I haven’t put up any posts on atheism in a while, so it’s been some time since I’ve gotten into a wrangle with an atheist (for some reason, though, that always does seem to happen when I post on atheism; there always seems to be an atheist blogger or two who finds it and drops in to complain); there have been a couple things I’ve intended to post on, but neither was available online when I went looking for them. The last go-round that way was on my post on “The atheism of presumption and the case for God,” which was last July; that one was primarily with a chap going by the handle FVThinker (who also seems to be, inter alia, someone else who’s bought the phony media narrative about Sarah Palin). I looked back at that thread for something else and noticed he’d made a comment which I failed to register at the time, and also that I had planned a follow-up post which, in the business of last summer, I never finished. I need to put up a post soon to address those lapses on my part.
This, however, is not that post. Rather, I want to comment on another approach he took which I didn’t address at all in that comment thread. : In that conversation, FVThinker tried to frame his argument against Christianity by comparing God to the ancient Greek and Norse gods. That comparison doesn’t really hold water (as I tried to point out to another interlocutor in an earlier comment thread), because Christianity operates in a fundamentally different way, on a profoundly different basis, than the old pagan religions.
In the ancient world, people believed in religion about the way they believed in magic: you do the ritual the god requires, and you get the results you want. Worship was essentially a form of manipulation; its purpose, as the Old Testament scholar John Oswalt puts it, was “to appease the gods and satisfy any claims they may have on us so that we may use the power of the gods to achieve our own goals.” That’s not the worship God wants. The rituals he had commanded were essentially symbolic; what mattered was the spirit in which they were performed. What he wanted was for his people to give him their lives and hearts so that he could have a true friendship with them.
The problem is, they were taking their cues from the nations around them, and they thought all they needed to do was to do the ritual correctly, and they were fine. That didn’t work because it wasn’t the point at all, and so they complained that God was wearing them out with all his pointless demands. To that, God says, “No, I’m not burdening you, you’re burdening me, because you aren’t really doing this for me at all! You’re doing this for yourself. All you’re giving me is your sins and offenses—and I’m sick to death of them.”
Israel didn’t get it because they’d bought into the idea that worship is just a way to manipulate God—you do the thing, you pull the lever, and you get the treat. They’d bought the idea that our worship is all about us, and what we want, and what we can get out of it. They didn’t understand that worship begins with submission—with laying aside our pride, and our independence, and our own desires, and our own ideas of what we need and what we deserve. They’re not alone; too often, we don’t get it either. This is a universal human problem, because it’s a universal human tendency; it’s just another reflection of the desire to be in control of our own lives that drove our first ancestors into sin to begin with. This is the primal human error, that declares in the smuggest tones Frank Sinatra could possibly manage, “I did it my way.”
This is the reason, I think, that so many atheists really don’t understand Christianity; there are exceptions, of course, but most of the atheists I know or have had dialogues with have an essentially pagan understanding of religion, and don’t get that Christianity doesn’t fit that (or isn’t supposed to, anyway). I don’t blame them for that; all too often, the church in this country doesn’t give them any reason to think otherwise. Having people like Joel Osteen out there on the airwaves certainly doesn’t help. This is fundamentally not a problem with atheism, or with the arguments for atheism, but with Christianity and Christians: we can’t expect atheists to be open to believing in God if we only show them a version of God that isn’t worth believing in.
(Partly excerpted from “No Other Redeemer”)
Lest you think I *always* disagree, I wanted to say that I think this is right on. (With an small exception about pagan religions that doesn’t matter for your point really) In talking to atheist/agnostic friends or, more frequently of late, with atheists and agnostics at the hospital (being in SF, they are the vast majority), I find myself thinking “I don’t blame you.” If my only experience of religion was “evangelists” in the mall telling me I am going to hell, and Joel Osteen or Creflo Dollar on TV, and the occasional sex scandal, I wouldn’t believe in all this stuff either. It looks like a bunch of lunatics, and there seems to be no benefit unless you’re afraid of thinking for yourself. I can understand having that viewpoint, and it isn’t their problem, it is mine.
Yeah . . . the god most of those folks don’t believe in, I don’t believe in either.
Thank the techs at Google search that brought this to my attention…
I, apparently, take too much for granted in these discussions. What seems an obvious (if unstated) conclusion from my arguments is not obvious to some others.
Your contrasting pagan beliefs and Christianity, while not inaccurate, misses my basic thrust. It matters not at all to me HOW they worshiped their gods. Rather it is important THAT they worshiped those gods. They believed in gods that we know to have to evidence for their existence and you can dismiss them as mythology. You also believe in a god that has no evidence for its existence yet you claim that, to the exception of all the dead gods of mythology, that yours is the right one…and with no more evidence that the followers of Osiris (who’s narrative predates Jesus’ and has narrative similarities that were not insignificant).
The argument that the Christian god and prophet make more sense to you has no bearing on whether it is true or not. On the evidence scale, both Osiris and Jesus rank pretty close to zero. There is no question that the move to monotheism from polytheism had offered great advantage to the meme (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meme) of religious belief.
1) I know it doesn’t matter at all to you. That’s the consequence of your failure to understand the logic of your own argument, and the differing essential nature of the religions you’re trying to treat as analogous.
2) There is evidence for Jesus. On a purely evidentiary basis, I’d argue that there’s better evidence for Jesus than there is for atheism.
To start with, there has never been an attempt to explain away the resurrection which has stood up. All those offered are, to be blunt, ludicrous exercises in hand-waving.
There is evidence for the physical existence of a preacher from Nazerath, but that is irrelevant. The age was awash with preachers/messiahs and miracles. What is important is whether or not he was the son of God and, despite what you believe, there is no compelling evidence to indicate that he was.
You are familiar with all the conflicting stories re: his resurrection, are you not?
…and my opinion of Sarah Palin was formed directly from what came from her own mouth and the church that she was so active in.
:rolleyes: Way to not even try to address the point . . .
As for Gov. Palin, I’d suggest two things: one, you have no idea what’s involved in finding a church in a small town in the West; and two, that you didn’t listen to much of what she said (to say nothing of doing any research into her career in Alaska, where she primarily governed as a small-government deficit hawk).
OK. What is the point that you would like for me to address?
Let’s start with this:
There is evidence for Jesus. On a purely evidentiary basis, I’d argue that there’s better evidence for Jesus than there is for atheism.
To start with, there has never been an attempt to explain away the resurrection which has stood up. All those offered are, to be blunt, ludicrous exercises in hand-waving.
Two points…
1) If you are using terms correctly, your stating“I’d argue that there’s better evidence for Jesus than there is for atheism.” is nonsensical. ‘Atheism’ is not a thing, it is the ABSENCE of a thing. A deist could be called an atheist. Even the vociferous authors like Dawkins acknowledges that he is ‘technically agnostic’ on the matter of Yahweh (just as you are agnostic on the matter of Zeus).
2) On the matter of proof of the resurrection. I imagine there is a great chasm between our two views on what would be considered compelling evidence. I would point out several things: a) Descriptions of the events after the crucifixion vary greatly. b) the most touted description is of ‘500 witnesses’, yet none of those 500 provided testimony. It is merely the word of one man. c) Written accounts are far, far removed from the events. d) Jesus’ ‘resurrection’ was not the first purported. Ancient times were awash with preachers and messiahs and gods and resurrections. Your position says that YOURS is true to the exclusion of all the others. Yeah…THAT’s the ticket!!
You would be laughed out of a court of law. Go ahead and believe it if it gives you comfort, just don’t expect that we will tolerate public policy based on your mythology.
1. Your “argument” is illogical. Absence must be proven just as much as presence must be–and indeed, is harder to prove.
2. a) is irrelevant–when I get the time, I have a post to finish on that point.
b) True. So?
c) False. The first written reference of which we know dates to less than three decades after the event.
d) True. So?
So far, your responses suggest that, contrary to your description of your position, your rejection of Christianity is based neither on evidence nor on logic, and on the avoidance of any serious interaction with the position which you do not accept.
No…my argument is perfectly logical and well accepted. The only situation where you can disprove a negative is where you an account for every possibility. For example, I can prove that it is ‘not raining’ by showing that it ‘is raining’…since there are only the two possibilities in this matter we can prove or disprove either position. I would hope that you recognize that there are many that don’t follow or put stock in a theistic belief system. (A ‘theist’ being someone that claims knowledge of an active, involved deity and has specific doctrines and rituals). Deists, Buddhists, and non-believers could all be considered to be without theistic belief…or a-theistic.) Each of these groups has a decidedly different world view, so it should be clear that being an atheist can mean no more than ‘not being a theist’. Similarly; If I say that I am ‘not blond’ it says nothing of my actual hair color.
a) Grossly conflicting descriptions are irrelevant?!?! Really?!?! It seems that you are trying to sweep this under the rug with ‘read my upcoming post’. b) I cite it because is so often used. The author could just as easily said that there were 100,000 witnesses, but unless we hear from more than the one person, it means nothing. c) (my research shows 40 to 90 years between the Jesus’ death and the first writings that would become Christianity) [Quick!! What was going on in February of 1979?] Have you ever played the parlor game of ‘telephone’ where, around a table, on person whispers a sentence into the ear of their neighbor and it keeps getting whispered to the next neighbor and we see how mangled the sentence is at the end of the game? …and you think a generation (or 4) can pass without the story getting seriously altered? d) So what?!?! So of all the messiahs and all the resurrections, you can confidently say that all the others were mythology but, even though mine is a dead ringer for all those others, you were lucky enough to pick the right one out of the hat?
I grew up a believing Christian and I spent a good deal of time thinking about it. I never said (nor ever will) say that I have evidence that God does not exist (see my first point again). I, personally, never had any bad experience with anyone in my church nor to I ‘resent’ God (at least no more than I resent fairies and unicorns). I just thought about it. Possibly the most powerful force in my discarding theology was theists consistently offering up arguments that are utter cr*p. On top of that, the [testable] truth claims (i.e. miracles, prayers, etc.) all fail spectacularly when under scrutiny.
Is this what you teach your congregants? …that a high standard for evidence is not necessary? I, quite honestly, feel a little sorry for the preacher. In many cases; the preacher is ill-prepared to do anything else in society. I imagine that there are some that have trades or professions that they can fall back on, but many don’t. If they don’t have God…if they think something else…their career is over. It is a very dangerous place to be…to have such a vested interest in God being true and no fall-back position. It’s sort like a big-oil lobbyist preaching on the merits of government subsidies for oil drilling…they HAVE to say it because that is how they put bread on the table.
On the other hand, the only way you can prove a negative is to prove that the positive is impossible. You seem to think that the burden of proof lies with the positive case, and that just isn’t so.
a) One, there aren’t in fact “grossly conflicting descriptions”; but two, even if that were the case in the details, yes, that actually would still be irrelevant with regard to whether or not the principal event actually happened.
b) Again, so?
c) Your research is wildly out of date, and you clearly know little or nothing about oral societies. In an oral society, with a community accustomed to oral transmission which was dedicated to talking about the formative events and people which created that community, thirty years is nothing. What “telephone” primarily demonstrates is the effect of outsourcing our memory to written and, now, electronic backups.
d) In the first place, you can’t say there were “lots of messiahs”; yes, there were other resurrection stories. There are other stories of atheists, too–does that mean you don’t exist? You’re trying to draw an inference here which is simply not logically supportable.
You may well have grown up a believing Christian, but you show clearly that you were not a well-taught one. No surprise to that . . . the church in this country, broadly speaking, has done a pretty poor job of teaching and discipleship for quite a while now.
As for a high standard of evidence . . . I’m not sure how you’d know; you don’t appear to have a particularly good grasp on what constitutes evidence, judging by your shoddy argumentation to this point.
”On the other hand, the only way you can prove a negative is to prove that the positive is impossible. You seem to think that the burden of proof lies with the positive case, and that just isn’t so.”
In a one sense you are correct; in a situation where there are two discreet options and you can demonstrate that one is impossible. This, in effect, proves the other. In our case, we are not dealing with two discreet options. We can say that there are the options of 1) there IS a higher intelligence and 2) there is NOT a higher intelligence. We cannot say 1) there IS a higher intelligence or 2) the god of the bible exists and he sent his son to earth to die for our sins. This commits the fallacy of the false dichotomy. There are other options.
Re: you’re a), b), & c)…
Well there is no common ground here. It reinforces my perception that the truly inculcated can dismiss virtually anything that does not reinforce their world view. Instead of knowledge forming their beliefs, the inculcated make knowledge fit what they already believe.
”There are other stories of atheists, too–does that mean you don’t exist? You’re trying to draw an inference here which is simply not logically supportable.”
That is non-sensical. We know that non-believers exist. It is the theist that makes the arrogant claim that their narrative is true to the exclusion of all others. Remember, I make no claims of truth.
”You may well have grown up a believing Christian, but you show clearly that you were not a well-taught one. No surprise to that . . . the church in this country, broadly speaking, has done a pretty poor job of teaching and discipleship for quite a while now.”
I think we agree on this!! …and I consider myself very fortunate. Proper Christian/Muslim/Jewish inculcation must so firmly drive out critical thought (at least with regard the reality of God), that it is self-sustaining. Proper ‘education’ makes sure the subject ‘knows’ that questioning the dogma is not virtuous…even though evidence demonstrates that non-believers are just as virtuous as the next person.
”you don’t appear to have a particularly good grasp on what constitutes evidence, “
Everything is evidence…even the bible. The believer seems to have a poor grasp of what constitutes good evidence.
My post should have read:
We can say that there are the options of 1) there IS a higher intelligence and 2) there is NOT a higher intelligence. We cannot say 1) there IS *NOT* a higher intelligence or 2) the god of the bible exists and he sent his son to earth to die for our sins. This commits the fallacy of the false dichotomy. There are other options.
In a one sense you are correct; in a situation where there are two discreet options and you can demonstrate that one is impossible. This, in effect, proves the other. In our case, we are not dealing with two discreet options. We can say that there are the options of 1) there IS a higher intelligence and 2) there is NOT a higher intelligence. We cannot say 1) there IS a higher intelligence or 2) the god of the bible exists and he sent his son to earth to die for our sins. This commits the fallacy of the false dichotomy. There are other options.
Truth (with or without your noted correction). Now for you to realize that the one you hold must be supported the same way as any of the others . . .
Re c): you are, to be blunt, ignorant. You shouldn’t be pronouncing on matters which are outside your field of expertise. Re: a) and b), you’re merely nonsensical.
We know that non-believers exist. It is the theist that makes the arrogant claim that their narrative is true to the exclusion of all others.
You’ve missed my point; that’s my fault, since my tendency to snark took me away from clarity. The point is this: how do we know atheists exist? They exist in history. The difference between the Resurrection of Christ and the resurrection-stories that do exist in some pagan religions is that the latter aren’t set in history, in a defined place and time; the Resurrection of Christ is.
Proper Christian/Muslim/Jewish inculcation must so firmly drive out critical thought (at least with regard the reality of God), that it is self-sustaining. Proper ‘education’ makes sure the subject ‘knows’ that questioning the dogma is not virtuous…even though evidence demonstrates that non-believers are just as virtuous as the next person.
This further illustrates the poverty of your claimed education as a Christian, since it’s a statement which is pure prejudice and bears no relationship to anything that anyone who really understands Christianity or Judaism would think. (I don’t say that to slam Islam, but not being Muslim, I can’t speak for Muslims.)
Everything is evidence…even the bible. The believer seems to have a poor grasp of what constitutes good evidence.
Everything is evidence of something, yes; everything is not necessarily evidence of what one wants to prove. Most things are irrelevant to most points.
Remember, I make no claims of truth.
I’ve held my tongue on this, but I’m just going to come out and say it: that pretense of yours is intellectually disreputable. People who make no claims of truth ask questions and offer suggestions; they don’t go around single-mindedly attacking other positions, but rather interrogate them to see if they might find truth. Your actions and your approach constitute a truth claim, whether you are willing to admit it or not.
I shall only spend time on a portion of your statement. Regarding the non-believer not making truth claims and your contention that is a “pretense” that is “intellectually disreputable”:
I focus on this because I see it as the root of most misunderstanding here. It is a vanishingly small minority of non-believers that claim knowledge that there is no god. Two things are at play here.
1) The rhetoric of the two positions does run close and it is often blurred in debates. I am as guilty as anybody. As an example; you cannot disprove the existence of Zeus and you would, necessarily, be technically agnostic on the matter of Zeus. Still; in your discussions on Zeus, it would be easy to come off as claiming that Zeus does not exist. I (and most non-believers) are agnostic with regard to the god of Abraham just as you (and I) are agnostic with regards to Zeus.
2) In no small measure, the lessons that come from the pulpit enforce a useful (and unflattering and incorrect) usage and meaning of the term atheist. I grew up listening to this stuff. I can’t blame them. It is very valuable to theism to paint those without theism as arrogant, evil and amoral.
“People who make no claims of truth ask questions and offer suggestions;”
And when it comes down to it, that is all I have done and continue to do. I ask the questions “Where does morality come from?”, “What is the evidence for God?”, “How do we know what we know?” The fact that the answers that I got from religion did not satisfy me nor stand up to naturalistic explanations does seem to get under your skin though.
Best to you ….
What people claim to claim, and what they actually claim, are not always the same thing; and arrogant certainty masquerading as a question is still arrogant certainty. You are being deceptive, pretending not to make truth claims while actually doing precisely that; the only question is whether your deception is conscious or you are in fact self-deceived.
Incidentally, two other things. First off, I’ve never called atheists “arrogant, evil and amoral,” nor have I ever heard anyone make such a blanket statement. I’m sure some people have, but not in my hearing.
Second, no, I’m not “agnostic” w/r/t Zeus: I think Zeus has, on his own terms, been quite firmly proven not to exist.
I have never once been said “there is no god”. I can’t say it because I don’t know it. (But of course you ‘Know’ that God is real…that’s not arrogant at all.) If you cannot appreciate the nuance of the position I described, then that says more about you than anything else.
You will clearly believe what you want to believe. But then you are a preacher and you have a vested interest in maintaining that which bolsters your narrative.
UNBELIEVABLE!!
So please tell the world how Zeus has been proven not to exist.
It is my hope, Rob, that you will ponder what you said here. You claim to know that Zeus does not exist, yet berate me for thinking that I claim to know that the god of Abraham does not exist…(though I make no such claim).
It is my sincere hope that you recognize the logical and argumentative failure that it is. It demonstrates the compartmentalization that must occur in the believer’s mind (particularly the practitioners). There is one standard for yourself and another for those that don’t subscribe to your beliefs. Even what I say right now likely falls on deaf ears because you are likely completely oblivious your logical failures.
Part of me pities you. You have a career that depends on the maintenance of your fragile creation story. Without God, you are totally screwed. You would likely be ostracized by a good many of your friends. There is a good chance that you have no other skills to fall back upon. How would you make a living? You would have to come to terms that you have led a good many people down a dead-end.
Part of me reviles you. You propagate stories that arrogantly claims truth without evidence. You promote a narrative that (either directly or indirectly) demonizes others and squashes real knowledge and anchors minds in a 1st century world.
If you have that sudden realization, you should contact Dan Barker from the Freedom From Religion Foundation (http://ffrf.org/). He is a former evangelical that came to realize that he was just preaching a fable. I expect that he can help.
Best to you….
And here we come back around, as I expected we would, to the substance of the actual post: which is that there is a profound difference between paganism and Christianity which you simply do not understand, which causes you to misdirect your arguments. You’ve flat-out said that you don’t care what people believe, simply that they believe; this is what leads you to do silly things like assume that belief in Zeus and belief in the God of Israel can be assessed and dismissed on similar terms.
The worship of Zeus has been invalidated on its own terms, because–like all ancient pagan religions–it was essentially a performance contract. If the god fails to perform accordingly, this constitutes evidence that the god does not exist. (This is one of the arguments Scripture raises for the non-existence of the gods of the nations, incidentally.) Christianity and Judaism don’t function this way and thus cannot be disproven on these grounds; one must argue differently against them if one actually wishes to be arguing against them. You can’t just argue against the generic category “theism”, because all theisms are not the same.
Also, I was unclear, for which my apologies: I wasn’t calling you arrogant–I don’t know enough of you to know one way or the other. That would be your error, not mine. I was simply pointing out that phrasing one’s answer in the form of a question doesn’t rule out the possibility that one is arrogant. There have been plenty of arrogant Jeopardy! champs, after all.
What you fail to understand is that dissimulation is not nuance; the fact that you don’t say “there is no god” doesn’t mean that’s not what you’re arguing. Clearly, that’s exactly what you’re arguing. If you weren’t, you wouldn’t be arguing at all, you’d be investigating–either that, or you wouldn’t be here at all, because you’d have concluded that the question wasn’t worth your time. But you can’t go around hammering on people’s beliefs and then claim not to have beliefs of your own; the fact that you claim the possibility that your conclusion is wrong is only “pretty close to zero” merely evidences the necessary humility not to claim absolute certainty (which is good). It doesn’t change the fact that you have functional certainty on the point: by any reasonable measure, you are committed to the belief that there is no god. You should at least be honest about that fact. (What, after all, does it gain you not to be?)
You are, of course, perfectly welcome to pity me, revile me, or whatever else you might wish to do (though I will say, your stereotyped idea of my possible career prospects is rather silly). I will simply note that you do so on the basis of a false idea of what I believe; for all your argumentative efforts, you still don’t understand what it is you’re arguing against. Which is, once again, the subject of this post; because that’s ultimately the church’s failure, not anyone else’s.
“ You’ve flat-out said that you don’t care what people believe, simply that they believe.”
You lost the important context of that quote. Our discussion was that, historically, people believed in their [culturally predominate] gods that we now consider to be mythology. Your god is considered by some to be, and has all the earmarks of, mythology…it is just not universally accepted yet. But if it looks like a duck, and walks like a duck and quacks like a duck….
“If the god fails to perform accordingly, this constitutes evidence that the god does not exist.”
Need I point out that we could invalidate the god of Abraham using the same metric? Statistically, it makes no difference in testable, real-world outcomes whether one prays to the Christian god, Hindu gods, or a jug of milk. Good things and bad things happen to people in precisely the same ratio whether they follow your god, another god(s) or no god. It’s a good thing that the Abrahamic faiths (as you say) maintain that there are no measurable results from belief…otherwise we would have proven Yahweh to be ‘false’.
“You can’t just argue against the generic category “theism”, because all theisms are not the same”
Ahhh! But I can and do argue against theism and that is my only real thrust. Theism as a mode of thought is, IMO, a poor (if not invalid) way of learning and understanding. Broadly; theism creates anthropomorphic actors to explain what we don’t know. This, in and of itself, is fine and characteristic of our species. We wanted to know why the sun moves across the sky well before we had any way of truly understand the physics of our universe. We prefer a conspiracy theory over no theory at all. The problem arises when the theistic narratives are codified and taught as something higher than actual, empirical knowledge and the believing population maintains their theistic explanations in spite of actual evidence. (i.e. homosexuality gets Gods britches all bunch up) In the end, all of this spills over into public policy and social rules that are less based on evidence and more on ancient fables. So…while I have nothing against the holder of the beliefs (I am not an anti-theist), I do practice anti-theism.
“It doesn’t change the fact that you have functional certainty on the point”
I didn’t used to have a functional certainty. I started pursuing the answers to the big questions and was offered the same limited range of religious ‘explanations’ time and time again…and each time a bad argument was offered it diminished the credibility of religion. It was failed, invalid, illogical ‘arguments’ and wishful thinking that helped form my opinion.
“you don’t say “there is no god” doesn’t mean that’s not what you’re arguing. Clearly, that’s exactly what you’re arguing. If you weren’t, you wouldn’t be arguing at all, you’d be investigating”
If find it very telling that you (and many other believers) just keep coming back to that failed analysis. The only thing I am saying is that the believer is utterly unjustified in claiming knowledge of things that they cannot possibly know. Embrace the unknown; it is the crucible of inquiry.
“your stereotyped idea of my possible career prospects is rather silly”
It was necessarily a composite of the priests that I grew up with…all of whom pursued the priesthood from an early age. I don’t think any of them had experience in HVAC or had a CPA.
So…why do I debate? Because it should be a self-evident truth that decisions are, on the whole, ALWAYS better made based on real knowledge as opposed to mythology.
Our discussion was that, historically, people believed in their [culturally predominate] gods that we now consider to be mythology. Your god is considered by some to be, and has all the earmarks of, mythology
Not true. The reason why that’s not true is what I was commenting on in this post.
Need I point out that we could invalidate the god of Abraham using the same metric?
No, we can’t, because the God of Abraham doesn’t make the same promises. This is a critical distinction which you’re not getting.
I didn’t used to have a functional certainty.
Which has what to do with what? You do now, which is my point.
utterly unjustified in claiming knowledge of things that they cannot possibly know.
You’ve admitted that you are functionally certain that there is no god. You’re doing the exact same thing. In my book, that’s hypocrisy.
I don’t think any of them had experience in HVAC or had a CPA.
So? There’s a lot more to life than that.
it should be a self-evident truth that decisions are, on the whole, ALWAYS better made based on real knowledge as opposed to mythology.
Physician, heal thyself.