You KNOW they're all SCAMS

The big debate in atheist circles these days is the “tone debate”, which I’ve touched on here before. I’ve also mentioned American Atheists president David Silverman before in a criticism of his lousy philosophy in the (mis)handling of the “Burn a Koran Day” incident. Silverman is busy with a new philosophical defence – this time against a real philosopher – that relates to the “tone debate”, and this time… Silverman has it right on the nose.

A little bit of background

You KNOW it's a Myth

In late November last year, American Atheists put up a billboard on the New Jersey side of the Lincoln Tunnel in New York – a very high-profile location. The billboard image, shown on the side, proclaimed “You KNOW it’s a myth”, and encouraged readers to “celebrate REASON” for the holiday season. It was a very cheeky ad that stirred up a lot of controversy and was notably pointedly replaced by a “God Is” ad (that contains a jumbled collection of platitudes as shown below) immediately after its lease expired.

Oh, is he?

That ad stirred up a fair amount of discussion and controversy, but that was nothing compared to the follow-up ad. The new ad, set up in Huntsville, Alabama, with the dual purpose of also advertising the Southeast Regional Atheist Meet (to be held in Huntsville on January 29^th and January 30^th), asserts that “You KNOW they’re all SCAMS”.

Predictably this generated a lot of discussion and controversy, and has been featured on all the major American news networks. What was surprising, to me at least, was how much controversy this has generated amongst atheists. Of course, it’s all about the old “tone debate”, with the detractors accusing American Atheists of being too strident and confrontational with their message. Enter Massimo Pigliucci.

Rationally Speaking speaks up, irrationally

Massimo Pigliucci, who writes the blog Rationally Speaking, in a long and convoluted post titled Some thoughts about in-your-face atheism, called the billboard a bad idea, on all fronts. In between incidental meanderings on the fact that some atheists believe nonsense and some are dogmatic and authoritarian (referring to a particular incident he experienced with a New York group two years ago), Pigliucci offers three reasons for why the billboard is such a bad idea:

1. The claim the ad is making cannot be backed up by factual evidence, which means that it is lying.
2. The ad is bad publicity.
3. The ad will not reach out to the more entrenched religious people.

I’m going to respond to these in reverse order, because the last two points are simpler, and will take less time to respond to, so let’s just get them out of the way.

“You’re not going to reach the really religious people.”

First of all, the obvious response to this objection is that American Atheists have been quite explicit about the fact that the billboard is not meant to reach really religious people. I’m sure it would be wonderful if every advertisement atheist groups put up had perfectly universal coverage, Mr. Pigliucci, but cut us some slack. It makes more sense to have a half-dozen different advertising campaigns that each effectively reached a smaller audience than one that had a middling effect on a huge one.

The plain fact is that no matter what atheists say, as long as they are speaking out, their words will be met by sullen resistance from most really religious people. That’s true even if the message is as innocuous as “there’s probably no god, now stop worrying and enjoy your life”. It is impractical to the absurd to insist that we should reach the really religious. Far more practical is a strategy of cutting out the “habitually religious” – those who are not really believers, but who go through the motions for the sake of social acceptance – because we have strong evidence to believe that they make up the vast majority of the religious, and if we can get them, we effectively destroy the plurality and power that religion currently enjoys and that gives strength to the really religious.

Which, of course, raises the obvious question: if the goal is not to bother with the really religious, then the ad should be effectively targeting the non-religious who are simply going through the motions… is it?

“The ad is bad publicity.”

Pigliucci has no rational basis for this objection. His justifcation comes in two stages. First, a wager that most reasonable people would be turned off by the ad. Second, three paragraphs about how atheists are so angry. Yes, really! It’s the old “atheists are angry” schtick… this time coming from an atheist! You’d think he would know better, but let’s just blame is ignorance on his bad experiences with the New York group.

As for his wager… he loses. Yup, the numbers are in, as David Silverman explains his response. I’m not surprised by the results, but Pigliucci is apparently going to be: the billboard has been a roaring success. In my mind, the response to that observation is “of course”… what rational person, embroiled in religion by virtue of social pressure alone, is going to hear “you know religions are scams” and reply, “yes, I know that, but I don’t like your tone, so I’m going to stick with the scam”. Yet this is precisely what Pigliucci (and “accomodationalists” in general) imply would happen. It’s absurd on the face of it, but now the debate is over: the numbers are in, and the “confrontationalists” were right; boldness works. And it works well.

In general, I cannot see by what reasonable standard anyone could claim that the billboard generated bad publicity. News stories about the billboard lit up the mediaverse for days… and that ain’t bad PR. On top of that, while the stories focused on how “controversial” the billboard was, AA handled themselves quite well. This is a polarizing issue – that fact cannot be ignored or avoided – and many people are going to pick sides regardless of how AA acquits itself… but despite that, the numbers show a substantial net gain for AA, so they obviously didn’t do that bad at all.

Oddly enough, the only “bad” PR comes from “accomodationalist” rants like Pigliucci’s, because the shrill and strident reactions by religious groups only helped our cause, and AA’s boldness worked, too. Obviously we neither need nor want perfect conformity within the atheist universe, but I think it’s fair to expect any internal objections to be based on evidence and reason, rather on than on someone’s personal perception that a lot of atheists are angry jerks.

“The claim the ad is making cannot be backed up by factual evidence, which means that it is lying.”

There are two parts to this objection, both equally silly, so, keeping with the trend so far, I’ll deal with them in reverse order.

First… what? The claim that something that cannot be backed up by factual evidence is a lie is complete nonsense. If that were true, Mr. Pigliucci, then are you a liar when you tell me you exist independently? Because, let’s face it, there is no way you can back up that claim with factual evidence; if I believed you were a hallucination, and that there was a conspiracy to try to convince me that you are real, there is no evidence you could provide to back your claim up that you really exist independent of my mind. This is an absurd attempt at slander, because the definition of “lie” is an assertion made with intent to deceive, not an assertion you can’t prove; you’re not a liar when you say there are no unicorns. And there is certainly no intent to deceive in the billboard statement… it may be factually incorrect and it may be impossible to factually evidence, but that would make it a mistaken statement and an opinion respectively… not a lie.

But is it factually incorrect or impossible to provide evidence for? As a matter of fact, it’s neither.

I want to take a moment to reframe Pigliucci’s objection in a slightly different way. He claims that the billboard’s assertion is a “lie” because we cannot prove it. Put another way, he is implying that the burden of proof – to prove that religions are scams – lies with American Atheists. He is not the only one to make this claim, but is it correct? The answer to that is yes and no.

Yes, when American Atheists makes the claim that religions are scams, the burden does fall on them to provide evidence for that claim. The thing is, though, they have. AA has made a clear case for religions being scams, because they:

1. Make promises they cannot follow through on.
2. Require adherents to “invest” in the religion to achieve those promised benefits.
3. Gain power by the “investments” of their adherents.

The fact that most adherents are unaware that they’re involved in a scam does not invalidate the claim, for two reasons:

1. Some do.
2. Scams do not require intentionality… scammers do. Even if participants in a pyramid scheme or Ponzi scheme are unaware that they are taking part in a scam, the scheme is still a scam… however, the innocent participants would not be scammers, just dupes unwittingly aiding the scam.

The burden of proof issue rests on the first reason why religions are scams, because I don’t think anyone doubts that religions require adherents to “invest” in them for the promised benefits, or that religions gain power by virtue of their adherents. The relevant question, therefore, is whether religions do make promises they cannot follow through on. And that’s where the burden of proof shifts to the other side.

American Atheists has made a clear and rational case for religions being scams if their promises are untrue. The next step is to prove that their promises are untrue, but at that point AA has reached the limit of their responsibility, because the religions have not provided any way to test the veracity of their promises (of course, in those instance where they have provided testable claims, they have been found lacking in virtually every single case, which makes them suspect in general at best, but let’s ignore that for now to give religions the benefit of the doubt). In practical terms, AA has challenged the claims of a shady land dealer, saying that their deal is a scam if the swampland they’re selling in Florida doesn’t really exist… and since no one has ever seen this supposed land or any indication that the dealer even owns any land at all, the onus is now on the dealer to put up or shut up. And then there’s Pigliucci on the sidelines, saying that even though he knows full well the dealer can’t possibly provide evidence that what he’s selling exists, AA is the villain for being bold enough to call him out!

I want to be crystal clear about this: AA’s claim may be factually incorrect – Heaven and God may exist, in which case, at least one religion is not a scam, but that does not make them liars any more than Newton was a liar when he claimed that gravitational effects happen instantaneously. AA is stating a fact arising from the best knowledge available to them – as Newton was. The best knowledge we have right now tells us that religions are scams – maybe we’re wrong, maybe we’re right, but right now that’s the best conclusion we have, and we are certainly not liars when we assert that.

If religious people want to say that our conclusion is wrong, the burden of proof is on them to either provide the evidence, or, at the very least, to provide a way to properly test their claims. Right now we can just as honestly assert that religions are scams as we can that unicorns don’t exist.

And they don’t… you callin’ me a liar?

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