Brian Blais: Bayes vs Apologetics

Atheism, Authors, Critique of Apologetics, Philosophy, Podcast, Thought Experiments

Click to play episode on anchor.fm

My guest this week is Brian Blais, professor at Bryant University and IBNS, Brown University. He is the author of A Measure of Faith – Probability in Religious Thought and Statistical Inference For Everyone. Brian is an expert in Bayes’ Theorem and how it applies to philosophy, theology and apologetics.

I am a Scientist, Skeptic, and Professor at Bryant University and the IBNS, Brown University. My goal is to make technical subject matters widely accessible and to use my analytical and computational skills to assist anyone with their science-related problems.

In this episode, I take the restraints off myself and express the reasons why I think apologetics is faulty. Brian is the perfect guest for this. We bounce ideas off one another to articulate good epistemology. We discuss how mathematics and Bayes can be abused by injecting unstated information which changes the probabilities and ultimately the conclusions one comes to.

We also discuss how beliefs have consequences. The current rash of conspiracy theories have had real-world effects. Brian explains how decision theory can be used to make difficult choices.

Links

Brian’s website
https://bblais.github.io/

Twitter
https://twitter.com/bblais

Statistical Inference For Everyone (Free Version)
https://bblais.github.io/posts/2019/Jan/14/stats-for-everyone/
Amazon Version
https://amzn.to/2O2onzQ

A Measure of Faith: Probability in Religious Thought
https://amzn.to/37QzEKt

Bayes’ Theorem
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bayes%27_theorem

The Monty Hall Problem
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monty_Hall_problem

Very Bad Wizards episode with Agnes Callard
https://www.verybadwizards.com/203

David Deutsch

Interact

Deconversion How To
https://gracefulatheist.com/2017/12/03/deconversion-how-to/

Critique of Apologetics
https://gracefulatheist.com/critique-of-apologetics/

Apologetics Epistemology and Moving On
https://gracefulatheist.com/2017/10/02/apologetics-epistemology-and-moving-on/

Previous episodes referred to in this episode
https://gracefulatheist.com/2020/10/04/randal-rauser-conversation-with-my-inner-atheist/
https://gracefulatheist.com/2020/11/01/ian-mills-new-testament-review/
https://gracefulatheist.com/2020/11/15/barrett-evans-the-contemplative-skeptic/

Support the podcast
Patreon https://www.patreon.com/gracefulatheist
Paypal: paypal.me/gracefulatheist

Attribution

John Monson and the Brothers Galaxy: Dawg Biscuits on the Moon

“Waves” track written and produced by Makaih Beats

CG: African Polymath

Adverse Religious Experiences, Agnosticism, Atheism, Autonomy, Critique of Apologetics, Deconstruction, Deconversion, Deconversion Anonymous, Humanism, Podcast, Purity Culture, Race, Religious Trauma

CG sculpture — Click to play episode on anchor.fm

This week’s show is a Deconversion Anonymous episode.

CG grew up in strict religious home in Nigeria, where everything was banned except Christian media. His family was heavily influenced by the Pentecostal Word-Of-Faith/Prosperity movement. CG attended a tyrannical, authoritarian, and punitive college in Nigeria.

CG, later on, moved to London, UK. In London, he saw that the world was bigger than the Christian bubble that he had been raised in his whole life. He attended a popular charismatic church where he met people from different cultures, beliefs, and denominations. However, some of his friends challenged his Word-Of-Faith/Prosperity beliefs. He started theological beliefs started changing as a result.

CG, subsequently, moved to the USA to get a graduate degree at a Christian college. He lived in the American south where, as an immigrant, he felt isolated and disconnected from the Christian culture around him. This drove him to a personal intellectual journey, where he spent hours reading books, listening to podcasts, and watching videos.

After graduating with his master’s degree, CG came to the point where he could not ignore the damage that Christianity was inflicting on his mental health and personal development. He realised that he had to choose between completely losing his sanity & freedom by remaining a slave to religion or abandoning his beliefs and accepting his freedom/autonomy. A few days later, he became an Agnostic, and, subsequently, an Atheist.

CG has been on the path of freedom, healing, and recovery ever since. He is deconstructing sexual shame, self-hatred, misogyny, white supremacy, colonization, and western imperialism (and other forms of injustice). He also seeks to heal the havoc that religion
has inflicted in Nigeria (and other African countries) through evangelism, cultural imperialism, and colonization. Religion, significantly, contributes to the apathy and passivity of Nigerians, which prevents them from fighting for their freedom and justice.

CG is very passionate about humanism. He believes humanism is what our generation needs to help make the world (especially Africa) a better place. He is an existential humanist, a cosmopolitan humanist, and a planetary humanist. He believes that humanists need to have freedom (autonomy), humility, compassion, hope, love for learning, curiosity, and open-mindedness.