Atheists have been popping up and in some cases rudely intruding of late, most recently on Facebook.  Last night I “unfriended” someone on FB because I was tired of putting up with his mix of rudeness, arrogance, and his thinking that because he was smart, he was smarter than he was. (May the world be saved from smarter than average people who as a consequence think no one is more knowledgeable than they on anything that interests them.) Feh.

But it got me to thinking about why I am very friendly, even sympathetic, towards some atheists and less and less patient with others.

Science and anecdotes

Last night this particular guy was making the argument that anecdotes do not give rational evidence for anything.  This is a favorite tactic for a certain kind of atheist fundamentalist mindset: if it isn’t science it isn’t rational. Anecdotes are not science, therefore anecdotes are useless or worse as means of making rational sense of things. (To me the most irritating thing about fundamentalist mindsets, be they religious or atheistic, is their arrogant and irrational claim to certainty.)

Science is indisputably the best means we have for acquiring knowledge about what we call the material world.  The reasons why this is so also explains its limitations.

A scientific claim is open to testing by other scientists who understand the context of evidence and meaning within which it is made.  (I cannot rationally evaluate string theory in physics, I am not qualified.)  But qualified people can make measurements to see whether they are as the claim predicts. They can conduct experiments or make new observations to see whether phenomena predicted to exist occur.  They can understand the quality of the mathematics employed in making a claim if any is. A scientific claim is interesting to the degree it makes otherwise unexpected claims or finds unexpected coherencies, and survives attempts to disprove it.

In other words, science works because it subjects scientific claims to a powerful editor that any competent person can employ.  This openness to others’ evaluations is why more than most human activities science is accepted by people with otherwise very different ideologies and viewpoints. It is also why science values the impersonal and actively distrusts the personal as a source of bias and error. (Nonscientists accept science not so much because of this quality, but because of the obvious power, utility, and fascination its discoveries demonstrate.)

When a religious fundamentalist or global warming denier uses anecdotes to attack a scientific claim, their argument is quickly and rightly dismissed. For example, “Last winter was snowier and colder than usual, and so was the previous one.  Clearly global warming is not happening.”  This anecdote is true in some places (and this is a critical point for what will ultimately follow in my argument) but it sheds no light on the issue of global warming because it is made in isolation from what else was happening last winter around the world and it addresses a very short span of time when we are examining a complex system with massive short term variations.  Ironically, a global warming prediction, at least up to a certain point I hope we never reach, can even explain colder winters in some places, but that is another issue.  The anecdote might be compatible with the theory, but still be scientifically worthless because it exists free from larger contexts.

Obviously this view of science does not claim science discovers truth.  We do not know what ultimate truth is.  Science discovers increasingly reliable knowledge, knowledge anyone can count on as holding up. Scientists are often motivated by their personal search for truth, a search often triggered by an anecdote, but science as the collective community judgment of these men and women never legitimately claims to have found truth.  And a wise truth-seeker is always aware he or she might not have found it, that with every discovery new possibilities and questions open up.

Science is one of humanity’s most impressive open-ended treasure hunts where we discover patterns and regularities but never know the larger picture to which they are either clues or distractions or clues that in time are abandoned for more reliable patterns and regularities.

Anecdotes and knowledge

The run-of-the-mill Fundamentalist atheist often argues that spiritual claims based on personal experience are, like the claims about last winter’s cold, anecdotes of no scientific value.  Therefore he or he has no reason to believe them.  Further, the person reporting the anecdotes has no reason to believe them either, even if they experienced them personally.

Here they enter the realm of irrationality in the name of rationality.

The anecdote that it was unusually snowy and cold last winter in some places is in fact true.  Scientifically the truth of the anecdote is not up for grabs, it is the interpretation made from the truth that is challenged.  It cannot explain larger and wider phenomena whereas the global warming argument can account for the snowy cold winter.

That the anecdote was true should tell us that what is clearly true at one level is not the same as scientific knowledge.  If we subject all claims of knowledge to scientific criteria very little of the knowledge we use to make our way in the world would survive their argument.  For example, all of the knowledge I have about the character of the people I know, friends, loved ones, acquaintances, and people I do not like, is anecdotal or anecdotally based. Neither I nor anyone else I have ever met has subjected our knowledge of others to scientific tests, but we rely on it.  Every day.  Of course we can be wrong about our judgments of people, but scientists can be wrong about their theories ultimate validity as well.  That is not an argument against science and it is not an argument against our knowledge about our friends and acquaintances. It is an argument against having certainty on these issues.  We can be surprised by what people we know do and about what phenomena we encounter in the natural world.

Perhaps even more telling, if I treated a friend as an unknown whom I tested in various ways to see whether they “passed” or not, I would not be their friend.  It is beliefs I have about their character, based on anecdotal knowledge and an experience of their “presence,” the encounter of one subjective caring presence with another, that can make me their friend.

Evaluating others’ claims

This does not mean we must take everyone’s spiritual claims at face value. We reasonably give them greater or lesser credence based on our knowledge of their character and how much their claims impact others’ lives, especially our own.  We can also observe their behavior and see whether they act as seriously disturbed people or as competent ones.  Do they have a history of lying?  Or not?  Do they evidence personal integrity? What about spontaneous kindness and generosity?

All the above is important insofar as the person reporting a spiritual experience uses their claim as a reason for their views and their views impinge on others’ lives. Otherwise we can just ignore them or let them alone. They had their experiences and interpreted them as best they could.  If I had had the same experiences maybe I would interpret them the same way and maybe not.  I will likely never know.  It’s called showing a person respect, and is called for until evidence suggests they are not honest or have a mental problem extending beyond having had an experience I did not.

Newt Gingrich says he is now a sincere Catholic.  Perhaps he had a spiritual experience that motivated him.  Perhaps not.  We can never know for sure whether he had such an experience even if he says he did, but we can make an informed judgment if we have other knowledge relevant to judging his character.   We can also judge whether he acts in accordance with his new beliefs, and whether we can find other more secular reasons for his making such a claim and acting in the way he acts.  Based on the latter, I do not personally believe Gingrich had such an experience.  I see no improvement in his character and plenty of evidence for its continued degeneration.

But perhaps he did.  I know of no reported spiritual experience that suddenly made someone into what we might call a saint.  Spiritual experience can make life more complex, increase the tension and contradictions within a person’s character, and precipitate personal crises that may take years to work out. Perhaps the tensions and dishonesties in Gingrich’s life are now ratcheting up to a point where the man will have a crisis and emerge a better human being. And perhaps a spiritual experience will be the precipitator of that crisis. Or perhaps eventually he will suppress the experience and explain it away.  We can never be sure.

But insofar as we need to take Newt Gingrich’s claims as useful for understanding the man, we use the same kinds of standards we use for making many other judgments about his character.  And in all these cases our judgments, if wise, will be tentative even if they are also on occasion necessary.

And on the other side

At the same time, that I had a spiritual experience does not give me any reason to expect others should agree with me.  I believe the earth is alive in some nontrivial sense and that our relationship with everything on and in it has a moral dimension.  Nothing is purely a thing, an object. This is a major grounding of my approach to the world. I cannot prove it but I have had experiences that convince me this is so.

Because I cannot prove it I cannot reasonably use my experiences that this is so as reasons others should agree or subordinate themselves to my judgment.  But what these experiences do accomplish is give me the confidence to explore reasons and arguments others can relate to, reasons that if accepted will lead to the world being better treated.  You need not agree with me on the grounding for why I favor a policy if we can find common cause on policies themselves.

This point is one of the most valuable aspects of democratic politics: finding common ground with people with different beliefs.  As James Madison observed, when we can find this ground it is likely to be good for the community as a whole, and when we cannot, we will likely be oppressors, no matter how sincere we may be.

Here is where the attitudes and methods of science can help protect us from the dark side of religious belief rooted in spiritual experiences.

The foolishness of the atheist’s argument

The scientistic atheist who argues that because spiritual experience does not lend itself to scientific investigation therefore belief in such experiences is irrational is making an irrational claim.  It is a claim rooted in the error of thinking that scientific knowledge is the only knowledge we have that can be defended rationally.  Such an atheist in fact relies on anecdotally rooted knowledge throughout much of his or her life, and does so quite rationally.

Scientific standards only reasonably enter in when I make a claim that my experience gives me grounds for saying how you should act or think.  My claim assumes my experiences are superior to yours, superior enough that my views should have some kind of authority over yours. At that point you are justified in saying “prove it.”

The atheist confuses scientists as individuals and the community of science. Scientific knowledge is such only when it has been vetted and accepted by the scientific community. Scientific knowledge is shared knowledge by a community based on agreed upon community standards. As individuals, every scientist as a scientist acts rationally by honoring the community’s general standards. But every individual, scientist or not, acts rationally as a person when using other standards to make judgments and form expectations where the scientific community’s approach does not fit or  has not been applied. These atheists confuse knowledge acquired within and by a certain community with individually acquired experience.

To make a claim over others we have to use commonly agreed upon standards or become aggressors. Here is where the atheistic critique of organized religion makes many valuable points.  But when they shift from criticizing organized religion’s claims about how others should act to criticizing others’ spiritual experiences, they leave the realm of rationality themselves.