Category: Faith

“12 Years a Slave”—and a question about faith

March 11, 2014 • 6:04 am

I’m no movie reviewer (I’ll leave that to my nephew, who I hope will weigh in below), so my review of “12 Years a Slave,” which I saw last weekend, should be taken as the lucubrations of a tyro.

I won’t recount the plot, although there’s not really a spoiler, except to say that it’s based on the true story of Solomon Northup, a free black man who lived in Saratoga Springs, New York, but was kidnapped and sold to Southern slavers in 1841.  It took him 12 years—years in which he witnessed the most horrible degradation and mistreatment of his fellow slaves—before he regained his freedom. He subsequently wrote a book about his experiences and campaigned against slavery.

The movie, directed by Steve McQueen, won the Academy Award this year for “Best Picture,” although, in a rare snub, McQueen didn’t also get Best Director (that went to Alfonso Cuaron for “Gravity,” a film that for some reason I have no desire to see).

The film garnered two other Oscars: one to Lupito Nyong’o as Best Supporting Actress, and the other to Best Adapted Screenplay by Mark Ridley.  Chiwetel Ejiofor did a terrific job as Solomon Northup, but lost out to Matthew McConaughey from “Dallas Buyers Club” (a film that I will see). One note of interest: Brad Pitt, who co-produced the movie, makes a cameo appearance as the single white man in the south who eloquently decries slavery, telling a slaver that he will eventually reap retribution. The scene in which Pitt does this, though, strikes a false note; it’s a bit of unneeded moralizing put in the movie for no obvious reason except to make Pitt look good. The horrors and immorality of slavery were amply depicted without Pitt’s preaching.

My verdict: a very good movie but not a great one—but still one you should make an effort to see.  It was beautifully photographed, the acting was excellent (particularly by Ejiofor and Nyong’o), and the story was compelling.  But it was compelling not so much through the depiction of character, but because the story was so heartbreaking and the portrayal of slavery so graphically brutal. Perhaps that was part of the problem for me: the power of the movie lay largely in its scenes of brutality, particularly the repeated and bloody whippings, which reminded me of The Passion of the Christ.  But as far as showing the degradation of slavery, this movie was not markedly superior to “Django Unchained” (granted, that was more of an “action” movie with more shootings and explosions). I repeat: this is an excellent movie well worth seeing, but for me will not take its place in the pantheon of great movies next to “Ikiru,” “Tokyo Story,” “Chinatown,” or “The Last Picture Show.”

Now to the question of faith. Religion plays a large part in this movie, and in two senses. It is shown as a means by which the slaver controls his slaves by telling them that the Bible sanctions slavery and the whipping of slaves (which it does), and also that they should accept their lot. There are at least two scenes in which the slaver Edwin Epps (played by Michael Fassbender) is shown preaching from the Bible to a forced audience of his slaves on a Sunday.

Clearly faith was used to control the slaves, quelling their discontent and serving, in the Marxist sense, as a kind of opium. But it’s also shown as a palliative for the slaves themselves, helping them accept a horrible existence which could not be changed.

In that sense, then, was faith good for the slaves? One might answer that the “opium of the slaves” was bad because it prevented them from bettering their own lot, but that was clearly impossible in the antebellum South. A slave rebellion would have been brutally quashed, as was Nat Turner’s rebellion in 1831, which simply led to the death of a few hundred blacks and no change in slavery. And remember, the slaves (at least in this movie) thought their faith was true—that they really were going to a better place after they died. So it was not a matter of believing something for which there was known counterevidence. 

In that sense I cannot see faith as being inimical to the slaves themselves, although of course it was a pernicious device used to control “human property” and make them accept their whippings. But, given the South at that time, what was the alternative? What good would have come from trying to convince slaves that there was no God? In that sense it’s like the “dying grandmother” scenario in which you allow a religious woman to retain her faith on her deathbed. In this case I can see no advantage that would have come from trying to convince slaves that their faith was false.

Or am I wrong?

I am intensely interested in the question of the circumstances in which faith—defined as belief  in an issue that is disproportionately strong compared to the weak evidence for that issue—is beneficial.  According to Sam Harris, it almost never is. I agree insofar as faith keeps people invested in a delusion that won’t come to pass, and thus prevents them from taking action to better themselves. And it prevents people from thinking clearly about issues, usually to the detriment of better solutions (stem cell research is one example). But in the case of slavery, the notion that dispelling faith would prompt slaves to improve their lot isn’t realistic.

One possible example of the beneficial effects of faith is the placebo effect, something well established in medicine. Placebo effects have been shown to be beneficial in cases of depression, and even in things like knee surgery (yes, they’ve done “sham” knee surgery, where patients think they’ve been operated on for knee problems even though they’re just cut open with nothing done subsequently—and, surprisingly, this gives results as good as a genuine operation). In such cases the faith that you are being treated is enough to effect a cure, or at least substantial improvement. But in such cases one could, I suppose, argue that this isn’t really “faith,” for the patient really does think that he or she is getting genuine scientific medical treatment. Nevertheless, what placebo effects show is that mere belief in something that cannot possibly work the way it’s supposed to can still effect real improvement.

But how does that differ from belief in God, which can, despite God’s nonexistence, effect psychological benefits? I suppose many of you will answer that faith can be good for individuals, but as a system reduces well being overall.

h/t: GM

Another child doomed by faith, and an “ad” for vaccination

November 29, 2013 • 8:38 am

This time the child, a girl, was reared in an Amish home, which means she has virtually no chance of escaping that bizarre religious milieu.  It also means she will die. According to Yahoo News, a 10-year-old Amish girl with leukemia has apparently disappeared, probably spirited away by her parents so she wouldn’t receive chemotherapy:

A 10-year-old Amish girl with leukemia and her parents haven’t contacted a guardian appointed two months ago to make medical decisions for the girl after her parents stopped her chemotherapy treatments, the guardian’s attorney said Wednesday.

It’s unclear whether the girl has resumed treatments, and there are indications that the family has left its farm in rural northeast Ohio.

The girl, Sarah Hershberger, has not restarted treatments at Akron Children’s Hospital, said Clair Dickinson, the guardian’s attorney. He said it’s not known whether she is undergoing chemotherapy anywhere else.

Doctors at the Akron hospital believe Sarah’s leukemia is treatable but say she will die without chemotherapy. The hospital went to court after the family decided to stop chemotherapy and treat Sarah with natural medicines, such as herbs and vitamins.

An appeals court ruling in October gave an attorney who’s also a registered nurse limited guardianship over Sarah and the power to make medical decisions for her. The court said the beliefs and convictions of her parents can’t outweigh the rights of the state to protect the child.

The family has appealed the decision to both the appeals court and the Ohio Supreme Court.

Messages seeking comment were left Wednesday with attorneys representing the family.

One of the attorneys, John Oberholtzer, told The Medina Gazette he has been in contact with the family but does not know its whereabouts or whether the girl is being treated.

Dickinson, the guardian’s attorney, said that shortly after the appeals court ruling, a taxi was sent to the family’s home near the village of Spencer in Medina County, about 35 miles southwest of Cleveland. The taxi was to take the Sarah to the hospital in Akron, but someone at the home said the family was not there, Dickinson said.

Sarah’s condition is treatable—indeed, possibly curable—but she asked her parents to stop chemotherapy. Her last chemo session was in June, and according to doctors she will die in less than a year without further treatment. But she’s not competent to make that judgment, and there’s also the possibility of a). religious pressure from her parents and the community influencing her “decision,” and b). the fact that chemo makes one sick, which of course would make a child averse to it.  It makes you sick, but often cures you.

And I don’t know how an attorney in good conscience can defend what the Hershbergers are doing.  I know everyone deserves representation, but how could a lawyer with a conscience defend parents whose reckless actions will kill their child?

Andy Hershberger, the girl’s father, said this past summer that the family agreed to begin two years of treatments for Sarah last spring but stopped a second round of chemotherapy in June because it was making her extremely sick.

Sarah begged her parents to stop the chemo and they agreed after a great deal of prayer, Hershberger said. The family, members of an insular Amish community, shuns many facets of modern life and is deeply religious.

Hospital officials have said they are morally and legally obligated to make sure the girl receives proper care. They said the girl’s illness, lymphoblastic lymphoma, is an aggressive form of non-Hodgkin lymphoma, but there is a high survival rate with treatment.

I didn’t know much about the attitudes of Amish toward medical care, but several sites, including Amish America, note that their attitude toward modern medical care is mixed.  Some abjure it; others use it. But in general they use it less than do non-Amish, and often resort to alternative or herbal treatments for religious and cultural reasons. Unfortunately, Sarah Hershberger’s parents apparently belong to the last class, and that will cost her her life.

In An Amish Paradox, Hurst and McConnell detail use of institutional medicine among the various Amish affiliations in the Holmes County, Ohio settlement.

Hurst and McConnell report that Amish are generally less likely to undergo annual checkups or engage in preventative care.  A reluctance to go to the doctor can result from various factors, including  a desire to avoid needless medical costs, a generally higher pain threshold (as reported by doctors treating the Amish) and a failure to understand the importance of, or reasons for professional treatment.

The authors also note that more conservative Amish are less likely to seek medical care, and more likely to delay treatment, especially when physical symptoms are absent or minimal.

There is something ineffably sad about children like Sarah. By accident of birth they are brought up in families afflicted with religious delusions, and there is no way for them to escape (except, perhaps, during or after the famous Amish Rumspringa, when children get a taste of non-Amish life).  They will perpetuate the delusions, and so the cycle continues. And in Sarah’s case, those delusions will take her life. This makes me very angry, and even more so when the religious parents are pretty sanguine about this child abuse, attributing medical-abuse deaths to the will of god. It doesn’t have to be that way. Woo is always bad, but only in religion is it fatal.

****

Finally, this is relevant but a wee bit off topic: a parody “commercial,” from Upworthy, showing what it would look like if vaccines were advertised like other drugs.

And another addendum: Dr. Edzard Ernst has posted a scathing “tribute” to Prince Charles and the royal’s incessant promotion of quackery and “alternative medicine” (Charles just turned 65).

h/t: Matt

Another child killed by faith

November 25, 2013 • 7:23 am

This time the faith is not religious, but faith in homeopathy and herbal remedies; and the child is not from the U.S. but Canada.

According to both the National Post and the CBC News Calgary, a 44-year old mother, Tamara Sophie Lovett, was charged two days ago with both criminal negligence and “failure to provide the necessities of life” to her 7-year-old son, Ryan, who died in March of a streptococcus A infection. Such an infection is almost invariably curable by penicillin (the bugs, surprisingly, haven’t evolved resistance to that old antibiotic, even over many years).  It’s possible that Ryan had necrotizing fasciitis, the so-called “flesh-eating bacteria,” but in a child that is also treatable if caught early.

From the National Post:

According to police, the boy was bedridden for 10 days before his death, however, the mother declined to seek medical treatment, relying instead on homeopathic remedies, including herbal medicines.

“It should absolutely serve as a warning to other parents,” said Calgary Police Service Staff Sergeant Michael Cavilla. “The message is quite simple: If your child is sick, take them to see a doctor.”

Police said they arrested the 44-year-old woman on Friday; charges are pending. She cannot be named until she is formally charged. [Note: the CBC names her since she has been charged.]
According to Sgt. Cavilla, the boy looked poorly before he died and several of the mother’s friends had advised her to seek a doctor. In the early morning on the day of his death, she phoned 9-1-1; paramedics arrived to find the child in cardiac arrest. He was later pronounced dead.

. . . An autopsy concluded he had a Group A streptococcal infection that could have been treated with penicillin.

The police said they have no medical records for the boy prior to his death. The child had recently been enrolled in a local school. Prior to January of this year, he had been home-schooled.

The law violated was this one:

Under the Criminal Code of Canada, it is a legal requirement for a parent or guardian to provide the necessaries of life, which are defined by the courts as food, shelter, care and medical attention necessary to sustain life and protection from harm.

“If you do not provide medical attention to your sick child, you will be held accountable,” Staff Sgt. Mike Cavilla said at a press conference Friday afternoon.

From the CBC:

Police allege the victim’s mother ignored pleas from friends to seek medical treatment for Ryan.

“There were a number of people that had contact with the child during the period of illness,” said Cavilla. “These people did approach the mother and suggested that she do take him to see a medical professional.”

The definitive assessment appears in the Post (my emphasis):

Tim Caulfield, a scholar and Canada Research Chair in Health Law and Policy, said cases like this are tragic and increasingly common.

“The interest in and demand for complementary and alternative medicine continues to grow. There are many factors driving this trend, including suspicion of conventional medicine and ‘Big Pharma.’”

He said this has resulted in an increase in measles outbreaks due to vaccination fears, and the growth in popularity of naturopathic practitioners, who often prescribe ineffective homeopathic remedies.

“Alternative medicine is associated with many risks,” he said. Supplements often don’t contain what they proclaim on the label and herbal remedies can interact with conventional medicine.

Further, alternative therapies can induce patients to avoid effective, conventional treatments, he added.

“We don’t need alternative medicine and conventional medicine. We need science-based medicine. Period,” he said.

Indeed, for how can you show that something works unless it’s scientifically tested? Such tests of homeopathy show no effects; likewise with intercessory prayer. And although the Christian Science Church publishes testimonies of healings, they don’t mention the number of time prayer didn’t cure.  And even if they did, such reports are anecdotal.

The CBC notes that this situation is not a one-off, even in Canada:  “Juliet Guichon, a medical ethicist and an assistant professor in the University of Calgary’s Faculty of Medicine, says it’s not uncommon for the medical profession to run into parents who don’t believe in conventional treatments.”

The fact that Ryan was abused by dosing him with useless herbal and homeopathic treatments shows that the problem here—like the problem with all the children I’ve described who succumbed to religiously-based medical neglect—is ultimately not religion but faith. Faith in alternative medicine shows many of the same pseudoscientific traits as does faith in religion, the main difference being that religious child abusers see the judgment of God hanging over their actions.  But in both cases child abuse results from a rejection of modern medicine and an unwarranted faith in unevidenced remedies, whether they be prayer, herbs, or water placebo. Religion, like homeopathy, is a pseudoscience, resting on faulty but strongly held statements about reality. And in this case the conflict between science and faith—a conflict that we’re repeatedly assured is not real—proved fatal.

It’s not rocket science to see this, as did one Canadian police officer:

“We have no direct information that religious beliefs factored into this, but there was a belief system and homeopathic medicine did factor in,” Sgt. Cavilla said.

The CBC site has a video of Ryan dancing around: a lovely and lively child. Here he is:

ryan-lovett
Ryan Lovett.
His grandfather also said the boy was a gifted artist, and frequently participated in community art shows. “[He] was one of the most wonderful little boys you can imagine. I did spend a lot of time with him. I have a baseball that I gave him, which I asked my daughter to give back to me to carry in the car. I speak to him every day. He was full of life.”
Over at Science-Based Medicine, Harriet Hall has a new article on the dangers of faith healing.

h/t: Royce, Don

Lara Buchak replies: faith can be rational

September 26, 2013 • 4:08 am

The other day I discussed an NPR “cosmos & culture” website post by Tania Lombrozo. The title was “Can faith ever be rational?“, and her answer was “yes.”

This conclusion, of course, gives immense solace to the liberal listeners of National Public radio. In drawing her conclusion, Lombrozo, a psychologist at the University of California Berkeley,  leaned heavily on the work of Lara Buchak, a philosophy professor at the same University, “Can it be rational to have faith?” (reference below, free download).

Yesterday Dr. Buchak wrote me a cordial email about my post, clarifying some things and disagreeing with others, but also noting that our disagreement may rest partly on a lack of clarity in what she wrote. Her email is a model of cordial discourse (contrast it with the responses of, say, Henry Gee or Peter Hichens!), and she gave me permission to post it. I promised that I would do so without editing it.

Her defense below indicates why she thinks it can be rational to have faith, and, controversially, why it can be rational to have religious faith. I’ll add a few responses after the email:

Dear Professor Coyne,

I was pointed to your blog post yesterday.  First of all, thanks for reading and engaging with my work!  I appreciate the time you took to read the paper and engage with it.  Second, I wouldn’t mind clarifying my paper a bit, so I’ve written a few points below.  You could feel free to post it to your readers if you would like:

– Philosophers sometimes concern themselves with analyzing a concept – roughly, coming up with a definition that covers some set of cases.  For example, philosophers ask “what is knowledge?” and then consider scenarios in which we would want to ascribe knowledge to an individual and scenarios in which we wouldn’t, and try to come up with a definition that includes the cases in which a knowledge ascription would be apt and leaves out the cases in which a knowledge ascription would be inapt.  (Of course, it’s slightly more complicated than this, but that’s the general idea.)  So, I am interested in analyzing faith: in coming up with a definition that includes cases we’d describe as cases of faith but not cases we wouldn’t describe as cases of faith.  This is orthogonal to the question of whether all cases of faith are rational, some are, or none are: we first just want to figure out what the concept is.  And part of my worry is that the current cultural conversation hasn’t taken on this project.

– So, the examples in the beginning of my paper are just examples of data we are trying to capture with our analysis of what faith is.  I take on the assumption that “faith” is the same attitude in mundane and religious cases – that it should be given the same analysis.  Thus, faith will be subject to the same rationality standards in both religious and mundane cases.  Whether faith meets these standards is a separate question.  (I think you might actually be on board with these claims so far.)

– Then, the analysis comes in, and I think that you do a very good expository job (thanks!), with one exception I’ll mention next.  As an aside, if someone wants to argue for the alternative analyses you mention in the post, I’d encourage them to take up the project.  The data is: apt and inapt uses of “he has faith,” and practices and phenomenology surrounding cases of faith (in, e.g., religious or interpersonal contexts).  Show that some alternative hypothesis fits the data!  It seems to me that the Kaufman analysis is too narrow (it is apt to say that I have faith in my spouse even if every reasonable person would also assent) and the other analysis you mention too wide (I have confidence, based on evidence, that Obama is president, but it seems inapt to say that I have faith that Obama is president).  But these are genuine philosophical disagreements, so hey, let’s do some philosophy!

– On the part where you say: “This is where Buchak’s argument goes wonky.”  Here is where you misunderstand my argument.  I do see where the misunderstanding comes from, given the italicized contrast and my use of the technical term “credence” as opposed to “belief,” and I wish I had been clearer.  So just to be clear: I didn’t mean to imply that it’s rational to have faith without sufficiently high credence.  One shouldn’t manufacture high credences when the evidence doesn’t yield them (contra a modern-day version of a William James point), but you should have faith when the evidence does yield sufficiently high credence, when the available evidence is not highly correlated with the truth of the proposition in question, and when there are postponement costs and/or risk-attitudes of a certain sort.  So, to be clear: the rationality standards for religious faith are just the same as the rationality standards for other cases of faith.

– Where you and I disagree – and where Professor Lombrozo and I disagree, too – is in whether the conditions are ever satisfied in the case of religious faith.  I think they are (though I don’t think they are for everyone – so I wouldn’t want someone who thinks they don’t have evidence for God’s existence to have faith that God exists).  I think some people do have evidence of the required sort.  You (and Professor Lombrozo) think the conditions are never satisfied, that no one (or no one nowadays, or who has thought about it) has evidence of the required sort.

– Also, as for the “postponement costs” question.  We are talking about having faith in God as expressed by particular religious actions – actions that would have an effect right now in how you live – not the question of whether you should believe in God per se.  That’s a minor point, but the relevant upshot is that we shouldn’t be evaluating the postponement costs of believing, but rather the postponement costs of these actions.  And, in general, I don’t think “the goods” to be had in, say, the Christian life (I will speak from my own tradition) primarily have to do with the afterlife, but rather with our time on earth.  So in that sense, refraining from committing to the “Christian life” does have costs.

– So, to summarize, you have mostly correctly interpreted my view, except that I don’t think that the standards are different for religious faith and more mundane cases of faith.  I think they are the same.  (You and I then disagree about whether these standards are met.)

– Finally, my main motivation for writing the paper was because of the prevalence of statements like this in the “science vs. religion” debates:

Naïve atheist: “Religious beliefs are based on faith, so they are irrational!”

Naïve theist: “I don’t have evidence, but I don’t need any, because I have faith!”

I think that both of these attitudes are wrong, and harmful.  And I think a helpful way to move forward is to figure out how to correctly characterize what it is to have faith.  (If you already think these attitudes are wrong, that’s great, but it seems to me that these attitudes are prevalent in the public sphere, so I’d like to fight against them.)

Thank you for taking the time to read this, and for hosting a spirited debate.

All best,

Lara Buchak

******

I have three brief responses, which I’ll convey to Dr. Buchak.

1. Re the claim:

So just to be clear: I didn’t mean to imply that it’s rational to have faith without sufficiently high credence.  One shouldn’t manufacture high credences when the evidence doesn’t yield them (contra a modern-day version of a William James point), but you should have faith when the evidence does yield sufficiently high credence, when the available evidence is not highly correlated with the truth of the proposition in question, and when there are postponement costs and/or risk-attitudes of a certain sort.  So, to be clear: the rationality standards for religious faith are just the same as the rationality standards for other cases of faith.

This clearly implies that it’s rational to have religious faith—and for Buchak, “faith” means “acting on a prior evidenced belief without seeking further evidence”—when there is “sufficiently high credence.” That is, there must be fairly strong evidence buttressing your faith before you begin to act on it. (The “fairly strong evidence” part is from her argument.)

I don’t see that kind of evidence for religious belief, especially since Buchak claims that such evidence must be as strong for religious “faith” as for nonreligious “faith.” Would you to go to Catholic church for the rest of your life if the evidence you had was as thin as the evidence that Jodie Foster really loved you, or that UFOs have abducted people from Earth?

2. Re the claim:

Where you and I disagree – and where Professor Lombrozo and I disagree, too – is in whether the conditions are ever satisfied in the case of religious faith.  I think they are (though I don’t think they are for everyone – so I wouldn’t want someone who thinks they don’t have evidence for God’s existence to have faith that God exists).  I think some people do have evidence of the required sort.  You (and Professor Lombrozo) think the conditions are never satisfied, that no one (or no one nowadays, or who has thought about it) has evidence of the required sort.

I’d like to ask Buchak exactly what the evidence is that can support a rational faith in God, and why it would differ among people. This is a crucial question that bears on my claim that faith really is irrational, for I see no evidence of even a moderately convincing sort. Remember, the evidence has to be sufficiently strong to motivate pretty strong actions: religious “belief” and actions predicated on that.

Now scientists do differ on what it takes to convince them of the provisional truth of a proposition, but the evidence is empirical, available to everyone, and doesn’t differ among scientists. There may be some people who didn’t believe in continental drift, for example, until we were actually able to measure that drift using satellites, but the evidence was there for everyone to see.

In contrast, religious “evidence” is based solely on revelation and the propositions of ancient, man-made books.  And it differs among people—far more than it differs among scientists. Why is it rational for a Muslim to have faith in the claims of the Qur’an and, at the same time, rational for a Christian to have faith in the claims of the Bible?

Note that Buchak says that Lombrozo doesn’t think that it can ever be rational to rationally have faith in religion.  If that’s the case, Lombrozo didn’t mention that in her NPR piece. In fact, at the end Lombrozo argues that the rationality of religious belief provides some common ground for a fruitful dialogue between believers and nonbelievers.

3. Finally, re the claim:

Also, as for the “postponement costs” question.  We are talking about having faith in God as expressed by particular religious actions – actions that would have an effect right now in how you live – not the question of whether you should believe in God per se.  That’s a minor point, but the relevant upshot is that we shouldn’t be evaluating the postponement costs of believing, but rather the postponement costs of these actions.  And, in general, I don’t think “the goods” to be had in, say, the Christian life (I will speak from my own tradition) primarily have to do with the afterlife, but rather with our time on earth.  So in that sense, refraining from committing to the “Christian life” does have costs.

This mystifies me for two reasons. First I don’t see the point of acting on a belief if you don’t really hold that belief.  Buchak implies that the question of taking action based on a belief in God is somehow independent of actually believing in God. That is, you can take the action (predicated on a belief) without having good reasons for that belief.  Maybe I’m misunderstanding her here, but that’s what it sounds like.

Second, I don’t know what the real-life “goods” are for the Christian faith, and Buchak doesn’t specify them. (I gather from this email that she is a Christian.) If it’s a motivation to do good, well, there are plenty of more rational reasons to do good than simply accepting the reported words of Jesus.

I’m not a philosopher, so I may be missing the subtleties of Buchak’s arguments. But her piece was written to be accessible to the average person, and I’m one of those people.

I’ve called Buchak’s attention to this post and my responses, so maybe she’ll reply either separately or in the comments below.

______________

Buchak, L  2013. Can it be rational to have faith? In Louis P. Pojman & Michael Rea (eds.), Philosophy of Religion: An Anthology, 7th edition (forthcoming)