Religion, Supernaturalism, the Paranormal, and Pseudoscience Religion, Supernaturalism, the Paranormal, and Pseudoscience An Anthropological Critique H. Sidky Anthem Press An imprint of Wimbledon Publishing Company www.anthempress.com This edition first published in UK and USA 2020 by ANTHEM PRESS 75– 76 Blackfriars Road, London SE1 8HA, UK or PO Box 9779, London SW19 7ZG, UK and 244 Madison Ave #116, New York, NY 10016, USA Copyright © H. Sidky 2020 The author asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work. All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book. British Library Cataloguing- in- Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. ISBN- 13: 978- 1- 78527- 162- 5 (Hbk) ISBN- 10: 1- 78527- 162- 8 (Hbk) This title is also available as an e- book. For Kathryn Lea. Thank you for being my advocatus diaboli in Venice, Italy and helping me shape many of the ideas expressed here. vi CONTENTS Acknowledgments xv Introduction 1 Chapter One The Problem with Religion: Preliminary Issues 5 Why Are Believers Incensed by Criticism? 10 Religion as a Mind Virus 12 Immunizing the Mind Virus 18 Faith Is Superstition 19 Faith Promotes Unreason 20 Why Believers Are Dangerous 21 Religion as an Evolutionary By- Product 24 The Flaws in the Scholarly Studies of Religion 25 Chapter Two The Unreal Real: The Supernatural, Religion, and the Paranormal 39 What Is the Supernatural? 39 What Is Religion? 46 What Is the Paranormal? 49 The Paranormal and Pseudoscience 51 Chapter Three Can Science Say Anything About Religion and the Supernatural? 57 Science and Religion: Non- Overlapping Magisteria? 58 Methodological Naturalism and Its Religionist Critics 61 A Theistic Science Instead of an Empirical Science? 67 What Are the Unassailable Foundations of a Theist Science? 70 The Actual Meaning of Naturalism in Science 73 Unfalsifiable Claims and the Scientific Criterion of Replicability: The Story of N- Rays 75 Provisional Methodological Naturalism: How Science Really Works 77 How Science Assesses Non-Falsifi able Claims 80 Assessing Claims to Knowledge: Zeus, Circe, Santa Claus, God, Unicorns, and the Problem of Evil 80 viii viii RELIGION, SUPERNATURALISM, THE PARANORMAL, & PSEUDOSCIENCE Why the Absence of Evidence Is Evidence of Absence 86 Some Further Religionist Anti- Science Assertions 86 Scientism: What Does It Really Mean? 87 Science Caused the Holocaust 87 Hitler Was a Darwinian 88 Science Is a Worldview or a Religion 89 Subjecting the Entire Range of Religionist and Creationist Assumptions to Critical Scrutiny 91 Chapter Four Ghostly Rappings, the Science of the Soul, and the Religious Nature of the Paranormal 93 Spiritualism and the Quest for the Soul 94 Parapsychology and the Religious Nature of Psi Phenomena 98 On the Persistence and Weirdness of Ghost Beliefs and Otherworldly Powers 102 Why Believers Won’t Quit: The Legacy of the Nineteenth- Century Search for Ghosts and the Soul 103 How Paranormal Beliefs Are Immunized: Explaining Away Disconfirmations 104 The Cumulative Weirdness of Psi Phenomena 105 Why Don’t Paranormalists Accomplish Great Things? 108 Chapter Five Ghostly Encounters in the Field: Anthropology of the Paranormal or Paranormal Anthropology? 111 Anthropology and Paranormal Phenomena 112 Paranormal Anthropology: Ghostly Encounters in the Field 115 Extraordinary Anthropology and Paranthropology: Epistemological Quandaries 116 From Paranormal Anthropology to Theistic Anthropology 119 What Do Paranormal Experiences in the Field Signify? 120 Chapter Six Why We Think the World Is Haunted 121 How Our Cognitive Biases Predispose Us to Paranormal Ideation 122 Why We Think about Ghosts and Other Uncanny Entities: Intentional Agents and the Theory of Mind 124 Why Spirits, Ghosts, and Gods Have Human- Like Minds 125 Why the World Is Mind- Like, Souls Persist after Death, Animism, and Anthropomorphism 129 Why Humans Believe in the Soul and an Afterlife 131 Responses to Naturalistic Cognitive Explanations of Religion by Theistic Philosophers 135 CONTENTS ix Is There a Sensus Divinitatus or God- Module in the Human Brain? 143 Implications: Supernaturalism Debunked 145 Chapter Seven Cognitive Biases and Why People Think Eerie Thoughts 147 Memory, Cognition, and Supernatural and Paranormal Ideation 147 What the Roswell UFO Crash Tells Us about Paranormal Ideation 149 Memory Distortions and Beliefs in Paranormal 152 Witnessing the Resurrection of the Dead during Anthropological Fieldwork: What Does It Mean? 154 Additional Distorting Effects on Memory and Perception 156 Misunderstanding Probabilistic Events and Paranormal Beliefs 159 Synchronicity and the Bible Code 160 What the Shroud of Turin Tells Us about Paranormal Believers 161 The Shroud as a Paranormal Object 162 Holy Things, the Christian Cult of Saints, and Relics of the Christ 162 How the Shroud Became a Magical Object of Veneration 164 How Shroud Believers Have Misrepresented the Evidence 164 What Historical Records and Iconography Reveal 167 Scientific Evidence, Pseudoscience, Pious Frauds, and the Shroud 169 Radiocarbon Dates: Disgracing What Cannot Be Disproved 170 Chapter Eight Miracles as Evidence of God’s Actions in the World 173 The Role of Miracles in Religion 173 David Hume on the Nature of Testimonial Evidence and the Psychology of Miracle Claims 175 Pious Frauds, Miracles, and Why Extraordinary Claims Always Require Extraordinary Evidence 179 Evaluating Extraordinary Claims 184 What Do Miracles Actually Signify? 187 Are Miracles Logically Possible? 188 The Theist Case for Miracles and Efforts to Refute David Hume 190 Chapter Nine When God Talks to People: Are Religious Experience Evidence of God? 201 Visionary Experiences and the Rise of Religious Movements 202 x x RELIGION, SUPERNATURALISM, THE PARANORMAL, & PSEUDOSCIENCE Do Religious Experiences Support the Existence of the God of Theism? 204 Do Religious Experiences and Public Perceptions Have Epistemic Parity?: Swinburne’s Theological Proof 205 What Do the Experiences of God Really Signify? 209 Are Religious Experiences Cosmically Significant Supernatural Events? 212 What Do Altered States of Consciousness and Anomalous Experiences Really Signify? 214 Are Religious Experiences Veridical or Paranormal Fantasies? 216 Religious Experience and Brain- Based Hallucinations 218 Does God Speak to People? Julian Jaynes’s Eccentric Theory of the Bicameral Mind 223 Out- of- Body and Near- Death Experiences 224 Cognitive Mechanisms of Hallucinatory Phenomena 227 Apparitions: Perceiving Figures 230 Collective Hallucinations and Group Delusions 232 Marian Apparitions: What Do They Signify? 233 Chapter Ten Books Authored by God? Sacred Texts as Evidence of the Supernatural 239 Proposed Evidence of the Divine Origins of Sacred Texts 239 What Would Books Written by God Really Look Like? 241 The Old Testament: God’s Message to Humankind 1.0 244 The New Testament: God’s Message to Humankind 2.0 250 Chapter Eleven God’s Fingerprints in the Natural World: Intelligent Design, Irreducible Complexity, and Cosmic Fine- Tuning 259 The Cognitive Foundations of Arguments from Design 260 The Nature of Design Argument 262 William Paley, Natural Theology, and the Argument from Design 264 Paley Updated: Swinburne’s Case 271 What Would a Designed Universe Really Look Like? 272 Taking Reverend Paley to the Microbiology Laboratory: God’s Handiwork in Molecular Structures 273 What Is Irreducible Complexity and Does It Prove “God the Designer” 276 Intelligent Design and the Argument from Ignorance 278 The Case for Irreducible Complexity and Its Flaws 278 Looking for God’s Handiwork in the Cosmos: Taking Reverend Paley to Outer Space 282