I’m continually amazed by the lengths people will go to in trying to create a rational structure for irrational beliefs. As an engineer, I’m embarrassed when I find other engineers doing it. I guess that I should remember that engineers are just people, too, but it’s tough sometimes.
The situation that brought this to mind involves an internet marketer and top notch Ad Words guru that I’ve followed for years. Recently he decided to start a blog on his opinions about religion and marketing, and invited any of his followers who were interested to join in the discussion.
Well, since I’m very interested in both business and spirituality, I looked his new blog over. To my great surprise, he turned out to be a Bible literalist, fundamentalist Christian. I also found that he was drawing on information from a variety of junk “science” sources to validate his belief in the Bible’s historical accuracy.
That’s very much what an engineer would do – can’t just say he believes it, he’s got to have some support to make it seem rational to his engineering mind. Of course, since there’s little or no real science or scholarship to support him, he’s got to be creative.
I was interested in this not only because I was a fellow engineer, but because I had just finished teaching a class on the first 400 years of Christianity, focusing specifically on the widely divergent theologies that various groups taught as well as the multiple forged documents written in the names of various apostles.
A selection of these forgeries ended up included in the New Testament. In fact, only 9 out of 27 NT books were actually written by the person whose name is on them – 7 letters of Paul (out of 13 attributed to him) and the books of Luke and Acts. But since we know Luke wasn’t an original follower of Jesus, and neither was Paul, we know that the NT books were not written by anyone who knew Jesus personally.
What is the basis for my claims about this? Over 300 years of careful scholarship by many, many qualified academic researchers, carefully archiving and cataloging all the known early writings related to Christianity. That includes all the writings of early Christian authorities, all the surviving writings of their opponents, and the writings of Greek and Jewish historians from the early period.
From that we have a consensus among the scholars as to the approximate times different documents were written, why they were written, and who did or did not write them. You can pretty much ask any academic in this field about these things and get the same answers. Unless, of course, the academic is from a fundamentalist school where the inerrant Bible is worshiped and scholarship is marginalized.
So how does this apply to my internet marketer and his blog? Well, I entered into the discussion on the comment stream, and pointed out some of the dating and authorship issues mentioned above. Mark’s gospel not written by Mark and not until about 70 CE, Matthew 10 years later, not written by Matthew, etc.
He replied to my comment by saying that the dates I had for the NT documents had been shown to be wrong, and they were actually written much earlier, and by the apostles whose names were on them. His authority for this statement? A book written by Anne Rice!
Yes, Anne Rice of the famous vampire books, the fundamentalist Catholic author of a fictionalized account of Jesus childhood. Somehow Anne Rice is smarter than 300 years of academic scholarship.
To me that’s a flagship example of the lengths people will go to rationalize their beliefs. I know if he picked his mentors and authorities for his business that way he wouldn’t be a guru, he’d be broke. Now I don’t want to pick on him, because it can happen to us, too. The challenge for all of us is to see ourselves clearly so that we don’t fall into this trap.
I call this the “Fox Mulder” syndrome. If you’re an X Files fan you remember the poster Mulder had in his office. “I Want To Believe!” We all do. That’s why regular reality checks are so important.
{ 11 comments… read them below or add one }
I too am familiar and fascinated with this apparent need to firmly ground irrational ideas with rational sources. It is not uncommon for the fundamentalist or biblical-literalist that I have encountered to firmly ground his/her worldview into a few sources of questionable scholarship (if you can even define them as such) and proclaim them as evidence supporting their beliefs. The irony comes in that as of recently, there has been this push and appeal to ground fundamentalist ideology inside a reasonable construct, making some of the outrageous claims made in biblical passages seem like they should be common sense. These same individuals dismiss or outright reject conclusions and concrete evidence because it contradicts their particular worldview, and the marginalizing of empirical scholarship takes hold. It becomes something less then that which cannot be proven or verified, having the individuals appear as though they were at a “cafeteria of scientific evidence,” picking this idea to accept as true, and rejecting another idea because of their scientific and religious sense of “taste.” In some cases, they don’t realize how interconnected scientific thinking is and that as a consequence of rejecting one idea, a rejection of other ideas that they may believe to be true must follow. It is really interesting to see the lengths to which people will go to have their personal worldview validated, even if the reasoning doesn’t make any sense.
It’s hard to give up old beliefs in anything, Joe, but when the beliefs are closely tied to our sense of personal identity or worth it’s even harder. Evangelical Christians are one group whose whole sense of self is wrapped up in those ideas.
It’s surprising, but you can find scientists that are equally invested in their world view, especially the so-called skeptic community that denies any reality except blind materialistic purposeless evolution, and insists that all of mind just emerges somehow from the soggy lump of brain that we carry around. This in spite of the fact that there is overwhelming scientific evidence that mind has non-local properties.
We’re all subject to that error, I guess.
I agree with Wes about scientists being subject to the same problem. Unfortunately they have attracted hordes of followers who now have a strong *confirmation bias* which rules out any possibility of rational discussion.
I read Richard Dawkins’ uninspiring book “The God Delusion” and I found it to be a perfect example of what you call creating a rational structure for irrational beliefs. Of course he is entitled to his opinion but it’s obvious that he hand-picked hundreds of references as if to add credibility to guesswork. One of his other books “The Selfish Gene” describes opportunism. I’m inclined to believe he was looking in the mirror at the time of writing.
The vast majority of people are somewhere between the fundamentalist religious and the fundamentalist atheists like Dawkins. Surveys have shown that well over 50% of Americans, for example, classify themselves as spiritual, but not religious. Many of these folks are happy to have a discussion, but not a cat fight, over these issues. Unfortunately for Dawkins he’s staked out a position as spokesman for the atheists and can’t have a rational discussion without appearing to compromise. Even if he wanted to, which doesn’t seem likely.
As more scientific evidence for consciousness as the fundamental property of the Universe emerges, the folks like Dawkins will become less relevant to scientists. Thanks for your comments!
Funny comment about the yahoo citing Anne Rice as his source. That is exactly the same sort of dodge I see frequently in trying to discuss controversial topics with otherwise smart people, Well done, Wes.
In the February issue of the Economist the Intelligent Life section, which you can see at moreintelligentlife.com, has an article entitled Neurons vs Free Will, in which neuroscientists postulate that we are programmed and have no free will. If this were true imagine the impact on psychologists and psychiatrists. Counseling would have no value as only mechanics such as surgery and chemistry could alter behavior. The article goes on to suggest that the test data is flawed. Once again these scientists seem to be skewing their testing to support their own bias.
There are constant attacks of this sort on the concept of free will that seem to be more ideologically based than anything else. That doesn’t mean that we don’t often react without thinking. In fact, most of our responses are automatic – it saves a lot of time when we don’t have to figure things out from scratch on every occasion.
But to claim that we don’t have the capability to change our choices, to act consciously rather than automatically, is quite a stretch.
That’s not to say that it’s easy, because habits are hard to break. But we can envision it, and we can do it, with enough effort. We are not pre-programmed automatons.
Neuroplasticity is getting some coverage lately. The brain evidently has the capacity to rewire itself based on making persistent choices. Once this rewiring has occurred, the new neuro-pathways make it increasing easer to make the desired choices. So the idea we are hardwired is not scientifically up-to-date with this new science.
Thanks for the comment, Brian. I completely agree. We have very strong habitual pathways in our thinking and behavior, but we are not robots. In physicist Amit Goswami’s book, “The Self Aware Universe” he spend 200 pages talking about the quantum characteristics of the neuron connections and how they allow creativity. That’s a problem that the hardwired believers haven’t solved yet, either.
If you want a good critique of the new testament books read “The Cross And The Crescent” by Jerald F. Dirks. He was a Mennonite by birth, went on to get a Harvard degree in Divinity and has a PhD in Psychology. He has become an apologist for Islam. His book is really interesting, rips into Christian fundamentalists (literalists), and does a fair job of explaining Islam. An excellent reference book.
To introduce myself, I am also an engineer studied in the field of electronics. I work for an engineering firm where there are agnostics and believers alike. However I need to qualify what I mean by believers some are literalists or simply follow a tradition out of respect for their family. As for myself I am a Mormon and personally do not hold the ideas of fundamentalists Christians. There are many reasons for this. I believe the fundamental reason for this is because of their doctrine of God and His nature. Fundamentalists Christians who are Christians can live in two world, understanding science and straddling the other fence believing in a God with almost blind faith. Their God is outside this material world is is unknowable. There is an unbreachable chasm between us and him. This affords their God magical powers outside the scientific(material) world. This allows Christian engineers/scientists to have it both ways. They can validate this by their own spiritual experiences. They don’t need to have empirical knowledge, answers to all the questions scientists can through at them.
So don’t Mormons do the same thing? Well I’m pretty sure we don’t in general. Maybe there are a fair percentage that do. But as and engineer who has some knowledge of science I believe Mormons do not subscribe to the notion of God that fundamentalist do. The answer to this is simple. It is rooted in our belief system that God is a material being that is immortal(time means nothing to him). Not only that God did not make up the rules for the material world he works within them. To me this is entirely plausible. Given the immensity of space and the number of exo planets scientists are finding it is becoming clear that there must be intelligent life in the galaxy. And if so there must also be more intelligent life than us. And if there is other intelligent life out there why not a being so advanced he be considered a God to us. And if that being planted us here and we have the same DNA as him why not consider him our Father. So you can probably see where I’m going. Mormons who are scientists can have their cake and eat it too. In short I don’t see Mormonism as being painted with the same brush as fundamentalists Christians.