Epistemology, Religion, and Science

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16 Jun 2010, 4:52 pm

Many people criticize atheists and atheism for being overly interested in science as a method of gathering information, and overly dismissive of spiritual methods of gaining knowledge. Is this wrong though? Biologist PZ Myers, with great philosophical insight, addresses this topic here:
http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2010 ... _again.php

(which I will copy and paste here)

PZ Myers wrote:

The success of science has shown us what an effective knowledge generator accomplishes: it produces consensus and an increasing body of support for its conclusions, and it has observable effects, specifically improvements in our understanding and ability to manipulate the world. We can share evidence that other people can evaluate and replicate, and an idea can spread because it works and is independently verifiable.

Look at religion. It is a failure. There is no convergence of ideas, no means to test ideas, and no reliable outcomes from those ideas. It's noise and chaos and arbitrary eruptions of ridiculous rationalizations. Mormonism, Buddhism, Islam, and Catholicism can't all be true — and no, please don't play that game of reducing each religion to a mush that merely recognizes divinity. Religions have very specific dogmas, and practitioners do not blithely shuffle between them. Those differences are indefensible if they actually have a universal source of reliable knowledge about metaphysics.

Again, this is not a demand that religions must conform to science's methods, only that we should be able to assess whether it works. I can imagine a world where revelation, for instance, actually generates useful knowledge, where people independently acquired specific information piped right into their heads, straight from god. I'd expect, though, that there would be some agreement between all the recipients. It could even be strictly theological information, with no expectation of material support. If a host of people all around the world suddenly heard a gong in their heads, followed by the words (in their own language, of course) "The name of God is Potrzebie", well, then…there's something interesting going on. If these kinds of revelations continued and were consistent across cultures and traditions, I'd be willing to consider that there was something outside the human mind that was communicating with us. I'd admittedly be baffled by it all, but the fact that there'd be growing cross-cultural consensus on very specific claims would be hard to ignore.

As for outcomes, it also doesn't have to be something material — religion wouldn't have to be a tool for making better microwave ovens before I'd believe it, for instance. It could provide a universal moral code, or be an effective tool for improving mental health. If the enlightened people of Potrzebie were demonstrably calmer, more peaceful, and better at coping with stress because of the intermittent revelations, then I'd also have to admit that something was up. It's actually too bad that there isn't any such phenomenon taking place.

Basically, we've learned from the example of science that a way of knowing ought to do what it promises to do. They don't have to promise to do exactly the same thing — architecture and botany, for instance, don't have the same goals or methods, so we wouldn't expect physics and theology to echo each other's answers — but they ought to produce something reliable and true.

The fact that no religion can is damaging to them. Biblical literalism is crazy nonsense, but no more so than transubstantiation or doctrines of salvation or any accounts of what happens in heaven or hell. What drives our rejection of religion isn't that a few bits and pieces of specific religious beliefs, like the literal interpretation of Genesis, have been falsified, but that no consistent knowledge comes out of religion at all…yet every religion claims to provide knowledge about the nature of the universe.

Is PZ on the mark, or off it? In assessing our ability to know something, should we hold to standards, what standards, and why? I mean,, we can gladly admit that certain bits of knowledge might not be best gained through a scientific method and like PZ can admit, there is no requirement that the method be exactly science:

Quote:

There is no expectation that a system for generating knowledge has to follow a narrowly defined scientific method (although no one has yet shown us a functioning alternative.)

So, basically, my question is what anybody thinks about the writing on Pharyngula here, particularly the parts quoted. Is PZ on the mark of off it?

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16 Jun 2010, 5:31 pm

I think PZed is pretty wrong on a particular point:

PZ Myers wrote:

or be an effective tool for improving mental health

That by no means demonstrates religion corresponds to reality. As a matter of fact, particular religions do improve people's individual mental health so long as they're surrounded by likewise believers (a byproduct of the social networking Churches provide). Psychological health and epistemology shouldn't be connected as directly as PZ thinks it should.

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16 Jun 2010, 5:47 pm

The Epic fail of religion topic

One reason I think that religion fails is that it attempts to answer questions out of its sphere of influence, thereby shooting itself in the foot and then stuffing said foot into one's mouth.

Religion as I used to see it, was a comfort to those who had problems not solved by conventional means, in a time when events happened due to "God's will." Now that we know many of today's problems happen due to natural disasters, human error, untreatable illness and such, invoking God into the matrix is simply foolish. When I used to feel sad when a loved one passed, i would read certain psalms to make me feel better, not to explain the event itself. I never thought to blame god for death and disease and destruction. Nor did I ever blame or invoke god as a creator. I never took the bible literally, and this is the mistake that people make. (I suppose there would be no religion if people did not have some god as a reason. )

Now I embrace certain philosophical tenets to explain what is going on, or investigate the science behind the event. Reading psalms/poetry/other words of wisdom (maybe AG's stuff) work as well.

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16 Jun 2010, 5:51 pm

sartresue wrote:

(maybe AG's stuff)

I am glad to see that you have low standards. That will help you have a relatively happy life.

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16 Jun 2010, 5:52 pm

PZ Myers wrote:

The success of science has shown us what an effective knowledge generator accomplishes: it produces consensus ...

Quote:

Cast your minds back to 1960. John F. Kennedy is president, commercial jet airplanes are just appearing, the biggest university mainframes have 12K of memory. And in Green Bank, West Virginia at the new National Radio Astronomy Observatory, a young astrophysicist named Frank Drake runs a two-week project called Ozma, to search for extraterrestrial signals. A signal is received, to great excitement. It turns out to be false, but the excitement remains. In 1960, Drake organizes the first SETI conference, and came up with the now-famous Drake equation:

N=N*fp ne fl fi fc fL

Where N is the number of stars in the Milky Way galaxy; fp is the fraction with planets; ne is the number of planets per star capable of supporting life; fl is the fraction of planets where life evolves; fi is the fraction where intelligent life evolves; and fc is the fraction that communicates; and fL is the fraction of the planet's life during which the communicating civilizations live.

This serious-looking equation gave SETI a serious footing as a legitimate intellectual inquiry. The problem, of course, is that none of the terms can be known, and most cannot even be estimated. The only way to work the equation is to fill in with guesses. And guesses -- just so we're clear -- are merely expressions of prejudice. Nor can there be "informed guesses." If you need to state how many planets with life choose to communicate, there is simply no way to make an informed guess. It's simply prejudice.

The Drake equation can have any value from "billions and billions" to zero. An expression that can mean anything means nothing. Speaking precisely, the Drake equation is literally meaningless, and has nothing to do with science. I take the hard view that science involves the creation of testable hypotheses. The Drake equation cannot be tested and therefore SETI is not science. SETI is unquestionably a religion. . . .

The fact that the Drake equation was not greeted with screams of outrage -- similar to the screams of outrage that greet each Creationist new claim, for example -- meant that now there was a crack in the door, a loosening of the definition of what constituted legitimate scientific procedure. And soon enough, pernicious garbage began to squeeze through the cracks. . . .

I want to pause here and talk about this notion of consensus, and the rise of what has been called consensus science. I regard consensus science as an extremely pernicious development that ought to be stopped cold in its tracks. Historically, the claim of consensus has been the first refuge of scoundrels; it is a way to avoid debate by claiming that the matter is already settled. Whenever you hear the consensus of scientists agrees on something or other, reach for your wallet, because you're being had.

Let's be clear: The work of science has nothing whatever to do with consensus. Consensus is the business of politics. Science, on the contrary, requires only one investigator who happens to be right, which means that he or she has results that are verifiable by reference to the real world. In science consensus is irrelevant. What is relevant is reproducible results. The greatest scientists in history are great precisely because they broke with the consensus.

There is no such thing as consensus science. If it's consensus, it isn't science. If it's science, it isn't consensus. Period. . . .

I would remind you to notice where the claim of consensus is invoked. Consensus is invoked only in situations where the science is not solid enough. Nobody says the consensus of scientists agrees that E=mc2. Nobody says the consensus is that the sun is 93 million miles away. It would never occur to anyone to speak that way. . . .

To an outsider, the most significant innovation in the global warming controversy is the overt reliance that is being placed on models. Back in the days of nuclear winter, computer models were invoked to add weight to a conclusion: "These results are derived with the help of a computer model." But now large-scale computer models are seen as generating data in themselves. No longer are models judged by how well they reproduce data from the real world -- increasingly, models provide the data. As if they were themselves a reality. And indeed they are, when we are projecting forward. There can be no observational data about the year 2100. There are only model runs.

This fascination with computer models is something I understand very well. Richard Feynman called it a disease. I fear he is right. Because only if you spend a lot of time looking at a computer screen can you arrive at the complex point where the global warming debate now stands.

Nobody believes a weather prediction twelve hours ahead. Now we're asked to believe a prediction that goes out 100 years into the future? And make financial investments based on that prediction? Has everybody lost their minds?

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122603134258207975.html

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16 Jun 2010, 6:01 pm

I disagree with Michael Crichton tremendously throughout. Then again, Crichton's own beliefs have their own absurdity to them:

"all diseases, including heart attacks, are direct effects of a patient's state of mind. He later wrote: "We cause our diseases. We are directly responsible for any illness that happens to us." Eventually he came to believe in auras, spoon bending, and clairvoyance."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Cr ... _education

So, if we appeal to an authority, we should remember this about our authority.

A lot of people are caught up in the myth of the "single innovator" and ignore that science is a social endeavor. No single scientist can find the sum of the truths we are dealing with, and appealing to the majority is just fine in many instances. Is this to say that this is how the ideal scientific pursuit works? Not especially, but when grappling with cranks who wish to attack the foundations of knowledge for their absurd ideas, it is often better to politely say "Thanks, but we've already talked about the issue and moved on".

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16 Jun 2010, 6:11 pm

Awesomelyglorious wrote:

I wasn't appealing to authority, but instead you attempt character assassination? That is a rhetorically sound method, albeit irrelevant to the veracity of the quotation.

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16 Jun 2010, 6:22 pm

iamnotaparakeet wrote:

I wasn't appealing to authority, but instead you attempt character assassination? That is a rhetorically sound method, albeit irrelevant to the veracity of the quotation.

Ted Parent wrote:

Clinton’s views on conducting domestic affairs can’t be right. After all, he can’t even conduct himself.

It is quite possible for someone to be a brilliant at domestic policy, yet be a lousy person. (There have in fact been some U.S. presidents like this.) Thus, the details of the person’s character, in this case, are irrelevant.

Of course, sometimes character traits are relevant. For example, the fact that Clinton cheats on his wife would support the claim that he is not a great moral leader (though it may not necessarily imply this). So again, not all arguments ad hominem are completely wrong-headed

http://www.unc.edu/~tparent/fallacies.htm

Um, I kinda think it's completely relevant. Especially given the sort of abstract megolomania the false "heroic scientist" model creates may foster concrete megolomania (i.e. all these established claims are false, I am an innovator not a crank).

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16 Jun 2010, 6:37 pm

iamnotaparakeet wrote:

I wasn't appealing to authority, but instead you attempt character assassination? That is a rhetorically sound method, albeit irrelevant to the veracity of the quotation.

Well, the quote only has value in as much as Michael Crichton is an authority. You know that I have my own ideas on the workings of science, as do many others, so Crichton isn't a universal source of truth, but rather just an authority, and as an authority, he isn't the worst, but he has problems.

I generally agree with Master_Pedant's view that this kind of view of science, of the fearless innovator, can lead to poor understanding of the scientific process in a matter that favors cranks.

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16 Jun 2010, 7:33 pm

Interesting, but I think he missed the fact that we have total free will, and the implications that has on attempting some sort of experimental verification of the spiritual component. Now, some churches' doctrine does not include that, but my own does (Methodist Church, which follows Arminian doctrine), and the effect that it has is absolutely critical. It is my own understanding, anyway, that to override our free will would actually be an even worse crime than taking physical life--so to be sure that free will is preserved, anything we might be given in our lives from a spiritual standpoint remains such that we have absolute freedom to interpret (or misinterpret) it and make decisions. And being human as we are, we can be everything from forgetful to deliberately deciding against something.

Given this I think we ARE going to expect to have problems getting anything to the sort of rigor that PZ Myers is looking for if subjective experience is removed from the picture as he seems to suggest doing. I personally see no reason to think that the scientific method would ever be applicable to religion, nor that its claims would ever become falsifiable, unless someone makes a specific material-world claim that they say comes from their religion (like the whole 6-day creation thing) where literalism can be flat-out proven wrong.

In the end, until we find a way to transfer our internal experiences to others without losing something in the transmission (and wouldn't a lot of us here like to be able to do THAT!) so that others actually experience it as we do, as if they WERE us, there's never going to be any way to scientifically measure experiential evidence, or for science to determine meaning and value.

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16 Jun 2010, 8:47 pm

SoSayWeAll wrote:

Interesting, but I think he missed the fact that we have total free will, and the implications that has on attempting some sort of experimental verification of the spiritual component. Now, some churches' doctrine does not include that, but my own does (Methodist Church, which follows Arminian doctrine), and the effect that it has is absolutely critical. It is my own understanding, anyway, that to override our free will would actually be an even worse crime than taking physical life--so to be sure that free will is preserved, anything we might be given in our lives from a spiritual standpoint remains such that we have absolute freedom to interpret (or misinterpret) it and make decisions. And being human as we are, we can be everything from forgetful to deliberately deciding against something.

Given this I think we ARE going to expect to have problems getting anything to the sort of rigor that PZ Myers is looking for if subjective experience is removed from the picture as he seems to suggest doing. I personally see no reason to think that the scientific method would ever be applicable to religion, nor that its claims would ever become falsifiable, unless someone makes a specific material-world claim that they say comes from their religion (like the whole 6-day creation thing) where literalism can be flat-out proven wrong.

In the end, until we find a way to transfer our internal experiences to others without losing something in the transmission (and wouldn't a lot of us here like to be able to do THAT!) so that others actually experience it as we do, as if they WERE us, there's never going to be any way to scientifically measure experiential evidence, or for science to determine meaning and value.

free will is far from total and may not exist as currently defined.

i see no reason to think that the "because someone said so a long time ago" method would ever be applicable to science, nor should it be applicable to any material-world (read as: real-world) claims. ever.

it's always good to see where theists and atheists, like you and i, agree.

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16 Jun 2010, 9:08 pm

We can have circumstances, so mind you that free will doesn't mean all options are always viable to us. I may in such cases be able to choose my attitude but not act on it if an outside force or other person has taken action to restrain me. Still, I HAVE made a choice. And in the case of someone confined, or someone who has had a break with reality, choices will not be informed. Bring in intellectual disabilities (and I mean what was once referred to as "mental retardation," NOT any other neurological or physical condition), and you get into grey area. As far as I am concerned, though, erring on the side of the dignity of a person is the best thing to do, and keep responsibility "mental age appropriate" in those cases. But that is an issue of--in a sense--not being able to be informed in deciding...not being able to know one's options or evaluate them properly. That still does not undermine the concept of free will in my mind, though, and it sure as hell doesn't diminish the soul of anyone who may be under such restrictions. Such souls must be highly valued as are any other.

And yes. I think more theists/Christians are out there who see as I do, than you'd think. I just think many are afraid to speak because of how obnoxiously loud and mean the fundamentalists can be. (Like the situation with Islam, but with fewer death threats. More like "social death" threats instead.)

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16 Jun 2010, 9:26 pm

SoSayWeAll wrote:

Interesting, but I think he missed the fact that we have total free will, and the implications that has on attempting some sort of experimental verification of the spiritual component.

Well, I don't see how this would be a problem. We still have the same poor epistemic outcome, and we can say "it is free will", but it still exists. Even further, I don't see the interference, as many subjects actually have a LOT more similar outcomes than religion, and yet it is not as if mathematicians or biologists or any other group is less free.

Quote:

Now, some churches' doctrine does not include that, but my own does (Methodist Church, which follows Arminian doctrine), and the effect that it has is absolutely critical.

I tend to side with the Calvinists that free will and foreknowledge leads to absurd conclusions, and that the actual nature of divine power is such that there still would not be a real thing such as free will. A paper, which is relatively long, that I often recommend is a paper by philosopher Dean Zimmerman on Molinism, which is a well-developed free-will and foreknowledge theology. http://fas-philosophy.rutgers.edu/zimme ... Jan-25.pdf

Quote:

It is my own understanding, anyway, that to override our free will would actually be an even worse crime than taking physical life--so to be sure that free will is preserved, anything we might be given in our lives from a spiritual standpoint remains such that we have absolute freedom to interpret (or misinterpret) it and make decisions. And being human as we are, we can be everything from forgetful to deliberately deciding against something.

I don't see how overriding something that we probably don't have, and that likely wouldn't matter anyway is somehow a worse crime than taking physical life. I mean, everybody knows that physical life exists and that harm happens from taking it, but free will might not exist, and the harm from its removal seems nil. (what harm can result in removing something that might not exist in the first place? If it was necessary, then we should be able to know it exists.)

Even further, why doesn't the absolute freedom to interpret apply to mathematics or the sciences? Finally, if all of these people that disagree with you are "deliberately deciding to suppress the truth" or however you'd say it, how could you know that you aren't doing the same to the true religion?? After all, I doubt you could say that you are smarter than, more educated than, better at assessing arguments than, or even necessarily more intellectually honest than many of the people who disagree with you. And to say it is "faith" just leads to some level of epistemic nihilism, which in turn just reinforces people like PZ who think that this is just nonsense.

Quote:

Given this I think we ARE going to expect to have problems getting anything to the sort of rigor that PZ Myers is looking for if subjective experience is removed from the picture as he seems to suggest doing.

He's looking for consistency, nothing about "subjective experience" one way or the other. I mean, every experience is subjectively engaged on some level anyway, but usually we see a convergence..

Quote:

I personally see no reason to think that the scientific method would ever be applicable to religion, nor that its claims would ever become falsifiable, unless someone makes a specific material-world claim that they say comes from their religion (like the whole 6-day creation thing) where literalism can be flat-out proven wrong.

PZ explicitly does not claim to require the scientific method, only consistent conclusions about spiritual realities in order to take them seriously.

Quote:

In the end, until we find a way to transfer our internal experiences to others without losing something in the transmission (and wouldn't a lot of us here like to be able to do THAT!) so that others actually experience it as we do, as if they WERE us, there's never going to be any way to scientifically measure experiential evidence, or for science to determine meaning and value.

We don't need to measure experiences, we need to come to a general agreement on them. People can agree on experiences to some extent, and in fact, we actually do see general agreement on the subjective responses people have to murder, rape, and other things, but religion has wider divergence.

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16 Jun 2010, 10:02 pm

"Deliberately deciding to suppress the truth" is not what I would say at all. "Deciding against it" is a sufficient enough statement; as I was alluding to, the reasons are sufficiently various that I am not going to narrow it down to a single cause. While some would undoubtedly do so for such an unflattering reason--human nature being what it is--I believe that some decide against it in good faith. (Bad behavior from Christians probably ranks #1 in this category and is one reason why I can't stand it when fellow believers start looking down on others.) There are many other examples and causes I could name.

The possibility that I myself may be in error in at least some form or fashion is not a probability...it is a certainty that even if I get very close, I will not have it 100%. I do the best I can, but I am not so arrogant as to think that I have the perfect understanding of God. I fully expect to find that I require correction in certain areas after this life is over and I will be very curious to find out.

The mathematics and the sciences are quite simply subject to a different standard due to their nature. The fact that ALL about them is squarely material means that if the theory is right, and the experiments done properly, you'll return the same result every single time. This is why I think arguing with evolution and such is stupid unless one can actually find fault with how data was analyzed or find something that fits better. (I don't rule out that it could happen, but if it does, I may be a Christian but I will be the first person to tell you that it WON'T come from a fundamentalist who warped observations and experiments to fit a literalist BIblical interpretation.)

Nor do I experience any form of nihilism in life, epistemic, or otherwise. I tend to visualize spiritual truth as being a "limit" in the sense of asymptotic line. I may not be able to touch it, but I will always keep pushing, keep trying to further my understanding, be that from external sources OR from those experienced internally that are not transmissible. This last part is where atheists and theists truly differ, in the most significant sense--the admissibility of the latter type of evidence given that it is wholly contained within the individual experiencing it, as far as the rest of the world is concerned. Me...I am absolutely relentless in this continued pushing to expand my understanding. Just part of the whole "not sitting still" thing.

As to reaching a correlation in religious experiences, it is no surprise to me that with the far more complicated nature of said experiences, as compared to the immediate and very visceral, almost instinctive responses to murder and rape, that we would have less correlation. There are far more points at which interpretation must come into it, whereas the range of debate is (rightly) much more restricted on the comparatively simple cases of murder and rape.

Apologies if this response is not as long as necessary, but I can't be completely tired before going to work, as I do drive for part of my job. Still, this should at least give you the basics of my opinions. There is far, FAR more that would fit in, if I were to provide the full framework of my understanding, but I would literally have to write a book (someday...).

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16 Jun 2010, 10:20 pm

SoSayWeAll wrote:

I am merely just getting at the fact that this is claimed to be a realm of knowledge, but many people are coming to different conclusions and firmly so. If we had a set of witnesses who all disagreed on what happened at a given point in time, we would think something is funny, but for religion, we shouldn't think that?

Quote:

While some would undoubtedly do so for such an unflattering reason--human nature being what it is--I believe that some decide against it in good faith. (Bad behavior from Christians probably ranks #1 in this category and is one reason why I can't stand it when fellow believers start looking down on others.) There are many other examples and causes I could name.

Christianity isn't the only religion.

Quote:

The possibility that I myself may be in error in at least some form or fashion is not a probability...it is a certainty that even if I get very close, I will not have it 100%. I do the best I can, but I am not so arrogant as to think that I have the perfect understanding of God. I fully expect to find that I require correction in certain areas after this life is over and I will be very curious to find out.

I can understand the certainty on lacking knowledge, but I still find the mass disagreement a very big factor here. Even further, theology tends to branch more and more as time goes on rather than coalescing around any truth, and the problem is that most studied find a truth.

Quote:

The mathematics and the sciences are quite simply subject to a different standard due to their nature. The fact that ALL about them is squarely material means that if the theory is right, and the experiments done properly, you'll return the same result every single time.

Well, ok, but still, we have very very massive disagreement. I mean, how about this: are there solid foundations of theological knowledge? If so, do other religions appeal to those solid foundations? Is there anything justifying the solid foundation as not ad hoc but rather fair? (y'know, just in case somebody wants to say "the Bible", possibly not you, but this is a forum)

Quote:

Nor do I experience any form of nihilism in life, epistemic, or otherwise. I tend to visualize spiritual truth as being a "limit" in the sense of asymptotic line.

Asymptotic lines suggest coalescing as people get closer, but we don't see this.

Quote:

I may not be able to touch it, but I will always keep pushing, keep trying to further my understanding, be that from external sources OR from those experienced internally that are not transmissible. This last part is where atheists and theists truly differ, in the most significant sense--the admissibility of the latter type of evidence given that it is wholly contained within the individual experiencing it, as far as the rest of the world is concerned. Me...I am absolutely relentless in this continued pushing to expand my understanding. Just part of the whole "not sitting still" thing.

Right, but experiences on the matter disagree massively. I am not rejecting experiences at all, because experience has always been the beginning of science, but often we can agree about experiences. We all know who the president is. We all can see if the traffic light is red(unless there is colorblindness). However, for religion, we don't know if there is a supreme being, or if there are multiple, or if this supreme being is everything, or if this being is Allah the great, beneficent and merciful, Jesus Christ our savior, Krishna, or ANY agreement for that matter. In fact, unlike any matter of truth, we instead see that comfort and tradition are more important for beliefs than reality testing of any sort.

Quote:

As to reaching a correlation in religious experiences, it is no surprise to me that with the far more complicated nature of said experiences, as compared to the immediate and very visceral, almost instinctive responses to murder and rape, that we would have less correlation. There are far more points at which interpretation must come into it, whereas the range of debate is (rightly) much more restricted on the comparatively simple cases of murder and rape.

Ok, but there is still a problem of having no reason to believe that this is knowledge. If this is knowledge, then why is there the disagreement? And how do you know that you are picking the right side of these disagreements? As far as I would bet, and perhaps cynically, you are probably a Western person, born in a Christian culture, quite probably to Christian parents, who has likely only/mostly gone to the same kind of religious events for years, who has quite likely only/mostly read books that affirm what you believe as right, normal, and natural, and who probably has more friends who agree than disagree. Now, I could be wrong on this, but even if that isn't you, that is still the typical Christian, at least the sort who cares. Is their conclusion really a surprise? Were the other options really ever taken seriously? And how are they different than the typical Muslim or any other believer for that matter?

EDIT: And I hope I do not cross any lines in my attempt to examine your stand here.

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17 Jun 2010, 1:18 am

For the record, studies have shown Christians (and probably other religious people) to benefit from their faith in measurable, quantitative ways. How much of this is part of the faith itself and how much of it stems from the benefit of having a supportive community is more debatable.

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WAR IS PEACE
FREEDOM IS SLAVERY
IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH

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