"Seek And Ye Shall Find: The Atheist Doesn't Do It Right"

This is yet another Christian Heuristic that "blames the victim" in the same way as "if you don't understand it, its your fault". Some qualifiers are missing in that statement, mainly SCOPE and DEFINITION but also the ACTIONS of the AGENTS DOING THE SEARCH and AGENTS BEING SEARCHED FOR. What are the responsibilities of the Agents? What is the definition of "a comprehensive" search? And how will you know when you find it? There must be a description to go by or how will one know when they've found it?

Principles Of Searching.
Searching is a comparison of a description to something else. The more specific the search criteria are, the more likely a successful match will be found. Its Baysian in the sense that one has to make decisions about each clue such as "what is the likelihood that I am having success given such and such indication". But it gets even easier if a human is searching for a person, or a pet. When they are searching for each other they take actions to expedite the search and when they see each other, they make contact in an unambiguous way.

The Critical Question Generators: Who, What, When, Where, Why, and How.
John Searle, a philosopher of mind is quoted as saying that he has a maxim that is summed up as "if you can't say it clearly, you don't understand it yourself". I live by that and it has served me well since I first heard it.
So now, lets get a grip on the scope of the search.

- How do you know?
- How is the search carried out?
- How will we know when we find it?
- How long should we expect to look?
- What do you have to go on?
- What actions should the seeker take? What are the seekers responsibilities?
- What actions should the one being sought take? What are the responsibilities of the one being sought?
- What are we looking for? Does it exist? What does it look like, feel like, taste like, smell like, sound like?
- What are some false indictations that may fool us?
- Who says?
- Who are we searching for? Do they exist?
- Who made it? Who originated it? Who lost it? Who hid it?
- Why do you say that?
- Why isn't it obvious?
- Why are we looking? What is the benefit?
- When did it happen?
- When is it happening?
- When should the search take place? What is the best time? When was it lost? When did it originate?
- Where did it happen?
- Where will it happen?
- Where is it happening?
- Where is the search carried out?

Its always good to check the answers to these critical questions with another pass through the critical question generator to do a "reality check".

Searching For The Most Beautiful Work Of Art
I challenge anyone to go find the most beautiful art work in their nearest museum. I challenge anyone to do an experiment where peple are asked before they go in to find and report back which is the most beautiful art work in the museum. There will not be a consensus. A percentage of people will pick a particular work of art but not all will pick the same work of art. If they are given some criteria to look for and If the searchers report back that they've matched the criteria to a work of art, then its likely what they've identified is not what they think is the most beautiful work of art. Its someone else's idea of the most beautiful work of art.

If they should be told what the criteria are, then where did the criteria come from? Who derived them? Were they qualified to derive them? Do the criteria accurately reflect what the seeker holds as being characteristics of the most beautiful work of art?

Searching For Jesus
So if one must seek Jesus to find Jesus, and one was convinced that they found Jesus but had second thoughts, changed their mind and became an apostate, then what they found must have only matched the description superficially. They must have made a mistake.

Searching is a comparison of a description to something else.
So since its possible to mistake something else for Jesus, the description needs to be more specific as to what it is that should be used as criteria for the search. How will one know it? How long should one look before one can conclude that one is not looking in the right place and have to move on? How long should one have to look for a being that is waiting for another or maybe even looking for that other?

If two people, pets or combination want to find each other, they take some actions to expedite the search.
Why should one have to look for more than a minute for a supernatural being that can do anything to make its presence known to someone? Why would it let someone incorrectly identify something when it knows that the seeker will become discouraged and give up in some cases? Why is it easier for an owner to find their cat than Jesus? I'll bet more cats have been found across all categories of people than Jesus.

The Search for Jesus Violates Sound Principles Of Searching.
How can anyone be blamed for not recognizing what it is they are supposed to be looking for, or not finding something when they don't understand what it is they are looking for?

If the presumption is that God exists, then searching until he's found makes sense, but if he's waiting and looking for us, it doesn't make sense that he would hide or let himself be mistaken for something else. If God doesn't exist, then our poor results are what should be expected.

Special Pleading For God

[Written by Lee] Compromising Ones Values And Principles To Support Christianity

When I was a Facilitator for Personal Responsibility Seminars we had an exercise where we arranged our values in an hierarchy. We would put two terms together, such as health and cigarettes, and say, for example, "If I could only have one, I would pick health", or "I like or prefer this over that". Then we would look at examples of behavior of the person and see if it matched the values. I think this and a few other thinking skills should be taught in school.

Some Books Where The Process Of Assessing Values Turns Up In Different Contexts
Over the past few months I've stumbled onto some books that have reminded me of some of the exercises we performed in those seminars. Three in particular are
"The Thinkers Toolkit" by Morgan D. Jones
"How To Measure Anything" by Douglas W. Hubbard
"How To Solve It" by George Polya (if you read the other two you don't need this one. However as far as I can see, it was the first to detail a specific model for problem solving in mathematics which has since been adapted to other contexts such as the first two books).

Start By Defining Terms, Defining The Problem
Of course, in order to do the exercise you have to define those terms. Defining terms such as Good, Bad, Love, Health, Wealth, Success, Peace, Happiness are hard to do because they are subjective, however, common denominators can be found within a range of answers from a range of people and a set of minimum criteria can be derived. But this exercise is not only good for identifying where ones values do not correlate to ones behavior, it is also good for decision making. Its called "Weighted Ranking" and while it is true that this method has its limitations, when the right context arises, it is a powerful tool.

It can be used in evaluating how you really feel about something or someone which is useful in a real world context such as assessing the performance of employees or screening resumes for interviews.

Setting Up The Context Of The Exercise
Here's a silly example off the top of my head of how to do the exercise.

Ted has Diabetes and is overweight. He is out to lunch with friends and they are ordering the type of meals that Ted should not eat. He really wants to share the four cheese pizza with his friends but instead he thinks about what he wants out of life, what his hierarchy of values are and he orders the salad instead. Of course, one of his friends tries to pressure him to conform and eat the pizza too, but he politely declines. Another friend doesn't have as much money as they thought and Ted offers to pay the difference. When they leave the restaurant its raining and Ted offers his coat to a female friend wearing a sleeveless blouse.

How does this relate to Christianity? Thomas Bayes.
It has to do with defining terms, organizing an hierarchy of values and evaluating behavior. Thomas Bayes (1702-1761), a British mathematician, statistician and religious leader, identified and defined an algorithm for the process of belief that seems to be innate in humans. It goes something like the following.
"The probability or likelihood of A given B, C, D, E, F is...."
It doesn't have to be plugged into a mathematical formula, in fact that is not how it is used most of the time. We use it instinctively when deciding what we think about things every day all day. So lets apply it to how we should feel about Ted.

So, how should we feel about Ted? Should Ted be characterized as a "Good Person"?

My definition of a "good person" is .......(write them down).
Is Teds behavior consistent with what I think a good person is?

The likelihood of Ted being a "good person" given
* He chose the salad
* He politely declined when pressured
* He payed the difference in the check
* He gives his coat to his friend.

is high.

New Information About Ted!

The next time we see Ted, he calls Joe at six am on Friday and asks him to swing by on the way to work and pick him up. Ted said he is running late and asks Joe to park the car and come up to the apartment. When Joe gets there he finds that the fender and wheel of Teds car is damaged such that it can't be driven. When he gets up to the apartment Joe finds that the apartment smells like bourbon, the Dog is so thin his bones are showing, the apartment smells like dog urine, there are old dirty dishes in the sink, and Ted is just getting into the shower.

The likelihood of Ted being a "good person" given the new information
* He chose the salad
* He politely declined when pressured
* He payed the difference in the check
* He gives his coat to his friend.
* Teds car is damaged such that it can't be driven.
* The apartment smells like bourbon,
* The Dog is so thin his bones are showing,
* The apartment smells like dog urine,
* There are old dirty dishes in the sink, and
* Ted is just getting in the shower.

is not as high as it was.

Ted probably has personal problems and needs some help, but this forces a re-evaluation of Ted and tightening up of a definition of what a "Good Person" is.

I think where God is concerned, in Christians, this process is interrupted.
They will say that God is Good and Loving EVEN given examples of behavior that would reduce their esteem of a loved one.

One example of this is that fact that supposedly God created Adam and Eve, which means he decided how we would turn out, then when Adam and Eve disobeyed, He kicked them out of their home and put them in the wilderness.

Now if my brother kicked his teenage son and daughter out of the house for disobedience, that would reduce my confidence in his judgment and I would try to convince him that he made a mistake. I think most compassionate people would. But when it comes to God, this principle doesn't apply.

The honest compassionate person when reading through the Bible should see this and other behaviors by God as DISCONFIRMING EVIDENCE that God uses good judgment. If a soldier returns from war and we are told that he cut the baby out of the womb of a mother at the order of his commanding officer, both the officer and the soldier would likely go to court martial justifiably. Yet, God is forgiven of this atrocity.

So lets try it out. Lets do a value system exercise and see how our values correlate to our behavior.

Lets define what we think a good person is and come up with a list. We can define a range of characteristics for what a good person is. In the case that the person contradicts the characteristics by their behavior, their "goodness rating" will decrease. Now think of examples of Gods behavior in the Bible and list them.

Please come up with your own lists, and I invite you to post them in the comments for future reference.

Now try the following.
1. Is God a Person? Well, at least the song says he is: "God in three persons, blessed trinity!"
2. My idea of a Good person is....
3. Is Gods behavior consistent with what I think a good person is?
4. The likelihood that God is a good person given
* instance 1.
* instance 2.
* instance 3.
is [fill in the blank].

Based on my experience here over the past two years and seeing Christians put into this corner, I think this exercise will elicit cognitive dissonance and they will either refuse to do it, or begin special pleading about why it doesn't apply to God.

I'll expect them to say that we cannot judge God by human standards.
I have seen them say that God is good regardless. That he has a reason for his actions we just don't have access to what it is. We don't know what his reasons are. We are agnostic for his reasons but the Bible tells us he's good.

So to them I'll say, "Lets try a little exercise!"

If we are made in the image of God, what does that mean?
It should mean that we should have some things in common with God!
Come up with a list or characteristics that Humans have in common with God.

The likelihood that we are made in Gods image given....
* We can't understand his behavior
* A lot of Gods action don't fall into our definition of behaviors of a good person
* [fill in the blank]
* [fill in the blank]

is [fill in the blank]

Heuristics and When Ones Values Are Out Of Sync With Ones Thinking

In response to the my Article "Jesus Appeared To Other People, Why Can't He Appear To Me?" One of our christian guests commented....

"He will come down and visit with you, except you live your life as though you don't want Him to."

I must be committing Spiritual Suicide!
Lets think about that for a minute. Lets unpack it and lay it out for examination. One way to do that is by using the fundamental critical thinking skills that we should all have learned in school. I think of them as the seven dwarves
- Who
- What
- Where
- When
- Why
- How
- How Much or Scope

By applying the Seven Dwarves or Seven Critical Questions using a brainstorming technique, we have a nice easy to remember tool for unpacking and analyzing complicated concepts. Since a rigorous application of them to this comment would take too much time, I've opted to just pick some common sense critical questions to get us started. They are the following. If any of you can think of any more, please contribute them in the comments.

* Who are you? Who originated that information?
* What do you have to go on? What are some precedents?
* Where did you get that information? Where will or did it happen?
* When did you get that information? When was the origin of that information?
* Why do you say that? Why would that be true? Why should I care?
* How do you know? Are you in a position to know? How do you figure? How does that follow?
* How Much, How often, what is the Scope, and to what degree?

and a couple of words that can be thought of as JUICY TIDBITS are
* Would and
* Should.
When you see these words, you should think "Fish in a barrel" or "Low Hanging Fruit" because they require support, and the data-driven debater can easily dismantle or support a "would" or a "should".

The Position To Know And Agnosticism
Now lets decompose the comment.
1. He will come down
2. and visit with you,
3. except you live your life
4. as though you don't want Him to.

1. He will come down
Really? The commenter is in a position to know?
Lets rephrase that into a question.
Here are the seven dwarves applid to this claim but then I just pick some that I feel would do the job for brevity.
- Who will come down?
- What will come down?
- Where will he come down?
- When will he come down?
- Why will he come down? Is there some principle that would warrant it?
- How will he come down?
- How Much will He come down, to what degree, what is the scope or the upper and lower bounds of His Visit? Will he permit me to video tape it at a Football Game or will it be too subtle for me to recognize?

Will He come down? Why would he come down? Why should he come down?

When has he come down in the past that is not recorded in The Bible? Christianitiy is in some serious need of CROSS-CHECKING. How do you know? Do you presume to know the mind of God?

This statement has some hidden dependencies.
1a. It depends on the commenter being in a position to know what God will do and I know that can't be right with as many times as I get told that I can't predict or know or tell God what to do.

1b. It depends on God wanting to come down, and we know that no-one is in a position to know why God would want to come down because no-one knows the mind of God and being God he's free to change his mind anytime he likes.

1c. It depends on there being a principle in place that would warrant God Coming down. This is the foundation for my rebuttal.

2. and visit with you,
2a. It depends on the commenter being in a position to know and we know that he's not.

2b. It depends on presuming that God would come down and that he would visit with me if he did come down and that I would recognize it if he did. We can't say that he would come down, and we can't say that he would visit me if he did come down and we can't say I'd recognize a visit because we are not in a position to know any of that.

3. except you live your life
3a. Again, the commenter is not in position to know. I have a good job, and the respect of my peers. My moral center is a reasonable one, with several facets, which include such things as "Utility", "Logic" and "The well being of others". I know that my moral scheme and the Christians both have problems but over all they are compatible. To say something like this is a Judgement based on lack of information. I would love it if Jesus appeared to me right now so that I could turn this rebuttal into an endorsement for Jesus, but If I finish it, you'll know he didn't.

4. as though you don't want Him to.
4a. the commenter is not thinking this through.
Protesters are protesting for change. They protest for reasons such as they want some outcome that is being prevented by those in a position to bring it about. I am a protester. I want God to change his strategy to be more in line with how I think because as it is now it doesn't make sense to me and I don't get it and I don't think I ever will. Its true that I thought I got it at one time, but I came to realize that considering there is such a concept as Luck or Chance, and there is a concept of God, it seemed to me that God had the same characteristics of Luck or Chance.

Since I think my understanding of God was a misinterpretation of Chance, and since there is nothing yet to refute that viewpoint, then I am on a one way trip to Spiritual Suicide. God and all of you Christians reading this should think I'm committing spiritual suicide therefore so should the commenter.

So what is the principle that warrants a visit from God?
How to Respond to Expressions of Suicidal Intent

In a situation when someone expresses an intention to commit suicide, you should try not to get upset or embarrassed. Keep yourself calm and encourage the person to explain more in detail why and how he/she intends to commit suicide.

The principle is that Suicide is bad, those that want to commit suicide are not well, and the expression of suicidal tendencies warrants intervention appropriate to dispell it.

That is important enough for him to come down and intervene.

So the key point in this article is that I have noticed that in most cases where a Christian CAN use a Heuristic or a "pre-packaged" argument to rebut an atheist they WILL.
And usually when you unpack it you can find where it does not syncoronize with what their values should be according to what the commonly accepted characteristics of a Christian are.

In this case, the commenter has alluded that my spiritual suicidal tendency is not important enough for God to come down and intervene. The commenter might as well have said that ones suicidal tendencies are not important enough to warrant intervention.

I can only say, "non-sense" to that.

Suspension of Disbelief

Changingminds.org is a site devoted to the study of persuasion. A post I discovered today discusses the suspension of disbelief to enjoy a movie or book and how people enjoy this behavior. I think this can be applied to religion to help explain a facet of it.

Below is an excerpt of the key point of the article.
"In his study of happiness, Csikszentmihalyi (1990) showed that being able to let go of the sense of self has a paradoxical effect of creating a state of happiness that perhaps relates to the one-ness of the neonatal phase. In suspending disbelief in their stories, authors thus help their readers feel good."

I highly recommend keeping an rss feed to this site. You can find a ton of good information about how people persuade each other and react to persuasion. It might help immunize some of you "fence sitters" from evangelicals and give you a fighting chance to resist while you are listening to LSAT Logic in Everday Life, honing your critical thinking skills.

Another excerpt from the "About" page on the site follows.
"You might also be the victim or target of persuasion, as we all are, many times each and every day. Because if you can detect a trick or technique coming your way, you can avoid it, expose it, or play with the trickster, doubling back the deception and outplaying them at their own game. For this is the great leveller: if you try to deceive someone and they discover it, then the game ends there and then, and they may never trust you again."

Additionally, here is a link from their blog on seven rules of religion.

There's also a lot of good Human Resources Department type of information at changingminds.org as well.