There is a fascinating article in Slate about an experiment conducted by a psychologist in the 1950s. Three men who each thought they were Jesus Christ were brought in to Ypsilanti State Hospital to live with each other. The premise was simple. Psychologists have known for a long time of cases in which people with delusions about their own identity met others with similar delusions, and very quickly realised that if the other was mad, then they must be too. But if that was all there was to Milton Rokeach’s experiment, it wouldn’t offer anything new. Rokeach had a hunch that there was some connection to be drawn between delusions and one’s sense of identity in general. [Read more →]

I just took a look at Sam Harris’s now-slightly-infamous TED talk (above), and had a little flick through a subsequent piece in the Huffington Post, and was rather interested in what he had to say. Interested, because I had thought it was the cast-iron consensus among educated peoples to speak of morality in relative terms, or at the very most to concede that it is such a difficult subject that we can’t reasonably hope to get to the bottom of it. Even if this were the correct view, I have always thought it a somewhat frustrating one—if you cannot prove you are right, on what basis can you assert that you are right? Clearly, relativists must think this too, but opt for a different route at the fork. [Read more →]

More information can be found here and here.

Many theists believe that whenever something terrible (and often arbitrary) happens, it somehow fits into God’s plan. For instance, the earthquake in Haiti, some say, might be taken to be God’s way of making non-Haitians better people because it wakes them from their moral slumber and provokes them to do something good for those suffering, thus raising the general level of goodness in the world. As with many theistic arguments, it is often difficult to show, to one making the argument, that it makes the world less meaningful, rather than more so. But the argument, which implies that God is the sole arbiter in any question of morality, when taken to its conclusion leads to a contradiction. [Read more →]

South Park recently aired two episodes in which the prophet Mohammed is depicted—or, perhaps more accurately, not-depicted. The conceit is that the litigious celebrities who have been the butt of the comedy series’ jokes want access to Mohammed so that they can take his “goo”, which would mean that they would acquire the Power To Not Be Ridiculed. At one point, Mohammed is supposedly ferried around in a bear suit (to avoid accusations of depicting him—though this makes no sense within the reality of the show itself), but it is revealed that in fact it is Santa Claus in the suit. This, of course, cleverly anticipates any extremist reaction: Mohammed was not represented as a bear, nor even as being dressed as a bear, yet there will still be controversy around his role in the episodes. At other times, Mohammed is covered with a giant “CENSORED”. Matt Stone and Trey Parker, its creators, have hinted that Comedy Central have censored more than was intended. The extent of this is unknown, but it seems certain that the censoring of Mohammed was deliberate on Matt and Trey’s part, since when Mohammed’s goo is transferred to Tom Cruise, the recipient is censored as well. The comment is clearly on the seeming arbitrariness of who can be made fun of. [Read more →]