Evaluating Sources: Can You Back that Claim Up?

Evaluating Sources: Can You Back that Claim Up?

In this article I will discuss the difference between a good and a bad source, and how to go about evaluating your sources. Additionally, I will show how Christian apologists often neglect to offer valid or even reliable sources, how they try to impose double standards while not wanting to get directly involved with the pertinent material which they are debating over, and how they occasionally manipulate the information to convince their audience of their case even as the information will, in reality, invalidate their entire position.

Dealing with Double Standards

Not so long ago I was debating a Christian about scientific matters. After stating my points clearly, and listing my sources, and supporting my reasons I felt that I had made a pretty sturdy case. The Christian, however, thought otherwise. He immediately retreated into that apologetic denial of having the merit of numerous references at my disposal when he does not, and stated, “I’m glad you’ve read lots, but I’d really rather hear what you have to say. I want to know what you think, not some scientist I've never heard of. What do you believe personally about it all?”

This threw me off because I honestly thought I was telling him what I thought. What I thought just so happened to be informed and supported by the hard work and findings of professionals and other critical thinkers. But this sort of tangible support is difficult for people of faith who rarely have anything other than anecdotal stories to rely on in supporting their claims. So the easiest thing to do is dismiss such a heavily backed case and ask the atheist or skeptic to start from scratch—what does your emotional intuition say to you? But then this becomes a position of faith, not knowing, and when dealing with substantive claims and assertions of truth, knowing is half the battle.

Instead of dealing with the bulk of information I had thrown at him, he dodged the issue, and forced his devotional interpretation as the default position. This is what most apologists try and do, make God the default position, then demand you disprove his existence. When you bring forth the bulwark of evidence which seeks to refute, confuse, or complicate their God hypothesis they then like to deny your evidence outright or else will claim you’ve not understood it (even as this accusation runs counter-intuitively to the fact that you just supported your understanding of the claim with the diverse array of sources cited).

Likewise, according to my theist friend evolution was false and that my information about evolution was faulty, fine tuning and intelligent design proved a deity of conscious intent but that my understanding of cosmology and physics was clouded by my skepticism, the origin of life as well as the universe were all evidence for God even though I just *refused to see it. When I asked him how he knew all this with such certainty, he answered by quoting scripture line and verse. But what’s this now? He denied my myriad of factual sources when he disagreed with my reasoning, but when forced to supply evidence for his reasons he cites the Bible? I could have just said, “I’m glad you read the Bible, but I’d really rather you read something which actually matters. Such as a history book, a science text, a physics or cosmology paper, a peer reviewed scientific journal, or something along those lines. What you believe personally is fine, but if it’s biased and unfounded it is likely to be wrong, and if that’s the case then who in their right mind is gonna give a damn about what you have to say?” Yet my kind atheist heart couldn’t bring me to say something so faith shatteringly blunt. However, it still confounded me that he couldn’t see the unfair double standard he was seeking to impose.

Inadequate & Unsubstantial Sources

Many dubious supernatural or religious beliefs rely on little to no good evidence and so are largely speculative. Take, for example, the Christian belief in the rapture which stems from three lines of one scriptural verse, e.g. 1 Thessalonians 4:15-17. But can this belief even be defensible? I hold that it cannot, since it lacks good support, is highly implausible, and is too tenuous to mention. Christians who become absolutely infatuated with this idea, however, start to quote mine pages from the Bible with the desperate longing to find any bits of mystical or superstitious sounding religious language which would support this Tribulation theory. Upon finding some baffling and enigmatic phrases in 1 Thessalonians 4:15–17; John 14:2–3; Philippians 3:20-21; 1 Corinthians 15:49–55; 2 Thessalonians 2:1-7; and Matthew 24:36-41they find themselves able to derive some peculiar beliefs about some rather poorly informed dates for an incredible event (which looks like thinly veiled millennialism—something common to superstitious cults) with little to no real data to support its validity.

Needless to say, this is how a firm belief in Jesus’ second coming and the Tribulation is sustained. What shouldn’t be overlooked though, is that the logic here is completely circular, as it begs the question: what is their qualification for dependability? Nothing outside of the Bible is used for support, which makes it even harder to prove their case, therefore all they are left with is a fallacy for support. Let’s look at how this fallacy works, shall we?

The Bible vaguely asserts something along the lines of the rapture will (possibly) occur, and since Christians believe the Bible is trustworthy they therefore cite the Bible as support for their belief in the rapture (or any other supernatural/faith based declaration). Mostly it diagrams like this: Bible = True; Bible and mentions rapture; therefore Rapture = True. Ah-ha! But this is begging the question—big time. Such circular reasoning, they think, sustains their faith based convictions and so belief in the rapture becomes reasonable for the person of faith—even though all they have done is assumed what they wish to prove.

Our inspection reveals that the only thing driving the Christian belief in the rapture is a huge confirmation bias coupled with a big fat fallacy and circular reasoning, not any relevant data or empirical evidence like we would expect when qualifying a claim. This makes any prediction for the rapture purely conjecture, and therefore the belief in the rapture is not sustainable, mainly because, it’s not actually supported by anything relevant. Not to mention the fact that nearly every major rapture prediction ever made has failed miserably—and I would bet you almost anything that the remaining few do too.

This is why having pertinent sources becomes such a vital point: sources aid your argument by qualifying your reasons for believing what you do. Without sources your reasons for believing something lose their value and are relegated to mere uninformed opinions. Although, not to overlook a key point, it’s worth pointing out that using the wrong sort of sources can discredit your claims and make your argument ridiculous as well.

Insufficient & Poorly Researched Sources

Many Christians make the common error of aiding their wild theories with illegitimate sources, things which might look valid, but are in actuality quite useless and do not help the argument along or provide evidence for their principal proposition. This is also known as a hasty generalization, and is included in the list of fallacies I gave in my prior article on the subject (for more on fallacies click HERE).

A recent example I came across arose from a debate I was having on the validity of evolution with an Evangelical Christian. In any case, the Christian apologist denied my statement that evolution was true and gave me a link to a Christian apologetics website which denied evolution. More specifically the Christian gave me a link to an article by Don Batten who was defending the thinly veiled Creationist anti-Evolution position with a slew of scientific sounding reasons for why primates, such as Chimpanzees, sharing 98% genetic code with humans is false. I read the article and then immediately checked the author’s sources. Where was this author getting his information? Could he be trusted and were his sources dependable? Did it detract from my position and enhance his claims or not?

I'm sorry to say, but after examining the author’s sources I found the article a complete waste of time, as it not only did not benefit the author’s disbelief of Evolution and the shared genetic heritage we have with our ape ancestors, the article’s biased stance and lack of support didn’t act as support for his position as it wasn’t a proper refutation for the reasons the author believed proved Evolution to be counterfeit (for more on how to craft a proper argument see my article on the subject HERE).　Also, I would caution, trying to be scientific sounding is not the same as being scientifically accurate. Furthermore, none of the anti-evolution articles ever meet or pass peer review standards, and that says a lot right there.

Upon closer inspection we find that the sources in the article to be completely irrelevant. Don Batten's article starts out with the wrong ideas about evolution. He claims we did not evolve from monkeys, and this is true. We did not evolve from monkeys any more so than a tiger did, and any evolutionary biologist worth his weight in salt would tell you as much. This initial misconception, however, shows us that Batten doesn't understand the first thing about evolutionary theory. The truth of the matter is, we’re all primates with a common ancestor, just like the other animals from whales to giraffes to tigers to octopuses who all share a common ancestor too, and somewhere down the line of our genetic family tree there was a genetic divergence and speciation occurred. This is true of all living things as well, and the evidence is encoded in our genome, that is to say our genetic family tree is stamped on our DNA..

If you read the article you will notice that all the references in Batten’s piece are mostly from 1985 and 1987 with one exception of a 1993 reference, which, by the way, isn’t even a science reference; it’s a Creationist conjecture book! So as far as I can tell, by looking at the sources, we find there is really no argument against the 98% shared genetic code between humans and other higher primates mention. What we find is lacking in support, the piece only cites pre-genomic sources without the relevant information, relies on a confirmation bias and a misconception of the science it is meant to critique, and none of the references have anything to do with what modern genomics has undeniably proved about our ancestor’s tale. In other words, it doesn’t even try to support its main argument, it just asserts the claim that evolution is false and that we didn’t evolve from monkeys, and then tries to sound scientific—but fails.

Meeting the Prerequisite of Dependability

After reading Batten’s article, or any article for that matter, we must ask: is this a dependable or reliable article? How can we tell? We must put on our critical thinking caps! Looking at the Creationist conjecture piece we find a non-scientific minded writer offering a scientific critique without knowing what he’s talking about. That’s the first demerit. How can we be so certain that this article that the Christian sent me is a bad source? Because the information in the article’s own sources are inadequate, outdated, and irrelevant—that’s the second demerit. Of course, this would mean that any argument the Christian author attempted to make would be relying on inadequate, outdated, and irrelevant information—therefore my Christian friend’s information is faulty and unreliable.

Articles like the one above contain little in the way of actual evidence against evolution, and in the words of Michael Shermer, there is a lot of "woo-woo" being thrown around without a correct understanding of the science. I'm not an evolutionary biologist, so I wouldn't presume to correct all of the scientific errors and misunderstandings here, but I am confident in what I know is legitimate (I could even cite you my own sources if it came to that) and what is said in these anti-evolution agenda articles is mainly just trying to sound authentic, but mostly isn't.

We know this, as is the case with the Batten piece, because of its distinct lack of reliable sources and the sources it does list actually do not support the author’s argument. For example, it would be better to use references to the field it directly talks about with the up to date and current knowledge, especially since it is arguing from a position which denies the evidence found with the decoding of the human genome. Why cite sources that predate the genomic sequencing as evidence against shared genetic code? That’s like trying to prove the holocaust didn’t happen by citing sources which all predate the holocaust! It’s not even rational.

So the question becomes, how do we go about evaluating our sources, conceivably to make our reasons for belief that much more reliable, meanwhile adding support to our argument/position in the process?

Evaluating Sources

Considering the reliability of print and online sources is vital in establishing a basis for trustworthiness. If you can’t support your claims, then they are hollow claims, and any argument hung on them is likely to fall through—in other words, if all you have is an opinion then you’re not really acquainted with the arguments and can’t be taken seriously in a conversant discussion. If your sources are lacking, then your reasons for believing are wanting, and your believability is jeopardized by the deficiency of support—as I showed with the three Christian apologetic examples above. 

Once again, looking to The Norton Filed Guide to Writing (p. 401-402) we find valuable list of things to look for when evaluating our sources and whether or not they serve our purpose. The following questions (as found within the section entitled Evaluating Sources) are helpful in selecting useful sources.

l       Is it relevant? How does the source relate to your purpose? What will it add to your work? Look at the title and at any introductory material—a preface, abstract, or introduction—to see what it covers.

l       What are the author’s credentials? What are the author’s qualifications to write on the subject? Is he or she associated with a particular position on the issue? If the source is a book or a periodical, see whether it mentions other works this author has written. If it’s a website, see whether an author is identified. If one is, you might do a Web search to see what else you can learn about him or her.

l       What is the stance? Consider whether a source covers various points of view or advocates one particular point of view. Does its title suggest a certain slant? If it’s a website, you might check to see whether it includes links to other sites of one or many perspectives. You’ll want to consult sources with a variety of viewpoints.

l       Who is the publisher? If it’s a book, what kind of company published it; if an article, what kind of periodical did it appear in? Books published by university presses and articles in scholarly journals are reviewed by experts before they are published. Books and articles written for general audiences typically do not undergo rigorous review—and they may lack the kind of in-depth discussion that is useful for research.

l       If it’s a website, who is the sponsor? Is the site maintained by an organization? An interest group? A government agency? An individual? If the site doesn’t give this information, look for clues in the URL: edu is used mostly by colleges and universities, gov by government agencies, org by nonprofit organizations, mil by the military, and com by commercial organizations.

l       What is the level? Can you understand the material? Texts written for a general audience might be easier to understand but are not likely to be authoritative enough for academic work. Texts written for scholars will be more authoritative but may be hard to comprehend.

l       When was it published? See when books and articles were published. Check to see when websites were last updated. (If the site lists no date, see if links to other sites still work.) Recent does not necessarily mean better—some topics may require very current information whereas others may call for older sources.

l       Is it available? Is it a source you can get hold of? If it’s a book and your school’s library doesn’t have it, can you get it through interlibrary loan?

l       Does it include other useful information? Is there a bibliography that might lead you to other sources? How current are the sources it cites?

Conclusion

Personally I find this list contained in The Norton Filed Guide to Writing (p. 401-402) to be more than a valuable asset in helping to evaluate one’s sources. The next step is to use your critical eye in order to weed out the good sources from the bad. After all this you may have material which is authoritative and better supports your ideas, beliefs, position, etc. So next time someone sends you a link to a website or online article to read, or ask you to review a book or periodical, check to see if its sources are significant or relatable. If not, then you’ll know they don’t have any ground to stand on. However, be careful not to fall victim of the same plight of paucity when it comes to citing your sources, which is to say, never forget to cite good sources and reference material after having thoroughly evaluated them and verified their applicability. Happy researching!

An Easter Doodle and What I'm Currently Reading

Above is a doodle I did to try and explain to my Japanese students why Easter is a holiday. They just looked blankly at me and when I finished explaining that this is what Christians believe one student raised their hand and asked, "Is it a true story?" 

I never had to answer this from the point of view of a skeptic before, and I just started laughing out loud. The students all looked around and smiled. Meanwhile, as I tried to get a hold of myself, I did a pantomime Superman impression, and began to laugh even harder.  I just couldn't help myself.

It was just that I hadn't seen the Easter tradition as ridiculous until now, and eventually the home room teacher had to change the subject to why we dye Easter eggs, and I told the story of Mary Magdalene's meeting with the Emperor of Rome, Emperor Tiberius, and how she quelled his skepticism with the whole white egg turning blood red miracle she performed in front of him to prove that Jesus was resurrected. By that time I think they had all figured out that it was all fictitious on their own.

I'm currently reading all of these books. Let me know if you want any reviews or recommendations. I'll try and push through them in the next two months as time allows.

99.9% of Christian Apologestics Rely on Fallacies

99.9% of Christian Apologetics Rely on Fallacies

Ninety-nine point nine percent of Christian apologetics relies on fallacies may be a bold statement, but if you’ve read any amount of Christian apologetics you’ll immediately see how the list of following fallacies is not just commonly employed but the main staple basis and foundation for devotional defenses for belief in the supernatural. No matter which faith, it would seem, that the bellow fallacies are the main stratagem when arguing for belief in God, or for providing evidence, or for supporting the theist claims.

Summarizing the Norton Field Guide to Writing (2009) section on strategies for supporting your arguments we find that: Fallacies are arguments that involve faulty reasoning. Furthermore, the Norton editors instruct that it’s important to avoid fallacies in your writing because they often seem plausible but are usually unfair or inaccurate and make reasonable discussion difficult. Next, on pages 296 through 298 we find a list of the main forms of fallacies used when arguing. The types of common fallacies which should be avoided are as follows:

·       Ad hominem arguments attack someone’s character rather than addressing the issues. (Ad hominem is Latin for “to the man.”) It is an especially common fallacy in political discourse and elsewhere…

·       Bandwagon appeals argue that because others think or do something, we should, too.

·       Begging the question is a circular argument. It assumes as a given what is trying to be proved, essentially supporting an assertion with the assertion itself. Consider this statement: “Affirmative action can never be fair or just because you cannot remedy one injustice by committing another.” This statement begs the question because to prove that affirmative action is unjust, it assumes that it is an injustice.

·       Either-or arguments, also called false dilemmas, are oversimplifications. Either-or arguments assert that there can be only two possible positions on a complex issue.

·       False analogies compare things that resemble each other in some ways but not in the most important respects.

·       Faulty causality, also known as post hoc, ergo propter hoc (Latin for “after this, therefore because of this”), assumes that because one event followed another, the first event caused the second…

·       Hasty generalizations are conclusions based on insufficient or inappropriately qualified evidence.

·       Slippery slope arguments assert that one event will inevitably lead to another, often cataclysmic event without presenting evidence that such a chain of causes and effects will in fact take place.

Christian apologists tend to rely on fallacies so regularly probably because of the distinct lack of evidence to back up their claims, but also, as has been my experience, because many Christians don’t realize they’re making them in the first place. Understandably, everybody who exercises a little rhetoric will probably have a few fallacies in their arguments, since sometimes it is easier to bypass a difficult area of explanation by skipping over it, but in general it’s a bad idea to rely too much on fallacies. It’s better to try and avoid making them on a regular basis, especially when engaging in any debate you want to qualify as dependable or true.

As expected, we’ve all heard the Christian schema of why we ought to believe. In their attempts to convinces us, they often fall back on fallacious arguments, often saying something along the lines that evolution is false therefore the Bible is true, or because the Bible is true evolution is false. Other times we have heard the claim because the Bible is true, and God created it all, evolution is true, and therefore proof of God’s existence. Or how about, you can’t be moral without religion; ever heard that one? Or if you don’t believe in Jesus and ask him for forgiveness you’ll go to hell. God is all loving (never mind the contradiction). Or the rapture is definitely coming. Or that God hears your prayers. Or that you go to paradise in heaven after you die. Or because you can’t prove human consciousness then that’s evidence for God. Or because the universe exists something must have created it, therefore proof that God must exist. All of these claims are unfounded, therefore when Christians wish to support their devotional beliefs they turn to the slippery slopes of fallacy packed professions and mind-boggling truth claims, hoping you won’t notice their sufficient lack of evidence whatsoever.

Everything from Pascal’s wager to Paley’s watch on the beach; from William Lain Craig’s Kalām Cosmological argument to Dinesh D’Souza’s mocking the intellectual merit of scientists like Richard Dawkin’s who criticize religion, stating that biologists couldn’t possibly know any better when it comes to religion and that this “caricature” of religion portrayed by its critics is what happens when you let biologists out of the lab (because they demand theologians offer up evidence without really understanding any of the above apologetic theological arguments). All these are, in actuality, intractable fallacies.

If truth be told, skeptics and atheists have understood these religious arguments, perhaps even better than those who would use them as support, at least since the time they started being proffered as support for the belief in God. Indeed, many critics of religion have pragmatically attacked these flawed and fallacy driven claims by utilizing fanciful polemic to show how inadequate they actually are. Think, for instance, of Bertrand Russell’s celestial teapot, a fine example if there ever was one. Also, the flying spaghetti monster and the existence of invisible pink unicorns, a couple other pieces of reverse engineering ingenuity. So next time you read some Christian or religious apologetics, look for how habitually they rely on fallacies to form the basis of their arguments and how frequently they lack well supported and thought out arguments in the first place.

It's All a Matter of Semantics

It’s All a Matter of Semantics

“I am thus, one of the very few examples in this country of one who has not thrown off religious belief, but never had it. I grew up in a negative state with regard to it. I looked upon the modern exactly as I did upon the ancient religion; as something that in no way concerned me. It did not seem to me more strange that English people should believe what I did not, than that the men whom I’d read of in Herodotus had done so.” –John Stewart Mill (1806-1873)

"The Christian religion is so manifestly contrary to the facts, belief in it can only be held with the most delusional gerrymandering imaginable." –Richard Carrier (Historian, PhD)

In the following essay we will discuss some of the specifics regarding semantic games Christian apologists employ, namely that of “semantic confusion,” and I will show how it is used and what the effect of it is in the semantic discourse. Also in this article I will seek to clearly define semantics, and show using critical methods why apologists’ use of semantics is, not only slapdash, but also frequently misapplied as well as grammatically incorrect.

What’s in a Word?

Christians love nothing more than to try and change the implied meanings of words. I’ve studied this apologetic tactic extensively, because no other field, with perhaps a few exceptions in philosophy, tries so desperately to create a “semantic confusion” in its discourse.

Nevertheless, where philosophers change meanings of words it is often times for the purpose of challenging our conventional understandings of the usage, meaning, and purpose of the word so that it may sponsor new ways of thinking about it—this is known as inferential role semantics (also see: coherence theory of truth). Yet the deliberate semantic confusion employed by Christian apologists, and occasionally theologians, rarely, if ever, is concerned with different ways of thinking and seeing—but is preoccupied with just the one devotional or “orthodox” way of thinking and seeing.

Consequently, this begs the question: why then for all the word play?

The Rhyme and Reason of Semantic Games

The answer is surprisingly transparent. Speaking from experience, Christian apologists will repeatedly distort or reverse the meanings of words to force the terminology into having a new or different implied meaning for the purpose of convincing you of their case. Needless to say, this new meaning inevitably coincides with the Christian stratagem of reversing the burden of proof along with supplying a barrage of ad hominem attacks while simultaneously sowing semantic confusion.

If you call them on it, challenging their methods, they will simply rely on this semantic confusion to deny your accusations and peddle backwards, rework the terminology to re-align with their beliefs, all the while giving you the run around. I only point this out here because it shines light on why Christian rhetoric is so persuasive.

Betwixt the confusion of language and fluctuating meaning Christian apologists can find ample wiggle room to adapt their intent, their desire to convince and evangelize, in a fly by night fashion allowing them to deflect or reroute unprepared debater’s questions and comments and hijack the discourse.

In this way, instead of having to give an example of what is categorically true, they can simply reverse the burden of proof and rhetorically ask you in return, “What is your definition of truth?” After which they may wantonly call attention to how your definition limits their beliefs or convictions, how this is unfair, how you’re being too materialistic with your demand for proof or evidence, and so on. Since the term truth accompanies with it an explicit meaning, something they are extremely uncomfortable with, they will change it to have an implied meaning, and thereby escape having to give account for what isn’t apparent to be factually true at all; except for their propensity to wish to continue their belief in it as something which is true (to them) regardless of what is and isn’t palpably true. But don’t let all the smoke and mirrors charades fool you, because the truth isn’t always necessarily relative and observer dependent; in other words, sometimes a spade is just a spade.  

Statements of Truth vs. Truth Claims

Consider the statement that “Although atomic particles do not observably appear to have mass, we know they must because we can split the atom…” is a statement of truth, of knowing something is true because it is testable and so provable. The proclamation, “I know it to be true in my heart that fity-thousand invisible pink unicorns dance on the head of a pin in the fourth dimension…” is not a statement of truth—it is a declaration of faith. To believe it is true, contrary to what the evidence suggests or what is discernibly true, is a matter of belief, not of knowing. We must not overlook this distinction.

Even so, I would caution that shifting the emphasis on the implied meaning rather than the explicit meaning is only an apologetic tactic to sow even more semantic confusion. The difficulty lies in the fact that for the apologist a spade is only a spade when they want it to be, the rest of the time they change it to whatever best suits their needs, and if your definition is in disagreement to theirs they ask you to “define spade,” to catch you up in a relativist trap, and will promptly dismiss your explanation if they should find it to be disagreeable and in conflict with their convictions or belief system.

Technically speaking, assigning arbitrary implied meanings to refit words to the Christian worldview is utilizing semantics for the purpose of forcing the terminology to align with their devotional understanding of what they hold to be the “God’s honest truth” so that they can dictate the terms of the semantic discourse. In other words, they want to redefine and replace the semantic theory of truth with the religious truth as they see it, and if allowed this standard, they override the definition to set up a semantic holism. In so doing, the word itself, or the sentence or phrase itself, does not count for much in the semantic discourse, but rather, it only becomes vital to the overarching set of thoughts or the whole theory. If your definition doesn’t support their theory, then they throw it out, and guide the discourse back to their standards. But this, in all intents and purposes, ignores the fact that words do mean things, and contain primary definitions, independently of the semantic discourse or how you would seek to use them otherwise.

Disbelieve me if you want: It’s Not Disbelief

Before I move on to define Atheism according to how I understand it, I feel I must clear up one last misconception about nonbelievers and atheists. One of the most abused and frequently misappropriated terms of the religious debate, one which often crops up to my great dismay and irritation, the term: disbelief. But before we get into the analyses of the terminology, we must not forget the grammatical context of the terminology itself, since semantics is predicated on logic and so have logical rules which make sure that arbitrary meanings can’t simply be given to words at random. Let me give some examples to better explain how semantics is regulated by logic.

Semantics is one of the tree branches of semiotics, the others being syntax and pragmatics. Semantics is the study of the meaning of words and the relations of signs to the objects to which the signs are applicable. However, in everyday discourse the semantic problem is not that of specification but of understanding the relationship between terms of various categories (names, descriptions, predicates, adverbs…) and their meanings. 

As we all know words are organic, as is language, therefore pliable, which is to say they can and do contain various meanings. Antonyms and synonyms arise from the fact that words do often contain multiple meanings, linking words and ideas, and allowing the definitions to be, more or less, flexible. But this acquiescence only works within the proper grammatical context. If you change the context then the word’s meaning will change accordingly, or else, it will lose its meaning.

For example, even if the word potato and car are both nouns, a potato never means car and vice versa. On the other hand, car and automobile have synonymous meanings, and we know that car and vehicle may or may not share meaning—it all depends on what the context of the surrounding grammar is and what “vehicle” is specifically in reference to. If, say, vehicle means: milk delivery truck—then we can semantically stretch the meaning to encompass automobiles. Yet if the word vehicle is in reference to a 747 jumbo jet then it can neither mean car nor automobile.

Recently I have seen a resurgence of the noun disbelief, and its verbal counterpart disbelieve, being tossed around indiscriminately on the nightly news networks, in interviews, on message boards, websites, and online posts. The problem is that those proponents of religious faith are under the false impression that atheists are refusing to believe, that they are denouncing religious faith, therefore are disbelieving in it. However, this is abusing the semantic rules of common word usage to force a different, and sadly myopic, meaning to the word disbelief.

Most Christian apologists employ the word to mean: lack of faith. Granted, it can mean this, but this meaning is an auxiliary, or secondary, meaning. According to the Oxford Dictionary of English, disbelief is [in actuality] the inability or refusal to accept that something is true or real.

Consequently, when believers accuse atheists of being “disbelievers” or in “disbelief” they have misappropriated one term, superimposed its meaning onto another term, and are going out of the context of what the word allows for semantically. In other words, they are calling a jumbo jet an “automobile” when they mean to say vehicle. This is completely improper word usage, not to mention incorrect. Yet if they were intending to use the auxiliary meaning of disbeliever to denote one who lacks faith, then this begs the question, why not use the appropriate term of atheist instead? It seems only fitting, since disbelief comes with the corrigible understanding that something is palpably true, and therefore, likely has data and tangible evidence to support the profession of belief and thereby fix the corrigendum or misapprehension in order to “see the light” and get beyond mere disbelief. Basically, a person in disbelief is one who does not believe it in spite of its being true, best summed up in the commercial jingle, “I can’t believe it’s not butter!”

Scientists who attest to the theory of evolution, for example, can back up their assertions that evolution is true with a mass amount of data, empirical evidence, and experimental proofs. All this hard won evidence bolsters, not only their claim, but also confirms to the layman that the theory of evolution is, in fact, true. Those who deny the theory of evolution are, in point of fact, in a state of disbelief. They disbelieve evolution could be true even as it is decisively true. This is the correct usage of the term disbelief.

Why Not Disbelief?

The question arises, however, if the term disbelief can mean someone who “lacks religious belief” then why is it incorrect to call atheists or agnostics “disbelievers?” Well, as mentioned earlier, the context presumes all atheists secretly know that God is real but are rebellious and defiant or else in denial of this “fact.” Two things to keep in mind: 1) the evidence for God is wholly inadequate, if not completely lacking, and good arguments to believe are, without qualification, utterly unconvincing. Thus God’s being real is not an evident fact, in reality it’s highly contestable, therefore the primary meaning and auxiliary meaning of disbelief are put into contention and this creates a “semantic confusion.” 2) Nonbelief and nonbeliever are the primary meanings for a person who does not believe in a particular thing, especially one who has no religious faith (Oxford Dictionary, 2005). Meanwhile,

Atheist (n.) comes from the Greek root atheos, i.e. without theos, which literally translates to ‘without God’. Atheism, then, is simply the absence of theism. It makes no sense to disbelieve in what isn’t even there. Just like not stamp collecting isn’t a hobby, it makes no sense to point out that non-stamp collectors disbelieve in the non-hobby of not collecting stamps. The British philosopher A.C. Grayling makes a similar comparison regarding atheists in his informative book Ideas that Matter. The term atheist (without theos) designates someone who “lacks a belief in God,” and concordantly is correct for describing someone who “lacks faith” as well.

Applying the term disbelief to a multitude of various types of nonbelievers puts the term in the wrong grammatical context, frequently making improper usage of the word. In this context using the term “disbelief” or “disbeliever” to explain nonbelievers, such as atheists or agnostics, is wrong. If you’re trying to defend your position as being more correct than your oppositions, then it’s best to use the proper terminology lest you place yourself in the precarious situation of losing all credibility for appearing to not know what you’re talking about.

Noticeably, it is strange to use uncommon auxiliary terminology for things which have perfectly good primary definitions. For this reason nobody goes around calling all cars “vehicles” and air planes “flying machines.” Not only does it sound irregular, but also it becomes meaningless when you consider that air planes are vehicles too and other flying machines include helicopters, dirigibles, hang-gliders, and the NASA space shuttle. Why use a word that only sometimes means the thing you mean it to mean when it already has a perfectly good primary vocabulary to express its actual meaning? Relying on secondary meanings not only adds to the semantic confusion but it sounds irregular as well.

As such, keeping in mind the sensitivities of the other person is just good etiquette, especially when it’s common to make the mistake of referring to atheists and other non-believers as disbelievers, since it is not just categorically wrong, but it sounds weird, moreover it breaks the semantic rules of the English language. Which, in my opinion, makes the person doing it appear to be uneducated and less likely to know what they are talking about. And why would I waste my time listening to the gibberish of a “know-it-all-know-nothing?” When people speak using random and incorrect language they are either inflicted with an acute case of glossolalia or they are an imbecile akin to constable Dogberry in William Shakespeare’s hilarious play “Much Ado About Nothing.” Although these people may be well intentioned, it would seem, they typically don’t know the first thing they are talking about and so cannot be trusted as having the correct or reliable answers.

Don’t mistake my linguistic criticism of this oft misused branch of semiotics for condescending remonstration. I’m not saying this as an attack on anyone’s educational background or on those who occasionally misuse the terminology, but I am saying it to help elucidate why Christian apologists are in the wrong when they try to redefine the definitions of words, and these insights may help others avoid the same mistakes in the future and help to make their arguments that much more clear.

Settling on the Proper Terms

Atheists, such as myself, who were once believers but have since put their faith behind them may be referred to as unbelievers. However, we might wish to pay special attention to how we use this expression because it can come off sounding a bit condescending when used disparagingly. And if one are trying to convince somebody else that their argument has merit, we typically don’t start out with insulting and demeaning them.

Furthermore, to call a nonbeliever who was raised without religion and brought up with secular values a disbeliever presupposes they had some sort of faith to begin with but, for reasons unknown, later rejected it. Such an assumption is not only presumptuous—but literally equates to calling a cat a dog. It would spark strange looks, if not mocking laughter, and would be a surefire way of getting yourself stuck wearing the dunce’s hat. If in doubt as to the prior convictions of the person you are addressing or referring to, it’s best to err on the side of caution, and use the more accurately descriptive term of nonbeliever instead.

Before you take my word for it and go calling all those who don’t subscribe to any belief in God (or gods) nonbelievers though, let’s not forget to consider that Buddhists, although maintaining a distinct absence of belief in any personal God or gods, do indeed have deeply seeded and passionate religious beliefs. Buddhism is five centuries older than Christianity after all, so it’s not a mistake you’d want to make. Calling a Buddhist a nonbeliever not only lumps them in the same boat as those who don’t adhere to any belief in the supernatural, but also with those who don’t share any such religious beliefs whatsoever—so be careful not to imply they have no religious values or sacred beliefs at all, since it is pretty inconsiderate and extremely callous, when you think about it.

Then again, it’s downright discourteous to suggest anyone who lacks the belief in any god lacks beliefs worth having in the first place. Free thinker or nontheist work best when talking about those who don’t share a belief in any god but may share the same values, and have many strong personal convictions, even deeply spiritual beliefs, along with those who call themselves religious.

As for those apologists and Christians who insist on calling all atheists and nonbelievers by the incorrect label of “disbeliever” then I fear they are as constable Dogberry espouses:

Marry, sir, they have committed false report; moreover they have spoken untruths; secondarily, they are slanders; sixt and lastly, they have belied a lady; thirdly, they have verified unjust things; and to conclude, they are lying knaves.

Conclusion

All this hoopla can be avoided if we stick to the reasonable terminology and mean what you say and say what you mean without all the unnecessary semantic word play. What I have shown here is how, technically speaking, Christian apologists misuse semantics, break the grammatical structure, take words out of context, misconstrue definitions to fit their faith based ideologies, and often employ semantic confusion as either an diversionary tactic or an ad hominem denunciation, or sometimes both. This I find to be wholly unnecessary given the correct understanding of semantics and how it works within the proper parameters of what logic and language allow for.

As for the supplementary reasons why Christians persist in further semantic antics, the following video will elucidate matters and reveal the (not so) hidden agenda behind this deliberate, but occasionally unaware, vituperative verbosity.

Scientific Predictions & their Implications

Scientific Predictions & their Implications 

On Religious Belief & The Age of Modern Reason

“During those 100 years, the rationale for defending a flat Earth has become progressively absurd. They'll never run out of evidence for a flat Earth, but the fact that their evidence is being demonstrated as becoming progressively more absurd tells us that they don't have a strong case.” –Hugh Ross (Creationist/Astrophysicist?)

My predictions are:

1)    Neuroscience and evolutionary psychology will map out how supernatural and religious thought develop in the human brain so that we will be virtually 100% certain that religion is a manmade social and cultural phenomenon.

2)   The theory of evolution will continue to prove itself with new undeniable proofs and subsequently align with new biological, genetic, and archeological information and/or discoveries and thereby continue to provide reliable answers where religion does not.

3)   Natural sciences will begin to make light of morality offering a sound and reliable foundation for not only human morality, but also human consciousness, and our perceptions.

4)   Epistemological roots of human understanding will no longer be a vague and nebulous conception left to religious patriarchs to define as they wish, but rather, will be explained steadily and systematically by hard won scientific knowledge. In other words, we will begin to have an understanding of how we understand and perceive reality at the brain via the aforementioned sciences of neurobiology and evolutionary psychology; i.e. it will no longer be a question of “why” but simply a matter of “how” and “by what cause…” Accordingly, this epistemic naturalism will replace all epistemic metaphysical assumptions.

5)   Philosophy already offers many adequate, if not superior, arguments for morality. The natural moral arguments, along the lines of Kant, will become the standard axioms of truth as the natural sciences begin to confirm the relationships between morality, nature, and our perceptions along with our experiences.

6)   Once a solid naturalism is established theorists and philosophers will take the scientific framework and create an overall portrait of the moral landscape of humans and all living species and will likely better define us as distinctive in our cognitive functions, self awareness, and unique language abilities but also show how we are interrelated with every other living thing; this will tie directly back into our genetic lineage and further validate evolution.

7)   Cosmology and Physics have refuted Intelligent Design beyond a reason of a doubt and will continue to make all earth religions obsolete as it actively refutes all remaining “god hypothesis.”

8)   As our cosmological understanding becomes greater it will lend to enhance and support the natural understanding of the universe, our world, and all the living things which exist—but more importantly—will begin to unravel the mysteries of why we exist at all; as it is already doing.

9)   Once a fully actualized natural worldview has been established people will either embrace it or deny it, but none will be unaware of it or its implications. As such, I foresee, a continued secularization where natural philosophies encroach upon religious territory and usurp religious beliefs and replace them with a more thorough and accurate understanding of the world.

10) Religion will persevere, but it will exist in a diminutive form as traditional observances and age old habits of custom rather than active beliefs. Science, having comprehensively disproved religious claims, will have given us good solid reasons to be skeptical of any further incredible and unsupported future claims, making it difficult for religion to overcome the burden of proof in consecutive generations of learned scientific understanding—that is ‘the age of modern reason’.

Thes predictions are a ways off yet, perhaps anywhere from sixty to a hundred or so years before these predictions become a viable reality. Even as such, you may have noticed the uncommon Creationist quote at the top, which is, wholly accurate as far as I can tell. Indeed, the implications of scientific advancement are the same across the spectrum, that is: it makes all supernatural and mystical supposition as well as all of the speculative theological arguments more absurd, more incredible, and more unbelievable. So to amend the epigraph to encompass the entire array of esoteric theological creationist conjecture, as well as all the faith-based bombastic B.S., we are left with this weighty implication: During the time religions have flourished and thrived, the rationale for defending their doctrinaire claims, core beliefs, and theological speculations have become progressively absurd. They’ll never run out of “evidence” for their tenuous assumptions, but the fact is that their evidence is being demonstrated as becoming progressively more absurd tells us that they don’t have a strong case.