Street Epistemology

Great Debates
1

Peter Boghossian is an instructor of philosophy in Oregon. In 2013, he wrote a book entitled “A Manual for Creating Atheists.” Despite the catchy title, Boghossian states that he is not really interested in ‘creating atheists’, but in having the religious question the value of using faith as an epistemology. (Epistemology is the study of ‘how we know the things we know.’)

Boghossian presented his ideas here in this YouTube video: Peter Boghossian - Jesus, The Easter Bunny and Other Delusions: Just Say No! - YouTube . The talk was titled “Jesus, the Easter Bunny and other Delusions. Just Say No.” (Warning: It’s about an hour and 10 minutes long after the introductions, etc.)

He feels, like many (even the religious with their inter-sect arguing about what God “really” wants), that the faulty reasoning of belief in God allows the religious to make bad decisions, not just in their personal lives but also in matters of law, policy, social issues, etc., and that reducing the influence on religion in public life will benefit everyone.

Boghassin says that rather than get all caught up in religious discussion and apologetics, believers should be asked to evaluate how their faith does or does not lead to believing in things that are “true”. He suggests the best way to do this is by not being “aggressive”, “smug”, “arrogant”, etc., - all the usual charges thrown at atheists when they engage in religious discussion- but by using a new, friendly, “Socratic” method to bring the rational part of believers minds “back to life.”

Boghossian’s major point is that “Faith is an unreliable method of finding truth.”

Some individuals and groups have really been inspired by Boghossian’s book and are out practicing this new technique called “street epistemology.”

Two of these new street epistemologists are Anthony Magnobosco and Socratic Jones. They are “street epistemologists” and walk around public places asking for short interviews with strangers in the street- just like any other evangelist.

Link to Anthony Magnosbosco’s YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=anthony+magnobosco

After watching some of Magnobosco’s videos, I am really impressed at how he gets to the root of faith as an epistemology and so very quickly. He is still perfecting his technique but he can often get a believer to question the value of their faith in as little a 5-6 minutes. I find that truly remarkable! The ability to undo years of indoctrination in only a few minutes? That is really something new.

I also reviewed some videos and text from the religious regarding this new technique. Some are a bit angry about it, but they usually resort back to apologetics to support their belief which shows (to me) they are either avoiding or missing the point.

So, what are your thoughts on this new technique to shake the faith of the faithful?

2

How many of these people who “question their faith” continue to do so a week later?

3

Certainly that question is unanswered. Anthony Magnobosco does have some people come back (of their own volition) one to several weeks after their encounters and he talks with them again. At least one guy cam back three times. He also offers and email address if the interviewee cares to email him.

It’s a pretty new movement.

I would be interested in the answer to that question, too.

4

We’ve been doing this for years.

“How do you know?”
“Because it’s in the Bible.”
“How do you know the Bible is correct?”
“Because it’s the word of God.”
“How do you know it’s the word of God?”
“Um…it says so in the… Um…”

5

Faith, for many people, is probably a bit like styrofoam packing peanuts; fills a void, but is otherwise non-functional.
Thing is, that void probably does in fact require filling, so faith is not by that analogy a bad thing to have, but once it’s there, it’s hard to replace with something else that is functional.

6

If people have been doing this for years, it should not be difficult for me to get a simple answer. Do atheists accept the Bible and/or the word of God?

7

Atheists do not accept the Bible, any more than we accept The Pickwick Papers.

Does the Pope accept Hesiod’s Theogony and the Word of Zeus?

8

What a strange question. What does it even mean?

9

I have no idea where you’re going with this, but I really, really want to see someone reply that he’s an atheist who accepts the word of God.

10

Mostly, I think of myself as a religious person who does not believe in God. If such exists, I cannot imagine being able to understand, any more than an ant crawling across Einstein’s foot can do math. Where rationalism and religion meet, the result is often theology, the bastardized hybrid that is less than the sum of its components. For instance, predestination, the weird notion that the God who knows everything already knows who is going to Hell before they are even born, one of the major schools of the God The Ultimate Dick theology.

Total rationality is the province of science, it is the only field of human intellectual experience where facts can be rendered as certainties. A most wonderful tool, but a tool, nonetheless. The hand guides the tool, not the other way round. We are not adding machines, and reason is best suited for our OS. Reason being roughly defined as rationality informed by senses, feeling and intuition. Not ruled by, mind you, but informed, advised, deepened.

I find a lot of atheists rather annoying, harshly critical and superior. But they have little real impact on my life, so the discomfort is minor, and the “Freak Freely!” imperative still holds.

Whats that line? If you sit to dinner with a stranger, how will you know if they are vegan, cross fit, or an atheist? Don’t worry, you will know soon enough.

11

That doesn’t ring true to me at all. I am an atheist, and that fact rarely comes up in conversation, especially with people I have recently met. I doubt if even my own family members (apart from my wife) could say for sure whether or not I have a religious belief.

Now if you had said “pilot” on the other hand…

12

Elegant aphorism!

I must differ with you there. Science does not offer certainties. It only functions by discarding “wrong” answers, as Sherlock Holmes advises. Eliminate the impossible. But science is always aware that a new idea might pop up at any time – Relativity, Quantum Physics, the Big Bang, the Expansionary Phase of the Big Bang, the continuing Expansion of the Universe – all of these have upset what might otherwise have been “certainties,” so they weren’t really “certainties” at all.

Science is a big fight club, and the winner is the last theory standing. But the bell never rings, and newcomers are always climbing into the ring. No theory is assured of standing forever; some brash young punk theory might knock out any of our favorites.

Guilty… I try to be respectful, honest I do. But then I listen to a Bible Radio Station for ten minutes, and that makes me cranky again. (How can they claim to be Christians…and violate the Commandment against Bearing False Witness, hour after hour, day after day?)

13

What does he mean by “faith”?

14

And certainly the religious never act that way…

I still find it interesting that a stranger can unravel the “reliability” of faith in just a few minutes.

This video of “Carlos” is a pretty good example. Carlos said his faith was only at the 75% level (on a scale of 1-100), but he was actively attending a weekly campus Bible study to shore up his faith. When Carlos returned about a week later, he said that he just kept thinking about the previous conversation. https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=street+epistemology

I also found it interesting that Carlos cited the divorce of his parents as a “faith shaking” event.

I saw a lot in the news lately about the decline in religious faith amongst Americans. There was the Pew Report on Religion in Public Life which shows that amongst millennials, the “nones” now measure 36%. A large Gallup survey that showed that the "nones have increased from 1-2% in the 1940’s to a whopping 16% last year. There have also been some studies that cite that divorce may indeed have a long lasing effect on one’s faith.

Other factors probably include the rapid change is social views our culture is undergoing- issues like gay marriage, for example- and the harshness with which the religious often condemn people whom they view as “bad” or “wrong.”

Younger people seem to be rejection those views firmly and rapidly.

I attempted to discuss this with some of my more religious family and all I got back is “They just want to sin (or reject God).” There is nothing like that conversation-ender to get people to move away from you and your position.

15

Boghossian defines faith as “believing something without evidence” and he also said it was “pretending to know things you don’t know.”

Of course the second definition is the one people are focusing on and the one that has folks up-in-arms.

But, for the purpose of street epistemology, he advises to let the subject provide the definition themselves.

16

What exactly do you mean by “accept”, and what’s the difference between the two?

17

Nobody said they didn’t.

18

I for one don’t. I’ve received so many confusing replies from both believers and atheists throughout time that I’d like someone who claims to resort to rational thinking to admit that rejecting God (or the belief in the existence of such deity/deities) logically entails rejection of divinely inspired writings as well.

19

Can you point to one person who rejects the existence of God and who also doesn’t reject divinely inspired writings?

20

I used “accept” in its broadest sense and I picked it because it was the antonym of “reject”, which can be found in handy definitions of atheism. As the Bible and the “word of God”, I’ve met Christians who believe the texts in Bible are not the only existing divinely inspired writings.