A gem from Steve Novella

"Motivated reasoning is what most people do most of the time – start with a desired conclusion and then find reasons to support it (humans are very good at that). However, the whole point of philosophy is to rise above this tendency and follow strict rules of logic, while the point of science is similar but also to follow the evidence."


http://theness.com/neurologicablog/index.php/the-motivated-reasoning-of-egnorance/#more-3506

Morals and Evolution

Peter Singer on what evolution might teach us about our moral judgements.

http://www.themonthly.com.au/peter-singer-does-understanding-evolution-help-us-understand-ethics-3036

Criticism of Sam Harris - his response:

http://www.samharris.org/site/full_text/response-to-critics/

Is there a naturalistic fallacy? Does Sam Harris fall into it?

Evidence for Non-Existence

There is an excellent blog here at http://rationesola.blogspot.com

In this blog entry http://rationesola.blogspot.com/2010/11/is-it-rational-to-believe-in.html the author makes a convoluted case for the improbability of Christian (and general) supernaturalism. I don't know if the author is male or female, so I'm taking a purely 50/50 (and possibly slightly politically correct) punt that she is a female. I will correct this if required should I obtain evidence of that necessity!

She makes the following point about the rationality of holding a belief in the Christian supernatural realm that is bread-and-butter agnosticism (and with which I fully agree):

Even if we granted, for the sake of argument, that the Christian supernatural realm might exist, the evidence, in this situation, is so bad that withholding belief in the existence of such a realm (or of any other) would be the only rational position available.

More importantly, like any good agnostic, she doesn't overstate the case:

It is important to note that this is not the same thing as saying that it is rational to believe that a supernatural realm does not exist. That position is not justified by the evidence: so far as that goes, it might well exist. 

And finally, but almost superfluously: 

But equally, just because we cannot confirm that a supernatural realm does not exist, doesn’t make it rational to believe that it does exist.

She is making the point that it is not rational to believe in something without evidence.

But then, in a footnote:

Another way of putting this is to speak in terms of probabilities. The absence of evidence for X doesn’t rule out the possibility that X could still exist. But it does make the existence of X highly improbable. So is it rationally acceptable to believe in something which, so far as the evidence goes, is highly improbable? 

Here is a glimpse of the the probabilities argument, elegantly graphed in Dawkins' The God Delusion, for positive atheism (for want of a better description) http://crtopherthinks.blogspot.com/2010/04/positive-and-negative.html

For if the absence of evidence for X makes X highly improbably and prompts the question "so is it rationally acceptable to believe in something which, so far as the evidence goes, is highly improbable?" then it equally suggests "is it rationally acceptable to NOT believe in something NOT existing, the existence of which, so far as the evidence goes, is highly improbable?"

In this quote the Solo Rationalist (yes yes I know....) appears to contradict her earlier point implying it would be less than rational to suggest the supernatural realm does not exist on the absence of evidence for its existence. In the probabilities argument, the absence of evidence makes it's existence highly improbable, and thus it's non-existence highly probable (since the probability coin can have only two sides). In this case it would seem quite rational to claim a belief in the non-existence of the supernatural, since to not believe in the non-existence of something that is highly improbable, is irrational!

I only make this point because many argue that agnosticism is the most rational position. And indeed on the face of it one must ask what constitutes evidence for the non-existence of something. Perhaps the probability concept will help me. I'm gonna think on it! BTW I don't mean to suggest that rationesola unknowingly contradicted herself. The footnote applied to an earlier part in the post than the part I initially quoted.

The Patient Atheist

http://faith-theology.blogspot.com/2010/09/tomas-halik-atheism-and-patience.html

My comment.

Islam

Safe to say that Sam Harris is not a fan of Islam!

The question is "Is Islam the least tolerable of all the religions?" He writes...

At this point in human history, Islam simply is different from other faiths. The challenge we all face, Muslim and non-Muslim alike, is to find the most benign and practical ways of mitigating these differences and of changing this religion for the better.

Is Islam the type of religion that can be "changed for the better"? Is it open to reform? Is it reformable?

More on this later.

Elementary Rules of Logic

I don't want to get into the habit of just cutting and pasting other peoples ideas without qualification.....oh what the heck!

Hitchens Elementary rules of Logic (Slate Magazine)

1. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence 

2. What can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence.


Pretty much sums it up for me!

Notes on Faith

NOTES ON FAITH

In his Dictionary of Philosophy, Peter Angeles offers as two definitions of "faith" among others: "belief in something despite the evidence against it" and "belief in something even though there is an absence of evidence for it."  http://www.cmfnow.com/articles/pa110.htm

In general to believe something (eg proposition X) is to think it to be true.  We generally come to believe something for a reason, that is we think we have evidence for the belief (that is for thinking something is true). And we generally agree that we believe things because of reason. Very few people when asked why they believe something would say “Oh, no reason” and really mean it. Developing our beliefs based on some kind of reasoning is the natural way in which humans come to form their beliefs.  If our beliefs about the world did not concur with what we observed of the natural world then as a means of instructing us to behave in ways to enhance our survival they would be useless. 

I think we have to define “faith” as a type of belief that THE BELIEVER ADMITS is not based reason. Otherwise we have these absurd debates about the definition of faith such as I’ve selected from this blog http://www.cmfnow.com/articles/pa110.htm

.....However, all criticism in this vein flows from a fundamental mistake as to the nature of Christian faith. As J. Gresham Machen boldly put the matter in his book, What is Faith?, "we believe that Christianity flourishes not in the darkness, but in the light." Machen wrote that "one of the means which the Spirit will use" to bring a revival of the Christian religion "is an awakening of the intellect." He fervently resisted "the false and disastrous opposition which has been set up between knowledge and faith," arguing that "at no point is faith independent of the knowledge upon which it is logically based." Reflecting upon the famous Biblical remark about faith in Hebrews 11:1 ("the evidence of things not seen"), Machen declared: "Faith need not be too humble or too apologetic before the bar of reason; Christian faith is a thoroughly reasonable thing."[4]

AND...

The Christian religion does not pit "faith" against reason, evidence or (above all) truth.

AND...

Christian faith does not aim to affirm what is absurd, reveling in irrationality. Such a thought misconstrues the nature of faith as it is presented by the Bible. The Christian notion of faith - unlike most other religions - is not an arbitrary leap of emotion, a blind stab of commitment, a placing of the intellect on hold. For the Christian, faith (or belief) is well-grounded.

If “faith is well-grounded” then lets call it “reason”.  If “at no point is faith independent of the knowledge upon which it is logically based" then lets call it “reason”. If “faith” is not pitted against reason, then why have two words, “reason” and “faith”. I think to be fair we have to say that faith is a belief without reason, otherwise we could dispense with the word altogether. 

Now I know that there will be a chorus of dissent amongst people of so-called “faith” at this point for, as noted above, most people are unhappy about the notion that they might hold their beliefs for no reason. And in fact, most people don’t (hold their beliefs without reason). It follows thus that there is really very little “faith” out there, but a lot of beliefs that are held simply for bad reasons.