From: jeffrey.r.brown@medtronic.com (Jeffrey R. Brown)
Subject: Religion and Skepticism (WAS: science and religion)
Organization: Sun Microsystems of Canada, Inc.
Date: Thu, 7 Jan 1993 23:09:51 GMT



There was a thread in this newsgroup called "science and religion."
Ken Arromdee, I, and others participated in this discussion.  Upon
reflection, the heart of the discussion did not seem to me to be about
inconsistencies between the Baha'i Faith and science, but rather,
concerned the skeptical perspective in the investigation of the Baha'i
Faith and its teachings.  Hence, this response.

Please excuse the lateness of my response. I get paid to write
software for medical devices, not to write philosophy.  This stuff
gets done in bits and pieces when I have extra (uncompensated) time
and the computer network in not loaded.

Ken Arromdee writes:
>
> The reason I bring up this point is that your religion claims to be a
> perfect religion that comes from God.  Not one thing in it, if
> properly understood, is wrong.
>
> Cremation is indeed a very minor question.  But a mistake in even a
> minor question is enough to make it possible that major questions
> might also be answered with mistakes.  If you are wrong about
> cremation, perhaps you are also wrong about banning women from the
> Universal House of Justice or banning homosexuality, both of which
> _are_ major questions.
>

Let us suppose that a rational and skeptical individual is
investigating a religion.  How does this individual judge if the
religion is "good" or "true" or "right"?  How does one "prove" a
religion?

What does it mean for a religion to be "good" or "true"?  Is it the
same as when we say, for example, that a certain medical treatment is
good?  Is it the same as when we say that a mathematical statement or
theorem is true?  Or, does it mean something else?

Let us look at the mathematical example first.  In mathematics, a
theorem is constructed as a series of statements, each of which is
supposed to follow from either axioms or previously proven statements
by laws of logical deduction.  If any one of the statements does not
follow, then the proof is deemed false.  A single counter example
nullifies a mathematical theorem.  Computer programming is much the
same.  A single incorrect statement makes a program incorrect.  It is
not uncommon for a single bug in a program to cause an entire computer
system to fail.  This definition of proof is extremely rigorous.  It
is applied in almost no other human endeavor.

Now let's look at medicine.  Suppose a researcher at a pharmaceutical
company develops a new drug, perhaps a new antibiotic.  How does he
"prove" that this new drug is efficacious?  By experiment, of course.
Perhaps he takes a number of white rats and induces an infection in
all of them.  To half the rats he administers the new drug; to the
other half, he administers a placebo.  After some time, he categorizes
the rats into one of four categories: antibiotic administered and
infection cured, antibiotic administered and infection persisted,
placebo administered and infection cured, placebo administered and
infection persisted.  If the number of rats that received the
antibiotic and in which the infection was cured, and the number of
rats that received the placebo and in which the infection persisted,
greatly exceeds the other categories (as defined statistically), then
the new drug is "proven" to be efficacious (at least for white rats).
Note that if a single rat which had received the antibiotic did not
improve, this would not invalidate the efficacy of the new drug.  We
do not apply the same definition of proof to medicine as we do in
mathematics.

How about another example.  Let us supposed that there is an
individual who claims to possess psychic powers.  The "psychic" agrees
to be tested under conditions specified by an organization skeptical
of psychic claims, say, CSICOP (which stands for Committee for
Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal, I believe).  To
the amazement of the investigators, the psychic performs at an 80%
success level in an experiment where 50% success would be expected by
chance.  In experiment after experiment, all rigorously designed by
members of CSICOP, our psychic performs at about 80%.  Presumably, at
this point, all the skeptics would have to agree, albeit reluctantly,
that the psychic really did have some extraordinary "powers" that
allowed him/her to report on information not available through the
normal senses.  Note, however, that the psychic is not "perfect":
he/she has never performed at a 100% success rate, or even close.
Nevertheless, such a performance would be deemed by almost everyone to
be a convincing "proof" of the existence of paranormal abilities in
the psychic.  (Note, just for the record, personally I do not believe
in psychic powers, I am just using this as an illustrative example.)

In fact, in almost all of science (and I am not counting mathematics
as science) the standard of proof of a hypothesis is like that of
medicine.  Discrepancies are usually shrugged off as experimental
error.  If most of the measurements confirm the hypothesis, and
repeated experiments also show this, then the hypothesis becomes
accepted by other scientists.  Physics is the most stringent in
demanding complete determinability, but still, there are quite a few
particle tracks that go unexplained, and a number of stellar objects
that do not seem to fall into any of the generally accepted
categories.  Nevertheless, this does not stop particle physicists or
astrophysicists from claiming experimental confirmation of their
theories.

Why should a religion be held to the same standard of proof as
mathematics?  Does religion concern itself with pure Platonic
intellectual entities?  No, religion concerns itself with humans, most
of whom are neither pure nor Platonic nor intellectual.  You could
answer that religion concerns itself with God.  That is true, but
God's Manifestations or Prophets have to communicate Their divine
knowledge of God to us stupid and impure humans, so we only get what
They considered we could handle, given our limited understanding.

So...  I am all for the skeptical approach, but a reasonable standard
of judgment has to be used.  If 95% of the rats recuperated, and the
other 5% did not respond adversely, wouldn't you take the antibiotic?
If you agree with 95% of a religion's teachings, and if you believe
that 95% of the world's problems would vanish if those teachings were
followed by everyone, wouldn't that be enough to accept the religion?

Let me anticipate a possible objection.  Perhaps you might say, "You
can't treat religion like a scientific or sociological hypothesis.
95% is not good enough for a religion, because a religion claims to be
perfect.  No scientist claims that a hypothesis is perfect, but merely
that it is the best fit to the real world data that is known.  Thus
all hypotheses are tentative, by definition, whereas religions claim
to be perfect and complete."

In the Baha'i Faith, at least, this is not strictly true.  We believe
in what we call progressive revelation.  This means that periodically
God will manifest another Prophet to further the spiritual education
and advancement of humankind.  The "core teachings" of these
progressive revelations (for example, don't kill each other, don't
steal from each other, love God and obey His Will, etc.) do not
change, but the "social teachings" do change from one Prophet to the
next in order to address the current needs of society and help Man
advance socially as well as spiritually.

So, if a Baha'i says that the Baha'i Faith is "perfect" it does not
mean that it is complete and unchanging for all eternity; rather, it
means that the religion is perfectly suited for the needs of humanity
in this era, that is, the time during which the most recent Prophet is
Baha'u'llah.

A truly skeptical individual would not be convinced by the above
argument.  What the skeptic wants is a "proof" that the Baha'i Faith,
or some other religious belief, or any sort of belief actually, is
true or correct.  Outside of the realm of mathematics and its
immediate derivatives, however, formal proof does not exist.  The only
way to determine the truth of a belief system, therefore, is to
compare it to...  what?  Some other belief system, of course, against
which the skeptic would "measure" the belief system to be "tested."
But what if the "measure stick" belief system is incorrect?  How do
you then confirm that your evaluation of the "test" belief system is
valid?

So what "measure stick" belief system should a rational and skeptical
individual use to determine the truth of a religion?  How about
science?  That's not a good choice, since science is always advancing
and changing as new experiments are performed causing old theories to
be replaced by new ones.  One would not want to use a belief system
that is ever changing as a "measure stick."  How about logic and
mathematics?  Again, a poor choice.  Many belief systems could be
logically self-consistent but incorrect.  Merely requiring a belief
system to be logical is far weaker than requiring it to be true.  How
about common sense?  An even worse choice!  Whose common sense would
you use?  Mine or yours?  Common sense is much too subjective to be
used as a belief system against which other belief systems are
measured.

Baha'u'llah answers this question (at least to the satisfaction of
Baha'is) when He says:

    Weigh not the Book of God with such standards and sciences as are
    current amongst you, for the Book itself is the unerring balance
    established amongst men.  In this most perfect balance whatsoever
    the peoples and kindreds of the earth possess must be weighed,
    while the measure of its weight should be tested according to its
    own standard, did ye but know it.

For a Baha'i, the "measure stick" belief system against which to
measure other beliefs is the Baha'i Faith.  And, the belief system of
the Baha'i Faith, itself, is to be validated against the Baha'i Faith.
Does this sound circular and self-referential to you?  Well, it does
to me, too.

So, this is where the skeptic stops.  He/she may accept 95% of the
teachings of Baha'u'llah, and he/she may believe that the condition of
the world's peoples would be improved if most of them followed the
social principles of the Baha'i Faith.  (I would describe such a
person as a "friend" of the Baha'i Faith.)  However, the Baha'i
teachings ask him/her to replace his/her "measurement belief system"
with that of the Baha'i Faith.  How can one decide to do this based on
pure rationality?  Does it not require a Kierkegaardian "leap of
faith"?

In my personal opinion (with which others disagree) I think it does.
Through pure reasoning and logical discussion alone, I believe that
many people can be convinced to be friends of the Baha'i Faith.  They
might come to agree with our teachings on peace, unity, the end of
prejudice, universal literacy and education, and a world
administrative order.  But to accept the teachings of Baha'u'llah as
divine in origin, and to accept Him as a Manifestation of God,
requires more than just the skeptical and rational ability with which
we are all born.  It needs a spark of faith.

--
"The comments and opinions expressed above are mine and do not necessarily
represent the official position or views of Medtronic, Inc."
Jeffrey R. Brown
Internet: jeffrey.brown@medtronic.com             Voice: 1-612-574-4698
UUCP:     uunet!medtron!jb8285                    FAX:   1-612-574-6150

Newsgroups: soc.religion.bahai