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There’s this post over at Gawker with the shocking headline “A Majority of Icelanders Believe in the Existence of Elves.” What is the basis for this outrageous claim? Why, this study reported on Iceland Review, of course, which found that only 8% of Icelanders believe that elves definitely exist.

I must have skipped one too many math-classes in school and missed the one about 8% constituting a majority. Even if you add the amount of people, who believe in the likelihood of elves to the ones believing they definitely exist, that still only makes 25%

Gawker must have misread, right? The following, however, is part of their direct quote:

Only 13 percent of participants in the study said it is impossible that elves exist, 19 percent found it unlikely, 37 percent said elves possibly exist, 17 percent found their existence likely and eight percent definite. Five percent did not have an opinion on the existence of elves.

What the Hell, Gawker? Didn’t you even read what you were quoting? Okay, let’s be charitable. It’s true that a majority of Icelanders (62% > 50%, see how that works?) believe the existence of elves is at the very least possible. That’s fine. So what? So do I. Since elves aren’t, to my knowledge, logically self-contradictory there is a possible world at which elves exist. It might even be very close to ours.

I don’t really understand the questionnaire placing “possibility” between “unlikelihood” and “likelihood.” Unless the likelihood of something is either zero or one, it has no bearing whatsoever on the possibility of said something. Perhaps the researchers intended “possibility” in a more colloquial sense, but if so then they can hardly lament ambiguity in their results. In any case a majority believing in the possibility (no matter the sense) of something isn’t exactly sensational.

Click here to view the embedded video.

I have no idea who these people are and I’m too lazy to research this in-depth. So pardon me if I judge them solely by the merits of this short conversation. The man doing most of the talking (hereafter ‘The Gambler’) seems intelligent enough as apologists go. Unfortunately he is not doing a particularly good job explaining himself. If you find this video hard to follow, no worries. I did too. Just blame The Gambler. John Ankerberg, the host, isn’t doing much to improve matters either. He clearly has completely the wrong idea about the topic being discussed and The Gambler is doing nothing to correct him. Quite the comical farce.

Let’s start with some of the misconceptions. As I understand The Gambler he’s talking about the fine-tuning argument for the existence of God. The argument deals with the well-known aspect of the universal constants (certain fixed quantities partly governing our universe’s behaviour) that had some of them been altered ever so slightly, then life as we know it could not have existed. To use a popular analogy, our universe is like a machine with a bunch of dials, many of which seem carefully tuned to “life.”

This concept is hopefully understandable even without getting into too much detail. We can leave aside what those constants are and why fiddling around with them would turn off “life mode.” In any case, it has nothing whatsoever to do with whether the age of the universe is sufficient time for “evolution to occur.” I’m not even sure what Ankerberg means by this. Given large enough reproduction rates any amount of time is sufficient for evolution to occur. Not to mention that evolution is entirely irrelevant. The driving force of fine-tuning arguments is usually the supposed improbability of life; not its diversity. Why would the laws of physics allow the existence of life at all, when they could have failed to do so even more easily?

The other main misconception is that the idea of multiple universes arises solely from the atheist’s discomfort with the improbability of life. Many philosophers, theoretical physicists, and quite a few authors have postulated multiple universes for all sorts of reasons. By all means let’s concede – as I did before – that:

Accepting the actual existence of many worlds in order to escape the existence of God seems arbitrarily discriminatory

This doesn’t in any way detract from the fact, that if you have independent reasons for believing in multiple universes (e.g. because they allow you to make sense of modality or because they allow you to retain determinism in quantum physics) then it dissolves the mystery of “fine-tuning” quite neatly into a weak anthropic principle at no added cost. That is to say, if you already believe we live in a multiverse for reasons nothing to do with theism/atheism, then you get to shrug your shoulders at fine-tuning and say “Well, I suppose there had to be life as we know it in one of them.”

Which leads us neatly into The Gambler’s critique of atheists, that we commit the Gambler’s fallacy. He likens it to tossing a coin repeatedly. The coin lands with ‘heads’ up improbably often. Atheists allegedly then conclude that the coin therefore must have been tossed prior to the ‘head’ run. The Gambler considers this conclusion fallacious because the coin might be double-headed. He is right in his assessment that what he describes is an example of Gambler’s fallacy. He is wrong about the dialectic.

This is closer to how the real dialectic goes:
Theist: “The universe is remarkably structured. If you fiddled around with some of its constants, life couldn’t exist.”
Atheist: “Surely you mean ‘life as we know it’ couldn’t exist? Maybe other possible “tunings” could support other kinds of life?”
T: “Alright, but that’s just speculation.”
A: “Sure. So the universe is unlikely. What’s your point?”
T: “So it must have been purposely designed! God obviously wanted life and therefore created a life-supporting universe!”
A: “She might have done a better job…”
T: “Excuse me?”
A: “Never mind. But hold on. Surely your premise, that the universe is improbably life-supporting, doesn’t support your conclusion that therefore a life-desiring creator exists.”
T: “How so?”
A: “Well, perhaps it’s just a massive coincidence or…”
T: “Yeah right.”
A: “Oh, I agree it probably isn’t. However, it’s still not ruled out by your premise and so invalidates your argument. Or maybe there are multiple universes.”
T: “Aha! That’s the Gambler’s fallacy!”
A: “It would be if I had tried to argue that there are, in fact, such universes based on nothing but the premise that it’s improbable that our universe should support life. However, I’m not the one arguing for a multiverse, you’re the one arguing for God.
T: “But surely God is more parsimonious!”
A: “Perhaps. But if you think I would have committed a fallacy in arguing for a multiverse, because the conclusion doesn’t deductively follow from our agreed premise, then surely you must admit that your God-conclusion is equally fallacious.”
T: “But concluding that a coin, which always lands heads up is double-headed isn’t a Gambler’s fallacy.”
A: “No, it isn’t. It is, however, an argument from ignorance. At least until you’ve ruled out other possible explanations for your improbable tosses. You evidently believe in God. Suppose God intervened in the coin tosses?”
T: “But the double-headed coin is analogous to God. What is ‘God’ then analogous to?”
A: “I honestly don’t know. Some other supernatural explanation for the universe being the way it is? Maybe humans will discover magical means to time-travel, go back in time, and design the universe.”
T: “That sounds perfectly ridiculous.”
A: “Not more so than your God does to me…”
T: “…”

Click here to view the embedded video.

Where’s your God now, William Lane Craig?

P.S. If anyone is interested in a thorough and passionate explanation of why it’s important to draw Mohammed, I recommend the following video by Thunderf00t:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Edit: I was featured on Friendly Atheist again this year. As last year I am very honoured to be among good company.

Maybe it’s just because I’m from the Faroe Islands but, in my experience, Christians seem obsessed with falling into the ocean. Another frequently used canard is the good old “If you saw someone falling into the ocean and you knew they couldn’t swim, wouldn’t you do anything to save them?” This is usually the go-to excuse for the “tough love” of the unpleasant and dishonest kind of proselytism and of the forcible injection of religion into education and politics. A variation is the oft-repeated bridge-gambit; “If someone were about to walk onto a bridge, you knew to be unstable, wouldn’t you be justified in saving them from danger by any means?”

The danger is Hell, the rickety bridge is your life-style, and what’s being justified is any immoral conduct perpetrated by the believers. After all, they only want the best for you. If establishing a theocratic dictatorship or orchestrating medieval torture is all that’s keeping you out of eternal damnation, isn’t it actually the moral duty of the theist to do so?

This is what Ian Stewart and Jack Cohen, in their book ‘Heaven,’ call the Querists’ Fallacy:

“Most querists honestly believe that what they do is necessary for the good of their victims’ lifesouls. You know why. You have heard their reasoning.” Epimenides paused for emphasis. “And you have asked them: What if their reasoning is wrong?”
“I have,” said Sam. “And I can’t detect any flaw in their answer: `By accepting the possibility of error, we risk our own lifesouls for the good of others. What greater love can there be than this?’ That was the answer that led me to become a torturer myself. I tried to inflict mortal harm on Second-Best Sailor!”
“You did,” said Epimenides calmly. “But nevertheless, there is a flaw. You could not find it because you looked for it within the querists’ logic, and that was what seduced you. But the flaw lies in the context, not in the content. Understand this, and you will never make such a mistake again.
“The Querists’ Fallacy is to pose the entire argument within the context of their own belief system. However, if they are wrong to torture innocents, those beliefs may also be wrong. In particular, the belief that the querist’s own lifesoul is at risk may be wrong. And then, what they do is based not on love but on ignorance and superstition.”
“But—are you saying that the Lifesoul-Giver doesn’t exist?”
“No. Neither am I saying that it does. I am saying that it is a fallacy to make deductions on the basis of a false hypothesis.”

So, theocratical believers, if your fall-into-ocean/rickety-bridge analogy is set within the context of your own belief system, what would the analogy look like if set within the context of reality? Well, for one, you don’t know. You don’t know that we’re in danger. You don’t know that you’re not in danger. You don’t know that your belief system will save us. You don’t know that we can’t swim or that the bridge is unstable. You don’t know…anything. You believe. You believe that if you don’t believe, you’ll go to Hell. You believe this for no other reason than your fear of going to Hell.

We’re all standing by a seemingly bottomless chasm. Spanning over this chasm are countless bridges, only one of which is stable and will bring you to the other side. All of the other bridges, no matter how sturdy they look, are unstable and will collapse under the weight of a person. Now, you might be willing to risk your own life on one of these bridges. Are you truly willing to risk someone else’s life on your ill-founded beliefs? Are you presumptuous enough to claim, without a shadow of doubt, that you know better than everyone else? You know better despite the fact that neither you nor anyone else have ever been to the other side or met anyone who has? Despite the fact, that all of us have equal access to the relevant facts? Do you have a moral obligation to force people onto your bridge against their will? Or do you have a moral obligation to let everyone make their own decision?

We don’t even know that the chasm is bottomless. Maybe there are trampolines and amazing sweets down there.

This is why ‘what would it take for you to change your mind?‘ is such an important question. If you don’t know, or if you can’t answer it, you’re a danger to all of us; your querist logic might as well lead you to believe the ends justify the means.

On our trip to Liverpool this weekend my girlfriend and I stumbled across a little shop down by the docks called Nauticalia. They specialised mostly in silly souvenirs and pirate-toys for the shorter population. However, imagine my delight when I found this amazing looking, high-quality cane. I have long been searching for just such a cane with a knob instead of a handle. At first I resisted temptation. However, I just had to buy it once I found out that not only can it be screwed apart into three conveniently stored pieces, it also has two “secret” compartments containing a telescope and a compass – both fully functioning! Check out my gallery below for a showcase of the cane’s many “features.”

The cane is available on Nauticalia’s website if anyone’s interested. They also have a similar model in a lighter shade of wood that comes with a small corked vial instead of a telescope. I wouldn’t recommend the latter unless it’s on account of the lighter colour, as it’s – oddly enough – more expensive (at least on their website, I think it was the same at the store), otherwise identical, and if you really want a corked vial in your cane, it shouldn’t be too hard to find one that fits. Small retractable telescopes are harder to come by.

I heartily recommend this cane. Especially for fending off pesky Liver Birds. You’ll see them coming a mile away.

I recently watched the Notre Dame debate between Sam Harris and William Lane Craig entitled ‘Is Good from God?’ I can refute everything Craig said in just three words:

Ideal Observer Theory

Look, theists, if you want to argue that Divine Command Theory farts rainbows and brings orgasms to needy little children, knock yourselves out. But honestly, stop acting as if it were the only coherent meta-ethical theory ever devised in the history of humanity. It doesn’t make you look clever, it makes you look either ignorant or dishonest. Craig must certainly be immorally dishonest, since as a Research Professor of Philosophy he ought to know better.

No, I don’t intend to defend Ideal Observer Theory over Divine Command Theory – though I’ll recommend Michael Martin’s book ‘Atheism, Morality, and Meaning‘ for the interested – and Ideal Observer Theory isn’t even the only theory that fulfils Craig’s criteria of ‘objectivity.’ I don’t even know why we should take seriously Craig’s assertion that ‘If God doesn’t exist there can be no objective morality’ since it basically just boils down to an argument from Craig’s personal incredulity.

However, my point is that philosophical integrity demands that we ought at the very least acknowledge that there are other positions available. We don’t have to accept them. Hell, we can argue vehemently against their veracity. But the least we can do is to not pretend that there is no opposing view; no legitimate disagreement. That’s not philosophy, that’s just plain old propaganda.

For shame!

…even before the magnificent intellect of Ray Comfort demonstrated the error of our heathen ways with a banana

…before then – from the depths of time preceding even Paley’s watch – the revered Lactantius, Christian author and advisor to the first Christain Emperor of Rome, provided us with incontrovertible, logically unassailable proof of God’s existence. Behold the true atheist’s worst nightmare; the nose!

But let us return to the works of God. [...] And the nose, arising from the confines of [the summits of the eyebrows], and stretched out, as it were, with an equal ridge, at once serves to separate and to protect the two eyes. Below also, a not unbecoming swelling of the cheeks, gently rising after the similitude of hills, makes the eyes safer on every side; and it has been provided by the great Artificer, that if there shall happen to be a more violent blow, it may be repelled by the projecting parts. But the upper part of the nose as far as the middle has been made solid; but the lower part has been made with a softened cartilage annexed to it, that it may be pliant to the use of the fingers. – On the Workmanship of God

So there you have it. How could God possibly not exist if we’re able to pick our noses? I’m going straight to church. I am sorry, God, for being ungrateful for the snot you gave us.

Me (mumbling a complaint): Everything is horrible…

Girlfriend: So you think I’m horrible then?

Me (mumbling some more): ‘course not.

Girlfriend: You must do. I’m part of everything.

Me: ’tis an emergent property of everything to be horrible, not to be found in any of its constituent parts. You wouldn’t expect any one car-part to be a vehicle either.

My sincerest sympathy goes out to girlfriends of philosophers everywhere. We can’t be easy to live with.

Cover by A Tribe Called Meuw

I know there already have been many lists of atheist songs; I know because in trying to find songs for my own selection I read quite a few of them. However, I wanted to make something different than a comprehensive list.

I wanted to not only to choose my favourites but also arrange them in some sort of meaningful order that tells a story – at least to my own satisfaction. In short, I wanted to select a mix that can be burned onto a CD and I have endeavoured to keep it under that magical 79 minute mark.

It should also be noted that I know full well that not all of these artists are, in fact, atheists. Some are, some are not, and some I honestly have no idea about. Rather I chose songs based on whether they expressed something an atheist or freethinker would be likely to relate to – though, of course, your mileage may vary. More on odd choices after the track list.

Atheists Don’t Have No Songs: A Freethinker’s Mix

01. Intro (Atheists Don’t Have No Songs) – Steve Martin

02. Pope Song – Tim Minchin

03. Imagine – John Lennon

04. Put Your Faith in Jesus – Mark Silverman

05. Letting Go of God – Jill Sobule

06. A Rational Response – Greydon Square

07. LMAOIH – Mark Silverman

08. Superstition – Stevie Wonder

09. Take My Wife – Tim Minchin

10. Dear God – XTC

11. Science Is Real – They Might Be Giants

12. God Thinks – Voltaire

13. Origin of Species – MC Frontalot

14. One – U2

15. Keep Your Jesus Off My Penis -  Eric Schwartz

16. Monty Python’s Galaxy Song – Clint Black

17. Outro (Storm) – Tim Minchin

Odd Choices

Alternative Cover by A Tribe Called Meuw

Some of these are arguably not proper songs. Specifically, ‘Atheists Don’t Have No Songs,’ ‘Take My Wife,’ and ‘Storm.’ I included ‘Atheists Don’t Have No Songs‘ because it started me thinking about this in the first place. Steve Martin says that atheists have nothing and although he jests I thought it would be fun to prove his jest wrong and as such the acapella of Steve Martin and the Steep Canyon Riders makes a good intro. ‘Take My Wife‘ (the proper title is too long) likewise makes a great and funny skit. It is a song – sort of. ‘Storm‘ is a beat poem but I thought it was just too beautiful and too meaningful for many atheists not to include.

‘One‘ by U2 is most likely not about what it sounds like to me. A little bit of Googling informed me that it is about the band nearly breaking up. I shall gladly confess that I don’t know what it’s about. However, it contains phrases that lend themselves to humanistic reinterpretation. We only have “One life” and we ought to use it to “carry each other” etc. I reserve the right to pretend that ‘One‘ is about a positive secular outlook on life – even though I’m wrong.

I’m a bit torn on ‘The Galaxy Song.’ Eric Idle really sings it better but a recording from the film will never be of such a crisp quality as Clint Black’s studio recording. Feel free to substitute one for the other.

Be sure to check out A Tribe Called Meuw’s blog for more great images.

Do you have a better idea for an atheist mix CD? Feel free to leave a comment or join the discussion in the forum.