One important tool is going to be Occam’s Razor: “entities must not be multiplied beyond necessity” (entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem). That’s it in a nutshell right from William of Ockham, a Franciscan monk and English philosopher, theologian and logician in the 14th century.
Another way to put it is: The simplest explanation is usually the correct one. But don’t get confused by the term, simple. It means: The hypothesis with the fewest assumptions is usually the correct one. When giving explanatory reasons for something, don’t posit more than is necessary. Or, don’t make any more assumptions than you have to.

So let’s say you have 2 competing hypotheses that are basically equal in most respects. Then this principle would suggest that you choose the hypothesis that makes the fewest assumptions while still sufficiently answering the question. In science Occam’s Razor is used as a rule of thumb (a heuristic) to help researchers develop good models.

In your life it can help you make decisions and choose what to think and what to believe (or not believe). You can use it as a heuristic as well, a great rule of thumb in your Critical Thinking Toolkit.

Sometimes atheists use Occam’s Razor to argue against the existence of god since everything can be explained through natural means without complicating it with the supernatural.

Another example: Crop circles. There used to be 2 competing ideas for where crop circles came from. One was that flying saucers from an alien world made them. Another was that a person  (or people) used some type of instrument to make the designs in the grass. Since there is no evidence for the flying saucers from outer space, and given how complicated and how many assumptions need to be made to make that argument work, Occam’s Razor would suggest that the simpler explanation would be that humans did it with instruments. That is the argument that makes less assumptions.

Of course, the second argument could be wrong, but until there was more information, it was the preferable hypothesis. Then 2 guys admitted to the crop circle hoax in the 1990′s. So that ended that debate for most people.

A quote by Carl Sagan is appropriate here: Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. When it comes to the supernatural, Occam’s Razor is a very valuable tool indeed.

Sources:

• The Skeptic’s Dictionary
• Wikipedia
• 2Think.org

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If there is one gift you can give to a child or anyone else, it is to teach them to think for themselves. The educational system doesn’t teach this important skill. It teaches rote memorization and focuses on test taking. Therefore it’s up to you to learn it for yourself.

Unfortunately, I’m self taught and have no formal training in this realm. Which means sharing it with you is harder. So instead of putting it off even longer, I thought maybe we could explore the subject together and develop a plan for sharing with others in our lives or on the web. First, let’s define it.

Here is a quote: [Critical thinking is a] desire to seek, patience to doubt, fondness to meditate, slowness to assert, readiness to consider, carefulness to dispose and set in order; and hatred for every kind of imposture. ~ Francis Bacon (1605)

Here is the short and sweet definition:

Critical Thinking: n: the mental process of actively and skillfully conceptualizing, applying, analyzing, synthesizing, and evaluating information to reach an answer or conclusion.

But I’ve found that there are many different interpretations for this concept. You can see a whole page of them here.

Here’s another one:
“Critical thinking is best understood as the ability of thinkers to take charge of their own thinking. This requires that they develop sound criteria and standards for analyzing and assessing their own thinking and routinely use those criteria and standards to improve its quality.” Elder , L. and Paul, R. “Critical thinking: why we must transform our teaching.” Journal of Developmental Education, Fall 1994.

What makes a critical thinker? Here are some attributes:

• asks pertinent questions
• assesses statements and arguments
• is able to admit a lack of understanding or information
• has a sense of curiosity
• is interested in finding new solutions
• is able to clearly define a set of criteria for analyzing ideas
• is willing to examine beliefs, assumptions, and opinions and weigh them against facts
• listens carefully to others and is able to give feedback
• sees that critical thinking is a lifelong process of self-assessment
• suspends judgment until all facts have been gathered and considered
• looks for evidence to support assumption and beliefs
• is able to adjust opinions when new facts are found
• looks for proof
• examines problems closely
• is able to reject information that is incorrect or irrelevant

Just about anyone can learn to think more critically. Even more importantly, you can use it in nearly every aspect of your daily living. You already think all the time, but if you are not consciously trying to think critically, your thoughts will be more biased, distorted, partial, uninformed and prejudiced. You’ll make decisions based on your emotions and feelings, you’ll rely on your “intuition” and your gut instinct, which can sometimes be useful but can often be quite flawed.

One way that flawed thinking is noticeable is through Logical Fallacies, which we talk about here at HDC.

Here are some other resources that you might find useful:

• Critical Thinking on the Web
• Foundation for Critical Thinking

Well, that is enough to get us started. Do you have any great resources for learning to think critically that you would like to share?

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To start out, the definition I am using for god is any given being that can supposedly create matter out of nothing, is omnipotent, and is unbound by physical spatial traits. Furthermore I derive that an omnipotent god constitutes as an unstoppable force or can be the causation of such. The existence of such a god forms my hypothesis (which I will regard as true for this proof); therefore the following mainly concerns itself with monotheistic brands of gods.

Using the above traits, the god from my hypothesis could create an object of infinite size and maximum density. This theoretical object would literally fill the entirety of the universe, with every small speck of space filled with matter. This rock constitutes as an immovable object as there is nowhere left to move the rock and thus it is incapable of movement. As an aside it happens that god can create an object so large that he cannot move it.

However the existence of an immovable object by definition means that an unstoppable force cannot also exist. Since that is a part of the definition of god outlined above, I therefore must reject the hypothesis and assert that such a god cannot and does not exist. In particular a god that can create matter unrestrained cannot also be omnipotent in all regards.

Simple, short, and sweet… but the devil is in the details (ha ha). Any god with boundaries and limitations obviously escapes the above, but from my experience that’s the last thing any monotheist will even begin to contemplate (god being the biggest baddest supernatural being that ever was—who also happened to create everything—just isn’t enough, seemingly god must also have limitless power and ability). So please qualify objections to the below considerations.

1)      Can god create an object so large even he cannot move it?

The answer given above is yes. To disagree, please provide what way the following proof is inaccurate and give an alternative:

a)      Definition: god is omnipotent (omnipresent as well).
b)      Definition: god can create matter anywhere out of nothing.
c)       Action: god creates matter everywhere he exists / in all space.
d)      Analysis: there is nowhere left to move the object, thus…
e)      Conclusion: god can create an object so large that he cannot move it.

It is a very logical progression given omnipotence that does not limit god in any way. Please refrain from self-defeating arguments, god cannot create space no matter how capable he is as space is nothing. I literally mean nothing, it doesn’t exist—it is the default before anything is created or exists there. Furthermore adding a step between c and d is self-defeating as well (such as removing a portion of the object to create space to move it) as it implies that before god does something to it the object is immovable.

2)      Infinity and Gravity

The first thing to note is that the matter in the object from the proof is countable infinity and the force is not. Infinity in mathematics doesn’t actually exist either, so any mathematical attempts should have both these considerations explained with it. I’d also like to add here that a theoretically infinite object is at equilibrium and has no center, so that should take care of gravity qualms.

3)      Hilbert’s Hotel Paradox

Hilbert’s Hotel paradox refers to a hotel with infinite rooms each filled with a guest (so full). However the hotel can accommodate infinitely more guests by putting a new guest in room 1 by having the guest in room 1 move to room 2, the guest in room 2 to room 3, and so on for each new guest. The conceptual flaw to this problem is that the hotel isn’t actually accommodating more guests; it’s just that there are now guests infinitely transitioning rooms. In other words the number of guests in rooms did not increase. This paradox cannot apply to the infinite object due to the incapability of having a transitional progression.

4)      Beyond Reason

Please refrain from trying to tell me god is not understandable by human reason. Realize that there would be no correct religion if that was the case as no religion understands god, and there would be no assertions that god exists because it would be beyond reasoning. Besides religions often like to claim we were created in the image of god, thus cannot be outside of our reasoning. I’m going to make an assertion that anybody who asserts such doesn’t actually believe it… By saying god is beyond reason, nobody could then assert that anything above is wrong since it would be beyond their reasoning as well.

There we go, I think that covers all the rift-raft arguments. Let the fun begin!

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Pareidolia: a psychological phenomenon involving a vague and random stimulus (often an image or sound) being perceived as significant.

In psychology, the Rorschach test is a series of images used to invoke pareidolia to delve into the psyche of the patient. In religion and superstition, a vague stimulus is believed to be divinely sent. Here is a news story of Mary in bird shit. Notice how the people react to a random stimulus.

No matter how much I look at this picture, it looks like a face. The sink looks a bit shocked or frightened.

Carl Sagan hypothesized that detecting faces is a hard wired evolutionary advantage. This allows people to use only minimal details to recognize faces from a distance and in poor visibility but can also lead them to interpret random images or patterns of light and shade as being faces.

In 2009 a study was done to show that objects incidentally perceived as faces evoke an early (165 ms) activation in the ventral fusiform cortex, at a time and location similar to that evoked by faces, whereas other common objects do not evoke such activation. This activation is similar to a slightly earlier peak at 130 ms seen for images of real faces. The authors suggest that face perception evoked by face-like objects is a relatively early process, and not a late cognitive reinterpretation phenomenon.

Which would explain why everyone sees the following simple line drawing as a face:

This one, is of course, totally real. The Flying Spaghetti Monster is a holy visage mighty to behold! May you be touched by his Noodly Appendage!

Here’s a strange 6-legged sky pig.

This is the famous grilled cheese toast image. If you ask me, the face in there looks more like an actress from the 40′s than a religious icon.

And one more, for fun.

So, it’s nothing supernatural. It’s just the way our brains work to fill in information and make sense of the world as fast as we can.

Related posts

• How Far I’ve Come! (7)
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Reason to Believe: Does God Exist?

• Existence of God: Ontological Argument
• Problem of Evil I
• Problem of Evil II
• Pascal’s Wager

Rationality and Belief

• Ethics of Belief: Evidentialism v. Pragmatism
• Racism and Belief
• Stereotypes and Belief
• Scientific Reason or Scientific Faith?
• More on Science and Faith

Mind and Body

• The Mind-Body Problem 1
• The Mind-Body Problem 2
• Robots and Functionalism

Freewill, Determinism, and Responsibility

• Hard Determinism
• Compatibilism I
• Compatibilism II
• Libertarianism

Morality and Right Conduct

• Moral Variation Across Cultures
• Utilitarianism
• Ethical Egoism
• Famine

Cross-posted from Morgantown Atheists

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“Because we are sinful.”

Well, why are we sinful?

“Because God gave us free will and we chose evil.”

But, if free will makes this life sinful and imperfect, and heaven is perfect and without sin, does that mean there’s no free will in heaven?

**crickets**

Or does that mean somehow in heaven free will and perfection co-exist? And if so, why didn’t he just give us that state on earth to begin with? Since he loves us so much?

**more crickets***

Have a nice day.

(Thanks to my friend Gary for sharing this from me which came from someone else online)

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“There have been numerous cases where practicing christians have been obliged to obey the same laws and abide by the same rules as everybody else.” (How Barbaric!) Jesus and Mo

God! It’s like everyone I’ve ever slept with is here.

Hitler was a drug-free vegetarian. Do your part to fight fascism: eat meat and do drugs. (name that logical fallacy!)

Having a great vocabulary didn’t save the Thesaurus from extinction/eradication/extirpation.

Man and religion, a synopsis: They said christianity was a religion of peace…

Carl Sagan and the Pale Blue Dot. Awesome!

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