Mind vs. Brain; Ideology vs. Science

Although the conflict between evolution and creationism gets the most attention, it's little more than a philosophical side show because the arguments on behalf of creationism are so weak and because so many religious theists have found ways to reconcile their religion with evolutionary science. Proving the truth of evolution has too little impact anymore (less than it should, in fact).

Where the real "action" will be in the coming years is with the debate over mind-brain dualism. Are our minds and consciousness products of our physical brains, or are they products of some immaterial force traditionally associated with or identified as a supernatural "soul"? Although the science is not yet as unequivocal as with biological evolution, the fact remains that all evidence points to our minds being purly physical and material; no reliable evidence points to any immaterial souls. As with evolution, though, this doesn't stop religous ideologues.

JP Moreland writes about a "debate" he had with Jeffrey Schwartz, in which they agreed on just about everything — especially the superstition that there is a "mind" separate from the brain and which is immaterial (read: supernatural):

Regarding free will, years ago Schwartz took brain scans of obsessive-compulsive people who engaged in repetitive hand-washing rituals. They all had a very distinctive, abnormal brain configuration. Schwartz then told the patients to do something for a few weeks and come back: Ever time they felt the compulsion to wash their hands, they were to exercise free will, choose to think different thoughts (for example, “I don’t need to wash my hands; a little dirt isn’t going to kill me”), and repeatedly practice this. When new scans were performed, all the patients had different and normal brain configurations. Lesson: By exerting free will, the mind can change the physical structure of the brain.

JP Moreland seems to find this very impressive and, moreover, an indication that there is something non-material to the human mind. By the same argument, though, there must be something non-material to my arms because if I make a decision to use them in a particular way every day for several weeks, I'll find that I'm stronger.

Wow, I changed the physical structure of my arms! Are you impressed? I suppose if I had you in a headlock you would be, but it's hardly evidence that there's some immaterial force at work when I'm lifting weights: using a part of your body will cause it to change. That's been known for a long time now, though we are learning more about how this occurs with the brain.

Subsequently, Schwartz has done experiments in which people’s brains are monitored as they watch videos of carnage at automobile-accident scenes. The anxiety center of the brain goes wild. Then he tells them to pretend they are paramedics who must make snap decisions of whom to treat first and what to do. When showed the same scenes the anxiety center remains calm. One can alter one’s brain and its role in facilitating anxiety, anger, and so forth by changing how one thinks and adjusting one’s perspective.

How incredible: the organ that thinks can be altered by changing how we think! If our mind is solely a product of the physical brain, that makes perfect sense: thinking produced by the physical brain can, in turn, alter the physical brain which does the thinking. That's how the physical, material world works.

It's Moreland's supernatural beliefs that are threatened here: how could an immaterial, supernatural "mind" produce measurable, repeatable, and predictable changes in any physical structures? Superanturalists have no means for explaining or predicting how supernatural forces or beings could affect the physical, material world — yet they insist that incomplete materialistic explanations are a reason to suddenly imagine that their ancient superstitions are vindicated.

Here was Schwartz’ punch line: People who see the glass half full regarding their lives are healthier, happier and more functional than those that don’t.

Optimistic people are healthier and happier than pessimistic people? Wow, that's amazing — I'll bet no one saw that coming! Once again, though, what does this have to do with atheism... unless, of course, JP Moreland is trying to imply that atheists can't "see the glass half full" and thus live a happy life because the only way to be optimistic is to believe in some sort of god? That's just bigotry, though, and there is no empirical evidence that atheists are, on average, less optimistic than theists and no evidence that atheism per se causes people to be less optimistic than theists.

And, he said, Christian theists who have a background belief that God is real, good, and caring will have a leg up on those without such a belief.

Thus far we've been hearing about scientific studies done by or just reported by Jeffrey Schwartz; now, however, we're just getting a personal opinion from Jeffrey Schwartz — unlike previous passages, this isn't accompanied by even a mention of any supporting studies. That's significant because what we have here is a series of scientific studies with no clear bearing on atheism or theism followed by a personal opinion that cannot be claimed to be based on the previous data.

This doesn't stop JP Moreland and, presumably, Jeffrey Schwartz from trying to give the impression that Schwartz's personal opinion about theists being superior to atheists is somehow backed by scientific data. If people get the impression, though, it's solely because of how Moreland has chosen to present data and because he doesn't clearly differentiate between reasonable conclusions from peer-reviewed scientific studies and personal opinions based on religious ideology.

Clearly, what a person believes at a deep and pervasive level has an incredible impact on the sort of person one becomes and how one handles life. And the single most important component of a person’s deep belief-structure is his/her answer to “What comes to you mind when you hear the word `God’?”

The arrogance here is as stunning as it is unremarkable. It's unremarkable because it's so common with Christians and some other religious theists; it's stunning because it's a clear demonstration that someone is simply unable to grasp the possibility that what is important to them might not be important to others. I don't know JP Moreland, but I'm willing to accept that the question of the existence of his god is the "single most important component" of his "deep belief-structure."

For some reason, though, Moreland isn't willing to accord the same respect and consideration to atheists by allowing that perhaps the existence of his god just isn't important to us — or at least it wouldn't if people like Moreland wouldn't keep bugging others about it. Atheism isn't "the single most important component" of my beliefs and doesn't inform anything I do except insofar as it means that I don't consult any self-proclaimed representatives of alleged gods who want to tell me what their god thinks I should be doing.

A good analogy might be found in astrology: for some believers, astrology informs much of what they do. It could plausibly be called "the single most important component" of their beliefs, given the degree to which they consult astrologists and astrological charts. My non-astrology, however, is not at all "the single most important component" of my belief-structure. Not consulting astrologists and astrological charts is not something that I think much about, especially since believers in astrology don't keep bugging non-believers about it.

If theists were more like astrology-believers in this respect, their gods would probably occupy about as much of my thinking as astrology currently does. Unfortunately, for some god-believers their god is just so all-consuming and all-encompassing that they can't seem to comprehend how it would be unimportant and irrelevant to others. They don't realize that insofar as others care at all, it's often entirely due to the behavior of those same believers.

This is why, all things being equal, atheists are a dysfunctional lot. Studies have suggested that the more secular one is, the more one has difficulties in health, sleep, sexual satisfaction, mood and disposition.

Notice how quickly JP Moreland shifts from "atheists" to "secular" people. This is a common tactic designed to blur the difference between theism and religion, but it serves an extra purpose here in that is distracts attention from the fact that studies like those he mentions in passing are indeed about religion, not about theism. This matters because religion is a social institution — it's about a community of people getting together to share values, experiences, and relationships. Religion also isn't necessarily dependent upon theism, given the existence of atheistic religions. Thus any reasonable conclusions that we derive from studies about religion cannot be extended to theism.

It's hardly surprising that studies will reveal how a social animal like human beings will be healthier and happier in strong, tightly-knit communities. What these studies don't do, however, is look to see how people do in secular rather than religious communities. Apologists for theism like to tout these studies as if they say something about theism, or even religion, but they need first to ensure that no one looks closely enough to realize that the studies' findings are much more general than that.

So, in the end JP Moreland's assertion that we atheists are "a dysfunctional lot" is derived from a series of unconnected statements and a misrepresentation of social studies. It's not so much an unsupported assertion as it is an attempt to sell pseudoscientific bigotry — it's little better than attempts by phrenologists trying to tell people that certain races and ethnic groups have inherently criminal or immoral tendencies.

 

Update: A Christian apologist who goes by the name of Sinbad plagiarizes portions of this post for his own post on the same subject. For some strange reason, though, he doesn't rebut or even engage in any of the arguments I make here. Here are a couple of curiously familiar passages in his post:

In my view, the real "action" in the ongoing debate between theist and atheist in the coming years will be in the area of mind and brain. Are our minds and consciousness itself solely products of our physical brains, or are they products of an immaterial force traditionally associated with or identified as a supernatural "soul"?

J.P. Moreland writes about a "debate" he had with UCLA brain scientist Jeffrey Schwartz (whose book is noted above), in which they agreed on just about everything -- especially the idea that there is a "mind" separate from the brain and which is immaterial (think supernatural)

Sinbad's post was made on June 14th.