recommend every one of them, for different aspects.

The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason- Sam Harris If you want to read only one book related to faith and atheism, read this one. There is no other book that I have read which so clearly and eloquently illustrates the fundamental nature and problems with faith as an instrument for enforcing ignorance, bigotry and clan mentality. Religious faith is the most pernicious kind, but Harris nails the bizarre nature of all kinds of dogmatic faith, that makes religious people believe in things they otherwise would never believe without evidence. Religious faith causes a strange and instant mental severing from reality that has been approved in society. Harris also talks about why "religious tolerance" is a utopian myth and how religion by its very nature cannot really be "tolerant" in the true sense of the word; on the other hand, Harris also makes it clear that some religions are more rigid than others and needless to say he focuses on Islam as one of the most rigid ones. In future chapters, Harris also distinguishes between religion and spirituality, the latter being open-minded while the former is essentially close-minded faith without evidence and further questioning. Harris is trained in neuroscience and explores psychological aspects of faith not found in other volumes. This is a fantastic book, one which is astonishingly insightful and revealing about the basic nature of faith.

The God Delusion- Richard Dawkins Ah, the book which everyone has been talking about. Nobody can say it as well as the British, and even among the British Richard Dawkins is a unique pugilist. All his arguments about religion are highly entertaining and spot on. Especially his point about how religious indoctrination of children is tantamount to child abuse is profoundly worth pondering. He also explores possible evolutionary bases for religion and faith. While I agreed with essentially everything he said, his style may put off some people who are on the fence. But for "closet atheists", it would be a great initiation.

God: The Failed Hypothesis- Victor Stenger This is clearly a book written by a scientist. Stenger who is a Professor of Physics at the University of Hawaii treats God as a scientific hypothesis. He then thoughtfully and carefully sifts throught the evidence and without rhetoric, comes up with the conclusion that even giving people who believe in God the benefit of doubt does not prove their basic belief in a supernatural deity. This is an important point; God enters the turf of scientists and scientific investigations only when religious people invoke him to interfere in people's daily lives, cause miracles and heal the sick and wreak destruction by way of natural disasters on people who harbour homosexuals, atheists and liberals. Stenger's book is a gentle but no-nonsense scientific exposition on God, and was written because religious people seem to invite such books by believing in an interventionist God.

God is Not Great- Christopher Hitchens Clearly the most delightful book of the lot! His words and scalding criticism are nothing less than delicious. As a reviewer once said, Hitchens is a national treasure and no atheist including Dawkins entertains us so much when debating with a bunch of daft conservatives or religious people. Hitchens does not give a whit about feelings, and his courteous insults are nothing less than hysterically laughter-provoking. Hitchens is oblivious to the expected insults hurled back at him and is always ready with a terrific rejoinder. Nobody I have seen has stood up to his gentlemen's slander, and few have the linguistic capability to do so. Hitchens also explores the social and political aspects of religious faith better than any other author. For him, Jerry Falwell was a "little toad" who would "pinch his chubby flanks everyday and chuckle at how he fooled people yet again". Simply priceless. Thank God for Christopher Hitchens.

Letter to a Christian Nation- Sam Harris Another gem from Sam Harris. In this slim volume, Harris explores the problems with the Christian religious right, and through sound and rational reasoning convinces us that all these pious individuals who for instance argue against abortion and stem-cell research, want to have nothing to do with actually alleviating suffering and misery. With their rants against stem-cell research, they actually consign the life of the countless stricken with serious diseases like Parkinson's to an early grave and much misery, while with their mindless railings against abortion, they deliver a life of suffering to millions of slighted women and their unwanted children. If there's any evidence of religion causing immense harm, it's right here in these two instances involving the Christian right. An eloquent and riveting little book.

Finding Darwin's God- Kenneth Miller This is not per se a book about atheism; in fact it is by a Christian who goes to church every Sunday. But Ken Miller is an unusual Christian who has testified against other Christians' beliefs in landmark court cases, including the famous Dover case of 2005. He is a biologist and one of the foremost opponents of intelligent design (ID) and I cite his book because it is the clearest and most devastating rebuttal of ID and defence of evolution that I have come across. The second part of the book involves Miller trying to convince us that faith and science are compatible and while he makes a few good points, he lost me there. But the book is worth reading for the first part alone, where Miller single-handedly demolishes all the pseudosceintific advocates of ID like William Dembski and- always great to hear from him- Michael Behe.

D'SOUZA'S ATHEIST ILLUSION

Dinesh D'Souza is an Indian-born conservative in the US who has written best-selling books. Last night, he appeared on Fox news for an interview about his new book "What's so great about Christianity". This book promises to be entertaining as it purportedly provides "scientific" explanations for Christian theology and faith.

However, as D'Souza himself claims, the book is also supposed to be a rejoinder against what he sees as bestselling "atheist literature" by the likes of Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennet, Sam Harris and most recently Christopher Hitchens.

I have not read D'Souza's book and don't think I want to read it (although I would love to read some critical reviews of it). But there is one criticism he heaped on atheists about which he is quite wrong. He quotes atheists' frequent assertions that while the worst murderers of history including Pol Pot, Hitler, Stalin and Mao were atheists, they did not kill in the name of atheism, while religious bigots such as those participating in the crusades or more infamously the Inquisition killed in the name of religion. D'Souza seeks to demolish this viewpoint and calls it "ludicrous", particularly referring to Dawkins's book. He said that of course, it was the godlessness of the Communists that led them to these unspeakable crimes.

But D'Souza is clearly distorting the picture here. Consider the fact that most of the tens of millions of people killed by Stalin were simply not targeted because of their religious faith. What about the greater than one million people who Stalin's secret police (NKVD) targeted under the supervision of the human monster Lavrenti Beria? These included intellectuals such as scientists and teachers who were not religious. What about those millions whose farms were taken away and then collectivised, leaving them to starve to death? Most of these arrests and brutalities had nothing to do with religion, but were fuelled by deluded communist ideas of people working for the state. The same principle applies to the gigantic famine orchestrated by Mao.

On the other hand, while the Spanish Inquisition did not kill as many people as Hitler or Stalin (a point which D'Souza emphatically and constantly makes), there is no doubt that every single one of the Inquisition's victims was killed directly because of his differring faith, or who at least was labeled as such. The Inquisitors clearly classified their victims as Catholics and non-Catholics, just as fundamentalist Muslims classify all non-Muslims as infidels. They targeted these victims expressly because of their non-Catholicism. But Hitler and Mao, while they may have targeted some people because of their religion, did not target everybody only because of their "lack of atheism". There were myriad other factors responsible for their excesses.

Finally, and I am always amused by this, the cults of personality that these bigots established around themselves were no different from those around religious leaders, and social anthropologists may not find it too difficult to classify the two in the same tradition of blind faith. This, the "religion-like" ideology of Hitler and Mao if anything makes the case against religion even more pervasive.

D'Souza is not only on frail territory, but on non-existent one here.

THE ATHEIST'S RELIGION IS...

It is interesting how even now, when someone says he or she is an atheist, even friends who are not atheists say that they "respect his opinion" and that he is "entitled to his opinion". I keep getting miffed that atheism is regarded as just another position on matters. But of course this is strange. Do sensible people recognise people who don't believe that Lee Harvey Oswald killed JFK alone as having their own position on the matter. Do people recognise people who believe that the Holocaust never happened as being entitled to their own well-defined opinion? And why don't they do this? Because of a little something called lack of good evidence. I remember how Dr. Shreeram Lagoo, the well-known actor was always touted as an atheist, but more as making some kind of fashion statement, as if he was a quaint old atheist among a society of Hindus, Muslims, Christians and what not. Of course, Hindus usually don't take atheism seriously, but even they simply bin atheists as having their own worldview, just as conservatives and liberals slot each other into people with differing world views.

To some extent, this binning is not surprising, since human beings like to label each other for the sake of convenience. But atheism is different because unlike any political or religious sect, it is not founded on any system of beliefs, but on a lack of belief. Naturally, there are always some beliefs that everyone has, but atheists' beliefs are not based on any other axiom about the world, except on the premise that one usually should not believe something for which there is no good evidence. As I mentioned in an earlier post, this system of 'beliefs' is no different than the system that we all without exception observe in order to believe elementary facts about the world, such that the train will be late by half an hour, or that your spouse is not cheating on you. In some ways, even the world "atheist" is puzzling, because as Noam Chomsky memorably said, "I don't call myself an atheist because I am not sure what it is exactly that I am not supposed to believe in".

I think that along with their writings against religion, atheists (there we go again) need to also constantly make this point clear, that they don't belong to any particular sect at all, and theirs is not another point of view. For the above mentioned reasons, being called an atheist or being told that I like to read "atheist literature" sometimes sounds almost insulting to me.

FOOLS...



Click here if the embedded video does not work.

This simple but compelling video documents in 5 mins, some of the most brilliant scientists, thinkers, actors, intellectuals, political activists, writers, and philanthropists of our time. They all share one common faith...or the lack thereof: they are all atheists, a group that has been so marginalized in the US, that Americans consider them to be the least "patriotic" of people. This is in spite of their enduring contributions of every kind to humanity and their country, and the fact that none of them has ever harmed a human being, foisted his dogmas upon others, or even been a self-centered bigot, all of which are features shared by many extreme religious people.

The video quotes the Bible which calls atheists 'fools' and then runs us through a gallery of fools...including Richard Dawkins, Marie Curie, Noam Chomsky, Thomas Edison, Christopher Reeve, Isaac Asimov, James Watson and Francis Crick, Mark Twain, Susan B. Anthony, Carl Sagan, Jodie Foster, Bill Gates, Warren Buffet and...well, watch. For once, it's extremely reassuring that 'fools' tread in where 'angels' fear to tread.

And it is positively frightening and despicable to see George H Bush say that he does not know if atheists should be regarded as true citizens or even patriots. The only conclusion I can reach is that he has been living in a vacuum, oblivious of the decidedly patriotic contributions that these fools have made to progress and development of every aspect of his country's past, present, and future. If George H Bush is unaware of the contributions that these fools made that turned his country into a superpower of knowledge, progress, and technology, then it is only fair to ask who exactly is unpatriotic and who is the fool.

WHAT'S WRONG WITH THESE PEOPLE?

Every evening when I watch CNN, usually the news is entertaining, if a little biased and unnecessarily flashy. Paula Zahn and Wolf Blitzer, among others provide a fast paced narrative of issues, whether you agree with them or not. But at least most of the times, it's reasonably sane, focusing on pertinent political, social and economic issues. Sometimes the issues are overanalyzed, and you wonder why they are spending so much time on them. But it's usually bearable.

Not so yesterday, when I was floored by two hours of the most mindless debates possible. Mindless not because of their content which was obviously important, but because of the constant quibbling and bickering about matters which really are not important in the context of the problems that were being discussed. I think it was a great example of how you can talk about important matters and yet spend so much time on inconsequential details...but I would be wrong if I say this; the disturbing point is that it's precisely these inconsequential details that people want to spend all their precious time on. A sad state of affairs indeed.

First, there was a long discussion on whether Barack Obama as a presidential candidate is "black enough". What??

Second, there was an entertaining if ridiculous debate between the president of American Atheists and a preacher whose affiliation I have forgot; again, ridiculous because both were flogging the same dead horse. I am of course on the side of the atheist, but what was fatuous was the incessant bickering that the two were engaged in at super-fast speed, given the (always) limited time they had to voice their opinions. However, I do sympathize with the atheist woman; she was just not given enough time to say anything. I also may have bickered in a "Your 30 seconds start now" scenario.
I have to say that the topic was serious and pertinent; are America's atheists being discriminated against? Of course they are, we don't need a debate for that! A two minute clip of an interview with Richard Dawkins made the point, but what new could he too add? After all, the same arguments against blind faith can only be repeated again and again. Then there was a story about two ordinary Americans who detailed how they have been marginalised by society because they are atheists. You think that only left-wingish intellectuals are atheists? Then take a look at this couple...in fact atheism can manifest itself as much in simple, forward thinking, middle class people, as it can in university professors, scientists, and intellectual liberals. I was utterly appalled when the couple said that their children could not find playmates because of their parents' "faith" (mind you; atheism is a lack of faith), people stopped being friendly with them, and they even suspect that their landlord gave them a notice because of their atheism. My advice to them? You are good folks and you are really living in the wrong place. One plea; get out! Go to England.

Third: an NBA basketball star reveals that he is gay, sparking national outrage. Yes, that's right, doesn't his being gay suddenly make all his basketball achievements void? Also, the CNN interviewer asked him an extremely unfair and wrong question; did you get attracted to your fellow basketball players in the locker room?...Consider what a completely unfair question this is. No matter what answer the poor guy gives to this question, he is going to be called either a disgusting homosexual, or a liar and hypocrite after that. But the man was quite a match for the interviewer, declaring that the question was narcissism exemplified.

Fourth (and thankfully the last one): A high school newspaper somewhere published a "satire" on rape, saying that "Rape only hurts if you resist it". Needless to say, the editor instantly achived the status of Martin Bormann at a bar mitzvah.

At the end of two hours, I really felt like I was watching some reality or comedy show. Unfortunately, the laughter cannot extinguish the deep anguish. Unfortunately, these issues are the ones which occupy the serious time of many Americans and their mainstream news sources. What is debated are passion-ridden opinions and side-issues, which are forcibly turned into main issues.

What matters more? Whether a person is an atheist or whether he or she is a good person? Whether an NBA player is gay, or whether he plays terrific basketball? Whether Barack Obama is "black enough", or whether he has admirable individual qualities that would make him into a fine President?

What's more important? The sane among us would say; personal righteousness, basketball, and presidential abilities. CNN and many Americans say; atheism, homosexual nature, and shades of black.

Hard to sometimes believe that this is the most "progressive", "modern", and "developed" nation in the world. That's why I stick to BBC.