Peter Boghossian's obscene satire dismantles the New Atheism

As author of one of the first (and best, some say) books critiquing the New Atheism, I have criticized Portland State philosopher Peter Boghossian on this site before, here and here, and here and here.  I found his book on how to broadcast atheism ignorant and over-the-top: I challenged him to debate what he calls "faith" even before that book came out, and he responded petulantly (See first link). 

The man is full of bombast, but I have to admit he has a certain style. 

Peter Boghossian sees through everybody.

I've almost given up blogging, since I'm now in China, which seems to have an inexplicable grudge against amiable American web sites, that one included.  But I did happen to notice that Randall Rauser and Tom Gilson have both  been posting on Peter Boghossian, the veritable reincarnation of Socrates in Gnu form, lately.  Readers may have seen my account here of what happened when I challenged Peter to debate long before his book came out, "Peter Boghossian sees through me."  Apparently he's seen through these other guys, too!  He has apparently refused to debate either of them publicly, Rauser on the Unforgettable show that I have also appeared on in the past, on the grounds that he is not a real scholar, or something. 



Good on Peter.  Those of us whose vision has lessened as we grow older, can only feel profound respect for those who gain such powers as the ability to see thoughts over thousands of miles through inches of thick (and in my case, thickening) cranial tissue, and discern the true quality of scholarship they have never read, from otherwise apparently respectable institutions.  (I would be satisfied with a much lesser superpower, like reading two books at the same time with two different eyes.)



Which brings us to Randal's recent post, which made unfortunate light of the esteemed sage (I mean the contemporary one) by comparing him to comic book knights.  I have to say, I think that's all wrong, unnecessary, and even rather mean of our friend Randal.  The real comparison is to a Jedi Knight.  Like the Jedi, Dr. Boghossian knows that he understands Christianity most clearly with a blindfold over his eyes.  This is one of those cases in which perception of the evidence, say by physically reading what Christians say about faith, for instance, would merely distract someone with Jedi powers from what he knows, with unassailable certainty, from serendipitous truth internally mediated, about that pernicious superstition. 



And this is, let me add, a great advantage that Gnu scholars like Boghossian hold over primitive sages like Socrates.  Socrates seemed, poor fellow, to ask people questions because he wanted to know the answers, because he recognized his own ignorance and sought to ameliorate it.  That is hardly any better than asking the way to the train station because you are lost!  Whereas Boghossian asks questions because he knows the vast majority of humanity consists of deluded fools, and he seeks to enlighten them about their foolishness, and offer the Good News that God does not love them, after all.  To me, that is the position a true sage must take.  And here lies  the difference between Randal or I or our readers and a real scholar, like Peter Boghossian: you had to read this post to find out what I think, whereas Dr. Boghossian knows already, without opening his computer, that the likes of you and I hardly engage in anything that can be called "thought" at all.  I have no idea what Justin was thinking, inviting Rauser on with the likes of Peter Boghossian.  Of course, I'm sure Peter knows. 

Peter Boghossian captains Titanic to bottom of Atlantic.

The skeptical world is presently agog over philosopher Peter Boghossian's new book, Manual for Creating Atheists.  And well they should be: the book is a monstrous, enormous, monumental, dare one say titanic work of hubris.  Some of the rivets of his argument are missing, it hit an iceberg even before sailing out of port, and there is a thirty-foot gash in its hull below the water line.  But it is a magnificent vessel, and skeptics from Richard Dawkins to John Loftus are clambering aboard with a considerable weight of philosophical luggage. 

I posted my review earlier.  John Loftus has just posted his.  Let us read through the latter with our customary critical engagement:

Peter Boghossian: Socrates or Sophist?

Peter Boghossian, A Manual for Creating Atheists (Pitchstone Publishing, 2013)

Let me begin this review (also on Amazon) with one of those enlightening conversations Portland State University philosophy professor Peter Boghossian is fond of. A Christian Scholar (CS; Boghossian is also fond of initials) who has studied Christian thought on the concept of "faith," watches a lecture by an atheist philosophy professor (PB) on the same topic. He sends him a polite e-mail, describing his relevant credentials (recently, author of "Faith Seeking Understanding," with leading Christian scholars contributing, blurbs from Yale, Penn State, etc), and suggesting a debate.

The following exchange ensues:

"Good morning!

"Yesterday I noticed on the website for John Loftus, that you had endorsed his new book on the "Outsider Test for Faith." I haven't seen the book yet, but I'm pretty sure he responds to my critique of the OTF in True Reason, somewhere in that book.

"I think I've also seen you make comments about "faith," with which I strongly disagree.

"Since we're both in the Northwest -- my home is east of Seattle -- I was wondering if you would consider a civil public debate on the topic of faith?" (Names titles of books, well-known scholars who have endorsed it, academic background.)
.
"Thanks much, (CS).

PB: "Answer this question: What would it take for you to lose your faith?"

CS is taken aback by the social minimalism -- no greetings, no explanation, no hint of civility. But he gulps, and responds guardedly yet still politely, aware of the need to define terms and ask questions before getting into details:

"Do we agree on what the word 'faith' means? Do you know what my 'faith' is, yet?"

"If the reasons I believe in God, and in Jesus Christ (or, say, that Io has active volcanoes), proved mistaken, and none better were forthcoming, then I think I would have little intellectual right to hold those beliefs any longer. But it is the very nature and grounds of faith, that I propose to debate."

PB: "This does not answer the question. Please answer the question or this will be our last communication. What reasons would have to be mistaken? Give me an example of a reason and how you know it would be mistaken. What would this look like?"

Now irritated at the undisguised rudeness, and the demand that arguments developed over hundreds of pages be reduced to a quick sound bite, CS checks PB's CV, finds a name there that may explain the fondness for questions, but not the discourtesy, and replies:

"Sorry, Peter, Socrates is a friend of mine. You're no Socrates.

"I'm duly warned off. I'll look forward to reading, then debunking, your book."

PB: "You're a fraud. Don't contact me again."

According to Peter Boghossian's A Manual For Creating Atheists, a dialogue should pass through four stages: (1) Wonder; (2) Hypothesis; (3) Q & A; (4) Accept or Revise Hypothesis.

In this case, the Q and A came first, but itself prompted wonder on the part of CS, and then a series of hypotheses. Why was PB so prickly? Is this his normal style of conversation? Is he unfamiliar with the social niceties, or does he habitually scorn them? Is PB, as they say in the professional literature, a jerk? Or just having a bad day?

And what did PB mean by diagnosing CS (PB is fond of medical lingo, too) as a "fraud?" Did he mean CS had not, in fact, written the books he claimed, and was not knowledgeable about what Christians mean by faith? If so, on what grounds did the "street epistemologist" deduce this? Mental telepathy, perhaps? Or did he mean that, without knowing what CS believed, or why he believed it, those beliefs must be wrong, and he must actually be aware of the fact that he is peddling falsehoods?

In any case, not considering himself a fraud, as promised, CS purchased the book, which was by this time among the top 500 in America.

Manuel for Creating Atheists proved more interesting than that short conversation might have led CS to believe. Perhaps PB had been having a bad day. The book proved punchy, passionate, original, and respectful of the ancients (never mentioning, however, that Plato or Epictetus were infected by the epistemic pathology of theistic faith.) PB even offers a biting critique of multiculturalism and what he calls "academic leftism" that almost inspired CS to break out in a one-man football season, Seahawks-are-on-Monday-night-football-tonight wave.

This is, indeed, a manual for a new generation of skeptics. It has been field-tested by the philosopher himself in, it seems, every conceivable setting: in classrooms, with parents who complain about his attacks on religion in classrooms, on the phone, in prisons, by email (the first line of his response to CS's query turns out to be a set challenge that is part of a field-tested stratagem). PB even looks for empty seats on Southwest Airlines (center aisle!) next to people reading religious texts, to enlighten them. (Wonder again: is this man simply a pest? Worse than CS, even?)

PB's mission strategy devolves around asking a set of Socratic questions designed to relentlessly deconstruct what he takes to be the false epistemology of faith.

But what is faith? Here is the question, again, which elicited CS's original desire for a dialogue.

For it turns out that PB's book, and apparently his whole career as an atheist evangelist, are based on a remarkably bold, but quite hollow, bluff. This bluff involves defining "faith" as "pretending to know things you don't know."

And that is precisely what PB is doing.

Anyone who has read much in the Christian tradition -- and PB evidently has not, his bibliography is replete with first and second string New Atheists, he seems to assume Tertullian did say "I believe because it is absurd" and meant exactly that, and that Pascal wrote a "Wager" and said nothing more to support Christian faith intellectually -- will of course reject this definition with a groan and a sigh. But PB calls for an army of "street epistemologists," not new Socrates who will seek out the most famous thinkers in modern Athens and sincerely try to find out what they know. He is after low-hanging fruit, injured caribou at the back of the herd. People who do know the tradition, and its reasons, who contact him rather than the other way around, may be dismissed peremptorily and magisterially. And so PB sends his disciples into the highways and biways, to pester people into the Kingdom of Reason, (wonder again: will this make Southwest stock go up or down?), to teach what has already long been the defining delusion of the Gnu Age, what CS calls the "Blind Faith Meme." (Don't read Justin, Augustine, Aquinas, Ricci, Locke, Sherburne, McGrew, read Plantinga and Craig alone but take care not to buy their books and thus support their causes -- yes, PB can be that petty.)

Confronted with the Christian tradition, unlike Socrates, PB simply has not yet bothered to really listen. (Shouldn't that come before "Wonder?") This is evident in small things, such as PB's repeated mention of the Young Earth Creationist belief that the world is only 4,000 years old. That would be 6,000 years old: of course it's a silly notion, but get the numbers right, just so we know you're paying attention! PB cites few serious Christians, but works in Ray Comfort, Benny Hinn, Ted Haggard, and Deepak Chopra. So where does he get his information about religion? There are some interesting studies cited, and respectable skeptics like Pascal Boyer and Phil Zuckerman, but he also seems to rely heavily on such party-trick fanatics as Hector Avalos, Greta Christina, John Loftus, and Victor Stenger. He also recommends a "refutation" of theistic arguments by John Allen Paulos that CS found to be as embarrassing, groan-worthy a cavalcade of caricatures, tattered straw men, and ignorance, as one might fear between the covers of a single volume. (Even worse than The God Delusion.)

Which suggests that when it comes to Christianity, this bit of false humility would mark needed progress for PB:

"I only know that I know nothing."

In conclusion, let CS briefly explain what faith really means for Christians, since skeptics have been so badly mislead on this subject. (As Tom Gilson points out in another review here, several of us CSs have a book coming out later this year called True Reason, where this is demonstrated in some detail.)

Faith should be defined as "holding firmly and acting on what you have good reason to believe is true, in the face of existential difficulties."

Note that on this definition, which fits both New Testament usage and most Christian usage for 2000 years, and which is also affirmed (in CS' experience, which is wider than PB's) by most experienced Christians (not talking about lame caribou, here), faith is not a distinct epistemology, but along with reason, it's twin, one basis for all possible epistemologies.

There are, in short, four "levels of rational faith," and all sane people participate (critically, one hopes) at least in the first three: (1) one's own mind; (2) one's senses; (3) other people (PB is very confused on this head, not recognizing that most appeals to science as well as any old text like Acts of the Apostles or the Koran are in essence at least appeals to the authority of people, which can be warranted or not -- see Cold Case Christianity for an interesting discussion); (4) God or other super-human beings. All of these can and should be tested rationally, and perhaps in some cases rejected. (One may know that one is not thinking straight after too many beers.) All can at least potentially also be reasonably cited as sources of true knowledge.

But PB does not understand this, which makes this book an often interesting, sometimes rather crazed and epic, Hunting of the Snark. In short, until he begins to ask questions with the goal of truly understanding and not caricaturing so as to put notches on his belt and destroy that mythical monster, "Faith," PB will not be Socrates. He will remain a clever, but irritable, and often irritating, and intellectually irrelevant, sophist.

Peter Boghossian sees through me.

He must be patient indeed, to piles books up like that!

Dr. Peter Boghossian, who teaches philosophy (and atheism) at Portland State University, is writing a book on faith.  I have written (and thought) a lot about faith, too, so I dropped him a line with a friendly invitation.  Normally I don't post personal communications.  But in this case, I think I'll make an exception, since we've been talking about (and I've been thinking about, after reading this, see also my later comments to Tom Gilson's interesting thread) ideological atheism on campus.  Also, Boghossian makes it pretty clear that ordinary courtesies don't weigh too heavily with him. 

Good morning!

Yesterday I noticed on the website for my friend and sometime sparring partner, John Loftus, that you had endorsed his new book on the "Outsider Test for Faith." I haven't seen the book yet, but I'm pretty sure he responds to my critique of the OTF in True Reason, somewhere in that book.

I think I've also seen you make comments about "faith," with which I strongly disagree.

Since we're both in the Northwest -- my home is east of Seattle -- I was wondering if you would consider a civil public debate on the topic of faith?

I'm author of five books, also editor of a new book called Faith Seeking Understanding, that came out this week, and has so far been endorsed by Yale philosopher Nicholas Wolterstorff and Penn State historian Philip Jenkins. So this would seem pretty appropriate. My PhD is in the theology of religions.

Thanks much,

David Marshall
 

Answer this question: What would it take for you to lose your faith?

pb

(Taken aback by the socially-minimalistic character of the question, I gulp, and reply.)

 Do we agree on what the word "faith" means? Do you know what my "faith" is, yet?

If the reasons I believe in God, and in Jesus Christ (or, say, that Io has active volcanoes), proved mistaken, and none better were forthcoming, then I think I would have little intellectual right to hold those beliefs any longer. But it is the very nature and grounds of faith, that I propose to debate. 

This does not answer the question. Please answer the question or this will be our last communication.  What reasons would have to be mistaken? Give me an example of a reason and how you know it would be mistaken. What would this look like?

pb

(Now irritated, and finding a philosopher named on PB's viva that might help explain his style.)

Sorry, Peter, Socrates is a friend of mine. You're no Socrates.

I'm duly warned off. I'll look forward to reading, then debunking, your book.

You're a fraud.  Don't contact me again. 

Gnu folk hero, or just a lot of bull? 

If only I were  better at philosophy, I would be able to plow through my critics with that kind of ruthless efficiency, too!  Gnuistan may have gained a gnu folk hero. 

 

From all evaluations (almost literally), it seems Boghossian is a talented teacher, though.  Students rave over his passion, knowledge, and dialectical brilliance.  (Whether or not it be on display above.) 

I even find this description of his methods: "All the characteristics you desire in your interlocutor you should display in your own actions: attentive listening, the openness to revise beliefs, respect, and patience, among others. This will lead to more honest and genuine conversations. According to Boghossian,

Those sorts of authentic interactions, that’s when you have the possibility to make change. When you yourself are willing to make changes in yourself. And hey, look, you should always be open to the idea that someone knows something you don’t know. That’s what epistemic humility is. That’s just what being humble is."

Maybe I caught Peter on a bad day.  Perhaps, as with Negy, he is merely giving advise he wants his students to follow, while he himself prefers to be dogmatic and rude.  Or perhaps, as with many of us, pet peeves drive the reason out of the man.  Indeed, one student writes:

His heroes: Dawkins, Habermas, James Randy, Dennett, Pinker, Hitchens, Socrates, Darwin, D. Davidson, Wittgenstein. His hitlist: Postmodernism, pseudoscience, religion, superstition, mysticism, fascism/totalitarianism, Sarah Palin.  This class will give you an opportunity to live a life free of illusion.

Note that three of the "Four Horsemen" appear here: I wonder will Sam Harris feel slighted?  Also, would Socrates fully appreciate this strange company into which he's cast, here? 

And how do fascism / totalitarianism wind up next to the name of a housewife from Wassila, Alaska, who took on Big Oil and spent a couple years in a nice white house on the hillside above downtown Juneau?  What was Sarah Palin's crime, exactly?  Did she put cariboo in concentration camps? 

Anyway, here's another "godless professor" (Dennett's term) apparently using his lectern as a bully pulpit to browbeat young pups out of their faith.

Bogghosian also gives an inane definition of "faith," a purely "straw man" definition like those many New Atheists use to avoid careful confrontation with objects in the real world:

“Pretending to know things you don’t know”.

Too bad Peter declined the debate.  I'm not sure I would have enjoyed the conversation, or even that I could have equalled his rhetorical skills.  But it might do him good to argue with someone his own age, who knows what Christians really think, can talk back, and won't be getting a grade from him at the end of the semester.

Ironic new tidbit: A reader points out that Boghossian chastizes his critics for refusing to debate!

It's interesting—every time I've had a talk cancelled, I've challenged the people who cancelled it to a debate... and no one has accepted yet. If I were to debate somebody, and they could show me that there's really good evidence... that faith really is a reliable guide to reality, that would be fantastic. Then I'll be their voice. I'll be the voice of faith.

The reader adds, "But when you called  his bluff, he refused to debate you." 

That's because I couldn't,answer his riddles correctly, showing I had no right to be ferried across the underground lake to the secret portal that leads out of the Misty Mountains, and must be clubbed over the head and left for the orcs to finish off.  Hopeful note: It appears that debates with more reasonable opponents will be forthcoming, however.