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As an interesting (or not) sidebar to this conversation about uwot's potty mouth
, I happened upon a YouTube lecture by Dr. Michael Shermer (here -
https://youtu.be/0pOI2YvVuuE).
Shermer is the executive director of
The Skeptics Society and is the founding publisher of
Skeptic magazine. He is often paired up with the likes of Sam Harris or Richard Dawkins in arguments against those who hold opposite views from theirs.
The following is a slightly paraphrased version of something I wrote in the comments section below the video (and yes, I have no life
):
If Shermer’s intention in pushing his atheistic agenda is to make humanity better, then I suggest that he inadvertently shot himself in the foot.
Starting at around 4:40, Shermer makes the point of how some humans tend to imbue everything (even invisible things) with life and intentional agency.
One of his examples revolves around a psychological experiment involving children as young as 2 or 3, wherein they are given a somewhat difficult task of tossing a Velcro covered ball (over their shoulder) at a target situated behind them.
The problem is that when they were left alone to perform the task (unsupervised), they simply turned around and stuck the ball on the target in a location of their choice.
However, in the second phase of the experiment, they are told that there is an
“invisible princess” sitting in a chair next to the target and she can see everything they do. In which case, the children no longer cheated and thus performed the task as directed.
Now the point that Shermer was attempting to covey is that if the “instinctual” default mode of the children is to see things that are not actually there...
(simply by someone suggesting that there is something there)
...then it is an indication of humanity’s inherent propensity to be taken-in (duped) by religions and their non-existent deities and spiritual whatnots.
Now with that being said, I suggest that the
true moral of Shermer’s story is that, real or not, the idea of an invisible entity (i.e., God) keeping track of our actions tends to make humans more honest and trustworthy (generally speaking).
Therefore, in his (mocking) attempt to offer some kind of anecdotal scientific evidence for why humans believe in the existence of God, I don’t think he realized that his argument actually implied a very good reason for maintaining the belief.
(And I’m pretty sure that Kant would agree with me on this.)
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