Atheists are smart and theists are stoopid, right?

In my last post I made the point that atheists can evince indoctrinational elements in their thinking as surely as anybody else. Indeed, the myth of the "free thinking" atheist can sometimes make them more liable to this danger. The primary evidence of indoctrination is found in dependence upon untenable binary oppositions between good and bad, right and wrong, et cetera in which all those people and/or views on one side are good and right, and all those on the other side are bad and wrong.

TheOtherSorcero was invoking this kind of dichotomy when he contrasted the scientist who loves being wrong with the theologian who only loves pushing his beliefs. He was invoking an absurdly simplistic (and false) dichotomy.

Because those indoctrinated have these binary categories in place, they find it very difficult to break out of them. The atheist who thinks all theists are stoopid doesn't know what to do when he encounters one who is calm, articulate and informed. (Ditto the theist who thinks all atheists are fools.) And so when somebody (like me) comes along and challenges this fallacious division of reality, they often tend only to repeat the fallacious division in new forms for that is the path of least resistance. It is much more difficult to begin rethinking one's binary oppositions.

Case in point, consider a number of atheistic responses to the blog which evince those same untenable binary oppositions (though Tim Stroud's was an admirable model of cool analytic engagement).

First up, TheOtherSorcero, the individual I was initially critiquing. His rambling diatribe begins with the observation "I've never read a single book on atheistic topics." That is not something to be proud of, but it illustrates nicely the trap of thinking that indoctrinated categories depend on some process of formal instruction. They don't. They depend on the binary oppositions and TheOtherSorcero continues to manifest them in this response. Indeed he says "I believe the only people who can be good theologians are atheists, because only they are truly able to abandon preconceptions of specific religions and treat all religions equally." (Given that he's never read an atheist's book, one wonders what qualifies him to make this statement.)

TheOtherSorcero then tries to caricature my views by bizarrely suggesting that I believe "Satan is putting atheistic ideas in the minds of the world's greatest scientists and blog commenters, right?" Um, no I don't believe that, but isn't it nice to think so?

Conversational Atheist then weighs in with a cooler head but the same blunt categorization of reality: "I think what he [TheOtherSorcero] was driving at was the fact that scientists view other scientists as failures to be good scientists insofar as they reject clear contrary evidence in favor of their pet theory." Sure. And like I said last time, this virtue is valued across disciplines. But not according to CA who then claims that in theology and religion "Faith in the face of contrary evidence is seen as a virtue. And the more evidence overcome, the greater the virtue." Sigh. The only people I have ever met who hold this view of faith are atheists.

Sorceror quotes Carl Sagan saying that scientists change their minds on a regular basis based on evidence but "I cannot recall the last time something like that happened in politics or religion." I'll leave Sagan's silly jab at politics to one side and focus on religion. Again this is not only false but stupidly false. (Sorry, but I gotta call a spade a spade.) Theologians change their mind based on reasoned arguments all the time. I for one changed from being a Calvinist to an Arminian based on reasoned argument. Try reading some academic journals in theology or religious studies for a bit and you'll find innumerable examples. To note but two, many theologians of recent years have been persuaded by the powerful argument for Girard's theory of atonement and Wright's view of justification.

I also have to point out that the underlying philosophy of science as Popperian falsification which seems to underlie many of these comments is false and naive. Thomas Kuhn illustrated how scientific changes of mind are often very much like conversions. (Philosophers of science Michael Polanyi and Imre Lakatos offer more nuanced accounts of the faith and theory laden elements of science, but all show the inadequacy of falsificationism.) Anyway, as I have noted previously, analyses of scientific method have moved far beyond Popper who presents a view that was already getting outdated when the Beatles and Rolling Stones were busy invading America.

Sorceror then adds: "But you've presented no evidence that atheists in general are any more likely to engage in such things than the religious." I didn't argue and don't believe that atheists are more likely than theists to be indoctrinated. Rather, I am pointing out that there is no "safe ground". Both the hillbilly Pentecostal living in the Ozarks and the atheistic physicist working at the CERN large hadron collider can fall into the binary oppositions that are the hallmark of indoctrinated thinking. And the sooner we all concede this tendency in ourselves the sooner we will be moving onto the pastures of clearer thinking.