Believing Bullshit: How Not to Get Sucked into an Intellectual Black Hole (16 page)

Again, notice how very thin a variety of Theism this is. Actually,
given that atheists are also awed by the mystery of why there is anything at all, it seems it would also be appropriate for them to say, “God exists!” While this sort of Theism might succeed in immunizing itself against any sort of rational refutation, it does so at the price of making itself indistinguishable from the attitude of a great many atheists.

Making a Promise

Sometimes language is used not to make a claim about the world but to perform an action. Such “performatives” include, for example:

I name this ship
Titanic.

I promise to clean the car.

I bet you ten dollars.

I apologize.

Let's focus on promises. When I say, “I promise to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth,” in a court of law, I don't
make a claim
about the world, a claim that might turn out to be true or false. Rather, I make it true that I have promised by saying those words.

Now suppose we ask a Theist, “Do you believe in God?” They reply, “I do.” This might look, superficially, much like this exchange: “Do you believe in electrons?” “I do.”

But what if “I do” in the former case is understood not as expressing agreement with a certain theory or opinion, as in the electrons example, but rather as
making a promise.
Compare: “Do you take this woman to be your lawfully wedded wife?” “I do.” Here, “I do” is used to make not a claim but a promise. But if that's also how “I do” is meant in response to “Do you believe in God?” then, similarly, no claim is made. Rather, a promise is given.

According to theologian Nicholas Lash, this is exactly how Theists such as himself respond to the question “Do you believe in God?”

If someone is asked: “Do you believe in God?” and replies “I do,” they may be saying one of two quite different things, because the English expression “I believe in God” is systematically ambiguous. On the one hand, it may be the expression of an opinion; the opinion that God exists. On the other hand, as used in the Creed, in a public act of worship, it promises that life, and love, and all one's actions are henceforth set steadfastly on the mystery of God, and hence that we are thereby pledged to work towards that comprehensive healing of the world by which all things are brought into their peace and harmony in God. “Nicholas Lash, do you take Janet Chalmers to be your lawful wedded wife?” “I do.” “Janet Chalmers, do you believe in God, the Father almighty, Creator of heaven and earth?” “I do.” The grammar of these two declarations is the same.
¹²

So there are, Lash says, two kinds of Theists. Those whom, in response to the question “Do you believe in God?” use “I do” to express agreement with an opinion, and those who use “I do” to express a promise. There are, correspondingly, two kinds of atheism: the atheism that rejects the opinion that God exists, and the atheism that involves a refusal to enter into any such promise.
¹³

According to Lash, atheists like Richard Dawkins are attacking a crude, unsophisticated form of theism on which belief in God amounts to belief in the truth of a certain opinion. Lash says, “The atheism which is the contradictory of the opinion that God exists is both widespread and intellectually uninteresting.”
¹⁴
But then Lash actually
agrees
with Dawkins that
the opinion that God exists should be rejected.
Lash's kind of “belief in God,” by contrast—which he maintains is the kind of belief shared by the Jewish, Christian, and Muslim traditions,
properly
understood—
offers no opinion for the atheist to contradict.
If these Theists make no claim, then their variety of “belief in God” can neither be contradicted nor shown to be false. In which case,
the arguments of critics like Dawkins must entirely miss their mark.

Is Lash's brand of Theism really immune to the arguments of
critics like Dawkins? It's not clear to me that it is. Let's suppose, for the sake of argument, that Lash is correct and “I believe in God” is used not to state an opinion but to issue a promise. Does it follow that Lash holds no Theistic opinion into which Dawkins might sink his teeth?

While it may be that no claim is made in the issuing of a promise, such a claim may nevertheless be
presupposed.
Notice that when we issue a promise, we issue it to
someone
—to something like a person. You can't make a promise to a brick or a daffodil. If you tried, you would be guilty of anthropomorphizing—of mistakenly supposing that the brick or daffodil is something like a person. So if “I believe in God” really is used to make a promise, that raises the question:
to whom is this promise made?

Presumably, Lash is not merely making a promise either to himself or to, say, other Christians (if he were, then they, or he, could choose to cancel it whenever they liked). If Lash is making a promise, it seems he is making a promise
to God.
But then, on Lash's view, even if “I believe in God” is not used to assert that one believes there is a God who is something like a person, it does seem that Lash nevertheless
presupposes
there's some such person-like being to whom such a promise might be made. In which case, Lash is committed to an opinion that might be refuted. In fact, it's precisely the opinion that there exists such a transcendent person to whom such a promise might be made that Dawkins is attacking.

An Expression of Trust

Some Theists maintain that “I believe in God” is used not to agree that a certain claim—God exists—is true but rather as an expression of
trust.
I believe in God in the same way as I believe in my wife or my bank manager. I believe they can be trusted. I believe they are dependable. When I say, “I believe in my wife,” I don't mean that I suppose she exists but that I have faith in her.

According to these Theists, atheists who think they can show
that religious belief is irrational by showing that the claim “God exists” is false are missing their target. Again, “God exists” is not used to make a claim.

Does this move succeed in immunizing theism against rational criticism? Again, I don't see how. Often, when we place our trust in someone, it's a reasonable thing to do. It's reasonable if we have good grounds to suppose the person in whom we are placing our trust exists and is likely to be reliable. It's not so reasonable if we have good grounds to suppose the person in whom we are placing our trust is, say, a convicted fraudster or entirely mythical.

Suppose I say, “I believe in fairies,” meaning by this not that I believe in the truth of the opinion that fairies exists but that I place my faith, my trust, in fairies to keep the bottom of the garden tidy, say. If it's pointed out to me that there's excellent evidence that there are no fairies at the bottom of the garden, it won't do for me to say, “Ah, but
I never claimed there were
, did I?” Even if I made no such
claim
, the fact is that my placing my trust in fairies is highly unreasonable given the overwhelming evidence there's no such thing.

Similarly, even if someone who says “I believe in God” is not agreeing to the truth of a
claim
—the claim that God exists—but rather communicating their trust or faith in God, we might still have excellent grounds for supposing that this trust or faith is misplaced, if, for example, we have excellent evidence that there's no such transcendent, compassionate being that will ultimately right all wrongs, and so on. Which, arguably, we do (that, at least, is what the evidential problem of evil suggests). So, it's not clear that the suggestion that “I believe in God” is used to express faith or trust even works as an immunizing tactic.

NOW YOU SEE IT, NOW YOU DON'T

We have just looked at three strategies promising to immunize religious beliefs against refutation—strategies that turn on the
suggestion that
religious language is not used to make claims, but in some other way.
We have seen that it's by no means obvious that the last two suggestions even work as immunizing strategies. However, let's suppose for the sake of argument that they do work. There remains a further problem with these strategies—the main problem with which I'm concerned here. The problem is that those employing these strategies
often appear to apply them in an inconsistent and partisan way.

Take, for example, Nicholas Lash's suggestion that “I believe in God” is used to make a promise rather than offer an opinion. Even if this is true, Lash does also nevertheless seem to offer various opinions on the subject of God. Books full. For example, in the same article, Lash says God is both “the mystery we confess to be Creator of the world”
¹⁵
and that upon which we are absolutely dependent. So it does
seem
, at first sight, that Lash is of the opinion that there's a creator upon which we depend. God, Lash says, “freely, and forgivingly, communicates Himself.”
¹⁶
Our creator, Lash adds, also issues invitations to us
¹⁷
and it is that upon which we should have our hearts set. In short, Lash regularly uses language that looks remarkably like literal talk about the sort of cosmic superperson that Dawkins denies exists.

Now an atheist will no doubt say, at this point, “But I
disagree
with these opinions offered by Lash. I
disagree
that the world has a creator that is something like a person—a person on whom we should have our hearts set.” To this, Lash says, in effect, “Oh, dear. You're guilty of a crude misunderstanding. You take me to be offering
opinions
with which you might
disagree.
”

So is Lash offering us opinions, or isn't he? He seems to say plenty about God, but then, when it looks like what he said might be subjected to damaging critical scrutiny, it turns out he never said anything after all. Lash is undoubtedly a sincere and intelligent man who is genuinely aiming for rigor and, as far as it is achievable, clarity. But if Lash is doing something else with language other than giving opinions, why, then, doesn't he just clearly and unambiguously
do that other thing?
If you're not in the
business of giving opinions, why choose to express yourself in such a quintessentially opinion-stating, and thus highly misleading, manner? It looks suspiciously as if Lash is just seesawing back and forth between opinion stating and non-opinion stating use of language to suit himself: opinions are given but then whipped away whenever anyone takes aim. If Lash is not doing that—if he
really isn't
offering any opinions—well, then, let's just take him at his word. Let's accept that Lash really means what he says when he says he has no opinions to offer, and move on.

THE META-GOALPOST-SHIFTING STRATEGY

I have presented several examples of goalpost-shifting strategies. To finish, let's look at one more example—perhaps the most effective of all. As a Theist presented with objections to your belief, you may employ not only the various strategies outlined above, you can also
shift the goalposts concerning which goalpost-shifting strategy you're using.
Say things suggestive of one strategy, but then say things suggestive of others too. Then, if you find yourself running into difficulty with one strategy, just switch to another, and, if necessary, to another. Later, when everyone's lost track of where the conversation started, you can switch back to the first one again. Mix in some references to clever and difficult thinkers (Wittgenstein is particularly useful here), pursue the Meta-Goalpost-Shifting Strategy with an air of calm intellectual and spiritual superiority, and many will be duped into thinking that, rather than a master of the dark arts of semantic sleight-ofhand, you are a deep and profound thinker. Indeed, you may succeed in fooling not only others but yourself too.

As I mentioned at the start of this chapter,
Moving the Semantic Goalposts
tends to be employed by small minorities within the academic wings of some mainstream religious traditions: intelligentsia who fancy they have a more sophisticated grasp of what religion is all about than rather more naive
believers, whom they consider just as confused as atheists. When combined, in particular, with
Playing the Mystery Card, Pseudoprofundity
, and “I
Just Know!” Moving the Semantic Goalposts
is capable of producing an impressive Intellectual Black Hole.

W

How reasonable is this response? It depends. Sometimes, by “I just know,” people mean you should just take their word for it, perhaps because time is short and the evidence supporting their belief is too complex to present in a convenient sound-bite.

Suppose, for example, I'm asked how I know Tom can be trusted to pay back the five dollars you just loaned him. I could spend five minutes rehearsing several bits of evidence that would, together, show my claim was reasonable but that would take time and effort. So, instead I say, “Look, I
just know
, okay!” To which I might add, “Take my word for it!” And, if you know me to be a pretty good judge of character, you'll probably be justified in doing so.

Another situation in which it might be appropriate for me to say, “I just know” is to flag up that, rather than coming to a belief on the basis of evidence, I can, say, just
see
, clearly and directly, that such-and-such is the case.

Suppose I'm looking out the window and see our good friend Frank. You're convinced Frank is away on vacation, so you ask me if I'm sure. I might say, “Look, I
just know
it's Frank.” What I'm trying to convey is that I can
see, very clearly
, that it
really is
Frank. I'm not just hazarding a guess that it's Frank on the basis of some passing resemblance (the shape of the back of his head, say). Again, knowing me to be a reliable witness, you would probably be justified in taking my word for it.

So saying “I just know” isn't always an inappropriate response to requests for supporting evidence. But then suppose I am asked how I know that God exists or whether crystals really can cure people. Why can't it be appropriate and reasonable for me to also say, “Look, I
just know
!” in such situations?

Maybe, just as I might directly experience Frank walking down the path to my front door, so I might
directly experience God.
I might just see, as it were,
very clearly
, that
God really does exist.
And if it's reasonable for you to take my word about Frank, then why isn't it reasonable for you to take my word about God?

Or, if I have a wealth of evidence that crystals really do have miraculous healing properties, but it would take considerable effort to organize that evidence into a cogent argument—effort I can't reasonably be expected to make under the circumstances—why isn't it appropriate for me to say, “Look, I
just know
crystals have these powers”? And if it's reasonable for you to take my word for it about Tom's trustworthiness, why isn't it reasonable for you to take my word about the healing power of crystals?

We can now begin to see why saying, “I
just know!
” offers those who believe conspiracy theories, wacky religious claims, psychic powers, and so on a potential get-out-of-jail-free card. Suppose you find your belief in such things running up against a stiff challenge. Say, “Look, I
just know
, okay,” and you may succeed in putting your critics on the back foot. Make them feel that the onus is now very much on them to demonstrate that you
don't
“just know.” Then make quick your escape, head held high,
continuing to maintain the superior wisdom that they have failed to show that you don't know.

In this chapter we will be taking a closer look at this sort of appeal to “I
Just Know!
” to befuddle critics and shut down debate.

WHEN SAYING “I JUST KNOW” WON'T DO

While “Look, I
just know
” is
sometimes
an appropriate thing to say in response to a challenge to your belief, often, it isn't. First of all, while there are circumstances in which it might be unreasonable to expect someone to set out the evidence supporting their claim, there are other circumstances in which this excuse won't wash. If someone is writing a book on a subject, a book in which they have ample time and space available to properly set out their evidence, it obviously won't do for them to say, “Look, I
just know.
”

The same is true of important political debates. Politicians are rightly expected to set out their case for raising taxes or invading another country clearly and in detail. Short of the decision being based on, say, top-secret information regarding national security, there's no legitimate excuse for not doing so.

“I just know” is an expression that also crops up at the racetrack. Suppose Jane puts her money on a horse and says, “I
just know
it's going to win.” She says this even though the evidence—the betting odds and so on—strongly suggest that the horse won't win. Even if Jane's horse does happen to win, we'll usually be inclined to think that not only did Jane not “just know,” it wasn't reasonable for her to suppose she did.

DECIDING “WITH YOUR GUT”

We all go with our gut, intuition, or instinct on occasion. Sometimes it's unavoidable. Suppose I don't know whether I should
employ someone. The evidence concerning their reliability is somewhat mixed. I've received some very positive reports, but also some negative ones. I need to make a snap decision. Under such circumstances, I may just have to go with my gut. It's that or toss a coin.

It's been suggested that our gut feelings can be insightful. Police officers often have to make rapid decisions about, say, who is most likely to be armed in a rapidly unfolding and dangerous situation. There's no time to assess the evidence properly. Officers often just have to go with their instincts. But their instincts are, it's claimed, surprisingly accurate. They make fairly reliable judgments, despite not engaging in any conscious deliberation or evidence weighing at all.
¹

So there's not necessarily anything wrong with going with your gut
in certain situations.
However, none of this is to say that it's sensible to go with your gut feeling when you don't need to because, say, there's ample and decisive evidence available. We are also ill advised to place much confidence in the instincts of someone whose particular gut has a poor track record, or on topics on which we know that gut feeling has generally proven unreliable.

Bush's Gut

Notoriously, during George W. Bush's presidency, Bush's gut became the oracle of the state. Bush was distrustful of book learning and those with established expertise in a given area. When he made the decision to invade Iraq, and was subsequently confronted by a skeptical audience, Bush said that ultimately, he just
knew in his gut
that invading was the right thing to do. As writer Rich Procter noted prior to the invasion:

Now we're preparing to invade a country in the middle of the most volatile “powder-keg” region on earth. We're going to toss out our history of using military force only when provoked.
We're going to launch a “pre-emptive” invasion that violates two hundred-plus years of American history and culture. We're on the verge of becoming a fundamentally different kind of nation—an aggressive, “go-it-alone” rogue state—based on Bush's gut.
²

The invasion went ahead. A few months later, Senator Joe Biden told Bush of his growing worries about the aftermath. In response, Bush again appealed to the reliability of his “instincts,” as author Ron Suskind here reports:

“I was in the Oval Office a few months after we swept into Baghdad,” [Biden] began, “and I was telling the president of my many concerns—concerns about growing problems winning the peace, the explosive mix of Shiite and Sunni, the disbanding of the Iraqi Army and problems securing the oil fields.” Bush, Biden recalled, just looked at him, unflappably sure that the United States was on the right course and that all was well. “'Mr. President,' I finally said, ‘How can you be so sure when you know you don't know the facts?'” Biden said that Bush stood up and put his hand on the senator's shoulder. “My instincts,” he said. “My instincts.” … The Delaware senator was, in fact, hearing what Bush's top deputies—from cabinet members like Paul O'Neill, Christine Todd Whitman and Colin Powell to generals fighting in Iraq—have been told for years when they requested explanations for many of the president's decisions, policies that often seemed to collide with accepted facts. The president would say that he relied on his “gut” or his “instinct” to guide the ship of state.
³

How did Bush suppose his gut was able to steer the ship of state? He supposed it was functioning as a
sort of God-sensing faculty.
Bush believed that by means of his gut he could sense what God wanted of him. But how reasonable was it for Bush, or anyone else, to trust what his gut was telling him?

WHAT IS KNOWLEDGE?

Interestingly, a theory of knowledge developed over the last half century or so would seem to have the consequence that it is at least in principle
possible
(notice I don't say
likely
) that some psychics, religious gurus, and so on might “just know” things by means of some sort of psychic or divinely given sense. They might “just know” these things even if they don't have any
evidence
to support what they believe. In which case, might Bush perhaps “just know” what God wants of him by means of his gut? Let's make a short detour of a few pages into contemporary theory of knowledge to look more closely at these ideas.

What is knowledge? Under what circumstances can someone be correctly described as knowing that such-and-such? The classic definition of knowledge comes from the ancient Greek philosopher Plato, who thought that, in order to know that such-and-such, three conditions must be satisfied:

First, the person in question must
believe
that such-and-such. In order to know that, say, the Battle of Hastings was in 1066, or that there is a pen on my desk, I must believe it.

Second, the belief must be
true.
I can't know what isn't true. If there's no pen on my desk, then I cannot know that there is (although, of course, I might still
believe
it).

Third, I need to be
justified
in believing that such-and-such. In order to know that the Battle of Hastings was in 1066, or that there's a pen on my desk, I need to be
justified
in believing these things.

Up until the mid-twentieth century, this account of knowledge was widely accepted.

The third condition needs a little explanation. Justification can take various forms. Perhaps the most obvious way in which you might be justified in believing something
is if you have good
evidence
that what you believe is true. Incidentally, those who sign up to this definition of knowledge don't normally mean that your justification must
guarantee
the truth of your belief. They typically allow that you can be justified in believing something even if you're mistaken. For example, surely you're justified in supposing that John is an expert on chemistry after he has shown you around a chemistry laboratory and you have seen various credentials hanging on his study wall, even though it still remains
possible
(if unlikely) that John is a con man and you are the victim of some elaborate,
Mission: Impossible–type
fraud.

EVIDENTIALISM

Let's now quickly turn to a well-known claim about evidence made by the philosopher W. K. Clifford. Clifford claimed that “it is wrong, always and everywhere, to believe anything on insufficient evidence.”
⁴
This quotation is often used to condemn those who believe in such things as the Loch Ness monster, angels, fairies, and even God. People who believe despite not possessing good evidence that their belief is true are being downright irresponsible, thought Clifford. Such beliefs, it is suggested, are not well supported by the evidence. So it is
wrong
for people to believe them.

The idea that it is, at the very least,
unwise
to accept claims for which we possess little or no supporting evidence is certainly widespread. Richard Dawkins, for example, writes:

Next time somebody tells you something that sounds important, think to yourself: “Is this the kind of thing that people probably know because of evidence? Or is it the kind of thing that people only believe because of tradition, authority or revelation?” And next time somebody tells you that something is true, why not say to them: “What kind of evidence is there for that?” And if they can't give you a good answer, I hope you'll think very carefully before you believe a word they say.
⁵

Let's call the view that we ought not to accept any belief not well supported by evidence
evidentialism.
Is evidentialism true?