On the Incompatibility (Or Not) Between Religion and Intelligence

In light of US Independence Day, and some our well-known freedoms, such as the First Amendment and "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; [...]" (Freedom of Religion), I explore some current thinking on religion.

Essentially, Bill Maher makes the point that if one is religious, one can't be intelligent.  In an interview with NY Times columnist Ross Douhat (who is Catholic), Mr. Douhat defends the point. While there might be points to make on both sides, I discourage the idea of these broad conclusions without much basis and support - maybe it makes for Good Comedy, but it's Not Good Intellectual Thought.  (Reminder: Mr. Maher is doing a comedy show.)

Does Religious Belief Mean You're Not An Intellectual?

Mr. Maher's show seems to be about Mr. Maher mugging smug for the camera, and having a cheering audience. I have a close friend who very much likes Mr. Maher's comedy, and while I see some comedic moments, Mr. Maher is distracting in his close-mindedness and apparent disdain for those who have opinions different than him.  Mr. Maher is a champion of various political causes (which I happen to agree with), but just because we are much-aligned politically, that doesn't imply that I'm in agreement with Mr. Maher's show or his rhetorical tactics.

Mr. Maher believes he is an intellectual, and a strong one, yet I find his on-air presence to be so intellectually un-curious of others' ideas.  If you watch the video, I think you'll find him pushing his perspective more than listening to Mr. Douhat's ideas.

I should also explain that I happen to disagree with good portions of Mr. Douhat's politics (as expressed in his NY Times column), but I wanted to hear his thinking.  Here is the interview:

Around 2:30 in the video, Mr. Douhat explains how the idea that Genesis describes literally (as some believe) the Earth was created in six days is only a recent concoction of 19th century religious fundamentalism and, in fact, religious leaders back to the 1st century did not believe the Genesis account of The Six Days Of Creation as a statement of scientific fact.  Now Mr. Maher, going for the easy (cheap?) rhetorical shot, says "So you're giving yourself license to say 'The Bible Is Bullsh*t', right?".

Truly, as a intellectual, would one really want to establish such a broad conclusory point so early on? Certainly, as a rhetorician that broad claim exposes one, and Mr. Douhat torpedoes that later on: a sinking, unrecoverable ship Mr. Maher clings to.  Around 5:30 and onward Mr. Maher wants to get to the point that, in essence, people believe in gods like Zeus and they were just myths, so why do intellectual people believe in God?  Mr. Douhat brings out the torpedo, aims, and fires: Mr. Maher and Mr. Douhat agree that people believe in metaphysical ideas, and then Mr. Douhat asks: why do people believe in Universal Rights, yet one cannot see them under a microscope?  Sunk.

In the end, it seems that Mr. Maher wants to tie everything back to 9/11 with terrorists flying planes into buildings based upon their religious beliefs, and thus Religion Is Wrong - that's essentially Mr. Maher's point.  Mr. Maher states further that genocide and mass murder always come from people based upon their religious beliefs.  Did you know Mr. Douhat had a second torpedo?  (ha ha ha!) Mr. Douhat points out the genocide under Stalin and the lack of religious beliefs (except for the dead Christians).  Mr. Maher's ship is sinking faster.

Mr. Maher then flails with the idea that the Ten Commandments includes Thou Shalt Not Kill, so how do we explain wars?  I think Mr. Maher's rhetorical tactic here is to show religious people don't even follow their religion, so we (Mr. Maher and audience) can just dismiss them.

Teachings of Catholics

As both a general and a specific answer to this question, I suggest reading the Catechism of the Catholic Church on the Vatican's website that details much of the teachings of the Catholic Church. You'll find that the Church, almost always, sides with scientific thought, medicine, evolutionary biology (Darwinism), and including the Big Bang theory of the universe.  The Catholic Church disagrees with notions of "intelligent design" and "creationism" (unless you believe "creationism" is of the Darwin evolutionary kind). Curious? Just search for:

catechism of catholic church evolution

or replace evolution with other things you're curious about.  Regarding Mr. Maher and the notion of war, the Catholic teachings to not believe war is always unjust, but there are several steps in the teaching, see the link to the catechism, and here is an excerpt, with paragraph 2309 explaining a rationale for a just war.  As you're reading this, I ask you to take notice that the Catholic Church has a detailed and nuanced understanding of Thou Shalt Not Kill, and the Church's understanding is modern in that it reflects the concerns of nuclear, chemical, and biological modes of warfare.

http://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/_P81.HTM 

PART THREE: LIFE IN CHRIST
    SECTION TWO THE TEN COMMANDMENTS
        CHAPTER TWO YOU SHALL LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF
            Article 5 THE FIFTH COMMANDMENT
                III. Safeguarding Peace 

III. Safeguarding Peace 

Peace 

2302 By recalling the commandment, "You shall not kill," our Lord asked for peace of heart and denounced murderous anger and hatred as immoral.  Anger is a desire for revenge. "To desire vengeance in order to do evil to someone who should be punished is illicit," but it is praiseworthy to impose restitution "to correct vices and maintain justice." If anger reaches the point of a deliberate desire to kill or seriously wound a neighbor, it is gravely against charity; it is a mortal sin. the Lord says, "Everyone who is angry with his brother shall be liable to judgment." 

2303 Deliberate hatred is contrary to charity. Hatred of the neighbor is a sin when one deliberately wishes him evil. Hatred of the neighbor is a grave sin when one deliberately desires him grave harm. "But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven." 

2304 Respect for and development of human life require peace. Peace is not merely the absence of war, and it is not limited to maintaining a balance of powers between adversaries. Peace cannot be attained on earth without safeguarding the goods of persons, free communication among men, respect for the dignity of persons and peoples, and the assiduous practice of fraternity. Peace is "the tranquillity of order." Peace is the work of justice and the effect of charity. 

2305 Earthly peace is the image and fruit of the peace of Christ, the messianic "Prince of Peace." By the blood of his Cross, "in his own person he killed the hostility," he reconciled men with God and made his Church the sacrament of the unity of the human race and of its union with God. "He is our peace." He has declared: "Blessed are the peacemakers." 

2306 Those who renounce violence and bloodshed and, in order to safeguard human rights, make use of those means of defense available to the weakest, bear witness to evangelical charity, provided they do so without harming the rights and obligations of other men and societies. They bear legitimate witness to the gravity of the physical and moral risks of recourse to violence, with all its destruction and death.

Avoiding war 

2307 The fifth commandment forbids the intentional destruction of human life. Because of the evils and injustices that accompany all war, the Church insistently urges everyone to prayer and to action so that the divine Goodness may free us from the ancient bondage of war. 

2308 All citizens and all governments are obliged to work for the avoidance of war.
However, "as long as the danger of war persists and there is no international authority with the necessary competence and power, governments cannot be denied the right of lawful self-defense, once all peace efforts have failed." 

2309 The strict conditions for legitimate defense by military force require rigorous consideration. the gravity of such a decision makes it subject to rigorous conditions of moral legitimacy. At one and the same time:
- the damage inflicted by the aggressor on the nation or community of nations must be lasting, grave, and certain;
- all other means of putting an end to it must have been shown to be impractical or ineffective;
- there must be serious prospects of success;
- the use of arms must not produce evils and disorders graver than the evil to be eliminated. the power of modem means of destruction weighs very heavily in evaluating this condition. 

These are the traditional elements enumerated in what is called the "just war" doctrine.  The evaluation of these conditions for moral legitimacy belongs to the prudential judgment of those who have responsibility for the common good. 

2310 Public authorities, in this case, have the right and duty to impose on citizens the obligations necessary for national defense.  Those who are sworn to serve their country in the armed forces are servants of the security and freedom of nations. If they carry out their duty honorably, they truly contribute to the common good of the nation and the maintenance of peace. 

2311 Public authorities should make equitable provision for those who for reasons of conscience refuse to bear arms; these are nonetheless obliged to serve the human community in some other way. 

2312 The Church and human reason both assert the permanent validity of the moral law during armed conflict. "The mere fact that war has regrettably broken out does not mean that everything becomes licit between the warring parties." 

2313 Non-combatants, wounded soldiers, and prisoners must be respected and treated humanely. Actions deliberately contrary to the law of nations and to its universal principles are crimes, as are the orders that command such actions. Blind obedience does not suffice to excuse those who carry them out. Thus the extermination of a people, nation, or ethnic minority must be condemned as a mortal sin. One is morally bound to resist orders that command genocide. 

2314 "Every act of war directed to the indiscriminate destruction of whole cities or vast areas with their inhabitants is a crime against God and man, which merits firm and unequivocal condemnation." A danger of modern warfare is that it provides the opportunity to those who possess modern scientific weapons especially atomic, biological, or chemical weapons - to commit such crimes. 

[...]

I believe many readers will be surprised as to how much thought is given to topics like these in the official Catholic teachings.  Now, that's not suggesting that you must be religious in your thinking, it just means that some of their worlds faiths have given significant thought to modern issues.  My (non-Catholic) Christian, Jewish, Muslim, and Buddhist friends have similar reports about their religions.

Do Atheists Believe In Freedom Of Religion?

Hmm, let's try to narrow this a bit.  I personally know atheists, and I was once an atheist myself.  Mr. Maher is an atheist.  Now Mr. Maher and other atheists (such as a very close friend who shall remain nameless) believe that God does not exist.  I don't have a problem with that.  And, as a former atheist yet still a hyperrationalist, I can completely understand that perspective: we're just a bag of chemicals, our lives are this bag of stuff operating according to the laws of physics and chemistry, and when we die our bodies merely decompose, as per the usual laws of chemistry - there's no soul, no Heaven, and we our world is formulated upon the sciences with no divine intervention.

Ok, it's reasonable for people be atheists.  And I'd add that there are people who aren't really sure whether there is or isn't a God, and let's call them agnostic: the distinction being that atheists are certain there is no God, whereas agnostics have uncertainty about the existence of God.  In that sense, we'd probably put Einstein in the agnostic category because of his uncertainties.

However, we can see this distinction clearer in mathematical terms, when N is the number of gods:

atheists: believe N must be 0
monotheists (Judaism, Christianity, Islam): believe N must be 1
other theists: believe N >= 1
agnostic: not sure what number N is

It seems there is branch of atheists (a sect?) who feel, not only are they zero-gods people, but they are dismissive of others who have religious beliefs.  Here is an excerpt from the Wikipedia entry on New Atheism:

New Atheism 

New Atheism, also called militant atheism and fundamentalist atheism, is a movement promoted by some atheists of the twenty-first century. This modern-day atheism and secularism is advanced by critics of religion, a group of modern atheist thinkers and writers who advocate the view that superstition, religion and irrationalism should not simply be tolerated but should be countered, criticized, and exposed by rational argument wherever their influence arises in government, education and politics. The phrase "New Atheism" was coined by Gary Wolf in a 2006 article in Wired magazine. [...]

I believe these kinds of atheists, which I call militant atheists, look to impose their believe that "N equals 0", i.e., there must be no God.  President Roosevelt (FDR) enumerated in a war-time speech the Four (universal) Freedoms in the 1941 State of the Union address to Congress:

1. Freedom of speech
2. Freedom of worship
3. Freedom from want
4. Freedom from fear

If one believes these Four Freedoms apply to all humans, as they were a founding principle of the United Nations within the Universal Declaration of Human Rights:

"Whereas disregard and contempt for human rights have resulted in barbarous acts which have outraged the conscience of mankind, and the advent of a world in which human beings shall enjoy freedom of speech and belief and freedom from fear and want has been proclaimed the highest aspiration of the common people...."

then this is the kind of "belief" in Universal Human Rights (albeit a reasonable and worthwhile belief) that Mr. Douhat claims are the kinds of metaphysical beliefs that people have, no different than religious beliefs, and similarly cannot be discovered or revealed with a microscope and such.

In fact, one might see Mr. Maher's disdain for religious believers as inconsistent with the US Constitution First Amendment's Religious Establishment clause:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; [...]

Now Mr. Maher has no obligation in his show to permit all thoughts and all religious views, but if you're going to have a discussion of religion, at least be open-minded.  Or to put it more starkly, the US Government exhibits more Freedom of Worship than Mr. Maher's show:

Imagine if the official US Government position were that Religious Belief Implies A Lack of Intelligence, and thus it is reasonable to grant grade school, job, etc., promotion conditional upon the idea that a person indicating Having-Religious-Beliefs would exclude them from positions requiring "intelligence".

Perhaps Mr. Maher should give more consideration of this topic.

Does My Belief of God Interfere With My Being A Scientist

Short answer: No. There is nothing that is inconsistent with my scientific work and my religious beliefs.

Do I believe everything in the Catholic Church and the Bible? There are some areas of my religious beliefs that are inconsistent with the "present" teachings of the Catholic Church.  For example, my notion of abortion is closely aligned with the pre-1859 thinking in the Catholic Church that "ensoulment" occurs around the same time of fetus viability (around the beginning of the third trimester).  It has only been since 1859 (Pope Pius) that we have our present framework that life starts at conception.  Likewise, I don't find homosexual acts as sin. A key inconsistency in the thinking of the Church is whether or not we have sex for pleasure (and love) or sex for child-making. If the "rhythm method" is advocated by the Catholic Church as a way for married (heterosexual) couples to enjoy sex without creating more babies, I'd say that these couples clearly evidence "intent" of avoiding procreation, which is no different than contraception, masturbation, or homosexual acts.  This is something where one has faith that, over time, the Catholic Church will embrace a broader understanding of humanity and family, and there is good evidence that the Church has been adapting.  My prediction: The pope that addresses overpopulation and over consumption of the world's resources will also will a Nobel Prize. (Possibly not in my lifetime.)

Does Data Imply Truth?

There are many people in the hard sciences, like meteorology and biology, that generate lots of data. Of course, we care about Data Quality, such as whether our instruments are calibrated, and whether our observation techniques produce consistent data collection.  In fact, many of them are working with "ontologies" regarding biology, chemistry, and physics (oversimplified: ontologies are mechanized knowledge than can be apply with computational techniques).

So when we measure 17 mm of rain in the past hour, and the air temperature is 17 C, we believe that we're trying to get a better understanding of "truth": Is 17 mm an accurate number? Was 17 C measured nakedly outdoors, in a black box with vents, in a white box with vents, or something else?

Let's say were measuring human body temperature and we get a reading of 100.0 F.  Is that a fever? It depends upon how it is measured.  The threshold for fevers is above 98.6 F when measured in the mouth, and 100.4 when measured in the ear.  So if you used an ear thermometer, it is NOT a fever at 100.0 F.  Important: it's not that the two thermometers have different calibrations, it's that the observation technique for determining Fever-Or-Not is different, dependent upon how it is observed (mouth, ear, armpit, rectum, etc.).

Ok, now what about my scientific beliefs.  First of all, as data scientists, we believe in unreal things: a good example is currency (money) and economic indicators (accumulation of human's feelings about the future).  Secondly, we can do statistically valid survey on things that are merely mental constructions, such as the Consumer Confidence Index, which asks people, essentially, how they're feeling about certain economic ideas.  Likewise, it is possible to survey children in a scientific and statistically valid way: How Many Legs On A Unicorn?  (Hint: The answers are very likely to cluster around the number 4.)   And with that same thinking on Stuff That Can't Be Observed Under A Microscope, the valuation of currency, stocks, bonds, and other instruments are all, at their core, based upon mental constructions and not in the hard sciences (e.g., physics, chemistry, biology).

So being a data scientist means having a broader thinking about data and what it's measuring, rather than merely some "hard sciences fact", like How many milliliters of fluid in a beaker?, as we did in chemistry lab.

Belief Is Fundamental To Science and Rational Thought

My experience as a computer scientist (e.g., artificial intelligence, knowledge representation, computation, data semantics, etc.) informs me: humans are about beliefs, such as rational thought and trust.  Ever ask a paranoid person why they don't trust you? After the person gives various reasons, either your try to rebut them or you find some of them impossible to rebut.  And it's frustrating working with that paranoid person, because you KNOW that their paranoia is not justified.  However, there is medicine for some paranoid people that makes the paranoia go away.  Hmm, medicine applied to a person now causes their rational thinking to change - what is that about?  While I am sure there are various chemical and biological explanations for what happens, essentially that paranoia is diminished, there is more trust, and rational decision-making is better and more acceptable for that person, his/her family and relationships, his/her community and job, and society as a whole.

Although Mr. Douhat explains that Universal Human Rights is about a belief, so is rational thinking, and (thus) science.  If people understood how belief is more commonplace and fundamental, they maybe they would be less dismissive of beliefs.  Have you ever tried changing someone's beliefs?  It's hard to do with rational thought, and that's because beliefs are foundational rational thought.

Or said differently, if Mr. Maher understood this (as Mr. Douhat suggested), then Mr. Maher might take a different approach: trying to disprove someone's religious beliefs makes no sense, whether is a belief in God (the atheist to the mono-theist) or a disbelief in God (the mono-theist to the atheist). What is in order is: respect for another's beliefs, certainly of the religious variety for other citizens of the US (as per the First Amendment), and was world citizens (as per the UN's declaration of human rights).

So Believing In God Doesn't Affect My Scientific Work?

Certainly, it doesn't contradict any scientific knowledge or scientific methodology.  Maybe one's religion might affect what is ethical behavior in the sciences (e.g., kinds of acceptable or unacceptable research), but not in scientific knowledge or methodology.  I consider myself fortunate to believe in God, it has opened my mind towards thinking about things differently and more broadly because I'm less squeamish about data collection and data semantics, and I understand that beliefs are fundamental - "lower on the stack", as us IT people say.

Still one might say: But you believe in something (God) that you can't perceive, can't prove, and such - doesn't that taint your thinking?  My response is simple yet deep: Have you given thought to how much of the sciences are infused with a human-oriented perspective, i.e., tainted by humans?  The Linnaean Taxonomy of living things is a good example: the main taxonomic levels of genus and species were based upon morphological criteria at a human scale, such as the size, color, and behavior (as observed by humans) of plants and animals.  A follow-up question might be: How much mathematics is observable in a rock?  In other words, mathematics is a completely human-tainted construction.  (Nothing wrong with that.)

In summary, I hope this article has given you Food For Thought, and maybe you'll have some interesting and unconventional ideas to share, too.  Thanks.