An Atheist rebuttal to "5 Ways to Be a Better Atheist"

An article came across my news feed lately entitled “5 Ways to be a Better Atheist” by Michael Patton. I initially thought that the article is either a lesson in critical thinking or a rant against anti-theism.  Typically I check the source before I read something, this time I did not.  It is a happy accident though, because the article has become popular in theistic circles, so I feel as if I must address it as a reference to not only atheists, but also skeptically minded theists.  “Five Ways…” is written by a theist in judgement of atheists.  Imagine if an Atheist wrote such an absurd list as “5 Ways to be a Better Christian.” I can almost hear the theistic outrage now! 

The introduction to the article claims that “Atheism is suffering.” He is writing his article to theists and is only pandering to their emotions.  By claiming that Atheism is suffering, Patton is trying to allay theist fears that they are losing some sort of battle for the souls of man. Furthermore, he claims that New Atheism is evangelical in its nature.  Not quite.  In all fairness, some New Atheists have used the word evangelical – trying to spread the word as it were – but most New Atheists would say they are activists, not evangelicals.  Why the distinction?  Most New Atheists (that is all except for the extremists – all movements have their crackpots) couldn’t care less what you believe, so long as you do not force others to those beliefs.  If you want to believe that that a certain day of the week is special, fine, good for you.  But do not force businesses to close down that day.  If you want to believe that the universe was created in 6 days, fine, good for you.  But, until you can prove it though verifiable and measurable means, do not insist that it is taught as science in schools.

And now for the laundry list:

Claim One: Atheists must make more concessions.

Patton asserts that Atheists must stop making certain claims.  The first is that there is no evidence for god.  Well, there isn’t, and no a religion’s sacred texts do not count.  To claim that a certain sacred text is exclusively accurate without allowing the claims in the text to be scrutinized is the fallacy of special pleading.  This is true for not only material claims (the age of the earth, resurrection etc. but also for moral and historical claims.  A case in point is that there is debate among historians as to whether Socrates was a real person, or a literary device for Plato.  The evidence for Socrates is stronger than that for Jesus (THIS PAGE covers the comparison of evidence quite thoroughly). Briefly, there are three sources for Socrates that were written in his lifetime, the earliest sources for Jesus were written over 50 years after his death, and by non-witnesses. To compound the problem, many “official” books of the Bible have been added to centuries after the earliest copies.  In other words, later authors forged parts of the books.

According to Patton, Atheists must stop saying theism is irrational.  No. We must not. When you hold a belief based on faith and not evidence, you are being the very definition of irrational.  Faith is incompatible with reason.  I will not go further into the matter here, as I have already covered the material in my response to R.R. Reno’s view on critical thinking HERE and in my video on faith HERE.

Next he tackles the correlation between education and Atheism.  Studies show (here’s a few The Independent, Barna, Medical Daily) that the more educated a person is, the more likely that they are an Atheist. This is also true not only of populations within a country, but among nations themselves (most educated countries, most Atheistic countries)  Patton tries to counter these studies by saying that there are many highly intelligent people that are Christian.  This is true.  It is also true that there are those who are as dumb as a box of rocks that are Atheist.  But he misses the point.  The point is that highly educated people are also well versed in critical thinking.  Religions are often found wanting when challenged with the words “prove it”.  Saying that, there are still those that find comfort in the rituals of religion, in the promise of seeing loved ones after death.  No one faults them for holding on to those desires.  But when they try to justify their beliefs through reason, even the most intelligent of people may buy into their own bullshit. 

James Randi, aka the Amazing Randi, is a mentalist and a magician.  For decades he wowed audiences with seemingly supernatural powers until he became fed up with charlatans who were practicing the same tricks to convince people that they had “real” supernatural powers.  So, Randi picked up where Harry Houdini left off, and began exposing these charlatans for what they were (Randi’s expose of Uri Geller).  Randi has offered a million dollar prize (JREF) to anyone who can perform supernatural feats under laboratory conditions.  So far, no one has been able to.  There have been scientists who have claimed to find evidence of ESP or telekinesis, but once Randi’s people evaluated the studies, the ruse was exposed.  The scientists were not the ones trying to con Randi, but it was their subjects that conned the scientists!  Why?  Magic tricks are not a part of science curriculum.  You see, nature does not lie, it does not try to con us; only people do that.  The scientists lacked the proper training in mentalism and the art of illusion.  So even a highly intelligent person, a highly trained skeptic can fall for a ruse.  That’s one of the dangers of having an open mind: those well versed in grift can take advantage of you.  And sometimes we want to believe something so badly, that we twist logic and reason any way we can in order to hold those beliefs.

Patton claims that by not relenting to theistic claims of evidence,the Atheist is committing intellectual suicide.  On the surface, he is correct.  However, what he fails to understand, is that when Atheists are being “dismissive” of theistic claims of evidence rooted in sacred texts, miracles, prophesy, etc. they are dismissive because such things are conjecture not evidence.  Evidence is corroborative, verifiable, and falsifiable.  That means that more than one source can produce the results, that the results can be repeatable, and that there are conditions that, if met, would render the evidence as false.  However, when backed into an intellectual corner, the theist often pleads that if the Atheist only had faith they would understand.  The fallacy of appeal to faith is the last refuge of the theist.  To which, I will invoke Hitchens’ Razor in the late, great Christopher Hitchens’ own words, “What can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence.”

Lastly, Patton, says that there is evidence for god, and we must concede that point.  Go back to the beginning of this post and click the link to Patton’s article.  Read the bit where he says there’s evidence.  Notice something missing?  Yep, this supposed evidence.  Now naturally, his article is not about presenting such evidence but he could have at least listed some types of evidence, or arguments, or even a link or two to those arguments.  Alas, he does not.  He asserts there is evidence for god, but fails to include that evidence.  

However, I would wager dollars to doughnuts that the majority of the evidence has been thoroughly debunked, most of which was so centuries ago.  Here’s the thing, if you make an argument for something and that argument is shown to not only be invalid, but the counter argument is shown to be valid, then your argument is no longer evidence.  Since Patton has not listed is supposed evidence I cannot disprove it.  However, I have already addressed the most common theistic apologetics here, which may include what Patton would consider his “evidence”.

In conclusion to this first little bit, I will say that all ideas must be challenged.  Personally, I care too much about people to allow unfounded, untrue, and often malicious ideas contribute to their misery.  This is doubly true when their false ideas contribute to someone else’s misery.  So no.  No concessions will be made by me or anyone else that place their fellow humans above any notions of imaginary sky-daddies.

Claim 2: The Flying Spaghetti Monster

At first I was going to gloss over this one, because it is silly.  Then, the more I thought about it, the more I realized that Patton, and quite possibly many of his like-minded cohorts are actually scared of the Flying Spaghetti Monster (FSM).  For those who have not heard of the FSM, he is from a children’s book that is written much like the bible, about a deity, the FSM and the religion that follows him.  It’s silly. It’s cute. It is an illustration on how silly the claims of other religions are when viewed outside that religion.  And what I think gets the goat of most theists is when a non-believer in their brand of woo-woo points out that their little religion looks just as ridiculous to the non-believer as the FSM does to them.  No one that follows the FSM think it’s real, it is just fun make believe, but the theists are taking it seriously!

Patton makes it clear that he takes the threat of the FSM seriously when he tries to get philosophical to counter FSM claims.  He claims to be able to invalidate (remember, he is trying to invalidate something that the fans of it say is fiction) the FSM through a two-step process. First, Patton brings up the specter of the necessary being.  It is a tired philosophical concept that it is necessary that some being caused the very first event in cosmic history; an uncaused cause if you will.  This idea is found in the Teleological and Cosmological arguments which are addressed, again, in my God Arguments page.

Secondly, and if we were being intellectually honest, we would say that Patton is still stuck on the first part, he says that there is no historical basis for it.  ALL religions are stuck on this step.  The reason that anthropologists, sociologists etc. are the least religious scholars is that these fields have not only studied various religions, but have even seen the historical record and archaeological evidence of when religions and deities were invented, borrowed and developed.

Claim 3: Admit the weakness of their position

Patton is getting slick with this one.  He makes an indirect ad hominem on Atheists by claiming that those Atheists who publicly debate are similar to used-car salesmen: they dress nice, so they MUST be hiding something!  He then says that we Atheists must admit that our position is a “weak” one (implying his is the “strong” one.) The basis for his assertion is that Atheism cannot explain any basis for morals or existence itself. 

Ok, first, Atheism is not a belief system.  Atheism is simply the lack of belief in any gods.  That is all.  Atheism doesn’t HAVE to explain anything because it is a baseline position.  But, since Patton brought it up, are there any secular theories to morals or existence?  Why, yes.  Yes there is.  There is a whole field of philosophical study (it’s called ethics, by the way) that deals with morality.  As to why there’s something instead of nothing, I say, why not?  Assuredly, science is working on it, and there are some hypotheses as to why we have a universe.  But it is a complex matter and one that cannot accept the lazy-man’s answer: god did it.  You see, if you want to posit an idea as to why there is something rather than nothing, you must prove it.  Claiming one deity or another and resting on it is intellectually lazy, and fraudulent.

Claim 4: Atheists must be more open-minded

Patton claims that Atheists are necessarily closed-minded. He pleads that Atheists cannot claim to be open-minded because Atheists reject religion. When I first read this, I thought, “Oh, he just doesn’t understand what open-minded means.” Now that I’ve read it again, I’m not only sure he doesn’t, but I’m also sure he doesn’t fully understand his own argument. Patton claims that Atheism is so married to naturalism that Atheists cannot think outside the box. Again, Atheism is only a lack of belief in gods. Most Buddhists are Atheists, as are Jains. And yet, they do believe in non-naturalistic things. Again Patton’s attack on Atheism is really an attack on secular skepticism (Skepticism with a capital ‘S’ as it is a sort of movement that fits exactly what Patton is raging against). When a Skeptic says to be open minded, they mean to not clutch your beliefs so tightly that when faced with evidence that nullifies those beliefs, you are incapable of revising your beliefs. The Skeptic uses reason and empirical evidence as their basis for knowledge because it fucking works! Language and math operate on the same logic, in fact the field of Propositional Calculus does just that: it turns logical, linguistic statement into math so computers can compute.  

What people like Patton cannot stand, is that there is no room for faith at the table of reason. Faith is accepting something to be true (believing in it) without evidence.  This is the antithesis of reason!  Now, the most popular theistic dodge to this criticism is that theists do not base their faith on a lack of evidence, but rather on evidence, such as personal revelation, miracles and fulfilled prophecies.  I've already tackled why these do not count as evidence in my god videos.  The video on prophecy and miracles is here, which leaves personal revelation.  It is not evidence. Accepting something on someone's say so is not good evidence of any sort.  It is not that they are lying, though that may be the case, but it is well known that eye-witness accounts are not reliable (even for cops). Not to mention that while an eye witness account of an event will more than likely have corroborating physical evidence, a report of someone's feelings on something, or the voices in their head are most likely attributable to various psychological states, not on the super natural.  One last thing that gets the preachers, used-car salesmen, kings, and other con-men upset with the rejection of faith as evidence, is that THEY have to prove what they say too.  They do not have the authority to dictate "truth."  Take that power away, and they have none.  No religion has ever been able to withstand the words, 'prove it.'  What Patton cannot comes to grips with, is that neither can he prove it.

Another interesting thing, is that many theists will try to commit an amphiboly by interchanging two separate meanings of the word faith to show that their religion is "true."  They will mix the meaning, 'belief without evidence' with other meanings of the word, be it a synonym for some other emotional state like hope or 'confidence', or they will use the synonym 'religion'. I won’t go into it more here, I've already covered faith in the following video, here, and argued against R.R. Reno's idea of using faith instead of reason in education here.

Claim 5: Stop saying Atheism is just a lack of belief in gods.

Oops.  I think I've fully violated that one.  The reason why Patton says this, is because he is convinced that Atheism is more than that.  He makes a claim that the reason why Atheists say that Atheism is a lack of belief is because Atheists are trying to avoid the burden of proof.  There are a couple of things going on here.  The first, is that the reason why no one claims to be a-leprechuanist or a-Thorist is because leprechaun and Thor are not Greek words (though Atheism includes a-Thorists). Secondly, and again, Patton is nor raging against Atheism, but Skepticism.  Now, it is true that many Atheists in the US come to it through Skepticism, but they are not the same thing.  In fact, the man who argued for modern skepticism was very devout indeed!  Rene Descartes formulated the principal of doubt as a starting point to figure out how we could ever know anything. 

Before Descartes, new knowledge was mashed with old preconceptions, and it the new did not fit, it was often rejected.  Copernicus had this problem, as did Galileo, with the authorities at that time.  Descartes said that to gain new knowledge it is best to begin from a state of utter doubt, and let the evidence guide our conclusions.  This one principle has guided scientific inquiry for the past 400 years.  This one principle is the foundation that led to discoveries that feed the world, that prevent and cure disease that got us to the moon.  Now, as devout as Descartes was, he began from is principle of doubt and arrived at a "necessary, and good god" conclusion.  But, that was due to certain assumptions that can easily be argued away today.

So, since Patton is confused on what Atheism is, and he is actually arguing against Skepticism…

What Patton is trying to get at is that people need a world view and that Atheism is a part of it.  He is basically making a Red HerringFallacy, by misusing the term Atheism to distract what he is really against: world views other than his own. While he is correct that Atheism is a part of an Atheist's world view, Atheism itself is not a world view.  Patton proposes the following questions are necessary to answer to have a world view:

• Is there such a thing as morality?
• Does man have free will?
• Why is there something rather than nothing?
• What is the basis for rationality?

For each of these questions, Atheism is an irrelevant concept; meaning that the concept of Atheism does not answer the question. 

Question: "Is there such a thing as morality?"

Answer: "A lack of belief in gods"

See, it doesn’t fit.  So then what is he getting at?  He is railing against modern philosophy and science, which are beginning to answer those questions in a manner that is more in touch with reality than the authoritarian mandates of religion. 

Can Skeptical inquiry answer such questions?  Let us consider some questions then (note: these questions are far from exhaustive):

Is there such a thing as morality?  A skeptic would ask such questions:  What is morality?  Is it universal or not?  Can morality be determined either philosophically or through the eyes of science, say evolution, or sociology?

Does man have free will?  A skeptic would start with, "what IS free will?"  Is free will even possible?  Then the Skeptic would tackle the problem if man has it.

Why is there something rather than nothing?  A skeptic would begin thusly: What do we mean by nothing?  Is nothing even possible?  Does the original question, itself, have any real meaning?

What is the basis for rationality?  The skeptic would then ask, "What is logic?"  What does it mean to know?  How do we know if we know?  What is the best way to use knowledge to find new knowledge?  Can we use knowledge to find knowledge?

Again, the questions above are far from exhaustive, and many a career in philosophy has been made just focusing on one set of questions above.  So, why not just use some sort of variation of "god did it" To answer the above questions?  Because then you would have to prove two things: One that there is in fact a god (more specifically your god) and two, you would have to prove that god did, in fact, do it.  It is the same burden of proof that ANYONE has when trying to answer the above questions.  Do Atheists have the same burden of proof to answer the above? Of course they do.  But, Atheism does not, as it is a concept with a singular meaning and it is a meaning that has nothing to do with explaining anything other than a singular person's acceptance of any gods.

Modern philosophy and science are used more and more to answer the above questions and people are relying less and less on religion for those answers.  Religion is losing its special status, its power, and the shamans of the world's religions are fighting to keep their power.  

The closing remarks of Patton’s diatribe against Atheism is another ad hominem against Atheists.  But, he did offer to pray for us.  I think I can speak for many Atheists by saying, “keep praying.  Want to try to convert us? Stay at home and pray for us.  Want to spread the word at a school?  Stay and home and pray that your god will reveal himself.  Is it the second Tuesday in November?  For the love of democracy, stay at home and pray!”

Faith: What is it?

I made this little video to explain my thoughts on the concept of “belief without evidence”. This video is not an attack on religion, per se, but rather a critical outlook on the the very concept of faith.  To a degree, this video serves as a coup de grace to by blog post on R.R. Reno’s assault on critical thinking where he espouses using pious faith as a substitution for critical thinking.

Below is the video.  If you rather just read the transcript, it is below the video, but without the pictures.

What is faith?

The word “faith” is used in many instances as a synonym.  The most common is the use of faith to mean religion:  “He was of the Baha’i faith.”  Another is that of trust, as in you trust someone or something:  “He had faith in his wife’s fidelity.” or   “She had faith the rappelling rope would hold her weight.”  Faith can be used to mean confidence:  “She had faith her students would do well on the test.” It can also mean hope:  “The students had faith that they would do well on the test.”

But then why not just use those words?   In all of these cases the word faith creates ambiguity.  But faith has another, more specific meaning:  Acceptance of an idea as true, without any evidence.

This alone can be folly.

At times you must act before you can consider all possibilities, before you can learn the facts.  Fortunately, however, these situations are rare. Unfortunately, they usually involve hungry tigers or gunfire.

Where faith becomes sinister, is when it is paired up with either of these two concepts:

1. When faith is coupled with strict obedience.
2. That faith is a sacred concept.

The application of faith to a leader leads to atrocities.  Be it faith and obedience to the Pope (The Inquisition); To the Pastor (Salem Witch Trials); To the Imam (September 11th); To the secular leader (Stalin).

When the concept of faith is held sacred it cannot be challenged.  There are many bad ideas in human history. Sacred faith in these ideas means they cannot be questioned. This is problematic for two reasons. One is that it prohibits discovery into the world around us. If we kept sacred faith that disease is caused by evil spirits, or wrathful deities, we would not have vaccines, medicine, or surgery. We would all still die at an early age, toiling our lives away at the behest of an authoritarian overlord.

The other problem is that it puts ideas above people.  The faithful are quick to point out the human rights abuses of Stalin, Mao, and Pol Pot.  But they ignore the fact that faith played a role in such atrocities as 9/11, the Inquisition, even the holocaust.  But faith, at least one’s own, is sacred.  Believe, but do not question.

To have faith is to believe first.  The problem with this is that people often hold fast to beliefs.  This is because belief is an emotional attachment to an idea.  We are emotionally programmed to keep our beliefs.  Unfortunately, this inhibits learning.

Faith often leads to tailoring evidence of phenomenon to conform to that belief.  In other words, the conclusion is drawn, then evidence is forced to fit the conclusion.

Reason is the reverse of this.  To reason is to follow the evidence to the conclusion the evidence shows you.  Even if that means changing your world view.  Philosophy, Science, and the Social Studies all rely on this.  Ironically enough, it was a theist, a Christian to be exact, that gave modern reason it’s greatest tool. That man was René Descartes. That tool is doubt.

Before Descartes, new knowledge was forced to fit within the confines of tradition. This is the thinking that hampered progress in Europe during the Dark Ages. Medieval scholars used their faith as a hammer to pound the square pegs of new knowledge into the round holes of their traditions. Descartes’ big idea is that the beginning of knowledge must be doubt. Doubt first, and then seek evidence. This skeptical approach is the foundation of modern science. It places the burden of proof on those who make a positive claim.

But what is a positive claim?

A positive claim is an explanation for something, rather than nothing.

Example:  A car is a certain primary color.  
Is it red, yellow or blue?  
It is a fact that it must be one of the three. But which color to believe the car to be is another matter. The default position is to believe that the car is none of the colors. This is the default, skeptical position used in modern reason.  To believe the car to be yellow without having seen it is faith. To suspend belief until you see the car is using reason. This is how we got out of the dark ages and to the moon; To follow reason is enlightenment.

To hold to a belief when the evidence shows it is not true is delusion.  The sacredness of faith demands obedience of belief in the face of contrary evidence. Thus faith leads to delusions.

Faith is a hold over from the ancient world.  Taking a leader’s word as truth was the glue that held society together. Today, that is not the case.  Today, leaders are held accountable for their lies, and discarded from office when they break the public trust.

That is, unless you put your faith in them.

The world has advanced beyond petty dictators in the desert, in the jungle, on the plain.  We have walked on the Moon.  Reason got us there, not faith.  Leave faith, but preserve your confidence.  Discard faith, hold on to trust.  Lose your faith, but keep your hope.

Take up the charge of reason.  Follow the evidence.  Think Critically in all of your endeavors.  Humanity is on the march to great things once the baggage of faith is left behind.

Do not be left behind.

Piety and R.R. Reno’s assault on Critical Thinking

I have just spent the past hour listening to R.R. Reno’s lecture at First Things, which you can view here.  The thesis of his lecture, and his book the lecture is based on is that critical thinking as the prime virtue in education produces a vacuous world view as it cannot determine truth and the way to fix that is by pious pedagogy.  Reno clarifies that a “Pedagogy of Piety is pious but not necessarily religious.”  This leaves the audience to conclude that he means the non-religious definition of piety which I will expound upon below.  Since this is a 2500+ word post click here for the "TL;DR" end.

Reno begins with an analogy of a train passenger.  The train passenger who is careless and doesn’t look at the train schedule is likely to jump on to the wrong train and miss the right one.  The overly careful passenger worries so much about the schedule that he is frozen in fear of being wrong and misses the train.  He likens the fearful passenger as the critical thinker.

In the first few minutes of the lecture, Reno is already missing the mark.  For one, the analogy is a false one.  The fearful passenger is just as lacking in critical thinking as the careless one.  Reno states that criticism has become one-sided and in order to avoid being paralyzed with critical thinking, one must form convictions.  What he misses is that one purpose of critical thinking is to find the best possible course of action.  Critical thinking is about finding answers, not just deconstructing assertions.  I am getting ahead of myself.

Reno goes on to create a juxtaposition between the humanities and science.  Science is fact based, while the humanities desire a more subtle interpretation of cultural meaning.  Then he implies that these are two different, competing, bodies of knowledge.  That is where he is off the mark again.  His use of humanities refers mostly to literature, meaning that the discussion of literature is a type of knowledge.  This is a bone of contention between the hard sciences and the humanities across most campuses.  The reason is that knowledge is used in two very different ways.  In science knowledge is something that is falsifiable, can be demonstrated, and is independent of the observer. In literature, knowledge can also mean understanding or interpretation of literature.  But literature is art, the exploration of it is an exploration of the author’s mind, the author’s culture, and the reader’s mind and culture.  In other words, it is not completely falsifiable nor completely independent of the observer and therefore not knowledge in the scientific sense.  However, a reader must be able to demonstrate their interpretation using critical thinking.

Reno leaves this line of thinking to explore the relationship between the ivy league and ROTC.  He asserts that most ivy league schools rejected ROTC programs because of the institutionalized homosexual discrimination in the military.  Here Reno shows two things: he is either ignorant of the effect the Vietnam war had on higher education and ROTC, or he, speaking to a Christian audience, is making a dig on the “liberal” (read secular) culture of the ivy league.

Now that gays are accepted into the military, the ivy league has opened their campuses to ROTC except for Columbia University.  He then reads an open letter from Columbia as to why.  In summation it is because higher education promotes critical thinking, questioning everything, including authority, where the military requires a blind obedience to authority.  Reno quips that the authors of that letter do not know what military training is.  Here Reno is right.  ROTC is for officer training and critical thinking and evaluation is paramount to a successful mission.  Is obedience important in the military?  Naturally.  A soldier’s job is to inflict the will of the state on whomever the state wishes.  Success in this requires obedience… to a point.  If an officer orders his platoon to gang rape a prisoner, those soldiers are required to say no.  That would be a war crime, and the men and women serving in are military are required to be able to know the difference between a lawful order and an unlawful one.  This means that even a private must possess critical thinking.

Reno then attacks the concept of critical distance.  A critical distance is removing oneself from the problem to look at it objectively.  Reno refers to it as cold and dispassionate.  However, Reno is missing the point.  The term dispassionate in this sense is the old Hellenistic use of the word.  It doesn’t mean without any emotion, but rather without letting emotion purely be the guide.  For instance, I was in Joplin on May 11, 2011 when an EF-5 tornado devastated the town.  My wife had been in the path of the tornado at her work while I was outside the destruction zone at mine.  After I finally reached her, alive with a few minor injuries, we headed off to find our kids.  The path of destruction barely missed my in-law’s house where the kids were staying, when we went in they told us that a tree had fallen on the back of the house, but they hid in the bathroom.  I quickly counted the kids, saw that the baby was missing and inquired where he was.  They said they left him in his crib.  I ran in to make sure he was OK, and he was, but I raged at them for leaving him in his crib during the tornado!  They didn’t of course, they had him with them in the bathroom.  But my passions had taken over.  I was not thinking clearly, and thus not acting clearly.  Once I calmed down, once I cooled, I was able to see they did the right thing and apologize.  It is against this that critical thinking requires a dispassionate distance.

Reno then brings Rene Descartes into the mix.  More specifically, Descartes’ theory of doubt: all ideas are suspect until proven otherwise.  Or “guilty until proven innocent” as Reno puts it.  This is a true cornerstone of critical thinking.  Medieval thought, to which Descartes was arguing against, would revise modify a particular stance on something to fit new knowledge.  Descartes wanted to tear the whole framework down, and to proceed surely and slowly.

The graph below illustrates Descartes’ call to move slowly and surely:

If you count the hash marks after the year 1000, you’ll see how Descartes was both a product of his time and how he influenced human thought.  Around 1400 CE, Europe started to become more secular, that is less pious, in their outlook.  Descartes was rejecting the kind of thinking that spanned from 400 CE to 1400 CE: the flat part.  Descartes work directly contributed (along with Newton, Leibniz, Galileo, Hume and Kant among others) to the sort of scientific skepticism that by moving “slowly and surely” has advanced science by leaps and bounds.

Reno goes on a bit about Pascal and math, then he comes to his first bit of woo woo.  He says that science cannot answer the “important” questions in life.  It cannot comfort the dying, cannot know about the after life, who should marry who, etc.  Comfort the dying? The after life?  Who should marry who?  What is moral?  Reno is employing two rhetorical devices here.  One is the use of weasel words, in this case, listing “important” questions as the non-scientific one.

Can science comfort the dying?  Not all the time.  But neither can a “there, there”.  But science can comfort the dying in one respect:  It can find cures for terminal diseases.  Which is more than prayer and other forms of authority-based wishful thinking has ever done.  What about the afterlife?  How would one test for it?  The afterlife is more of a philosophical problem.  Who should marry who?  eHarmony claims to be able to with science.  Maybe they can, maybe they cannot.  the problem with match making is there are thousands of variables to account for.  So I will say science could find a perfect match for someone, but the time and cost would be prohibitive.  But that is irrelevant.  What matters is the continuance of the species, and we are here because our ancestors liked to make babies; which is precisely why our children are here.  Morality?  Actually, in The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins contains a science-based moral theory.  I would say it is still a philosophical question, but an interesting take on the matter.

Reno is subtle here.  Remember, he is a Catholic, and he is silently advocating an ultimate earthly authority in the Pope. Meaning that all the “important” questions can be solved through pious education.  By obeying the Pope.

Next, Reno brings in John Henry Newman.  Newman asserts that critical thinking is only destructive, and not creative.  He says that critical thinking may kill the weeds, but it doesn’t fertilize the flowers.  To fertilize the flowers you need to believe first (a direct opposite of what Descartes said). To keep with the analogy, Newman, and Reno, miss something.  Believing in everything first, may in fact fertilize the flowers, but it also fertilizes the weeds too.  Whereas critical thinking does away with the weeds allowing the flowers to flourish on their own.

The above makes more sense with a little philosophical history.  In the 1700s, David Hume put science on its ear by demonstrating that all of science is illogical.  Let’s look at this:

If gravity exists then when I drop a ball, it will fall to the ground.

I dropped the ball and it fell

Therefore, gravity exists.

Sounds great tight?  Let’s look at is in another way:

If I live in London, then I live in England.

I live in England

Therefore, I live in London.

Do you see how the argument doesn’t work now?  In formal logic it is called Affirming the Consequent.

Sounds like Reno has a case?  Meet Karl Popper, a 20th century philosopher. Karl Popper said that Hume was correct in his logic, but incorrect as to what scientists do. Popper said that affirming the consequent is not what they do.  What they do is experiment against their hypotheses to see if it is wrong.  Thus (to re-use the London argument):

If I live in London, then I live in England.

I do not live in England

Therefore, I do not live in London.

That makes sense.  It is called Denying the Consequent, and is logically valid.

By using a subtraction force, Popper preserved scientific integrity.  The reason is that for any given phenomenon, there are a near infinite number of explanations.  No one has time to sift through all of them, and not all of them can be acted upon.  Thus we have to take the bad ideas away from the good.  This is what science, both hard and social, does.

Reno then goes back to his critique of emotional distance (which he refers to with the weasel word “distance cruelty”).  he does this to begin his assault on skepticism, the bane of all flim-flam.  He states that a skeptic believes that every argument has an equal and opposite counter argument.  This is a flat-out lie.  At first, I thought maybe Reno was just uneducated as to what a skeptic is, but in fact he is a highly educated man.  I am left with the conclusion that he lied.  A skeptic is simply one who approaches all of life through the lens of critical thinking.  Does every argument have an equal and opposite counter-argument?  Not at all.  Separating out the bad ideas from the good is the life’s work of the skeptic.

Reno then goes into what he called the paradox of being yourself.  He claims as soon as you makes yourself a project for improvement, then  you are by default serving a higher power.  This is a flat-out non sequitur.  What doesn’t follow is that to be oneself is thus bigger than oneself.  To be a flower is to be a garden.  That sounds like the random ramblings of Deepak Chopra, than the well-reasoned insights of a learned man.  But I digress, and I ad hominem.  Sorry, I couldn’t resist.

Reno then returns to Newman’s idea of believing in everything first then to doubt.  That it is better to get on the wrong train than no train at all.

It is better to get on the wrong train, go to the wrong destination, than to not get on any train at all.

This is, of course, a ridiculous statement when viewed in the right light.  Sometimes it IS best to miss the train!

Reno then includes his second bit of woo woo by assuming that the human soul is about knowing, while critical thinking is about pushing away, subtracting, destroying.  He finishes by saying that only a pious mind is a truth filled mind.  To shorten this already long post, Reno goes on to a little about how math is to encourage success in finding truth, and that modern education has instilled in students pride in not being deceived.  With concluding that belief risks error which is what makes truth possible.  Reno does go into why the Virgin Mary is the patron saint of philosophers, but that really isn’t relevant as it just illustrates his failed reasoning.

Reno’s failed reasoning.  To understand his argument for piety we must first understand what piety is.  It is the act of being religious, but remember that Reno said that it doesn’t have to be a religious thing.  Then what does he mean by piety? Piety is defined as “a belief or point of view that is accepted with unthinking conventional reverence.”  That means that Reno is advocating knowledge by authority.  In other words, believe what your “superiors” tell you.  One of the reasons why critical thinking is essential in a democratic society, is that it evens the playing field of knowledge and policy.  If the masses can think critically, aristocracy won’t arise, fascism won’t gain hold, theocracy will fail to start.  What Reno is arguing for is to turn the fallacy of argument from authority into a cornerstone for knowledge.  This in turn opens the door to theocratic states like the Islamic State and Iran, or to cults of personality like Pol Pot, Stalin and Kim Jong Un.

What is further disturbing is Reno’s use of the word truth.  Truth can be considered the complete body of evidence for something, but that would imply critical thinking at work.  I think Reno is using the word truth as a weasel word to mean “that which those in authority dictate”.  Being Catholic, that authority, at least on the “important” questions, is the Pope.

TL;DR

Reno argues that critical thinking is only a subtractive endeavor that is unable to create.  Instead, we should embrace a pious pedagogy which revises the body on knowledge and doesn’t destroy it.

That is is better to believe first and question only if it is not one of the “important” questions of life, like morality and spiritual matters.  To those we must be pious: unquestioning belief based on authority.

As you can see, this outlook is self defeating.  Which authority do we trust?  In a democracy, critical thinking keeps the Hitlers, Pol Pots, Ayatollahs, and Popes at bay.  If their rhetoric is challenged, they cannot empassion the masses to do ill.

Critical thinking has done more for the advancement of human knowledge than any appeal to authority has ever done. Critical thinking led to the end of slavery, as well as going to the moon.

Reno calls for a return to the medieval, autocratic thinking, i.e. the dark ages, from which the Enlightenment (and scientific skepticism, AKA critical thinking) illuminated humanity.