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This post is going to be about religion, and it's no secret that I'm what you might call a steadfast Atheist. So if you're not interested in such discussion, or easily offended, it would be best to skip this one. Last January, I asked you to post comments with questions and I would answer them — no topic, within reason, was off limits. For the most part, this resulted in a lengthy discussion on my spiritual beliefs and understanding of the historic aspects of the Bible with my sister in law, Susan (who for the record is [correct me if I'm wrong!] an Evangelical Christian). Despite what you might read on that page, and what conclusions you might draw based on that, I think that this discussion has not only NOT driven us apart, but brought us closer, in that we have both come to understand more of what the other believes, and why. We both think the other is wrong, by definition, but respect their right to believe what they see fit. The conversation shifted from back and forth comments on that blog post to email, and eventually we decided that it would be best if we left the explaining to the experts and each suggested a book for the other to read, and then sat down to discuss our thoughts on the books. I suggested The God Delusion, and she suggested The Case for Christ. However, I found it difficult to get and stay interested in this book, so we've since switched to I Don't Have Enough Faith To Be An Atheist, which I'm finding to be more my style and despite my frequent disagreement, I would even call it "a real page-turner," if that makes any sense at all. I've come to my beliefs over the course of the last 8 years or so through my personal experience with church (mostly Presbyterian and Catholic), a Christian youth group, and friends who were believers; and on the flip side of the coin, a lot of credit goes to the teachers and professors that cultivated my critical thinking skills. Prior to ~8 years ago, I had attended church occasionally and even did some community service with my local church, but at the time I was more or less ignorant on the matter and happy to be so. At some point, I started to realize that I had never been shown a reason to believe the things I had been told were true. So I decided not to, and to see where that would take me. (Here I am! Tada!) But let's not get too far off course — what I really want to write about is a particular passage from I Don't Have Enough Faith To Be An Atheist.

Perhaps more than any other person, David Hume is responsible for the skepticism prevalent today. As an empiricist, Hume believed that all meaningful ideas were either true by definition or must be based on sense experience? Hume asserted that propositions can be meaningful only if they meet one of the following two conditions:

• the truth claim is abstract reasoning, such as a mathematical equation or a definition (e.g., "2+2=4" or "all triangles have three sides"); or
• the truth claim can be verified empirically through one or more of the five senses

While he claimed to be a skeptic, Hume certainly wasn?t skeptical about these two conditions?he was absolutely convinced he had the truth.

In a nutshell, this is the core of my belief system as I understand it. The authors then go on to explain how in a college course, one of them did a report on this topic:

At the beginning of the next class, the professor said, "Mr. Geisler, we'll hear from you first. Keep it to no more than twenty minutes so we can have ample time for discussion." Well, since I was using the lightning-fast Road Runner tactic [being mindful of self-contradictory statements], I had absolutely no trouble with the time constraints. I stood up and simply said, "The principle of empirical verifiability states that there are only two kinds of meaningful propositions: 1) those that are true by definition and 2) those that are empirically verifiable. Since the principle of empirical verifiability itself is neither true by definition nor empirically verifiable, it cannot be meaningful."

Setting aside for just a moment the fact that he hadn't given any justification for his claim that the principle cannot be empirically verified, this terrified me. I almost wet my pants when I read it. And you have to admit, when you think about it briefly, the principle does sound a tad self-defeating. Was it that simple? Did my whole world just crumble in on itself? It sure felt that way, and that's precisely what I wrote in my notes. This was something that required more research. I do believe that a simple mistake has a simple resolution, but this just didn't sit right with me. I had some pretty great help in checking this out; Google be thy name. As it turns out, the principle isn't a proposition. It is the definition of a meaningful proposition. If you wanted to empirically verify the principle itself you'd have to derive it from the definitions of the constituent words, which leads to an infinite series of definition. This is, of course, the short answer. Once I realized that the dismissal of the principle was bullocks (whew!), I started to realize that it wasn't so much what the authors were attempting to explain, but why. Left intact, the Principle of Empirical Verifiability can be applied to any religious discussion to render the issue of faith irrelevant. This leads to inner turmoil along the lines of, "If that's true, then my beliefs are false, so it must not be true!" This is a logical fallacy known as Appeal to Consequences, and is likely what caused the authors to be so dismissive without exhaustive research. I said that this was the short version. The long version is something I found on a blog called Evangelical Realism. This author goes into great detail of exactly why the Principle is not self-defeating, and does so with sound reasoning, even if he does come off as a bit sanctimonious. (Maybe intentional irony?) But if you still feel that the Principle of Empirical Verifiability is self-defeating, I suggest you read that entire post. He does a much better job explaining it than I could hope to. This is obviously something I feel strongly about, and given some of the awful things done in the name of this religion or that, I think it merits the effort. I should end by saying that I am not through reading the book. I'm only up to chapter 4. In all honesty, it is possible that I will believe in God at the end of the book, because I am reading it with as objective a viewpoint as I'm capable of, and if the evidence supports it, then it will be an easy decision to make. (Though I've yet to see any such evidence.) So did anyone actually read all of that? Does anyone disagree?

This week a friend of mine told me she got a new job that came with the perk of being on the internet and doing basically whatever she wanted (thus the mid-day communiqu?) as long as she was reading stuff. She works for Brijit, a website that summarizes long "content" (articles?) in 100 words or less, and assigns everything a score that ranges from not a priority to exceptional, a must-read, not to be missed. Sounds like a pretty sweet gig to me – and very useful for someone like myself who likes to read but doesn't have much spare time between my eleventeen projects. I subscribed to the science & tech feed, and I've already been privy to gold like this. That was worth the read, just to see the guy's picture.

On our trip to Ireland I read a new book. As in I read page 1 at the airport while we waited for our departure flight, and I read the last page the night before our flight home. This is something that I haven't done since I stopped riding the commuter train into Philadelphia more than a year ago. I could probably count the number of books above a 5th grade reading level that I have read cover to cover in less than a month on one hand. I owe it all to Bill Bryson, and my friend John.

John read me part of A Short History of Nearly Everything, and I went straight to the store and bought it. I read that book like a dysfunctional couple dates: off again, on again, off again. Several years later, on the train to Philadelphia, I finished it. Since then I've read four of his other books, the rest are on my wishlist, and he is hands down my favorite author. Not that there is much competition.

A Walk in the Woods is about Bryson's attempt to hike the Appalachian Trail, and I know how exciting that sounds at face value (not very). I could tell you that the man has written four or five books about different walking trips — all of them worthy of their excellent reviews — but still… it's a book about walking. (One which I was thrilled to receive as a Christmas gift.)

When I was in high school, I joined the NJROTC, and I think all of the work I did on my "bearing" there has more or less ruined my ability to laugh. Seriously. Even when I laugh, I am nearly silent most times — and when I do make noise, it's uncomfortable. Obviously I'm very self conscious about this.

Still, while reading this book I laughed so hard I cried — the tears of hilarity were streaming down my face — and Megan can vouch for that because she made fun of me at the time. If you've ever hiked part of the AT, or if you enjoy camping; because that is an integral part of hiking the AT, then I can't recommend this book enough.