I Haven't read the book but I hear good things about it. Here's one critical review:
QuoteMedical doctors prescribe a treatment to heal someone by first properly diagnosing the disease. So the good doctor Boghossian begins by doing just that. The disease is the faith virus.
He argues: "Faith is an epistemology. It's a method and a process people use to understand reality. Faith based conclusions are knowledge claims." To people who demur Boghossian says, "That faith is unreliable, or discredited, only makes faith unreliable of discredited, it does not entail that faith is not an epistemology...Faith claims may be endemically flawed, bizarre, or highly implausible, but they are still knowledge claims" (p. 40). However, he also says, "Faith is a failed epistemology" (pp. 29-30). "The greatest obstacle to engendering reason and rationality is faith" (p. 75)
The faith virus produces what Boghossian calls "doxastic closure," that is, belief closure. People of faith are less likely to have doxastic openness, that is, to be aware of one's own ignorance and open to the idea they are wrong. They are less likely to revise their faith-based conclusions. They feel certain about their conclusions because that's the nature of this virus. Faith, he argues, "taints or at worst removes our curiosity about the world, what we should value, and what type of life we should lead. Faith replaces wonder with epistemological arrogance disguised as false humility" (p. 43). He rightly argues: "When someone suffers from a doxastic pathology, they tend to not really listen to an argument, to not carefully think through alternatives, and to lead with their conclusions and work backward. The moment we're unshakably convinced we posses immutable truth, we become our own enemy...Few things are more dangerous than people who think they're in possession of absolute truth. Honest inquiry with sincere questions and an open mind rarely contribute to the misery of the world. Passionate, doxastically closed believers contribute to human suffering and inhibit human well-being" (p. 70).
So the triple problems of the faith virus are, 1) It is a failed epistemology, 2) it produces doxastic closure, and 3) it is dangerous.
The Treatment
In a word, deprogramming, by creating doxastic openness within the believer. "Among the goals of the Street Epistemologist are to instill a self-consciousness of ignorance, a determination to challenge foundational beliefs, a relentless hunger for truth, and a desire to know. Wonder, curiosity, honest self-reflection, sincerity, and the desire to know are a solid basis for a life worth living. The Street Epistemologist seeks to help others reclaim their curiosity and their sense of wonder--both of which are robbed by faith." "As a Stry other inputeet Epistemologist, one of your primary goals is to help people reclaim the desire to know--a sense of wonder. You'll help people destroy foundational beliefs, flimsy assumptions, faulty epistemologies, and ultimately faith" (pp. 43-45). For "The tools of faith--certainty, prejudice, pretending, confirmation bias, irrationality, and superstition--all come into question though self-awareness of ignorance" (p. 51).
The cure, Boghossian writes, produces a liberated mind: "Wonder, open-mindedness, the disposition of being comfortable with not knowing, uncertainty, a skeptical and scientific-minded attitude, and the genuine desire to know what's true--those are the attributes of a liberated mind" (p. 138).
Well put.
I'm not sure I like the idea of atheistic prosyletizing, but if you're having a discussion on religious belief with a believer, addressing the flaws in the very idea of using faith to determine what is true is an excellent place to start.
Quote from: Mister Agenda on June 27, 2014, 10:34:36 AM
I'm not sure I like the idea of atheistic prosyletizing, but if you're having a discussion on religious belief with a believer, addressing the flaws in the very idea of using faith to determine what is true is an excellent place to start.
From my understanding, this book is not about converting anyone to atheism, so it's not prosyletizing as such. It's a book FOR atheists, addressing atheists in giving them ways in how they could deal with the irrationality of theists.
Quote from: Mister Agenda on June 27, 2014, 10:34:36 AM
I'm not sure I like the idea of atheistic prosyletizing, but if you're having a discussion on religious belief with a believer, addressing the flaws in the very idea of using faith to determine what is true is an excellent place to start.
Unfortunately it very often isn't. Look at our new theist troll, he stated very clearly that faith is what led him to get evidence of God. No amount of pointing out that faith can't lead to real evidence changed his stance.
Quote from: DunkleSeele on June 27, 2014, 04:52:15 PM
Unfortunately it very often isn't. Look at our new theist troll, he stated very clearly that faith is what led him to get evidence of God. No amount of pointing out that faith can't lead to real evidence changed his stance.
The only suggestion that I found from a "Manual for creating Atheists" on that is that you've got to ask "how do you know this" repeatedly. IOW, question the foundation of a theist on "knowing", that is, plant the seed of doubt. It's up to the individual then to come to the realization what he/she believes is fantasy. Here's from the same critical review of the book:
QuoteFor the record I think believers cannot usually be argued out of their faith because they were usually never argued into it the first place. Sometimes we say it as Jonathan Swift did, whom Boghossian quotes as saying, "You do not reason a man out of something he was never reasoned into." But Swift's way of saying this is a rhetorical exaggeration to make a point. The key word in the more accurate ways of expressing this sentiment is the word "usually." Usually we can't. But it does happen. I get several emails from former believers who have left their faith every year. Boghossian says he has "helped countless people abandon their faith" (p. 130).
If theist didn't have blind faith they would be freethinkers---what a concept. Solitary