From: L' Ermit (lhermit@hotmail.com)
Date: Tue Feb 26 2002 - 15:53:14 MST
[Dan] My name is Dan
[Hermit] Welcome.
[Dan] and I am a third year psychology student studying in
Manchester.(England)
[Hermit] Ah.
[Dan] I am beginning my final project and am investigating
the base memeplex of Christianity. In order to do this I have compiled a
questionnaire. I intend to have certain groups of people fill this out. I
hope the Christian union will oblige me and also the Jewish society as well
as my fellow Psychology students. I thought it might be interesting to
obtain a core Atheist sample too...If you could spare the time to complete
this I would be most grateful. Any criticisms would also be welcomed.
Cheers very much.
[Hermit] I suggest you hold off a little and try to make the questionnaire a
little more rigorous first. Before you can do that, you had best consider
what it is you are attempting to achieve, and how you are going to prove it.
[Hermit] I started to knock up a web-page to allow rapid completion of this,
ah, questionnaire... and store the results and then hesitated. Perhaps the
comments as to why I hesitated will be useful in developing version zero
point something of this questionnaire... Certainly I don't see what the
this huge collection of concatenated logical errors can possible achieve.
I'd also suggest that after revising it, that you run it past various kinds
of Christians, a few Muslims and pagans as well.
1 Do you believe in a higher power? Y/N
Hermit, terminology is such an interesting thing. What is a "higher power"?
High tension, I understand. High fever, is also well understood. A high
court, immediately comes to mind. Or should I be thinking exponents? Oh, I
know what you think you mean, I think. But you will have to try to phrase it
better if you don't want a truly random response. Because if your question
means, like Humpty Dumpty's words whatever you mean it to mean, you should
not be too surprised to get answers that mean whatever the respondent
thought you to mean - and few will imagine you meant the same thing. What is
a power and how do you establish its altitude? A theist and possibly a deist
might find this question unexceptional, but the very phrasing of this
question, with its myriad of buried assumptions, could not be better
designed to set a rational person's teeth on edge. An atheist might think of
love, and answer yes (I wouldn't because I am rational and have no beliefs -
but this is not a requirement for atheism). An evaluator may decide that
this means that the atheist is not an atheist (and would be wrong). Like
many of the questions that follow, this apparently simple question compounds
many assertions, and in so doing allows no accurate answer by somebody
outside of the Judeo-Christian complex. Which in itself is offensive.
2) Do you believe in God? Y/N
Hermit. I find this to be very unfortunately phrased. Why should I believe
anything? Belief is to accept that for which there is insufficient evidence
or indeed contrary evidence. That is all.
Then we must ask, "which god and why singular?" If you had asked "Do you
consider that there is sufficient evidence for the existence of any god or
gods", followed by "Do you consider there to be a god or gods", the
questions might have made sense, but I suspect that only somebody brought up
on a diet of monotheism, simultaneously unfamiliar with the scriptures and
practice of monotheism, and unused to thinking particularly hard could
phrase this question this poorly. As most of mankind, for most of time, has
believed in a plenitude of things, most of them now acknowledged to be
wholly imaginary, the question seems to beg a lot of questions. Then too, as
in question 1, any rational person knows what you think you mean, but it
would be good if we knew which kind of god idea you were asking us we did
not believe in. Is it like this?
"What the hell are you getting so upset about? I thought you didn't believe
in God."
"I don't," she sobbed, bursting violently into tears, but the God I don't
believe in is a good God, a just God, a merciful God. He's not the mean and
stupid God you make Him out to be." [Catch-22]
Do you see the problem? When I read your question I thought of Zeus, of
Apollo, of the Mithraic Deus Pata and I don't believe in any of them. But
then, neither do most of the people you are going to give this form to.
There are an awful lot of gods that I can disbelieve in the existence of.
Why should some particular god or gods be given any particular preference?
3) Do your parents hold the same religious beliefs as you? Y/N
How should somebody whose parents hold contrasting views reply? What if one
or more of the above holds no beliefs at all? What if you don't know what
one or both of them believe if they hold beliefs? The question takes too
simplistic a view of the world and its complexities to admit of reliable
answers. Which means that like 1 and 2, the answer to this question is
unhelpful to any purportedly scientific purpose.
4) Do you accept evolution to be true? Y/N
What do you see as "evolution"? The observable fact that it occurs, or one
of the family of related strong theories (and more than a few popularly held
non-theories) which explain the facts? A fact is neither true nor false, it
just is, while a theory, any theory, no matter how strong, is always
provisional and at least theoretically falsifiable, else it is not a
scientific theory. Accepting something always requires sufficient evidence
for a determination of a provisional truth value, as opposed to believing
something, which always requires insufficient evidence for such a decision.
As such, your question is garbled, as a believer, not understanding this
concept, is likely to answer randomly, while to a rational person, the
question is incorrectly phrased. Theories are not "true" or "false", they
are supported - or invalidated.
5 Do you believe the universe has a creator? Y/N
The question is meaningless and full of buried assumptions - again seemingly
founded in late Judaic monotheism and ignoring even minor complexities like
the Christian pantheon. Did the Universe have a beginning? If there was a
creator, who created the creator? How did a singular creator come into
being? Might there be a myriad creators? When an artist creates, does this
make him a creator? Is the artist in the Universe? If the answer to the
preceding questions is yes, then it seems, for you, that the answer is yes.
Concatenated questions are always tricky. You need to identify such
concatenations and make them explicit and discrete or the replies to your
questions will always be invalid.
6 Do you consider yourself to be religious? Y/N
I'm not sure how this question should be answered until I knew what you
meant by a religion. After all, the Church of Virus is a rational, atheistic
religion. Does that mean that its members are religious? Is a witch thinking
of "Gaea" religious? How about a meth maker staring into his converter? An
astronomer at the stars? Tell me how you define "religious" and I will tell
you whether I am or not. Until you reply, I cannot answer.
7 Do you feel your beliefs are supported by science? Y/N
Science does not support belief in anything. In fact, science does not
support anything. Science stipulates a method whereby theories about
observations may be rigorously examined and usually disproven. Beliefs
cannot be observed (although some (those which make concrete claims about
the nature of the Universe or from which a concrete claim can be inferred)
can be examined and possibly invalidated using the scientific method).
Again, the phrasing is defective.
8 Do you have faith in yourself? Y/N
What is faith? Trust in a person or thing? Or something more? Or less?
Again, you are introducing a portmanteaux concept that each respondent will
necessarily translate differently - and thus the replies will not be
comparable or useful.
9 Do you have faith in other people? Y/N
Faith that they exist? Faith that they will continue to exist? Faith that
they are reliable? Or something else? Faith in them for what? Faith that
they will pay their taxes? Faith that they will help those like themselves
and dislike those they perceive to be different? Is faith the right word for
a reasonable expectation? Or does it mean something else? I suspect that the
believer would say "something else" but cannot respond to this question as
phrased.
10 Do you have faith in a higher power? Y/N
Here you compound the above difficulty with faith (8/9) with the earlier
difficulty with a higher power (1) and the question of its singularity (2).
You may as well throw dice as ask such ill-defined questions.
11 Do you believe scientists are right to try and discover the underlying
answer to all things? Y/N
How does right and wrong come into a process of investigation? Why ask this
question about "scientists" when it is not how science characterizes
herself? In science we approximate to a working hypothesis of the mechanisms
governing shareable perceived reality by means of invalidating inferior
theories. Science does not postulate the existence of any answers, never
mind accepting the existence of an "answer to all things."
12 Do you accept Jesus Christ, Our Lord, Our Saviour as the Messiah? Y/N
Who was Jesus Christ? The Gnostic refinement of the Egyptian God Osiris? A
Jewish Zealot? A confabulation of the two? Or do you, as it seems, attempt
to assert a literal interpretation of a particular interpretation of the
Christian mythos? Who is "our" in the above? And why the possessive plural?
Does this not strike you as a rather preemptive assertion of a rather
improbable assortment of attributes rather than a question? A "Lord" is a
master. Do men have masters? Or do slaves? What is a "Messiah"? Do you mean
the Jewish Messianic God/King, or one of the Christian versions? And how can
this be answered by an atheist?
13 Do you feel that Atheists are “missing out”? Y/N
Missing out on what? Sex? Drugs? Rock & Roll? Truth? Reality? The joy of
being alive? A delusional certainty? The dubious benefit of sacrifices now
for an unknown and uncertain future reward in a period after death? Why
don't you ask the same question of the religious? They might well be missing
out on any number of the above. What could the answer to this question tell
you about anyone?
14 Would you like to see more people embracing your faith? Y/N
How does a person who has no faith reply to this question? Have you stopped
beating your girlfriends yet? Is bald a hair color? Atheism is not a faith.
Atheism is a lack of belief in gods. All and any gods. The Jews make an
exception for one, the Christians for some number that even they are not
sure of. But both groups disbelieve in some vast number of gods. Atheists
simply decline to make this exception (but this does not necessarily imply a
rejection of all beliefs. Some atheists believe in racism, or the
possibility of restoring awareness to dead frozen tissue at some future
date). How does this equate to faith?
15 Do you often argue your point of view with others? Y/N
This may appear to be an unexceptional question for the atheist. But I would
suggest that to the believer it may be more problematic. When a believer
proselytizes, is he arguing his pov? Or his religions? Or what he imagines
is that of his gods? Thus your question is defective unless it specifies
what arguing is, and what "your point of view" is to a believer.
16 Can you produce evidence to back up your claims? Y/N
What claims? By whom? The atheist makes no claims about gods, but may make
claims about other issues.
17 Will you accept a rival point of view if scientific evidence shows it to
be true? Y/N
The point of belief is that it is that which accepts that which cannot be
sufficiently proven - or even that which has been disproven. Science makes
no claims to show anything to be true. Science proceeds by demonstrating
things to be untrue by means of the scientific method. So the scientific
phrasing of the above might be, "Will you accept a rival point of view if
scientific evidence shows yours to be invalid." And the answer, like all
scientific answers, will be conditional. If the rival point of view is based
on observation, appears to be the simplest hypothesis explaining the
observations, is coherent, has been tested and replicated, has achieved
consensus support and has not yet been invalidated. But this has nothing to
do with a stand-point on the non-existence of gods.
Science does not pretend to simplistic "truths" or a single perspective - it
leaves that to the realm of belief - where it arguably belongs.
18 Do you believe it is right that every theory about the world in which we
live should be subject to scientific enquiry? Y/N
What should somebody who has no beliefs reply to this? What should a
scientist who knows that not every "theory about the world" deserves, or
indeed can be "subject to scientific enquiry"? How will you and others
interpret the response? As a scientist my answer is no. But I suspect that
you will get positive and negative responses from atheists, theists and
deists alike.
19 Do you believe religious theories of the world should be subject to
scientific enquiry? Y/N
How can they be? Very few "religious theories" are scientific theories as
they are not based in observation, but in primitive beliefs. Science can
invalidate assertions that are made as far as they relate to reality, but it
cannot go beyond that anymore than it can establish that there are no pixies
at the bottom of the garden.
20 Will you accept evidence that shows religious theories to be false? Y/N
To the best of my knowledge, few religions have ever postulated a theory. A
theory is always at least theoretically falsifiable. Most religious
assertions are not, although they can be shown to be logically contradictory
(e.g. a just and loving god that will sentence people to everlasting torment
for a transient belief which somebody not of that religion held, most likely
because the person being sentenced was born to the wrong parents).
21 Do you believe in the supernatural? Y/N
Again, your phrasing is dubious. Rational people do not hold beliefs. A
rational person does not have beliefs, and if something existed which was
contradictory to what we understand of nature, a rational person would
accept that his understanding had been faulty and that contradictory thing
is, by virtue of its existence, a part of nature. So by definition,
"supernatural" is a meaningless phrase. It suggests a contradiction. A
natural thing which is not natural. Excuse me. Of course, it is not
necessary that an atheist be rational.
22 Do you believe in a soul which is separate from the body? Y/N
The belief problem again.
23 Do you go to religious services on a regular basis? Y/N
What is a religious service? What is regular? The person going to church on
Christmas/Easter day is going regularly according to some religions. Some
atheists do this for social reasons. What are you attempting to establish?
24 Do you try to follow your religious set of ethical and moral
guidelines? Y/N
Do most religions set such guidelines? What are they based upon? Is an
atheist who follows guidelines to answer "no" because their ethical and
moral guidelines are not necessarily religious? Is the Christian who screws
people over going to answer yes? How is the answer to this question going to
help you?
25 Do you believe the mind is separate from the physical body? Y/N
Belief - again?
26 Do you believe your deity to have a human form? Y/N
Still with the belief? And another compacted question. A person who believes
in Anubis might have trouble answering this. A Christian possibly also
would. An atheist definitely would. Think about it.
Here is my atheist perspective: I do not believe + I do not have any deities
(plural) + if there were any beings which I might regard as deities, I have
no reason to imagine that they would have anything to do with humans. So any
answer to your question asserts that which I reject.
27 What is the name of your deity? Y/N
How does one answer this question yes or no? Why should I assert possession
of a deity?
28 Do you believe the Pope is God’s representative here on earth? Y/N
I was going to answer the rest, but decided to let you have a chance to
rethink your ideas, as the objections to most of your questions are similar.
Read Kirk's critique. It is helpful.
Hermit
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