Freethought Without Forethought? Part 2: How do freethinkers know what is true?

"How do freethinkers know what is true?"

This section begins by stating:

"Clarence Darrow once noted, 'I don't believe in God because I don't believe in Mother Goose."

Sadly, this is indicative of the level at which vast amounts of atheistic literature is written in the image of our sound-byte, pull-quote, gotcha, pop-culture. Apparently, if Mr. Darrow could be convinced that Mother Goose existed he would then also believe in God. Moreover, no one has ever claimed that Mother Goose is real or plays any role whatsoever in the universe. The existence or non-existence of Mother Goose is irrelevant and so this is a category mistake. William Lane Craig's arguments against the Flying Spaghetti Monster is applicable to Mother Goose as well. I cannot believe that I just had to write such a sentence-Flying Spaghetti Monsters and Mother Goose, oi vey!-but that would merely be my argument from personal incredulity.


The tract continues:

"Freethinkers are naturalistic. Truth is the degree to which a statement corresponds with reality. Reality is limited to that which is directly perceivable through our natural senses or indirectly ascertained through the proper use of reason."

Again, we hit dogmatic barriers: your reason is not allowed to ascertain anything that is not absolute naturalism. Apparently, anything else would not be "proper."

The tract continues thusly:

"Reason is a tool of critical thought that limits the truth of a statement according to the strict tests of the scientific method. For a statement to be considered true it must be testable (what evidence or repeatable experiments confirm it?), falsifiable (what, in theory, would disconfirm it, and have all attempts to disprove it failed?), parsimonious (is it the simplest explanation, requiring the fewest assumptions?), and logical (is it free of contradictions, non sequiturs, or irrelevant ad hominem character attacks?)."

It would be rather refreshing if Dan Barker and the FFRF would put their own statements to this test.

For instance, Dan Barker wrote:

"the real drive behind the antiabortionists: misogyny. I don't believe that any one of them cares a hoot for a fetus."1

This statement is indeed testable and falsifiable: we could ask a pro-life proponent why they support that particular view, if they answer with anything but "misogyny" the statement has been falsified. We can do this on the spot with me as a volunteer: I am pro-life, or "antiabortionists" as Dan Barker terms it, and am concerned about beautiful, innocent and defenseless human beings, or "fetus" as people who want to conveniently narrow the argument and dehumanize babies term it. The test results are that the statement has been falsified.
The parsimonious criteria is a bit contrived particularly when consider that it is likely based on the concept of Ockham's Razor - but be aware that the razor cuts both ways (see here and here).

Is it logical? Dan Barker claims to know why approximately 166,879,663 people (this just in America) are pro-life when he surely could not provide one single shred of evidence to prove his claim (see Dan Barker's Views On Human Dignity for more on this issue). No wonder he states that his shockingly cynical, pessimistic and besmirching statement is something that he believes. All of this is not surprising however, considering that this is the very same Dan Barker who in his debate with John Rankin stated,

"Darwin has bequeathed what is good."

As well as,

"I think abortion is a blessing."

Above, we noted that he also mentioned "irrelevant ad hominem character attacks" (of course, this is redundant since ad hominems are character attacks). In his self-published book, Losing Faith In Faith, Dan Barker wrote a chapter entitled "Ministers I Have Known," which is nothing but ad hominems. He refers to these ministers "perspiring," "waving their hankies," "shouting," "prancing about," "ruling their churches like little kingdoms." One he besmirches for being "overweight," yet another for being "skinny." One is a Mexican who has 12 children "!" He also employed the ad hominid above in his beliefs about pro-lifers: he was besmirching their character and motivations rather than dealing with the issue.
Moreover, he also makes another comment that is about as childish as the one which he approvingly quoted about Mother Goose:

"I have a friend who says if you were to take all the preachers in the world and lay them end to end, it would be a good idea just to leave them there."

Once it has been demonstrated by the scientific method that the scientific method is the test of the truth of a statement Dan Barker can claim that this is the criteria that we are to utilize. Until such time he cannot hold his rigidly controlled sect of Freethinkers to a standard to which he does not adhere.

1. 1. Dan Barker, Losing Faith In Faith-From Preacher to Atheist (Madison, WI: Freedom from Religion Foundation, 1992), p. 213