Everything Happens For A Reason?

Just the other night at dinner with my heathen friends, a woman I had just met (who labels herself something like "nonreligious") had this mini conversation with us:

Woman: "Everything happens for a reason."
Me (to myself): cough cough... Bullshit! (I couldn't think of a nice, non-aggressive way to say this so I took another bite of my dinner)
Butch (my atheist husband): "I don't believe that it does. Think about all the bad things that happen to good people."

At which point I can't remember what happened. I think someone changed the subject.

But I get this a lot. And to be honest, it probably wasn't that many years ago that I used to believe it myself.

If you're religious, which most people are, I understand your thinking that God and Satan basically guide you, tempt you and otherwise have a hand in your life. Ok. You have a personal god who is active in your life. You are a puppet.

But when a nonreligious person says it, then I start to wonder a bit more, and of course it makes me reflect on my progress from Christian to Spiritual to Skeptical Naturalist/Atheist.

Just because someone doesn't believe in gods, it does not follow that they automatically don't believe in anything supernatural. Even though I know this intellectually (and went through that spiritual/new age phase myself after becoming an atheist), I still find it jarring.

My question to you, though is, Why? Why do think that there is an invisible force acting in your life?

Two Cool Creatures and Their Evolution

As Michael Shermer says, "Science is the best tool ever devised for understanding how the world works." It's still done by humans so there will be problems, but it's self-correcting. And really, we have nothing better to help us make sense out of our world. In that vein, I wanted to share two creatures that scientists have found to be very interesting, especially regarding evolution. These are both examples of how amazing our world is.

First is the Cottony Cushion Scale - Icerya purchasi - which likes to eat citrus and pittosporum sap. It's now found around the world wherever citrus is grown and is quite a pest. But look how neat it is!

So here is what's so interesting. Most CCSs (Cottony Cushion Scales) are hermaphrodites. There are a few true males but they are very rare. So they are both male and female. But, the CCS fertilizes its eggs with sperm that live inside it as a separate infectious tissue!

So when the CCS fertilizes its own egg with its own sperm, which is considered an infectious tissue, it then invades the embryo with more sperm to create sperm-producing organs in the daughter. (They are called daughters because they look female. The pure male is very different looking)

There is new research into how this insect evolved this way, which is really interesting. It sort of comes down to the male is now just parasitic tissue living inside the female. The research is a mathematical model of how this evolved early on.

There is a final twist to this tale: Gardner and Ross [the authors of the new paper] think that the scale insects carry a passenger that could have quickened the demise of the males – a bacterium. Many insects carry helpful bacteria that provide them with important nutrients, and the cottony cushion scale is no different. These bacteria can often be found in tight clusters around the infectious tissue, and if they are killed with antibiotics, females are more likely to produce sons.

To Gardner and Ross, this suggests that the bacteria could help to protect the infectious tissue from being destroyed. Why? Because the bacteria are passed down from mother to daughter. Males are a dead-end to them. In this regard, their “interests” are the same as those of the infectious tissue. Sons are a dead-end; daughters provide vessels that sail into the next generation.

Evolution is amazing, isn't it!

Next is a large protozoan! Gromia Sphaerica is about the size of a grape and is a single-celled organism! They are up to 1.5" long. That's pretty huge! They were discovered in 2000 and have recently been found off the coast of the Bahamas. It gets better. This little thing appears to make trails in the mud of the sea floor about 20 inches long. How do they do it?

First, they are single-celled, a giant amoeba. The outer shell of their bodies are called a test and seem to be mostly made of waste. There are pores in the test, and filaments on the bottom of the organism that it uses to move along and make the tracks in the mud, some even going uphill. In this area of the sea, the water is very still.

Here's where it gets really interesting! The tracks made by these Gromia today appear to match mud trail fossils from 1.8 Billion years ago in the Precambrian era. Even the low ridge which runs up the middle of the track appears to be the same.  This is evidence that there might have been some early version of the Gromia that existed before the Cambrian explosion (530 million years ago), which says that a simple organism could have made those earlier tracks. And those simple organisms could have had complex body plans (relatively speaking).



So the scientists who found them in the Bahamas aren't sure how they eat or reproduce yet. They are too fragile to study in captivity. The area they were found is relatively sterile. They probably rely on resident bacteria to ferment their food for them, and they just live off the byproducts. There don't appear to be any smaller or young Gromia, but there are a lot of them.

~

Resources for the Cottony Cushion Scale:

• Not Exactly Rocket Science


• Science Daily


• Skeptic's Guide to the Universe

Resources for Gromia Sphaerica:

• Skeptic's Guide to the Universe


• Wikipedia


• Science Daily

Reasons Given For Believing in God

I was reading The Believing Brain by Michael Shermer the other evening and came across a study that Shermer did that pretty much sums up belief in God. But it's really even more telling than that. I'll let him explain in his own words:

Page 264, kindle location ~5280)

My colleague Frank Sulloway and I discovered another form of attribution bias ¹ in a research project that we conducted several years ago. Frank and I wanted to know why people believe in God, so we polled ten thousand random Americans. In addition to exploring various demographic and sociological variables, we also directly asked subjects in an essay question why they believed in God.

The top two reasons that people gave for why they believed in God were "the good design of the universe" and "the experience of God in everyday life." Interestingly and tellingly, when subjects were asked why they thought other people believed in God, these two answers dropped to sixth and third place, respectively, and the two most common reasons given were that belief is "comforting" and "fear of death".

These answers revealed a sharp distinction between an intellectual attribution bias, in which people consider their own beliefs as being rationally motivated, and an emotional attribution bias, in which people see the beliefs of others as being emotionally driven.

... The attribution bias of perceiving intellectual reasons for belief as superior to emotional reasons appears to be a manifestation of a broader form of self-serving bias through which people slant their perceptions of the world, especially the social world, in their favor.

That is very telling, isn't it? What does it mean? Do people overestimate their own reasons, by making them out to be rational? Or do they accurately portray their reasons and view others less favorably as having beliefs for less practical reasons?

How would you even tease that out? I can't think of how you would, since you can only find out why people believe anything by asking them. So we just have to go on their word.

In my experience talking with religious people, I've heard quite a few say they just can't imagine or bear to think that we just end when we die. That's the one I've heard the most, personally. I've also heard the one along the lines of that they can't believe everything just evolved and came from nothing, etc.

But now I want to ask people why they think others believe in God.

1. attribution bias: the tendency to attribute different causes for our own beliefs and actions than that of others.

Agnostic Atheist Skeptic

Recently, I wrote about Richard Dawkin's handy Spectrum of Theistic Probability. I found it useful to help me figure out what kind of atheist I am. (I rate myself as a 6.9 De Facto Atheist). I also find it helpful to understand where someone is coming from if they call themselves a 1 or a 7, because that means they "know" the unknowable and unprovable.

But last night I was reading over my notes of the first half  of The Believing Brain by Michael Shermer, before going to the second half. I wanted to share one bit with you from page 176:

Of course, no one is agnostic behaviorally. When we act in the world, we act as if there is a God or as if there is no God, so by default we must make a choice, if not intellectually then at least behaviorally. To this extent, I assume that there is no God and I live my life accordingly, which makes me an atheist. In other words, agnosticism is an intellectual position, a statement about the existence or nonexistence of the deity and our ability to know it with certainty, whereas atheism is a behavioral position, a statement about what assumptions we make  about the world in which we behave.

... I prefer [Skeptic] as my label. A skeptic simply does not believe a knowledge claim until sufficient evidence is presented to reject the null hypothesis (that a knowledge claim is not true until proven otherwise). I do not know that there is no God, but I do not believe in God, and have good reasons to think that the concept of God is socially and psychologically constructed.

That makes perfect sense to me. The thing about calling yourself an atheist is you're just saying one very specific thing; that you don't believe in god/gods. It's a negative statement that doesn't say much at all, really. It's helpful, but only to a point. And what other concept is defined by what you don't believe? I don't believe in leprechauns, so does that make me Aleprechaunistic?

I think that I have been slowly getting away from labeling myself as atheist first,  more to calling myself a skeptic first. I prefer it for the same reasons that Shermer does. It says that I highly value critical thinking, science and reason. It says what matters to me and how I approach the world.

Of course, people abuse the term all the time, mainly through ignorance. But if simply defined as Michael does above, then it's accurately saying a lot.

I know some of you don't like labels at all. But labels are how we understand things. For example, I labeled the drink I had this morning as coffee. It conveys information that can be useful. And for beliefs it says something about where I'm coming from. I label myself a humanist, which says a lot to someone, as does labeling myself a Formula One fan, etc. It can be very positive and shouldn't be shunned completely. It's just helpful information.

So, how do you identify yourself? Is there an order (as I find I have now) of how you want to be known, or how you see yourself?

EDIT: After the first several comments, I just want to add that I am happy to call myself an atheist. And I think atheists need to own the word just like people who are homosexual now proudly own "gay". Atheist Pride! Hey, most of us became atheists through tough critical thinking, reasoning and logic. We worked hard to get where we are. Of course, you could say the same for skeptics, which I'm also proud to call myself.

So don't think I'm encouraging you to walk on eggshells and use skeptic over atheist. Use them both! I like how MJ in the comments below said they use atheist out in the world and skeptic in the atheist movement. I have been doing something similar. I use the term that is most appropriate to the situation. Sometimes I feel they are all necessary and I call myself (deep breath) an atheist/skeptic/freethinker/humanist.

Also, I wanted this post to be short and sweet and focus mainly on the terms. But in the comments you've been right to point out that it really matters on the definition of God(s) being referred to. Are we talking about Yahweh/Allah/Jehovah? If you look just to the bible, he's been refuted. Are you talking about a deist sort of god? No, he can't be refuted because evidence of that god would be indistinguishable from natural events. Of course, when you talk to religious people, most are so wishy-washy, and move the goalposts as if they were seaweed at the edge of the sea at high tide, that I'm exhausted just thinking about it. But awesome atheists like Christopher Hitchens have thoughtfully torn down such fallacious arguments time and again.

So own the word atheist and skeptic, too!

Can't We All Just Get Along?

I found myself muttering this question to myself today. But I think the answer to it is "No." Sometimes we just can't get along. Sometimes fundamental beliefs and worldviews are so diametrically opposed that people just can't come together. At least not on that topic or in that area.

Religion and atheism are like oil and water, or liberals and conservatives. They just don't mix. Of course when the subject comes up, I've found that to change the subject to less volatile topics can lead to friendships budding between unlikely opposites. As long as you leave the hot-button topics off the table.

After all, just like my religious friends, I love, laugh, sleep, eat, have relationships, have pets, etc, just like they do. We can get along on these topics, even the ones where we don't match up all the way. For instance, I can understand my friends when they talk about their kids even though I'm (happily) childless. This is mainly due to my empathy (yes, atheists have empathy too. We're not sociopaths. [We do eat babies on special occasions, though. Of course.]).

But when it comes to talking about religion and atheism, things inevitably get tense, misunderstandings occur, and it generally ends up ugly at some point. Even when I have worked very very hard to be fair, gentle, kind, thoughtful and honest, it still ends up going sour eventually. After awhile, you hit nerves. Big ones. And it's not pretty.

And hitting a nerve can happen when you least expect it. On my other blog I simply said, "Reason trumps faith completely. Reason and faith are the antithesis of each other."

I think that's pretty straightforward, isn't it? In that forum I have defined faith at least once. Faith is strong or unshakeable belief without evidence or proof. So how is my statement condescending and offensive? It's just a fact. And yet that is how it is perceived.

I'm not saying that some people can't get along. But in my personal experience, and in listening to how others have done it, the only way seems to be to avoid the hot button issues and focus on what you have in common. When worldviews are diametrically opposed, people get passionate.

Remember we talked about Terror Management Theory? I'm going one step further and have just downloaded a copy of Michael Shermer's new book, The Believing Brain: From Ghosts and Gods to Politics and Conspiracies---How We Construct Beliefs and Reinforce Them as Truths. I think maybe that will help me to understand people, because right now I try, but religious thinking and faith are a complete mystery to me.

Do you interact with people who have diametrically opposed worldviews to your own? How do you get along with them? What works for you?

I Believe In Miracles

Damn, now that song is going through my head. Who was that? Butch says it was Wild Cherry, but don't hold me to it. Anyway, my friend Eric sent me a link to Michael Shermer's site, to a page titled Miracle on Probability Street. He wrote it in 2004 but I thought I'd share it with you because it's very good information.

We've all experienced a highly improbable event in our lives. Probably many, in fact. Some of us more than others, some more seemingly improbable than others. There is such a thing as the Law of Large Numbers that explains these coincidences and "miracles".

The Law of Large Numbers simply stated (sans math): with a large enough sample many odd coincidences are likely to happen.

Coincidence: an occasion when two or more similar things happen at the same time, especially in a way that is unlikely and surprising.

Miracle: an unusual and mysterious event that is thought to have been caused by a god, or any very surprising and unexpected event.

~

On a side note, I was disappointed with Dictionary.com's listing on these words so I thought I'd go to the Cambridge Dictionary. The definition above is from the Dictionary of British English. Out of curiosity, I looked up the word miracle in the Cambridge Dictionary of American English:

Miracle: an unusual and mysterious event that is thought to have been caused by God, or any surprising and unexpected event.

A very subtle but telling difference! I think I'll be using the British version from now on.

The Fine Art of Baloney Detection

Skeptical thinking is such a wonderful tool to have. It means you don't get scammed or BS'ed nearly as much by shoddy news or dodgy advertising. You also get to save money because you'll be less apt to buy gimmicky cure-alls that do nothing but drain your wallet and give you false hope. In his book, The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark, Carl Sagan wrote about this. It's called the Baloney Detection Kit. (see below for an excerpt)

Michael Shermer recently made a great companion video talking about The Baloney Detection Kit: (approx. 14 min)



Here are the 10 points from the video:

Interesting Randomness

I'm sorry for neglecting you, my friends. You see, exciting things are afoot here and I am super busy herding cats. I'll fill you in on Tuesday and you'll see what's been keeping me so busy. :-D WOOT!

So for today, I'm going to link to some interesting stuff that you might enjoy.

Here's an interesting bit of religious nuttery: Maine diocese asks catholics to fast against gay marriage. The article also mentions how lame fasting is for catholics: They get to eat one full meal in the day, up to 2 snacks and they can drink all they want. WTF? How is that fasting? That's more than I eat in a day normally!

On a much happier note, Mutations make evolution irreversible! Researchers resurrected (pun intended?) ancient proteins to find that evolution can only go forward. Very wicked cool.

This article is very helpful to nontheist parents: Raise critical thinkers, not atheists. I couldn't have said it better myself!

Our very own superhero, Johnny linked us to this video of Michael Shermer on the Young Turks show. Michael Shermer is the man. He coherently and articulately explains religion, a hypothesis regarding jesus' actual existence, and some other interesting stuff. I would have liked to do a transcript of some of what he said, but I am running out of time. So enjoy this 12 minute video:

Mr. Deity and the Skeptic! (Michael Shermer)

Mr. Deity is awesome. Here's the latest with guest Michael Shermer, PhD:



If you haven't seen all the episodes, they do sort of build on each other. You can subscribe to them on iTunes (search for Mr. Deity) or you can go to MrDeity.com to catch up. Season 2 is only available there now, I believe. So go watch them and get a chuckle!