Empirical Evidence for Religious Belief

"An Experiment on a Bird in the Air Pump"; Joseph Wright (1768)

            The question of empirical evidence for religious belief, the belief that there is a supernatural world, is understandable.  Excluding the Cartesian perception issues that one’s senses may be fooled (“Do I really have a body?”) or the interpretation challenges (e.g., confirmation bias), I do not take lightly a person who wants to know whether there is public, observed evidence of a supernatural world.

            The responses to this query have varied from yes, there are many empirical points of evidence to consider to no, it does not matter.  The problem with the latter is that this position likely will not satisfy the person unless they accept that believing on faith is simply the greater stance to take.  The problem with the former is that the person asking the question wants to know if there is such evidence now, in the same way they want to know if a bird can live without air as in the Wright painting above, and not something written down 3,000 years ago in the Avesta. 

            Of course, this excludes a lot of holy books and stories so right there all religious apologists will take umbrage at that condition (quick: when was the last time you used “umbrage” in a conversation?).  Nonetheless, the inquirer today is not interested in what followers of a religion thought in an era that saw many items pass for knowledge instead of what it really was, a belief (okay, the lines may blur a bit but that will take another essay).  What intrigues them is if right now there is someone who may approach them and claim, “Yep, here is evidence observed that there is a supernatural world.”

            This may lead to the difficulty that such a person may never be convinced and, sure, this could be the case.  Although if you could show someone empirical evidence that there is a supernatural world I’m certain that it would be a predicament for them to dismiss it out of hand.

            I don’t think this has happened as yet.  From ancient time until today, there has been a claim that the existence of the world (and by “world” is meant “everything,” not just the planet Earth) is a proof of a supernatural world.  Why?  Because of the belief that there had to be supernatural creators in order for the world to exist.  This is an assertion as it is simply unknown and, instead, it may demonstrate more the lack of human ability to conceive otherwise.  The corollary response is similar in taking up the point that since it is unknown, then it had to be a supernatural one.  This is the gods-of-the-gaps argument or “gods” as filling in for the answer.

            Historically, the gods-of-the-gaps contention has eroded all the way to the question of origins and that is another topic worth considering.  Seeing religious arguments slowly giving way before empirical evidence throughout history would make for an interesting, if not fascinating, documentary of that account. 

            But back to the question of empirical evidence of a supernatural world.  If there were a way to do this, test it, replicate it, and present the results then wouldn’t it have been done by now?  It appears that the best that a religious follower can say is either that it may be done in the future or, no, a supernatural world cannot undergo natural tests.  And it’s questionable that these statements are tolerable to the investigating person.

A Feminist Review of Society Standards

 

On Deism and Theism

 

On Life Purpose

 

The purpose of life is to live,

the purpose of Physics to phys.

One is apparent,

the other invariant,

and that's just the way that it is! 

Logical Fallacy: The Confirmation Bias of the Bible Codes

            Confirmation Bias is to make a selection despite evidence to the contrary merely because one prefers it for other causes besides that of reason.  David Hume would have noted that it is shaping evidence by belief instead of shaping belief by the evidence.  In particular, there is the confirmation bias strategy known as the sharpshooter.  Think of it this way: you make a mark on surface by any means and then draw the target around it; in this manner you will always obtain a bull’s-eye.

            Another way to consider it: someone has a presupposed answer and then they reason everything to it regardless of the connection and disregarding all relevant evidence.

            How does this relate to Bible Codes?

            When a book was published in the 1990s concerning this, people asked me what I thought and I noted that this was a prime example of confirmation bias.  Use of the Hebrew Bible was easier, of course, than that of, say, the New Testament Greek.  Why?  Because in Hebrew the alphabet or alef-bet is entirely consonantal.  Thus, this gives a lot of leeway to someone looking for a name or term in it.  Further, that these letters were of “equal distance” supposedly made it objective, but all that did was make it easier to find whatever words they imposed. 

            In any case, the process illustrates pointedly the notion of having a presupposed answer and then reasoning to it.

One "codes" author claimed that when someone found such in Moby Dick then he’ll agree that it is a mistake.

             Many took up the challenge and here is one of them in full:  https://users.cecs.anu.edu.au/~bdm/dilugim/moby.html

            You can still find publications about Bible codes in some Christian bookstores, demonstrating the cheerful lack of baby logic.

Chart of Jeremy Bentham Hedonic Calculus

Two Philosophy of Religion Questions and the Relation of Humanity to the Religious Ideal

Rembrandt, Balaam and the Ass, 1626

Two questions of Philosophy of Religion are how does humanity attempt to relate to a believed supernatural world and does that supernatural world relate to humanity?   One response to both of these is the existence of religious literature.  Religion as religo or the "tying together" or of the binding between the natural world and the supernatural is my approach to this.  Thus, religious literature fits this as both a human response to the supposed supernatural world and, as inspired revelation, as the supernatural response to human questions.

Because it is in human language and form, the forms take on the appearance of various cultural artifacts from the literary imagination of those individuals.  The various cultural artifacts present communication as folklore, legend, myth, records and genealogies, ritual instruction, and wisdom literature which all play a part in these connections.  

Alan Dundes wrote about this nearly 20 years ago in his book Holy Writ as Oral Writ: The Bible as Folklore, https://digitalcommons.andrews.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2732&context=auss.  Dundes used the term "folklore" since his concern is the transition from oral teaching to written document, https://www.berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/99legacy/3-9-1999.html.

This is significant, however, as he provided a means to understand religious literature by demonstrating how both fundamentalists and biblical critics may be asking the wrong questions about the biblical literature, and I would apply that to all religious literature.  The relation to the religious ideal, or of the religious ideal to the person, becomes a journey of the reader through the story and instruction.  

I think that many religious people are mythologists, but in actuality a lucky few live out the heroic myth.