Religion

  Not much blogging going on here still, but here's my annual list of books read for 2024. James Bamford, Spy Fail: Foreign Spies, Moles, Saboteurs, and the Collapse of America's Counterintelligence (2023)Benjamin Breen, Tripping on Utopia: Margaret Mead, The Cold War and the Troubled Birth of Psychedelic ScienceJennifer Burns, Milton Friedman: The Last Conservative (2023)Bryan Burrough, Vendetta: American Express and the Smearing of Edmond Safra (1992)Ron Chernow, The House of Morgan: An American Banking Dynasty and the Rise of Modern Finance (1990, 2010 foreword)Rich Cohen, The Fish That Ate the Whale: The Life and Times of America's Banana King (2012)Daniel C. Dennett, I've Been Thinking (2023)Cory Doctorow, The Bezzle (fiction)Edward Dolnick, Down the Great Unknown: John Wesley Powell's 1869 Journey of Discovery and Tragedy Through the Grand Canyon (2002)Jon Friedman & John Meehan, House of Cards: Inside the Troubled Empire of American Express (1992)Beverly Gage, G-Man: J. Edgar Hoover and the Making of the American Century (2022)John Ganz, When the Clock Broke: Con Men, Conspiracists, and How America Cracked Up in the Early 1990sMasha Gessen, The Future Is History: How Totalitarianism Reclaimed Russia (2017)Martin Kihn, House of Lies: How Management Consultants Steal Your Watch and Then Tell You the Time (2005)Stephen Kinzer, Poisoner in Chief: Sidney Gottlieb and the CIA Search for Mind Control (2020)Stephen Kinzer, The True Flag: Theodore Roosevelt, Mark Twain, and the Birth of American Empire (2017)Talia Lavin, Wild Faith: How the Christian Right is Taking Over AmericaMilton Mayer, They Thought They Were Free: The Germans 1933-45 (1955)Michael Warren Lucas, git commit murder (2017, fiction)Arvind Narayanan and Sayash Kapoor, AI Snake Oil: What Artificial Intelligence Can Do, What It Can't, and How to Tell the DifferenceCraig Nelson, Thomas Paine: Enlightenment, Revolution, and the Birth of Modern Nations (2006)Ryan J. Reilly, Sedition Hunters: How January 6th Broke the Justice System (2023)Chris Rodda, Liars for Jesus: The Religious Right's Alternate Version of American History, Volume 2 (2016)Zoë Schiffer, Extremely Hardcore: Inside Elon Musk's TwitterMatt Zwolinski and John Tomasi, The Individualists: Radicals, Reactionaries, and the Struggle for the Soul of LibertarianismTop for 2024 published in 2024: Doctorow, Breen, Ganz; other top reads for the year: Gage, Dennett, Kinzer (2020), Cohen, Gessen, Rodda A few non-books of relevance for 2025: What the Southern Baptists used to believe, but no longer do: https://www.sbc.net/resource-library/resolutions/resolution-on-moral-character-of-public-officials/Umberto Eco, "Ur-Fascism," New York Review of Books, June 22, 1995Dorothy Thompson, "Who Goes Nazi," Harper's Magazine, August 1941 (but contrast with Mayer 1955 and Gessen 2017 above) A few planned or already (or still) in-progress reads for 2024: G.A. Cohen, Self-Ownership, Freedom, and Equality (1995)John Ferris, Behind the Enigma: The Authorised History of GCHQ, Britain's Secret Cyber-Intelligence Agency (2020)Peter H. Wilson, The Holy Roman Empire: A Thousand Years of Europe's History (2017)Lawrence Wright, The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11 (2006)Arthur M. Melzer, Philosophy Between the Lines: The Lost History of Esoteric Writing (2014)Mark S. Weiner, The Rule of the Clan: What an Ancient form of Social Organization Reveals About the Future of Individual Freedom (2013)(Previously: 2023, 2022, 2021, 2020, 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014, 2013, 2012, 2011, 2010, 2009, 2008, 2007, 2006, 2005.) 

In the March 21st, 2021 Washington Post story “The rioter next door: How the Dallas suburbs spawned domestic extremists," Annie Gowen writes of a Texas pastor who claimed prophecy that Trump would remain in office: Shortly before Biden’s inauguration, Pastor Brandon Burden of the KingdomLife church — a boxy, largely windowless sanctuary in Frisco — mounted the pulpit and gave a stemwinder of a sermon that went viral. ...

In his recent talk at the American Atheist convention on skepticism and atheism, Matt Dillahunty states (at about five minutes in) that skepticism does tell us what to believe in the case of untestable claims–that the default position is disbelief. But no, the default position has to be nonbelief, not disbelief. To disbelieve in a proposition is to believe in the negation of the proposition, to believe that the original proposition is false. And Dillahunty already said that (a) we should proportion our belief to the evidence and that (b) the proposition in question is untestable, meaning there is no evidence for or against it. The position he describes is logically inconsistent. We know that there are untestable propositions that are true. We shouldn’t believe that they are false simply because they are untestable. We should only believe they are false if we have good reasons to believe they are false; in the absence of that we should be agnostic. (Added 5:36 p.m.: What are the implications for the above argument if it is the case that untestability does not entail lack of evidence or reasons? What about if we distinguish evidential from non-evidential reasons? And if we take the latter course, what does that say about proposition (a), above? Left as an exercise for commenters.) ...

My talk from January 19, 2013 to the National Capitol Area Skeptics is now online! Thanks very much to the NCAS for professionally recording and editing this video. I’ve included some notes and comments below. 0:50 & 42:29 "Advanced Teachings" available at all Advanced Orgs are up to OT V. Advanced Orgs can deliver through OT V; OT VI & VII can only be obtained at the Flag Service Organization (FSO) in Clearwater, FL, and OT VIII can only be obtained on Scientology's cruise ship, the Freewinds. See: http://www.xenu.net/archive/ot/ 8:01 German U-boat -- I should have said Japanese submarine 9:14 Photo is often claimed to be from 1968 but is really from 1959-60, so Cleve Backster probably wasn't the source of Hubbard's claim, as I originally said in the talk (also see my previous blog post on this topic). 10:53 Aleister Crowley is pronounced "crow-lee," not "craugh-lee" (I have apparently have not broken a bad habit of following Ozzy Osbourne's pronunciation). 13:59 the Fraser Mansion, though referred to by Scientology as the "founding church" from the 1970s to 2010, wasn't the original building. The original building, at 1812 19th St. NW, is now a museum called the L. Ron Hubbard House (though his house was across the street), which the church acquired in 2004. The Fraser Mansion is now Scientology's National Affairs Office. 14:11 The first use of the name "Church of Scientology" was by the Church of Scientology founded in Camden, N.J. in Dec. 1953; the first Church of Scientology corporation was in Los Angeles (Feb. 1954, which became the Church of Scientology of California in 1956), the Church of Scientology of Arizona was incorporated that same year. Hubbard's organization while he lived in Phoenix was the Hubbard Association of Scientologists, International (HASI), founded in Sep. 1952. All HASI assets were folded into the Church of Scientology of California in 1966. 31:07 "Division 20" should have been "Department 20." 32:43 "bad status" -- Scientology "conditions" are a scale, like the tone scale, that your "ethics" are in, which are positive or negative. For each condition there is a "conditions formula" you are supposed to apply to get to the next better condition. Those assigned to the RPF are put in a condition of "liability" (the rag on arm mentioned is a sign of the condition of liability). See: http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~dst/Library/Shelf/wakefield/us-11.html 41:07 PIs following the Broekers--mainly Pat Broeker; after one apparent attempt to leave (described in Lawrence Wright's book, Going Clear), Annie Broeker remained in Scientology until her death. Tony Ortega describes the testimony of the two PIs, who spoke out for one day before their lawsuit with Scientology was settled: http://tonyortega.org/2012/11/29/scientologys-master-spies/ 43:22 Lawrence Wright's book says that "Int Base" and "Gold Base" are two different bases at the same location; "Int" being the international headquarters and "Gold" named after Golden Era Studios. 1:05:35 "dog was drowned" -- Judge Swearinger's dog, Duke, a miniature collie, drowned, it's not certain that it "was drowned." 1:07:10 "unable to attend uncle's funeral" -- Hubbard died on January 24, 1986; the Challenger explosion was January 28, 1986. 1:17:43 St. Louis Ideal Org.  The pictured Masonic Temple is not the St. Louis Ideal Org, which is still under construction. (Thanks to ThetanBait on YouTube for this correction.) Narconon's drug purification program involves vitamin (esp. niacin) megadoses, but "injections" is not correct. Historical Comments Alan (2013-03-10): Saw your last presentation in town, and was great seeing it again with the updates. I think you got better questions this time, too. Thanks for posting this. – Alan ...

Now on YouTube, “In God We Teach," a documentary about Matt LaClair’s exposure of his U.S. History teacher’s proselytization in the public school classroom. Historical Comments Alan (2012-05-31): Very well done documentary. Well worth the time to watch. Thanks for the link. – Alan Ed Darrell (2013-01-30): Amazing to me that in 2011 that was still a controversy: http://timpanogos.wordpress.com/2007/02/20/fisking-paszkiewicz-or-virtual-carnage-in-kearny-nj/#more-447 ...

I recently had a few opportunities on a plane to catch up on some reading and podcasts.  A few of the more interesting things I came across: A bunch of interesting articles in The Economist for the past few weeks: January 28-February 3, 2012: "Saving Lives: Scattered Saviors" -- harnessing social media and mobile devices to deploy first aid faster than an ambulance can arrive (United Hatzalah in Israel believes it will be able to have first responders on the scene within 90 seconds). "China's new tribes: Ant tribes and mortgage slaves" -- a new vocabulary in Mandarin describing emerging social groups in China.  (Reminds me of Cory Doctorow's Eastern Standard Tribe.) "Affinity fraud: Fleecing the flock" -- the rise in affinity fraud, especially religious affinity fraud, during the economic downturn, and why it works so effectively.  (Also see my blog post from 2008 and another on the same topic from the Secular Outpost in 2006.)  Briefly mentioned is the Baptist Foundation of Arizona affinity fraud, which victimized my step-grandfather by stealing most of his retirement savings. "Visible-light communication: Tripping the light fantastic" -- an update on where we stand with Li-Fi (using LED lighting as a mechanism for data transmission). February 4-10, 2012: "Synaesthesia: Smells like Beethoven" -- A new study finds correlations between odors and sounds, even among people who are not synaesthetes. "Scientific publishing: The price of information" -- On the boycott of Elsevier by scientists tired of excessive charges for journals, and the competition from arXiv and PLoS. "Biomimetics: Not a scratch" -- lessons from the microstructure of scorpion armor for reducing wear rates on aircraft engines and helicopter rotors. Podcasts: Philosophy Bites interview with Alain de Botton on Atheism 2.0: de Botton, author of Religion for Atheists, argues that there are good and useful components of religion which can be secularized, and that it is as legitimate to borrow things we like from religion while discarding what we don't as it is to prefer different kinds of art and music.  (Also see the Token Skeptic interview with de Botton and watch his TED talk.)  I think his picture of religion, like that of Scott Atran (In Gods We Trust) and Pascal Boyer (Religion Explained) makes more sense than the way some atheists talk about it as though fundamentalist religion is the essence of religion, and should be discarded completely (which doesn't seem likely to happen as long as we live in social communities). Rationally Speaking interview with Joseph Heath: Heath, author of Economics without Illusions: Debunking the Myths of Modern Capitalism (Canadian title: Filthy Lucre: Economics for People who Hate Capitalism, which the publishers decided wouldn't sell in the U.S.), talks about misunderstandings of economics on both the right and the left.  (Also see this BloggingHeads TV interview of Heath by Will Wilkinson, who writes: "The section on right-wing fallacies is largely on the money and a great challenge for rote libertarians and conservatives. The section of left-wing fallacies is terrific, and it would be terrific if more folks on the left were anywhere near as economically literate as Heath.")  Heath's "Rationally Speaking pick" also sounds fascinating, Janos Kornai's The Socialist System: The Political Economy of Communism, which explains the creative but ultimately futile ways that human beings tried to replace markets with planning and design.)

The title of this post is the title of my multi-book review article in the current issue of Skeptic magazine, which is primarily about last year’s Inside Scientology: The Story of America’s Most Secretive Religion by Janet Reitman and The Church of Scientology: A History of a New Religion by Hugh Urban. It’s a very long article for a book review in the magazine, running from pp. 18-27 with a couple of sidebars and a couple pages of footnotes. What I had in mind when I started writing it wasn’t what I ended up with–my envisioned article would probably be more like a book that tells the story of Scientology’s two wars with the Internet, which Reitman only devoted a few paragraphs to. (If that never happens, the best place to find the information in question is in the writings of Village Voice editor Tony Ortega, who has done more than anyone to cover those topics.) I also would have liked to have done a bit more analysis of Urban’s book, which I think is a bit wishy-washy in places in the name of academic objectivity, and makes a few promises at the beginning that it fails to deliver on as though it were rushed to completion. But I think it came out OK, and I recommend Reitman’s book as the best and most up-to-date single overview of Scientology and its history, and Urban’s for its coverage of Scientology’s battles with the IRS for religious tax exemption and its contribution to explaining what Hubbard was up to when he created Scientology. I think Hubbard died believing his own nonsense, because some Scientology doctrines literally became true for him–he was the one person in Scientology who really could dream things up and make them happen around him, through the efforts of his devotees. I also hoped to devote a bit more space to what I allude to in my first footnote, referencing John Searle’s The Construction of Social Reality, pp. 90-93 and 117-119, about how institutions can quickly collapse when collective agreement about social facts is undermined, as seems to be happening at an accelerating pace within the Church of Scientology. (All posts on Scientology at this blog–65 so far since 2005–can be found here. An overview of my involvement in Scientology’s battles with the Internet is in my 2006 “Scientology Sampler” post, which was updated with a 2009 post, “Scientology v. the Internet history lesson.") UPDATE (26 January 2012): Tony Ortega, editor-in-chief at the Village Voice and prolific investigative journalist on the subject of Scientology, says very nice things about my article and Michael Shermer’s associated article in Skeptic at his “Runnin’ Scared” blog, where there are lots of comments. This issue of Skeptic should be available in all Barnes & Noble stores beginning around the first of February.

A few prominent skeptics have been arguing that science and medicine should rely upon Bayesian epistemology. Massimo Pigliucci, in his book Nonsense on Stilts, on the Rationally Speaking podcast, and in his column in the Skeptical Inquirer, has suggested that scientists should best proceed with a Bayesian approach to updating their beliefs. Steven Novella and Kimball Atwood at the Science-Based Medicine blog (and at the Science-Based Medicine workshops at The Amazing Meeting) have similarly argued that what distinguishes Science-Based Medicine from Evidence-Based Medicine is the use of a Bayesian approach in accounting for the prior plausibility of theories is superior to simply relying upon the outcomes of randomized controlled trials to determine what’s a reasonable medical treatment. And, in the atheist community, Richard Carrier has argued for a Bayesian approach to history, and in particular for assessing claims of Christianity (though in the linked-to case, this turned out to be problematic and error-ridden). It’s worth observing that Bayesian epistemology has some serious unresolved problems, including among them the problem of prior probabilities and the problem of considering new evidence to have a probability of 1 [in simple conditionalization]. The former problem is that the prior assessment of the probability of a hypothesis plays a huge factor in the outcome of whether a hypothesis is accepted, and whether that prior probability is based on subjective probability, “gut feel,” old evidence, or arbitrarily selected to be 0.5 can produce different outcomes and doesn’t necessarily lead to concurrence even over a large amount of agreement on evidence. So, for example, Stephen Unwin has argued using Bayes’ theorem for the existence of God (starting with a prior probability of 0.5), and there was a lengthy debate between William Jefferys and York Dobyns in the Journal of Scientific Exploration about what the Bayesian approach yields regarding the reality of psi which didn’t yield agreement. The latter problem, of new evidence, is that a Bayesian approach considers new evidence to have a probability of 1, but evidence can itself be uncertain. And there are other problems as well–a Bayesian approach to epistemology seems to give special privilege to classical logic, not properly account for old evidence [(or its reduction in probability due to new evidence)] or the introduction of new theories, and not be a proper standard for judgment of rational belief change of human beings for the same reason on-the-spot act utilitarian calculations aren’t a proper standard for human moral decision making–it’s not a method that is practically psychologically realizable. The Bayesian approach has certainly been historically useful, as Desiree Schell’s interview with Sharon Bertsch McGrane, author of The Theory That Would Not Die: How Bayes’ Rule Cracked the Enigma Code, Hunted Down Russian Submarines, and Emerged Triumphant from Two Centuries of Controversy, demonstrates. But before concluding that Bayesianism is the objective rational way for individuals or groups to determine what’s true, it’s worth taking a look at the problems philosophers have pointed out for making it the central thesis of epistemology. (Also see John L. Pollock and Joseph Cruz, Contemporary Theories of Knowledge, 2nd edition, Rowman & Littlefield, 1999, which includes a critique of Bayesian epistemology.) UPDATE (August 6, 2013): Just came across this paper by Brandon Fitelson (PDF) defending Bayesian epistemology against some of Pollock’s critiques (in Pollock’s Nomic Probability book, which I’ve read, and in his later Thinking About Acting, which I’ve not read). A critique of how Bayesianism (and not really Bayesian epistemology in the sense defended by Fitelson) is being used by skeptics is here. ...

Here’s a famous photograph of pulp fiction author and Scientology creator L. Ron Hubbard holding a tomato plant connected to an E-Meter. Hubbard claimed in 1968 that tomatoes would “scream when sliced," as detected by the E-Meter. [UPDATE: The photo appeared in “30 Dumb Inventions” on Life magazine’s website, attributed to the Evening Standard of January 1, 1968, but the claims and the photo appear to be from 1959, see below.] ...

Chris Mooney has a very interesting interview with anthropologist Scott Atran on the Point of Inquiry podcast, in which Atran argues that terrorism is not the product of top-down, radical religious extremist organizations recruiting the poor and ignorant, but of groups of educated (and often educated in secular institutions) individuals who become disaffected, isolated, and radicalized. Much U.S. counterterrorism and “homeland security” activity assumes the former and thus is attacking the wrong problem. He also argues that reason and rationalism are the wrong tools for attacking religion, defends a view of religion as a natural by-product of the sorts of minds we’ve evolved to have (very similar to Pascal Boyer’s account, which I think is largely correct), and throws in a few digs at the new atheists for making claims about religion that are contrary to empirical evidence. Some of the commenters at the Point of Inquiry/Center for Inquiry forums site seem to be under the misapprehension that Atran is a post-modernist. I don’t see it–he’s not making the argument that reason doesn’t work to find out things about the world, he’s making the argument that the tools of science and reason are human constructions that work well at finding things out about the world, but not so much for persuading people of things, or as the basis for long-term institutions for the sort of creatures we are. Atran shows up in the comments to elaborate on his positions and respond to criticism. My compliments to Chris Mooney for having consistently high-quality, interesting guests who are not the same voices we always hear at skeptical conferences.