Ramblings on Sherman
March 14, 2011
I am an informational omnivore. I read the newspaper. I keep up to date on national and global affairs by regularly perusing various reliable news websites. I watch movies, and TV, generally science-fiction, and hard-hitting dramas with a message. (Aside: I watched the evangelical documentary ‘Jesus Camp” with my jaw on the floor for a solid hour.) I listen to podcasts such as Nature, Science, Quirks and Quarks, and the Good Atheist. I devour TEDtalks. I am addicted to information, particularly the sciences. And I am particularly interested in the relationship between science, religion, and people in general. More specifically, I frequently find myself musing about how to understand this pervasive delusion of religion, and how to inject some sense into the world.To digress a bit, during my university years, I often tutored other students on scientific topics. I was told on several occasions, by both students and professors, that I had a particular skill for constructing simple but effective analogies for conveying difficult topics. So recently, I wondered if I might harness that skill to the benefit of illustrating the key difference between irrational belief and rational thought. In a moment of idle day-dreaming, I arrived at an unusual vehicle for that demonstration: Sherman’s Lagoon.
For those who are unfamiliar with the topic, Sherman’s Lagoon is a nationally syndicated comic strip, drawn by Jim Toomey, that first appeared in 1991. It involved the hijinks of Sherman, a shark, and a supporting cast of colourfully eccentric underwater creatures going about their daily routines. Naturally, all of these characters had things to do and places to go, and their day-to-day lives seemed somewhat similar to the ordinary days that people often trudge through. The gag was that it was a bunch of marine animals talking to each other, showing some very ordinary human foibles. I always thought that it had a sort of Seinfeld meets Jaws vibe about it.
At any rate, let’s use Sherman to illustrate the absurd situation surrounding the Bible. Many writers and commentators in the blogosphere and larger atheist community have already done the Bible to death, but bear with me as I construct an even more absurd little analogy. The way I see it, if a bunch of Sherman comic strips were one of the very few written artifacts to survive from the distant past, to a distant, post-apocalyptic future what would we think of them?
Believer: In these comics, there is proof of hyper-intelligent, talking sharks. Clearly, there are talking sharks, because this scripture, hundreds of pages long, shows talking sharks. These sharks also have very flexible and dextrous fins, because they are clearly holding and using items. Talking sharks! It must be true, because the scripture exists, and says so!
Skeptic: Interesting. Calm down. We have no evidence for any talking, hyper-intelligent sharks anywhere in the fossil record.
B:The proof is right here, in my hands! Talking sharks!
S: Hang on. OK, we’ll set up a research project. We’ll sail around the world in boats, humanely capture sharks, attach automated microphones and video cameras and GPS units to the sharks and see what we find.
(time passes)
S: OK, we got the data back. After 3 years, and 10 000 sharks monitored, not one talked. Not a peep. Out of millions of hours of footage, no shark was observed to use tools. Your scripture is not confirmed.
R: No! They knew you were recording, so they gave you the silent treatment! And you didn’t get all the sharks, did you? No! You haven’t proven anything! Silly skeptic!
And so it goes. Logical fallacy built upon logical fallacy. What this little diversion illustrates, aside from the Special Pleading Fallacy, is the strength and weakness of the evidence-based approach. Although I made it up, I hope it demonstrates that the evidence only shows you a finite amount of data, and offers specific conclusions. And it also illustrates the well-known maxim of not being able to prove a negative. What it also shows is the tenacious delusion of faith, in that no amount of data will ever truly succeed in educating the easily-fooled and weak-minded. What I get out of this comical little thought experiment, is to be happy with every little victory that the atheist community wins, because our position is a difficult one. Perhaps the next time I engage with a believer, I will ask them if they believe in talking sharks, and see where the discussion takes us. Because, speaking only for myself, this whole tired circular argument of "The Bible is the literal truth of god, because the Bible says so, and obviously the Bible is real, so thereore god is real" is really starting to grate on my nerves.
Finally, I recently watched the movie “The Book of Eli”. In it, the character portrayed by Gary Oldman describes the Bible not as a book, but as a weapon, one that is designed to enslave the weak and desperate. So far, unfortunately, that seems to be the case.
Until next time.
