How We Believe_ Science and the Search for God - Michael Shermer [1]
FINDING MEANING IN A CONTINGENT UNIVERSE
AFTERWORD TO THE SECOND EDITION - God on the Brain
APPENDIX I - What Does It Mean to Study Religion Scientifically? Or, How Social Scientists “Do” Science
APPENDIX II - Why People Believe in God—The Data and Statistics
A Bibliographic Essay on Theism, Atheism, and Why People Believe in God
NOTES
CREDITS
INDEX
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Copyright Page
PREFACE
The God Question
A Moral Dilemma for Dr. Laura
Not long after I set out to write this book, I received a fax from a subscriber to the magazine I publish. Skeptic, who had just finished reading the most recent issue (Vol. 5, No. 2) devoted to “The God Question.” This volume of the magazine addressed the various theological, philosophical, and scientific arguments for God’s existence, Einstein’s views on God, skeptic Martin Gardner’s belief in God, arguments for and against immortality, and the decline of atheism in America. The correspondent, however, was not writing about any specific article, but about the qualifications of one of the members of Skeptic’s board of advisors. “I would love to know what qualifies a person to be on your editorial board,” the letter began. “If he were interested would Rev. Pat Robertson qualify? I consider myself to be an atheist, a skeptic, and a semiprofessional talk show listener. In the latter capacity I have had many occasions to listen to one Dr. Laura Schlessinger, a member of your board.” The letter went on to chronicle Schlessinger’s reliance on the Bible as her authority for resolving moral dilemmas presented to her by her callers on her radio program. “I didn’t know that skeptics relied on authority to settle disagreements over morality,” the letter concluded.
This was not the first correspondence we received concerning Laura Schlessinger’s position on our board of advisors. Throughout 1996 and 1997 we were sent a couple of dozen critical letters, faxes, and e-mails, and for a couple of weeks in mid-1997, on a skeptics Internet discussion group, a debate ensued about Schlessinger’s involvement in the skeptical movement. We explained that membership or involvement in any capacity with the Skeptics Society and Skeptic magazine is not exclusionary. We could not care less what anyone’s religious beliefs are. In fact, at least two of our more prominent supporters—the comedian and songwriter Steve Allen and the mathematician and essayist Martin Gardner—are believers in God. Other members of the board may believe in God as well. I do not know. I have never asked.
The primary mission of the Skeptics Society and Skeptic magazine is the investigation of science and pseudoscience controversies, and the promotion of critical thinking. We investigate claims that are testable or examinable. If someone says she believes in God based on faith, then we do not have much to say about it. If someone says he believes in God and he can prove it through rational arguments or empirical evidence, then, like Harry Truman, we say “show me.” Some Christians claim that the Shroud of Turin proves that Jesus lived and was crucified and resurrected. But the shroud was carbon-14 dated and found to be a fourteenth-century hoax (some are now claiming that the dating process was contaminated and that the shroud may be older still, but these claims have never been corroborated in peer-reviewed journals). Some creationists claim that geology proves that the Earth was created only 10,000 years ago. But strict scientific dating techniques show that the Earth is billions of years old. Similarly, some physicists and cosmologists claim that the laws of nature, the configuration of atoms, and the structure of the universe prove it was all created by a supernatural being. But science continues to show that everything from the simplest atoms to the most complex galaxies is explicable by natural laws, historical contingencies, and rules of self-organized complexity.
If, in the process of learning how to think scientifically and critically, someone comes to the conclusion that there is no God,