Preaching to the Choir
Damon Linker argues that if Bill Maher and other “new atheists” like Richard Dawkins were really interested in having an impact, practically, against what they see as pernicious effects of religious belief they would stop being such assholes and try instead to engage sympathetically with religious people:
Instead of hurling insults and indiscriminate denunciations at religion-in-general, Maher and his fellow atheists could do far more good by encouraging the growth and flourishing of open-minded belief–the kind of belief that lives in productive tension with modern science and cultural pluralism. In doing so, they would be following the example of Thomas Jefferson and several of the American constitutional framers, who advocated a liberal, skeptical form of piety as the kind of religion best suited to a free society.
That’s right, but of course that’s not what they’re doing. The editors gave his piece the deck “If Bill Maher and his fellow ‘new atheists’ want to be effective, they need to stop preaching to the choir.” I think that’s an apt metaphor. But of course while a responsible Christian minister will spend some time seeking converts he also will spend some time preaching to the choir. After all, the choir’s an important part of the church. You want to keep the church’s most dedicated members — the ones who volunteer for stuff and sing in the choir — engaged with the life of the institution. In much the same way, a successful politician needs to court moderate voters but also does need to spend time getting “the base” jazzed up since these are the folks who’ll donate money, stuff envelops, make phone calls, etc. Solidarity building is important.
And what I take to be the key idea of the “new atheists” is that it’s somehow not good enough to just try to go along and get along and hope that things will sort themselves out. Instead, for some reason they think it would be a good idea for everyone who’s not currently observant to form some kind of mass movement based around observing a lack of observancy in order to do battle with those who do. Hence, the need to preach to the choir. Why they think an organized, self-consciously atheistic mass movement would be a good thing is a bit beyond me. But I think that’s really the issue here.
212 Responses to “Preaching to the Choir”
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October 14th, 2008 at 11:12 am
Maher’s a comic who makes a living making people laugh. Or at least snort.
And, apparently, he sees no value in secular pieties.
October 14th, 2008 at 11:14 am
One factual correction: Bill Maher is not an atheist. He occassionally calls himself an apatheist, and usually an agnostic.
October 14th, 2008 at 11:15 am
“Why they think an organized, self-consciously atheistic mass movement would be a good thing is a bit beyond me.”
You don’t understand religious types, Matthew. Given that they think they hold The One Truth, they always seek to evangelize and get everyone inside their church.
Try to think of Dawkins and Maher as the Robertson and Falwell of a different creed, and it’ll all make a bit more sense.
October 14th, 2008 at 11:17 am
Damon Linker’s concern trolling is not at all convincing.
I was raised in a strongly religious family but after studying pihlosophy for a few years in college I realized it was all unsupported bunk. This has caused me no end of difficulty both with my family and many others.
I’ve tried to engage sympatheically with religious people time after time after time after time. IT SIMPLY DOES NOT WORK.
And for religious people to call atheists assholes is rich. Religious people are the biggest assholes in the world to atheists. Talk about the pot calling the kettle black.
No Mr. Linker, I don’t think I’ll take your disingenuous advice. We atheists are like Harry Truman. We’re not giving you hell. We’re just telling it like it is and you think it’s hell.
October 14th, 2008 at 11:18 am
I don’t think they’re trying to build a mass movement as such. I think they’re trying to alter the framework in which the conversation about religion takes place. At the moment, it’s considered by many if not most people to be in extremely bad taste to deride or mock the completely unfounded postulates of the major faiths, even though the thought process underlying faith in those postulates would be considered a sign of insanity in other spheres of life. The goal of Harris et al. is to make it more acceptable to challenge the intellectual legitimacy of religious belief. Because until it becomes possible to do that, no true debate about the value of religious faith can take place.
October 14th, 2008 at 11:18 am
I don’t think they’re trying to reach out to the religious and convince them it’s a bad idea.
I think that the Maher-type atheists see themselves as an identity group tired of having to put up with crap unjustifiably thrown up by the religious, and particularly by fundamentalists, in their society.
October 14th, 2008 at 11:21 am
Why they think an organized, self-consciously atheistic mass movement would be a good thing is a bit beyond me. But I think that’s really the issue here.
I really don’t see anyone out there trying to get people to join some kind of organized atheist movement. What exactly are you referring to there, Matt?
What I see happening is a small group of public figures are starting to be more vocal about their atheism, much as public figures throughout history have been vocal about their religion.
Their point, if you listen to them, is that they are trying to tell other atheists that its OK to be an atheist. Maher points out repeatedly that no avowed atheist politician could get elected to high office in this country and that is something he would like to change.
Religious people routinely condemn atheists and fantasize about the eternal torture of those who do not hold the same beliefs that they do. What’s the big deal if, like religious people the world over, atheists say without apology that those who disagree with them are wrong?
Maybe you don’t agree with Bill Maher’s comedic approach to the subject, Matt, but you don’t have to simply make shit up about him.
October 14th, 2008 at 11:25 am
Have you seen Religulous yet, Matt, or is this more meta-speculation?
October 14th, 2008 at 11:25 am
as tom veil says above, maher is not an atheist. he’s an agnostic who believes that religion is responsible for a lot of the world’s problems.
why exactly this is linked to the “new atheist” is beyond me. in fact, the new atheist category doesn’t make much sense. there have long been atheists and long been atheists who argue against religion. (see e.g. bertram russell’s “why i am not a christian”). the new atheist label doesn’t actually describe anybody. instead, the perception of new atheism reflects the social phenomenon that atheism is more socially acceptable and thus more atheists are willing to speak their minds about these issues.
October 14th, 2008 at 11:26 am
I find it interesting when people criticize Dawkins or Harris or Maher for being too mean and blunt because it won’t help the cause. It reminds me of the punidts talking about how Obama can’t get the “regular folks” – both cases of pundits or columnists speaking for everyone else saying what works.
Look, Dawkins works for a lot of people. He worked for me – some of us need to be slapped in the face and told “wake up, stupid”. Different people need different methods. People like Dawkins work for a certain segment of the population, and due to his fame and success, clearly for not a small segment. But you get the segment who doesn’t like him complaining. It’s a really weird dynamic where the people complaining are from the segment who Dawkin’s doesn’t appeal to, so there’s a selection bias in these sorts of op-eds.
Dawkins works really well. Just like Obama can win in PA.
October 14th, 2008 at 11:27 am
It isn’t hard to understand what people like Richard Dawkins and Bill Maher are doing. It doesn’t require and complicated psycho-sociological analysis to figure out.
They’re just telling the truth. They’re simply telling the truth and refusing to be shouted down by morons who have no respect for the truth.
As I mentioned above, my apostasy has caused me no end of trouble with my family. The way I see it, once I realized the truth about religion, its as if I found out that con men were pulling the wool over the eyes of my mother and father and robbing them of their life savings. That makes me mad because I love my family. I hate seeing these assholes manipulate people I love. So excuse me if I get pissed off about it sometimes.
October 14th, 2008 at 11:29 am
I agree with El Cid. I’m a moderate, church-going atheist and the tone of the new atheists does not appeal to me.
But they do strike a chord in one sense: that (some) religious people, mostly politically powerful conservatives, have in the last ten years, called off the informal “live and let live” truce that seemed to apply during my formative years of the 80s and 90s. What with Bush’s overt religiosity, and otherwise moderate politicians like McCain and Lieberman saying that religious faith is a necessary component of a responsible government.
Essentially, secularism has been under attack, and I can’t help but feel appreciative when secularists–whether religous or atheist–counterpunch.
October 14th, 2008 at 11:30 am
Hey, MY, when are you going to stop being a dishonest asshole when it comes to atheism? And maybe, if you pull your head out of your ass long enough, maybe you’ll see some value in having an inspired and outspoken choir, instead of a cowed and silent one.
October 14th, 2008 at 11:31 am
1) Matt were you reaching out to the other side when you advocated invading Iraq? Your screed reminds me of when I got called “naive” and a “traitor” for marching against that invasion.
2) Its about framing. Until you stake out your “high price” in negotiations you can’t come to a reasonable middle ground, and right now the social negotiation in this country is far far to the religious right.
3) Confronting religion head on is wrong? because not confronting it has produced such wonderful sensations like the recent unitarian church massacre and Eric Rudoph.
4) Atheists are the go-along get-along people. But the kind of hatespeech and threats to Obama that twist your knickers have been directed daily (w/ the annual save x-mas ‘war’)at atheists for decades now. Non Stop, constantly on 2 radio stations and every early morning on broadcast tv.
Here’s a newsflash Mr. Sage of Pundits Yglesias: The next terrorist act in this country will be committed by a fundamentalist christian, just like they did when they were “oppressed” by the godless liberals in the 90’s.
Schools out, Matt you can now go read about the bombings in Iraq today and pray for forgiveness to your “god”.
October 14th, 2008 at 11:32 am
Seriously — you see no value in an organized movement of people dedicated to rationality? More non-fantasists in the country than NRA members.
And, as always, Maher is not an atheist. And dismissing them as “hurling insults” is right out of the GOP playbook.
October 14th, 2008 at 11:33 am
There is, however a problem with the message that’s admittedly essential to the message itself: it’s mostly negative. One person has a Jesus fish on their car. Another person has a derisive “Darwin” fish, or a “Flying Spaghetti Monster” symbol on her car. These latter statements are statements of solidarity, but specifically solidarity around a mocking, condescending kind of opposition to theism. It’s the nature of the argument–atheists are not essentially arguing *for* anything substantive, they’re arguing against religious belief. But at the same time the point isn’t much different than anti-Islam, anti-Judaism, or anti-Buddhism movements. They come off as kind of mean-spirited, and overly concerned about correcting other people’s privately held beliefs. But I don’t see much way around it.
Linker’s a smart person, but he’s being a bit silly here. He’s esentially telling a non-religious smartass like Maher, and anti-religious people like Richard Dawkins: “Wouldn’t you like to be Unitarians? Man it would be just like Jefferson!” But they’re obviously as far from Jefferson in their views of religion, and in their basic attitude about the cosmos as they are from your ordinary evangelical. He knows better than to claim that it’s just a short, insignificant step from modern evangelical atheism to Jefferson’s religious views.
October 14th, 2008 at 11:38 am
You know, when you are the one who figures out that your family and friends are being manipulayed by con men and you risk all kinds of abuse and anger to clue them in, some people might call you an asshole.
But other, smarter people, will call you a hero.
October 14th, 2008 at 11:38 am
“Friendly” agnosticism or atheism doesn’t really work. As a Unitarian Universalist, I can tell you that we are equally rejected by evangelicals.
October 14th, 2008 at 11:39 am
For me, the only people who benefit from Religion are the priests and functionaries. They have a vested interested in the Religion as an institution. It is the institutionalization of religion that causes all the problems. For instance, the Catholic Church as an organization violated all its tenets when it allowed known molesters to remain in positions of authority and then tried to cover it up because it was scandalous for the institution. The fact of the matter is that most people find value in religion with a lower case r. I think that Mahers and Dawkinses are attacking Religion and exposing the inconsistencies and failings of how religion has been institutionalized. The fact of the matter is the Big Bang may have started the Universe, but what caused the Big Bang? Science and religion can co-exist. Science and Religion cannot if those who hold the keys to the kingdoms of their institutions feel threatened by science and they are threatened.
October 14th, 2008 at 11:40 am
Their goal is not a “a liberal, skeptical form of piety”. Their goal is for someone that wants to be considered rational and intelligent to be ashamed of piety or church attendance.
The point isn’t to win over people that consider themselves religious, but to make people want to distance themselves from religion altogether. I think it’s working.
October 14th, 2008 at 11:44 am
Here’s what people like Linker need to consider. Let’s say you’re religious and you’re a member of same mainstream denomination and someone in your family, your brother ot sister, falls under the spell of the Scientologists or the Moonies or some other fringe whacko group. First, you try to reason with them respectfully and point out all the deficiencies in their claims. But the Scientologists or Moonies or whatever have sunk their talons in deep and really brainwashed your sister or brother.
What do you do when all reason fails? Do you continue to be polite about and respectful about it?
What people like Linker have to realize is that, to an atheist, there is precious little difference between Scientologists and Catholics, between Moonies and Baptists or what have you.
Its ALL bunk with different details.
October 14th, 2008 at 11:45 am
Maher’s an agnostic, not an atheist! So what? I guess Maher thinks that makes him a lot more thoughtful. I don’t see the point in the distinction, at least the way he makes it. An atheist refuses to believe in God; he doesn’t necessarily claim dogmatic certainty that God could not possibly exist. Maher’s smearing atheism by thinking that his “agnosticism” puts him on higher ground.
Maher’s treatment of religion is a lot more stupid than that of Dawkins or Dennett. He’s obsessed with things like talking snakes. For Maher, that’s religion. When he asks a question like: “How could otherwise rational people believe in things like Jonah being eaten by a whale?” he asks it like a joke, and doesn’t really think about what a good answer might be.
October 14th, 2008 at 11:47 am
Atheists are treated like they’re the idiots with no support for their beliefs. Atheists have to live with religion creeping into the public policy that affects their lives while at the same time knowing it’s verboten to question that religion or complain at all.
When President Bush talks about God’s will to win in Iraq, and all the other times he invokes God’s name, atheists want to ask “Whose God?”, but cannot. Atheists have very fair and reasonable questions about faith that are unanswerable because there is no rational support for any of it (because it’s a made up fantasy). They’ve gone unasked historically, and largely due to the powers that be stamping down dissent and demonizing atheists in general. People like Dawkins and Maher are simply asking these questions louder and atheists are beginning to demand answers. The fact that no answers are forthcoming should make every religious person wonder.
There is no support for any religion when questioned by an unbiased and critical mind.
October 14th, 2008 at 11:47 am
Great comments. I wonder if MY will read them. And to Colatina, we are arguing for a commitment to rationality. If you don’t think a Darwin fish or the FSM can do this, you are wrong — they are effective symbols for getting to the heart of the issue in a simple, straightforward, lighthearted way, w/o saying “you are stupid for being religious” or pointing out that religions are unsupported. Will some (many) religious find them insulting? Sure — but most find anything against religion insulting — there is no magic “moderate” way to point out that we should be committed to being rational, instead of buying into the mythology of our parents.
October 14th, 2008 at 11:47 am
That’s what bothers me, and I think that is what Matt is getting at. They (i.e. the “new atheists) are using the exact same kind of shaming that you would see from evangelical Christians when it comes to the idea of what you should believe.
In the end, that means the only difference between them is the beliefs, while they both use the same combative tactics. And that is what we really need less of.
October 14th, 2008 at 11:50 am
My view of religion is like my view of smoking: if you must do it, do it in the privacy of your own home and not in public places, keep it out of my face, don’t do it in front of my kids and don’t try to get the government to further your habit or buy your cigarettes. (Now if we could only get the balls up to tax churches like cigarettes, what a happy day that will be.)
I don’t see why any theist can be rightly unhappy with that solution.
October 14th, 2008 at 11:52 am
Dawkins was taken to task over this by Neil deGrasse Tyson once, who said, basically, “You’re the ‘Distinguished Professor of Public Understanding of Science’ at Oxford, don’t you think you should be more cuddly when
And Dawkins replied by saying that Tyson was probably correct, but followed up with the story of the old, curmudgeonly ex-editor of a distinguished British science journal who was once asked for the editorial position of the journal. Dawkins summed it up as follows:
“Science is interesting, and if you disagree, you can go fuck yourself.”
Oh, and:
These latter statements are statements of solidarity, but specifically solidarity around a mocking, condescending kind of opposition to theism…atheists are not essentially arguing *for* anything substantive, they’re arguing against religious belief.
Funny, I’ll assume that you’re coming from a religious perspective, since you so obviously don’t understand what you’re talking about. What atheists like Dawkins and Maher are arguing is for a rational, belief system based on falsifiability, as opposed to cant and superstition.
I understand that to many religious folk, they come across as “kind of mean-spirited, and overly concerned about correcting other people’s privately held beliefs,” but that’s only because the beliefs of the religious (specifically Christians) has been coddled for so long, and held from even the most gentle criticism.
The fact that Christians as a whole have, in this country, united around a set of public policy actions to deny rights to other citizens, and to implement *bad* policy based on theological wishfulness as opposed to facts makes them the subject of much-deserved public ridicule.
October 14th, 2008 at 11:54 am
You’re doing OK so far.
Do battle? Why such a hostile word choice? Replace the references to belief and disbelief with appropriate references to management and labor and you’re essentially arguing against the formation of labor unions. People form groups to argue for their personal interests when doing so is beneficial to the members. If you want to call it “doing battle,” that seems a little melodramatic.
Non-believers just want their voices heard, and their traditional independence allowed for evangelicals and christianists to trample on the secularism of our country (for one example). Some organization to stand up to this is a good thing.
October 14th, 2008 at 11:56 am
I arrived at my atheism through a personal realization that organized religion is essentially comprised of randomly selected, unsupported assertions of some higher power; I did not reach this point by attending a session of the United Church of Atheism or listening to some door-to-door anti-evangelist.
My six-year old son, a kindergartner, appears to be on the same track. Yesterday, he had a conversation with his friend who attends a religious private school. It began when my son mentioned that humans are made of molecules. His friend said, “No, they’re not, they’re made of nothing. It says in the Bible that God made man from nothing.” My son responded, “That doesn’t make any sense. I don’t care what book says that.”
I asked him where he learned about molecules, and he indicated that it was from the 1990’s educational show called “Magic School Bus.” I love the irony of a show with the word “magic” in the title trumping the magic of the Bible.
October 14th, 2008 at 11:57 am
“Why they think an organized, self-consciously atheistic mass movement would be a good thing is a bit beyond me.”
Because the religious try to treat us like we don’t exist, or as if we’re deranged lunatics. The only response is to keep saying “We exist, we’re healthy, we’re happy, stop oppressing us.”
Think gay liberation.
We’re here. We don’t believe in mystical supernatural beings. Get used to it.
October 14th, 2008 at 11:59 am
I remember a class in college where we talked about whether camp had helped or hurt gays in America, and the consensus was that by being flamboyantly public in their embrace of their identity, gays in the 80s were able to shift thinking about gays from the image of the pedophile lurking in your bushes to actual human beings. No amount of gentle conversation could have gotten homophobes to accept gays, but by concentrating on fortifying something within the community, they were able to shift perceptions.
I think a similar thing can be said about the “new atheists” (what a stupid appellation, by the way–it’s not like they believe in a different lack of a god than any atheist before them). When I tell people I’m an atheist, even here in New York City, it’s often as if I had told them I was a baby-eating mutant. Indeed 52% of Americans would not vote for a “well-qualified atheist” for president: http://pewforum.org/press/?ReleaseID=20
The visibility of living, breathing atheists in public—no matter who they’re talking to and what they’re saying—will make it a lot easier for the rest of us. And that’s a good thing.
October 14th, 2008 at 11:59 am
The problem with Linker’s argument presumably is that the old atheists who simply didn’t believe in God and wrote sensible arguments in support of their views didn’t get a lot of attention. If you want attention in our society it is better to be obnoxious and dogmatic and address your arguments at strawmen.
I suspect the value of a Dawkins or Harris on religion (I’m not sure Dennett should be put in this camp as his writing seems to do a bit more) is similar to the Ayn Rand effect. That is you tell a group of people that what they want to believe is true. And they think you are a genius because you said what they know to be true, and because if you are a genius then a genius agrees with them. (And, of course for his work in biology Dawkins has fair claim to the genius title).
The problem is that if what you are defending is rational thought, then the kind of dogmatism and bad arguments does have the effect of discrediting the value fo supposedly favoring rational thought. There is a reason why people who oppose religion on the grounds that it is irrational have an onus on them to actually make rational arguments. And in the case of atheism, it is even possible to do so. But it is easier to make angry dismissive ones.
October 14th, 2008 at 11:59 am
Colatina, the Darwin fish stands for several very positive and real things: evolution, natural selection, and the power of empirical and logical (scientific) methods. Please apologize for your anti-atheist slurs.
October 14th, 2008 at 12:01 pm
It’s funny. The pervasive scorn and derision coming from virtually everybody (as virtually everybody is religious) goes without notice. The much more reasonable scorn for religion from atheists, however, is surprising and troubling. The whole controversy, however, is entirely beside the point. The simple fact is that there is no god, and any form of religious belief is simply childish wishful thinking. Imagine if people applied the same standards of belief they use in religion to, say, cashing checks. Why is it that something as critical as the meaning of life is left up to “faith,” when nobody would use such a travesty of reason to assess the veracity of anything else? Whether people find this truth offensive or not is irrelevant.
October 14th, 2008 at 12:01 pm
Colatina, An atheist doesn’t “refuse[] to believe in God”, he believes that no gods exist. But the distinction is often pointless. Dawkins, himself, says that he is an agnostic, as he cannot say with certainty that no god exists, but believes that the chance that one does is infinitesmally small.
Those who believe in the literal truth of the bible, however, must believe such ridiculous things as virgin births, talking snakes and world-wide floods. That such people aren’t viewed as insane, but are well represented in general society and the halls of government is what is stupid and dangerous, in my opinion.
October 14th, 2008 at 12:04 pm
I am often surprised by how facile the arguments proposed by atheists of a certain stripe really are. The idea that religion is directly responsible for war and strife is an idiotic one at best. The way I know this is that we’ve had lots of officially atheist states in the past century, and they’ve been just as violent as any other state, if not more so. Just removing religion from the equation didn’t magically solve any problems.
Here’s how I see it: where you have poverty, where you have no jobs and no chance to move ahead you are going to have conflict and war. It seems to me that Bill Maher might want to read a book, or maybe become a big-time free trade advocate (as I am). I guarantee you that if the Middle East had a vibrant economy Muslim terrorists would be as rare as the Tim McVeigh types.
October 14th, 2008 at 12:06 pm
The problem is that if what you are defending is rational thought, then the kind of dogmatism and bad arguments does have the effect of discrediting the value fo supposedly favoring rational thought
Careful now. Could you point out where Dawkins lapses into either “dogma” or “bad arguments[?].”
Remember: “He was so totally mean to me” doesn’t count.
October 14th, 2008 at 12:07 pm
The distinction between atheist and agnostic is, I think, rather silly. I don’t understand why these people cling to agnostic instead of jumping right into atheist. Think of it this way, what if the question were: do you believe there are invisible triangles that shower magical lollipops on Jupiter. I would guess that you would say, “no, I don’t believe it.” The fact that you cannot prove that there is no such thing would not change the fact that you do not believe it, does it? One does not need to be able to prove beyond all doubt that something does not exist in order to not believe in it.
In no other area of knowledge is such deference given to the slimmest of possibilities.
October 14th, 2008 at 12:07 pm
Lon, perhaps you can enlighten us as to where, exactly, Dawkins and Harris don’t use rational thought in their arguments. Having read both of these men’s work, I find the only thing that they don’t do is extend to the religious, an unearned politeness by treating the subject of theological arguments as true. And until such time as theists can assert any rational, reasoned and concrete basis for their ideas, I see no reason to pretend that there is any actual substance to the theological pronouncements. To credit religious dogma with having actual substance without such evidence is the antithesis of reasoned, rational thought.
October 14th, 2008 at 12:13 pm
@Lev: I find the practical arguments against religion irrelevant. The idea that we should be atheists because religion causes bad things (such as war) is ridiculous. It is ridiculous not because religion doesn’t cause war. It is ridiculous because an idea should be believed based on its merits, its truth, not based on how beneficial such a belief might be. If belief in gods guaranteed universal peace and happiness, it would still be a false belief, just as if disbelief in gravity caused cancer, it would make gravity no less real.
October 14th, 2008 at 12:14 pm
Mr. Reason, I can’t speak for anyone but myself, but I use “agnostic” because it accurately reflects my beliefs. The fact is, I don’t know for certain that there is no god or gods, so I am unwilling — as a matter of intellectual honesty — to pretend that I have such certainty. Especially since such a perfectly good word as “agnostic” exists.
As for the lollipops on Jupiter question, I would answer, in full, the same way I would answer about gods: I don’t believe they exist, but I can’t assert it with certainty.
October 14th, 2008 at 12:17 pm
Interesting fact: the only other people in the world who believe this are quite conservative fundamentalist Protestants. For them, either you’re in or you’re out, based on a simple matter of personal belief.
For most religious persons, this is not the case – most religious persons, even a large percentage of evangelicals, believe that a good person of another faith is living a valid path to God. For them, religion is about a huge array of things, from ritual practice to community organizing, and usually including but not limited to factual assent to statements of faith. The New Atheists fail utterly to understand religion, and perform the exact same anti-intellectual, know-nothing reduction of religious belief and practice that we should condemn among conservative evangelicals.
There’s also a huge difference in matters of social and political import. If we support an array of leftist causes – from labor rights to civil liberties to feminism – we need to form allegiances with people who agree with us on those issues. In America, that means working together with liberal and mainline religious folks, it means organizing in synagogues, in black churches and elsewhere that our allies live and practice.
Sam Harris (who, fun fact, is a scumbag neocon argues that atheists need to separate themselves from religious folks, as the moderate and liberal religious folks are simply providing cover for the conservatives. For him, what matters politically is atheism, and he is willing to throw social justice under the bus – by means of getting rid of our basic leftist political alliances – to get to a more atheist world.
I’m ok with atheists being here and clear about it – I’m an atheist and I’m here and clear about it – but the simple fact is that atheists are generally white and affluent, and they fall pretty low on the set of groups with legit grievances in our society (not that we don’t have legit grievances, just that they’re not even close to being the most pressing). So we need to focus on the issues where we can make progress, and build alliances necessary to those projects, and I don’t see how the New Atheism is helping here.
October 14th, 2008 at 12:18 pm
I’d like to echo some of the sentiments above:
1. The distinctions people make about their religious beliefs are important because people consider themselves important. You would be rude to conflate a Catholicism and the evangelical churches when referring to someone’s beliefs and it’s rude to do so with atheism and agnosticism. You may think that it’s a semantic difference, but when someone states that they see the distinction between not believing in a god(s) and simply not knowing and opt for the latter you should respect that choice.
2. Maher does call for an organization of people in the US with no religious affiliation. According to Maher, these people represent 16% of the US population but have no political presence. Going back to 2006 or 2007, there was a poll which reduced all the potential presidential candidates to specific traits (Black, woman, divorced three times, over 70, etc.) and you know who came in last? A hypothetical atheist. As hard as Obama has had to fight against racism, it would be impossible for a non-religious person to run for office in this country and Maher has a point that that’s probably something that we should talk about. And if people who don’t have religious beliefs want the country to go in a different direction than religious people are taking it they need to organize and become a political block.
October 14th, 2008 at 12:19 pm
Why they think an organized, self-consciously atheistic mass movement would be a good thing is a bit beyond me. But I think that’s really the issue here.
Why do public officials who only go to church for photo ops feel it necessary to identify their so-called religion? Why has there never been a non-Christian president (with the possible exception of Thomas Jefferson) in this country?
Politics are dominated by religious people, especially by Christians, and those of us who do not worship the God of the Torah/Bible/Koran are expected to just shut up and accept religious influence for better or worse. As Tim said, most of us don’t demand anything of the religious vis-a-vis their own beliefs. We simply want to be heard, and given the respect we’re expected to give those who believe in the supernatural. Atheists, agnostics, or otherwise, we’re underrepresented and less respected.
Bill Maher provides catharsis, not an agenda. And there’s absolutely no reason why Dawkins and Harris (who is a good deal more engaging than Dawkins) should be expected to refrain from broadcasting their ideas about the supernatural when you can hear someone broadcasting the importance of Jesus’ martyrdom every single day.
October 14th, 2008 at 12:20 pm
There are both pros and cons associated with organized Christianity.
1) On the pro side, many Christian religions do subscribe to some form of Jesus’s humane morality. There are young evangelicals who are now challenging older evangelicals over their support for the Iraq War.
2) The left has failed to point out to the voters in the Red States that the Bush Administration and Republican Party are the most UNCHRISTIAN organizations out there. For Bush to claim he is Christian is like Hitler saying the National Socialists were socialist.
3) In my opinion, it is not fair to judge Christians as a whole on the basis of corrupt, whoring charlatans as Rev Hagee or Pat Robertson.
4) On the other hand, it is also clear that charlatans can make religion a threat to a free society, as they did in the Middle Ages.
a) Churchs are the Dream Political Machine for Rich Republicans , provided they can buy off the pastors. And unfortunately there are always some pastors who tailor their preaching with an eye on the collection plate. Probably not the majority but you only need some.
b) Some evangelical leaders have twisted Faith into Belief of manifest political lies. Have exploited the trust of their congregations in order to brainwash their followers into support of a vile Republicanism.
c) Instead of honestly acknowledging the past murderous, predatory capitalism of the US Government in the Middle East — and its role in provoking Sept 11– those Evangelicals have promoted Bush’s (and Neocons) Big Lie: That Islam is on a Jihad because it hates our Freedoms.
5) A evangelical church with a TV Network is a perfect conduit for rich men wanting to circumvent federal laws on lobbying and campaign financing. They can drop a few anonymous $Millions into the collection plate (with tax deduction for charity) and get a barrage of attacks made on liberal politicans who want to raise their taxes.
The preachers, of course, don’t attack liberals for taking ill-gotten the gains of the Rich and feeding the poor, the sick, and the oppressed. That would emphazize the preachers’ own selfishness and their failure to follow the preachings of Jesus. Instead, the whoring preachers can attack liberals under many guises — for “immorality”, for example.
But, as I’ve noted before, men I consider to be obvious con artists — Bill O’Reilly, Rush Limbaugh, Rev Hagee, etc operate with IMPUNITY because NO ONE on the left has the courage to publicly challenge them and to point out obvious deceit.
October 14th, 2008 at 12:23 pm
Somebody needs to preach to the atheist/agnostic choir and get one another pumped up because the public presence of atheists and agnostics is almost non-existent in this country. Besides Pete Stark, there is not one admitted atheist in the Congress, while they make up 16% of the population.
Maher realizes he’s not going to change the minds of religious people, but he can at least show his own side how ridiculous some of the beliefs are and perhaps convince those on the fence to come to his side. At the very least, his aim is to get atheists more comfortable with who they are and “come out of the closet,” so to speak.
And, by the way religious people, you need to confront where the line is between your myths and your belief system. If the talking snake isn’t fair game, what about the resurrection? What about the virgin birth? If you want to admit it’s a well-meaning social club, than please do that.
Also, it is true that most violence has its roots in economic rather than religious grounds, but the vehicle that often radicalizes and condones violence is scripture. If poverty is the cliff, religion is the push in the back.
October 14th, 2008 at 12:24 pm
@Woody Tanaka: Fair enough, but that doesn’t seem very consistent. Do you say you’re agnostic (or some equivalent) about the existence of gravity or, say, atoms? Not that this happens often, but honestly, if a child asked you if you believe in atoms, would you say that you are agnostic on the subject? I certainly wouldn’t. I would say that yes, I believe in atoms, just as I would say that no, I don’t believe in gods.
October 14th, 2008 at 12:26 pm
It’s been said above, but I’ll re-emphasize it: an atheist can’t get elected President. I won’t pretend that the level of discrimination against atheists approaches that against other despised groups, but we are a despised group.
Show me the despised class in this country that got respect and recognition by being disorganized, polite, and non-confrontational.
October 14th, 2008 at 12:28 pm
It’s still unclear to me how the project of making people respect atheism is served by claims that all other beliefs are absurd and only atheists have reason and truth. It’s still unclear to me how the project of making people respect atheism is served by calling for the breaking of political alliances with the religious left and the religious center which are necessary for a wide array of social justice work.
I am not “concerned” that their tactics won’t work, I think that the New Atheists are, in fact, ultimately working against the most important leftist political goals by undermining the alliances that are necessary to social justice. All in pursuit of “Reason” and “Truth” – I say, get the people fed and cared for, end the war, distribute wealth fairly, and then maybe we can talk about issues of personal assent to statements of faith.
October 14th, 2008 at 12:28 pm
If you want to admit it’s a well-meaning social club, than please do that.
On a related note, mad props to the Unitarian Universalists.
October 14th, 2008 at 12:29 pm
Try to think of Dawkins and Maher as the Robertson and Falwell of a different creed, and it’ll all make a bit more sense.
That’s nonsense. It’s like Pat Buchanan calling Jeremiah Wright an “afro-racist”.
October 14th, 2008 at 12:30 pm
This reflexive cringing before the social taboo against criticizing religious worldviews is exactly why Dawkins is necessary.
October 14th, 2008 at 12:30 pm
It’s interesting that the Enlightenment project, which failed so decisively in the 20th century, continues to have such arrogant adherents. But not surprising as the “faith in rationality” phenomenon is as religious in its own way as anything that came before it.
Every world view has non-rational foundations; there’s insufficient data in making all the important decisions in life, yet make them we must. Reason is important to work it out and live coherently. Those who do use reason rigorously tend to be very careful before criticizing the views of another. This is what smart atheists and smart Christians and smart Buddhist share… a measure of intellectual humility.
There are a lot of stupid atheists on this thread. Not that they are stupid people, but rather they are stupid about their atheism. People like Maher and Dawkins (Harris less so) have spent too much time with stupid Christians, and in opposing the religion have emulated the stupid.
October 14th, 2008 at 12:32 pm
Well, that’s simply not true. The same could be said for many hard-core religious believers of many stripes, such as Muslims or Catholics.
But more to the point, you missed the key distinction: the hard-core religious believer often distains other religions (such as Scientology) because those beliefs are irrational, but fails to apply that same lens of rationality to his own beliefs. The atheist/agnostic is at least consistent is saying that they’re all irrational.
October 14th, 2008 at 12:34 pm
I’m not sure what the basis is for lumping Maher in with Richard Dawkins and Co. Maher, certainly, has a lot of fun mocking religion, and he does it with a certain amount of obvious contempt for believers.
But I’ve never gotten the sense that he’s interested in atheizing (to coin a really bad term) the masses. His schtick on Real Time with regards to religion has generally been, “Okay, believe some crazy, but don’t try to come after me with it.”
And I expect that there are a lot of atheists (and agnostics and even liberal believers), myself included, who find people like Dawkins a bit embarrassing and still think Maher’s jokes in that line are pretty funny.
October 14th, 2008 at 12:34 pm
Very well said. This sort of humility is the basis of pluralism, which we often call “religious pluralism” but should be amended to be clear it includes atheists and agnostics of many stripes, which I think is among the best options for a democratic restructuring of society. Why the atheists oppose pluralism is baffling to me. (It makes sense for scumbag neocons like Harris or Hitchens to oppose pluralistic projects and alliances, but it confuses me why Dawkins would.)
October 14th, 2008 at 12:36 pm
DivGuy: when I say there is precious little difference between a Catholic and a Scientologist, I don’t mean that there aren’t significant differences between their theologies or their social teachings. What I’m talking about is the basis for any of those beliefs at all. They are both based on absolutely no evidence at all. Exactly how they choose to spin out their baseless nonsense becomes a trivial and uninteretsing detail once you understand that they are equally baseless.
You’re talking political tactics while I’m talking about truth and fiction. And even on the matter of political tactics, I disagree with your strategy. I think, in the long run, you will do better telling it like it is rather than trying to coopt a few people while humoring and patronizing them about their groundless, nonsensical beliefs.
October 14th, 2008 at 12:36 pm
For the record, I’m an atheist who thinks that Scientology is worse than other religions, though not because its dogma is much less rational. It’s the cultlike money-grabbing that makes it a problem.
October 14th, 2008 at 12:37 pm
It was stated earlier, and it must be stated again. To state that Maher and Dawkins et al are making a “negative” argument because they’re arguing against the existence of a god is to miss the point of their argument. The crux of the rationalist/secularist argument is not that it’s impossible to prove one way or the other said existence, yet millions of otherwise intelligent people treat it as unquestionable truth.
This is called “lack of falsifiability” and it’s an automatic deal-breaker in the most thoroughly rational, and most broadly successful epistemology (way of learning truth) in the history of mankind: the scientific method. There’s a key scientific principle specifically for dealing with non-falsifiable arguments, and it’s called Occam’s Razor (you know, the simplest answer that fits all the facts is the most likely to be correct). I mean, sure you could posit the existence of a god, but if there’s no proof, not one jot, not one solitary datum to back that assertion up, then it’s razor time in any reputable science (except, for some reason economics–they seem to be able to posit anything, as long as it buttresses an un-regulated, laissez-faire money-grab mentality)
The point of all that technical talk is that they’re not arguing against god, so much as for the rationality that has been so obviously successful in all other areas of our world: without that commitment to rationality, we wouldn’t be able to have this nation- and globe-spanning conversation, because there wouldn’t be an internet. Without the founding fathers’ rational, enlightenment decision to separate Church and State, and guarantee free-speech (and if you think those two aren’t intimately connected, then you haven’t ever read about Catholic heresy trials of the middle ages), this discussion would also be impossible.
That’s their point, that religion is fundamentally irrational, and that it shouldn’t be taboo to point that out to people. Shame on you, Matt, for doing the religious right’s work for them.
October 14th, 2008 at 12:38 pm
From Colatina #22 above:
“When he asks a question like: “How could otherwise rational people believe in things like Jonah being eaten by a whale?” he asks it like a joke, and doesn’t really think about what a good answer might be.”
But that’s Maher’s whole point. What WOULD a good answer to that be? Seriously. I’d like to hear one. It’s very rare to hear someone say “I don’t know if it really happened, but I believe it did.” as opposed to “Of course it happened BECAUSE I believe it did.”
Why do you think they call it “faith”?
October 14th, 2008 at 12:38 pm
On a related note, mad props to the Unitarian Universalists.
I think it was Dawkins who said (or at least repeated) the definition of the UU Church as having “a unshakeable belief that there is at most one god.”
October 14th, 2008 at 12:38 pm
I think Maher is just an asshole. Why expect that to change when he discusses religion?
October 14th, 2008 at 12:39 pm
“Why the atheists oppose pluralism is baffling to me.”
I know! They even want to control what gets taught in school. Have they not heard that all beliefs about the world’s origins are equally valued? Are they afraid to teach the controversy?
October 14th, 2008 at 12:39 pm
Oops, a “not” slipped into my second sentence during composition, it should read:
The crux of the rationalist/secularist argument is that it’s impossible to prove one way or the other said existence…
October 14th, 2008 at 12:40 pm
@Mr. Reason, I would point out that the evidence points to the existence of atoms and gravity, but that, like all things in science, that does not mean that another theory could not come along and show those models of reality to be mistaken. (Albeit the chances of it happening are diminishingly small…)
That is a far cry from the claims of the theists. The correct paradigm, in my mind, is not gravity or atoms, but Sasquach or space-alien visitations: We can’t exclude the possiblity that they exist, but it is really, really unlikely.
October 14th, 2008 at 12:42 pm
I’m with Lev. Religion may be wrong, and silly, and a waste of time, but I don’t think there’s any evidence that it makes people worse than they would have been otherwise.
As for the Linker piece; yeah, it’s concern trolling. And not very convincing at that.
October 14th, 2008 at 12:42 pm
You guys do crack me up. You have just been sodomized by a Democratic Congress with a $1.5 Trillion Bailout for the Superrich –and yet you are stilling arguing that Obama will provide Change We Can Believe In.
And you are criticizing people who irrationally believe in religion.
October 14th, 2008 at 12:43 pm
“Every world view has non-rational foundations”
This is the worst kind of simplistic postmodernist bullshit. Uh, no they don’t.
October 14th, 2008 at 12:44 pm
If the Enlightenment failed in the 20th Century, we’re all doomed.
October 14th, 2008 at 12:48 pm
That is a far cry from the claims of the theists. The correct paradigm, in my mind, is not gravity or atoms, but Sasquach or space-alien visitations: We can’t exclude the possiblity that they exist, but it is really, really unlikely.
Or better yet: the possibility that all the air molecules would suddenly rush to an upper corner of a room, leaving the rooms occupants dead of asphyxiation. Is it possible? Yes. But it’s so vanishingly improbably that it’s indistinguishable from impossibility.
October 14th, 2008 at 12:49 pm
Postmodernists crack me up when they get all high and mighty being absolutely certain that you can’t be certain about anything.
The Enlightenment Project failed huh? Are you sure? LOL.
October 14th, 2008 at 12:50 pm
@ibc,
Thanks, I like that one better.
October 14th, 2008 at 12:50 pm
You guys do crack me up. You have just been sodomized by a Democratic Congress with a $1.5 Trillion Bailout for the Superrich –and yet you are stilling arguing that Obama will provide Change We Can Believe In.
And you are criticizing people who irrationally believe in religion.
Exactly! That’s the kind of irrationality and incoherent argument we’re talking about.
Thanks for the example!
October 14th, 2008 at 12:54 pm
@Woody Tanaka: But that’s my point. Just because it is possible that atoms are not real, at least as we understand them, the short form answer is that you do believe they exist, just as the short form answer is that you do not believe in Sasquach. The marginal bits of doubt are not relevant to the preponderance of belief/non-belief as the case may be. If you say you are agnostic about the existence of gods, it would follow that you would have to say you are agnostic about the existence of everything else, and yet nobody does. To do otherwise is to give special significance to a tiny sliver of possibility in the religious sphere that most people would not consider giving in other domains. Why? Are you agnostic about the existence of your pants?
October 14th, 2008 at 12:58 pm
Matt -
Your posts on atheism are your worst.
This time, you actually did OK until your last line, “Why they think an organized, self-consciously atheistic mass movement would be a good thing is a bit beyond me.”
A mass movement of self-conscious atheists? Why, they would promote ethics based on reason instead of 2000 year-old texts! They would promote science as a far superior explanation of the world around us than religion, magic, or guesswork! If they were ultimately successful, we might not have any more religion-based violent conflict!
You might consider why you think a mass movement of self-conscious atheists would be bad.
You also might want to consider that every time you write about atheists, you sound very intolerant of atheists. It’s actually quite bad.
October 14th, 2008 at 1:00 pm
Classy guy that I am, I’m gonna self-link.
October 14th, 2008 at 1:01 pm
The constitution says “No religious test shall ever be required for any office in the United States.” Yet, in order to get elected, most office candidates, and certainly the president, must appear religious. This is just wrong! The spectacle of Obama “having” to appear with and be questioned by that blowhard Pastor Rick at the Saddleback church is an outrage. When are we going to live up to the constitution, literally? That’s what this should be all about. A person should not have to appear to be religious in order to be considered a legitmate candidate.
October 14th, 2008 at 1:03 pm
Mr Reason, there are some versions of God that are not inconsistent with the universe as we observe it, so there’s nothing wrong with being agnostic about such a God existing.
Now, the Christian God doesn’t seem to be one of these, so there’s a problem there. The Old Testament God is another matter; I can see that guy making a universe that works like this one.
October 14th, 2008 at 1:04 pm
You also might want to consider that every time you write about atheists, you sound very intolerant of atheists. It’s actually quite bad.
Agreed. But Matt’s religious, and religious people don’t get shamed into giving nonreligious people the acceptance they demand from us.
October 14th, 2008 at 1:09 pm
BTW: Alasdair MacIntyre thinks the “Enlightenment Project” failed because he couldn’t find a way to square it with his Catholic dogma. Unable to sqaure the circle, he stuck with his dogma and trashed the Enlightment.
Alasdair made an unenlightened choice.
October 14th, 2008 at 1:10 pm
@Mr. Reason,
The short answer is, I use “agnostic” because the word exists. And since it does, I use it. It is closer to my own beliefs than “atheist” which, to me, implies a positive belief in the non-existence of god which I believe is impossible to possess without proper evidence on the question. To be clear, I wouldn’t get bent out of shape if someone called me an “atheist” however; it’s closer to my beliefs than “theist.”
Further, technically, I would say that I am “agnostic” on the belief in atoms. But there is no word for “I recognize that, based the current state of scientific knowledge and empirical evidence, the atomic model is an accurate model of reality, with the specific caveat that such belief is subject to change if new or other evidence comes to light.” If there was an equivalently pithy word to express that, such as “agnostic” is to theology, I would use it. Since there isn’t, I say that I “believe in atoms.”
I guess it all has to do with the fact that discussions and thinking about theology has led to a distinction between thinking that is labelled agnosticism and labelled atheism, so coining of the words followed.
October 14th, 2008 at 1:10 pm
As a regular MY reader and a guy who sings in his church choir, I can’t resist posting.
Two observations about the Maher-Harris-Dawkins school of evangelical atheism. One is that it’s simplistic and facile. I’m taking his word for it, but Linker charges Maher with portraying the silliest proponents of Christianity he can find. It’s like if you or I spent our time arguing politics with the dumbest commenter on Free Republic, and never engaged David Brooks or Ross Douthat or (fill in some conservative with a modicum of brains and integrity).
Two, Harris et. al. are preoccupied with arguments about the existence of God, the facticity of the Bible, etc. This is pretty irrelevant to my experiences of church. I’d argue that religion is more than intellectual, many of you would argue it’s less than intellectual, but Big Atheism wants it to be precisely intellectual, so that if we worshippers could just be shown the truth about the fossil record and the Spanish Inquisition, we’d immediately flee the church and never go back.
It ain’t like that. Big Atheism ought to engage or even just acknowledge the things beyond doctrine that attract people to houses of worship: the meaningful traditions and rituals, the art and music, the social bonds, the coffee and doughnuts.
Personally, I have no trouble squaring modern science with religious faith. I don’t deny that a lot of historical harm has been done in the name of religion. I have plenty of doubts about Christian doctrine, that vary from day to day, and some days I just go through the motions hoping the doubts will be resolved down the road. Now, these attitudes may have to do with why my flavor of Christianity (Presbyterian) is declining in the US. That’s an interesting question, as interesting in its way as a picture of Jesus cradling a dinosaur. Big Atheism could do well to portray this kind of variety and paradox on the religious scene.
Just my two cents.
October 14th, 2008 at 1:16 pm
One of the worst things about organized religion is it’s tendency (not universal) to become a beligerent, self-righteous form of identity politics. I will never understand the atheist who wants to abandon everything else about religion except its most obnoxious feature.
October 14th, 2008 at 1:16 pm
Mr. Reason said:
“Just because it is possible that atoms are not real, at least as we understand them, the short form answer is that you do believe they exist, just as the short form answer is that you do not believe in Sasquach. The marginal bits of doubt are not relevant to the preponderance of belief/non-belief as the case may be. If you say you are agnostic about the existence of gods, it would follow that you would have to say you are agnostic about the existence of everything else, and yet nobody does. To do otherwise is to give special significance to a tiny sliver of possibility in the religious sphere that most people would not consider giving in other domains. Why? Are you agnostic about the existence of your pants?”
Hear, hear!
October 14th, 2008 at 1:18 pm
Shorter Damon Linker: “Atheists may think we’re wrong about what is perhaps the must fundamental question under-girding our approach to civilization, morality, and life itself, but to have the temerity to actually say that out loud! What beastly manners!”
There are good critiques to be made of the likes of Richard Dawkins. Damon Linker’s is not one of them. He’s telling atheists to forget their differences about first principles. Because that makes sense.
October 14th, 2008 at 1:23 pm
This distinction between atheist and agnostic is silly and irrelevant. Atheist doesn’t mean that one knows or declares that there is no god. It just means literally “without god.” It means that you live your life without reference to any god.
October 14th, 2008 at 1:23 pm
@JBJ, the problem is that, based on the specific criticism of Maher (namely, why do you believe something that is so fundamentally unreasonable), it does not matter who you are arguing. If you are Christian, there are some basic, baseline beliefs you must have, otherwise you wouldn’t be defined as Christian. Maher’s position is that even they are not worthy of belief by thinking, rational humans.
Besides, whose to say that Ken Ham or someone else who thinks that humans rode dinosaurs and that there was literally an Adam and Eve and a talking snake aren’t the “David Brooks or Ross Douthat” in your analogy?? On what rational basis would you suggest that they, with their faith-based beliefs, have less brains and integrity, than you and your faith-based belief?? What is the metrics of rationality when it comes to revealed knowledge and faith??
If you read the works of Dennett, Dawkins, Harris, Hitchens etc., you will see that they address this point at great length. They recognize and discuss it from a number of different perspectives.
October 14th, 2008 at 1:27 pm
why exactly this is linked to the “new atheist” is beyond me. in fact, the new atheist category doesn’t make much sense. there have long been atheists and long been atheists who argue against religion. (see e.g. bertram russell’s “why i am not a christian”). the new atheist label doesn’t actually describe anybody. instead, the perception of new atheism reflects the social phenomenon that atheism is more socially acceptable and thus more atheists are willing to speak their minds about these issues.
It’s intended as an insult. It’s annoying. The “new atheists” are “mean.” Oh noes!
Damon Linker’s concern trolling is not at all convincing.
The New Republic perfected the art of concern trolling before there was term for it.
October 14th, 2008 at 1:29 pm
re: agnostic vs. atheist.
Here’s a parallel: when we say we believe that germs cause disease, and we want to be formal about it, we call that a “theory.” When we’re being informal, we call it a “fact.”
The only reason most atheists/agnostics struggle with the labeling is that the possibility that the likelihood of existence of some sort of non-trivial “god” is even *less* compelling than the possibility that the Germ Theory of Disease will be significantly revised.
Of course, theists of all stripes get very excited at the use of the term “agnostic”, as though it represents a chink in the armor, rather than intellectual scrupulousness. They do the same thing when they jump on the thin reed of evolution being “just a theory.”
It’s cute; but also a little discouraging. In any case, if you’re puzzled or off-put by preciseness of language, feel free to substitute “atheist” for “agnostic,” and “fact” for “theory”.
October 14th, 2008 at 1:32 pm
It ain’t like that. Big Atheism ought to engage or even just acknowledge the things beyond doctrine that attract people to houses of worship: the meaningful traditions and rituals, the art and music, the social bonds, the coffee and doughnuts.
Karl Marx did write “Religious suffering is at the same time an expression of real suffering and a protest against real suffering. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of a soulless condition.”
Perhaps he was an “old” atheist.
My take is that Matt Y and others are pandering to religious voters for the Democratic party.
October 14th, 2008 at 1:35 pm
I don’t know Dawkins all that well, but having watched both Maher and Hitches quite closely (and having digested some of Hitchens’ books’) I can definitively state they’ve both made the signature mistake of ‘religious’ people: a love of self that leads well past righteousness and into self-righteousness. Maher is a pure sensualist (as a great number of comics are…) and Hitchens quavers between hedonism and nihilism… I don’t know much about Dawkins, but I do know sciences and scientists: the vague kind of shrill equivalence between science and religion Dawkins makes generally meets with disdain in my neighborhood. Religion has very little to say about science and science has very little to say about religion. Most scientist and most religious people like it that way.
I don’t think Mahers and Hitchens’ self-righteousness invalidates their point of view, at least, not in the same way they seem to think ‘religious’ self-righteousness invalidates religion. I think the comic irony here is that they’re both sorta extremists who repeatedly (tiresomely) use the examples of extremists on the ‘other side’ to invalidate the entirety of the ‘other side’. But if you remove the fundies as examplar of religious habit (because, well, they’re not examplars) then their arguments collapse.
October 14th, 2008 at 1:35 pm
If you read the works of Dennett, Dawkins, Harris, Hitchens etc.
Aye, there’s the rub… A lot of these comments condemning Dawkins read like an essay written by a freshman who never did the reading.
October 14th, 2008 at 1:39 pm
That’s my feeling. I prefer “agnostic” but “atheist” is fine, too. (Does that mean I’m agnostic on the use of “agnostic”???)
October 14th, 2008 at 1:40 pm
I don’t know much about Dawkins, but I do know sciences and scientists: the vague kind of shrill equivalence between science and religion Dawkins makes generally meets with disdain in my neighborhood. Religion has very little to say about science and science has very little to say about religion.
In what sense? Science may not have much to say about your steadfast belief in the God of Abraham. But religious folk make *countless* claims about the physical world. Science has very much to say about those claims. That what it has to say is not very flattering is beside the point.
Most scientist and most religious people like it that way.
I probably don’t have to point out that the laws of the universe are not democratic. To use a battered cliche, a widespread belief in unicorns does not make them so.
October 14th, 2008 at 1:42 pm
@petr, who said, “they’re both sorta extremists who repeatedly (tiresomely) use the examples of extremists on the ‘other side’ to invalidate the entirety of the ‘other side’. But if you remove the fundies as examplar of religious habit (because, well, they’re not examplars) then their arguments collapse.”
Very weak, petr. You’re not even trying to be right. The atheist critique of religion is fundamental. It does not in any way depend on straw man arguments against non-exemplary extremists. All it depends on is the very defining feature of most religions: belief in a god based on no evidence at all.
Go away and come back when you’re ready to be intellectually honest.
October 14th, 2008 at 1:44 pm
petr wrote: I don’t know much about Dawkins, but I do know sciences and scientists: the vague kind of shrill equivalence between science and religion Dawkins makes generally meets with disdain in my neighborhood. Religion has very little to say about science and science has very little to say about religion. Most scientist and most religious people like it that way.
In contrast, when I was young, I found Carl Sagan’s willingness to place religion and science on an even playing field to be absolutely revelatory. I still remember his comment on the efficacy of prayer, and the rote prayers of many churches for the health of various religious figures who nonetheless died young: “This constitutes data.” It wasn’t that I didn’t already realize that, it was that… I had split my frame of reference. I was analyzing religious claims differently from non religious claims. The forthright manner in which he clearly stated that there was no reason to do so was liberating, not because it was a new idea to me, but because it helped break down the social taboo that was preventing me from looking at religion through a clear lens.
October 14th, 2008 at 1:45 pm
A poster above made a good point — none of the new atheists’ mockery comes even close to the inherent societal scorn for an open atheist. Try growing up in the Midwest and being the only kid in school who doesn’t go to church camp (and also, incidentally, being the smartest kid in school). Atheists face more open, unabashed discrimination in this country than any other group including gays.
Furthermore, religious people just don’t realize how stupid their ideas actually are, because they’ve been socially acceptable for so long. People look at, “is there a God?” as though it’s one of the major questions about the Universe. But it’s not. It’s an absurd question. The real questions are, “What is the nature of the Universe? How did it begin?” There are many interesting scientific answers to these question, many of them surely beyond our current imagination, but the fact that we don’t know the real answer is no excuse to lend credence to stupid answers, like the idea that somehow a sentient being existed before matter existed, and that it somehow has more powers than Superman to influence anything it wants in our Universe. That’s especially true when we know pretty well who made those stupid answers up and why they did it.
Another stupid question religion asks is, “Is there an afterlife?” Um, no. Duh. Neuroscientists know beyond any doubt that our thoughts come from our brain. No more living brain, no more thoughts, end of discussion for any sane person. The idea that we don’t know the answer because no long-dead person has come back to tell us there IS an afterlife is ridiculous.
Stop pretending the “new atheists” are unreasonable for disrespecting faith. What we’re doing is showing a little common sense, unhampered by the political correctness that says you can hide ANY idiotic belief behind the “religion” label and automatically make it off-limits to ridicule.
Furthermore, the goal of the new atheists like Dawkins isn’t to win over the religious… although Dawkins in particular (but not the Mahers of the world) has won some people over. In Dawkins’ case, the goal is to make agnostics comfortable with atheism (read his book), and to make atheists more willing to come out of that closet.
October 14th, 2008 at 1:47 pm
When the most radical non-religious people get upset about disrespect for their point of view, they write angry books and file lawsuits.
When the most radical non-religious people get upset about disrespect for their point of view, they shoot people and blow themselves up.
October 14th, 2008 at 1:48 pm
But even the least silly of christianities proponents can’t meet the standards of Maher and Hitchens: adherents, it seems, dictate the terms and if you can’t meet the terms then the enterprise is invalid, goes the argument.
This is even more facile.
Nobody invalidates baseball because the best hitters only hit 3 outta 10 times at bat.
Nobody invalidates stockbrokers because they get it right only about 17% of the time.
Nobody invalidates meteorology because the weathermen are frequently wrong.
But that’s the invalidation Maher and Hitchens (and presumably Dawkins) make: since the adherents can’t get it right, it must, of a neccessity be entirely wrong. Who wants to tell Big Papi baseball is invalid? Not I.
October 14th, 2008 at 1:54 pm
What’s interesting is that studies show that the self-styled cool-headed and rationalist atheists are much more likely to be superstitious and to believe in things like the Loch Ness monster, alien abductions, astrology, palm reading, that dreams foretell the future, and that they can communicate with the dead, among other things, than religious believers. So it certainly is possible to criticize institutional religion on rationalist grounds, but atheists as a group (which is what we’re discussing here) are hardly in a position to do so.
One of the best things Chesterton never said: When people stop believing in God, it’s not that they believe in nothing. It’s that they’ll believe in anything.
October 14th, 2008 at 1:55 pm
@Woody Tanaka: OK, not to belabor the point, because I don’t think we fundamentally disagree, but the word agnostic can be — and is — applied to all sorts of non-religious beliefs. So it isn’t for a lack of a word that people don’t describe themselves as agnostic about other things. Second, I suspect that the negative connotations of atheism among many people is what drives non-believers to describe themselves as agnostic. It’s a hedge. I’d rather stand up for what I believe, or in this case don’t believe.
And so, I guess you are agnostic about the Flying Spaghetti Monster, right? That’s wise. Who knows, it could turn out to be real…
October 14th, 2008 at 1:58 pm
@hugo: Yes, we all read that study, but it is ridiculous because by definition those people are not “cool-headed rationalist atheists.” Religion is superstition. Superstition is religion. You cannot be a non-believer, yet be superstitious. Those people just believe a different form of mumbo-jumbo.
October 14th, 2008 at 1:59 pm
Besides, whose to say that Ken Ham or someone else who thinks that humans rode dinosaurs and that there was literally an Adam and Eve and a talking snake aren’t the “David Brooks or Ross Douthat” in your analogy?? On what rational basis would you suggest that they, with their faith-based beliefs, have less brains and integrity, than you and your faith-based belief?? What is the metrics of rationality when it comes to revealed knowledge and faith??
Well, obviously Ken Ham would answer that question differently than I do — his religious tradition is proudly anti-intellectual. (I bow to no one in insisting that creationists are fucking morons.) But there are many traditions where ministers study Greek and Hebrew, are widely read in church history and historical theology, etc. They have a sound interpretive framework, they know why they believe what they believe, and they respect and understand why others believe differently. They have intellectual standards, in other words. I think the analogy with e.g. David Brooks is a decent one — Brooks is actually familiar with liberal thought and isn’t limited to slogans and disinformation like “Obama is a Muslim terrorist” or whatever.
October 14th, 2008 at 2:00 pm
Hugo- In other news, non Christians are more likely to be Islamic than are Christians, or even the general population as a whole. Huh. Whodathunkit.
October 14th, 2008 at 2:01 pm
@hugo:
When people stop believing in God, it’s not that they believe in nothing. It’s that they’ll believe in anything.
This is simply untrue. Religious claims, supernatural claims, scientific claims and claims of any other kind should all be evaluated based on the same criteria: the available factual evidence. It’s really not that complicated.
October 14th, 2008 at 2:02 pm
Intellectually honest? Tell me, young fool, how many people in this world can explain quantum physics and the evidence behind it? A handful? Two handfuls? Aren’t you taking that on faith?
Have you ever seen an atom? A molecule? I have. If you’ve never seen it, then the only evidence you have is my word, no? At some point, unless you’re willing to repeat Einsteins work (and something tells me you’re not up to the task…) the only ‘evidence’ you might have for how lasers work, or what fuels the sun, or Brownian motion, is what I, and/or other scientists, tell you.
Have you gone to medical school? If not, you’re taking the doctors prescription on faith, no? You’re sick and at the ER you’re not going to heal yourself and you better hope medicine is what you think it is. Lucky for you, it is.
Hitchens doesn’t believe in God because of the religious extremists he has met. Don’t take my evidence. Read his books. He’ll tell you. Maher says the same thing and repeatedly points to RELIGIOUS EXTREMISTS as examples. Who’s being intellectually dishonest now, boyfriend?
Dawkins may be different. Dawkins believes in germs because because of what he sees and only that. Works for him.
I believe you’re a moron because of what you choose to show me. Works for me. Who are you to say what evidence is? Who are you to call me intellectually dishonest? Please, you fool, grow up.
October 14th, 2008 at 2:02 pm
By the way, I’m not offended in the least when Bill Maher or Richard Dawkins criticizes or mocks religion, mine or otherwise. Actually, I find Maher to be more than occassionally funny and actually somewhat endearing despite the snark, and I find Dawkins’ work to be extremely interesting. It is frustrating, though, when folks like Hitchens misrepresent the claims of various faiths (e.g. like claiming that the Big Bang and evolution are antithetical to the Catholic Church when in fact it has explicitly embraced the big bang and suggested that evolution in the sense that all living things share a common ancestor could well be true.)
October 14th, 2008 at 2:13 pm
The way Big Sloppi is playing, it seems that someone told him…
October 14th, 2008 at 2:15 pm
How do you know what I believe? I’ve made no avowals either way. I’m strictly pointing out the flaws in the argument. Tell me, under what system of logic would that make me, de facto, take the other side? I continue to make no avowals either way and simply comment on the facile nature of much of public atheism. I might be a private atheist or a privately deeply religious person. None of that has bearing on what I see as deep flaws in the argument. Your willingness to put me in that box speaks volumes about you.
And many economists make *countless* claims about the economic landscape. It is said that, if you put two economists in a room, you’ll get three opinions. Does that invalidate economics? Apparently not, as college econ depts are still quite the going concern…. Religious people are quite free to say stupid, even insanely stupid, stuff. Whatever. That doesn’t make religion, per se, invalid. People are as free to get their religion right or wrong as lawyers are to get case law wrong… Nobodies saying we ought not to have trial court because a large percentage of lawyers might not be perfect. Why is this any different?
October 14th, 2008 at 2:20 pm
The distinction between atheist and agnostic is, I think, rather silly. I don’t understand why these people cling to agnostic instead of jumping right into atheist.
Because maybe it’s a false binary? Atheists who lapsed from deism still often orient their thinking around theistic structures. You can call me an atheist, or an agnostic, I prefer not to call myself anything.
Could you point out where Dawkins lapses into either “dogma” or “bad arguments[?].”
The God Delusion is a good place to start; Dawkins bases a lot of his conclusions on unrealistically large leaps in judgment, cherry-picked hermeneutics, and generally disingenuous, dishonest argumentation. (Foremost to mind is when he brings up the almah interpretation as young woman/virgin that describes Mary.) The chapters where he focuses on the science of genetics and evolution, though, are aces, and I took solace in them.
Think of it this way, what if the question were: do you believe there are invisible triangles that shower magical lollipops on Jupiter. I would guess that you would say, “no, I don’t believe it.” …
It’s the burden of proof argument — if you’re arguing for a 99%-unlikely scenario, it’s up to you to prove it, not the other side to squash that remaining 1%.
It began when my son mentioned that humans are made of molecules. His friend said, “No, they’re not, they’re made of nothing. It says in the Bible that God made man from nothing.” My son responded, “That doesn’t make any sense. I don’t care what book says that.”
Aren’t we mostly nothing though? That is, aren’t atoms mostly empty space? And anyway, doesn’t the OT/Torah say we’re made of dust?
October 14th, 2008 at 2:21 pm
@Mr. Reason, I don’t believe we fundamentally disagree. As I said, I can’t speak for anyone else, but for me it’s not a hedge. If the word “agnostic” didn’t exist, I’m certain I would proudly call myself “atheist.”
October 14th, 2008 at 2:23 pm
Not on faith, but on trust. (Verified trust, at that.)
October 14th, 2008 at 2:27 pm
God forbid the heathens should, you know, organize. Might get themselves elected into office or something…
October 14th, 2008 at 2:29 pm
Evangelists see atheism itself as an insult, so no point putting on white gloves.
October 14th, 2008 at 2:37 pm
Okay, but who’s to say that studying Greek and Hebrew, knowing church history and theology, and having a sound interpretive framework are the correct manner to deal with a revealed religion.
In other words, we can rationally examine human society and politics and determine that the intellectual approach of a David Brooks is “better” than the approach from a Freeper, because we have ways of measuring “better” in a political and sociological context.
We have no such measures in theology. (That’s not to say that we can’t measure what theological approaches are better from a sociological or political standpoint, but rather that there is no way to do so from a theological standpoint.) How do we know that the anti-intellectual approach is not the correct one in theology, the one that God wants people to follow??? In fact, shouldn’t a direct revelation from God trump any intellectual proposition or interpretive conclusion??
October 14th, 2008 at 2:43 pm
Being an atheist in 2008 is (I imagine) somewhat like being a homosexual in 1968. It’s not that there weren’t homosexuals in 1968, but they certainly weren’t “out”. There were pretty dire social consequences to being outed, so most were understandably very private about it.
As such, I think the atheist “movement” or whatever is in about the same place as gay rights was in 1968. The aim of Dawkins et al isn’t to convert anyone, it’s to make atheists more comfortable coming out of the closet, so to speak. It’s sending a signal to doubters in every backwater evangelical community that they’re not alone. It’s to make being an atheist something that’s okay to talk about.
Organization and winning broader social acceptance come later. For now, there’s such a stigma, and the very discussion is so tilted towards the religious point of view, that it makes perfect sense to preach towards the choir.
October 14th, 2008 at 2:44 pm
It certainly is possible to criticize institutional religion on rationalist grounds, but atheists as a group (which is what we’re discussing here) are hardly in a position to do so.
Well, no actually, if you go back and read the post and the comments, we’re not discussing the propriety of “the group consisting of all non-believers” criticizing religion.
When people stop believing in God, it’s not that they believe in nothing. It’s that they’ll believe in anything.
Interesting point. Not sure if it’s true or not since you haven’t provided any evidence whatsoever. Also, it’s irrelevant to the question of God’s existence.
Since the adherents can’t get it right, it must, of a neccessity be entirely wrong. Who wants to tell Big Papi baseball is invalid? Not I.
Now this is just silly. The Dawkins critic is a fundamental critique of the existence of God, not a critique of religious practices.
October 14th, 2008 at 2:54 pm
Intellectually honest? Tell me, young fool, how many people in this world can explain quantum physics and the evidence behind it? A handful? Two handfuls? Aren’t you taking that on faith?
Short answer: No.
There is a conceptual framework. It is called the scientific method. Anyone can understand it. The fact that there is a community of expertise that provide peer-review based on falsifiability is what lends credence to scientific claims. Not blind faith in it’s practitioners.
October 14th, 2008 at 2:55 pm
I’m altogether willing to believe that Dawkins is in a different league from Hitchens and Maher. I’ve not studied Dawkins as intently as I’ve studied Maher and Hitchens. I think there might be huge differences. This begs the question: how can atheist be unified? (not that I think religious people are all that unified… but the argument began by linking to a piece called A Problem of Persuasion) If Dawkins is different, then it’s not likely he’ll want want either Maher or Hitchens attempting to persuade on his behalf since they DO make a critique of religious practices…
October 14th, 2008 at 2:55 pm
Petr: you’re not nearly as smart as you’d like to pretend you think you are. Sure we all take a lot of things on faith as a pragmatic matter of day-to-day living. But not as PURE matters of faith. Yes, I assume that the bridge I am driving on was not opened before the finished construction so that I don’t have to worry about driving off the uncompleted end of the bridge and into the drink. But that is not because I have absolute pure Kierkegardian faith in bridge builders. Its because I know how social insitutions work suchthat I can be quite resonably confident that the highway department doesn’t open incomplete bridges to the public to drive on. I can go on and on about all the social reasoning that backs these kind of beliefs up but it would be tiresome. And the bottom line is I only accept things like that as a rebuttable presumption, not the revelaed word of god that can never be questioned.
This same sort of thing extends to scientific beliefs like my belief that quantum mechanics is a big improvement over Newtonian mechanics, given that I can’t do the math.
But none of your examples support your intellectually dishonest (or stupid — take your pick) argument bcause all of those things are in principle testable. I could conceivably learn the math and double check Bohr’s calculations. Instead I rely on social institutions like peer review.
But the claims of the theists are not even principle testable. And there is no acceptable form of peer review, reviewing their claims. Just because others of their fellow dogmatists check their work that doesn’t constitute peer review. Most theists simply refuse to answer the questions asked by philosophers, preferring to fall back on “faith”.
petr: I hate to break it to you, but you are an idiot. Now go away. But do come back when you are ready to participate in an honest intellectual discussion.
October 14th, 2008 at 2:55 pm
The God Delusion is a good place to start; Dawkins bases a lot of his conclusions on unrealistically large leaps in judgment, cherry-picked hermeneutics, and generally disingenuous, dishonest argumentation. (Foremost to mind is when he brings up the almah interpretation as young woman/virgin that describes Mary.)
Not sure how the “almah interpretation” name-check supports your case. Could you be more specific? Thanks.
October 14th, 2008 at 3:08 pm
Petr,
No, in fact, we don’t have to take einstein on faith, even those who have no true understanding of the math involved in his work. The reason? There’s evidence. Solid, tangible, proof. The most bizarre prediction of general relativity–the idea that the relative experience of time slows down as one approaches the speed of light–has in fact been proven (repeatedly) in ground-breaking experiments by numerous scientists around the world. The data is all there for anyone with the time, inclination, and brains to understand it.
That’s the fundamental difference in faith and reason. One says that it’s a positively good thing to believe things for which there is not only no proof, but for which there can be no proof (”more blessed are those who have not seen, yet still believe” ring any bells?), while the other holds that without proof, there can be no assertion of truth.
October 14th, 2008 at 3:11 pm
The “almah interpretation” is a widely-held, though not unanimous, precept in the theological debate. Holding it up as bad scholarship by Dawkins is simply incorrect. Just look up “Almah” on wikipedia and it is easy to see the genesis of his point. His point rests much more on the possibility that the original text does not imply a Virgin Birth; disproving the Virgin Birth is not necessary to his argument, and indeed is a trivial question to Dawkins, a point of view that goes back to Martin Luther and perhaps beyond.
October 14th, 2008 at 3:15 pm
Petr: just to add on to what Sahu said. The claims of physics can be tested even by those who know very little about it. Einstein didn’t just go on and on about some trinity or whatnot, secure in the knowledge that he could never be proven wrong and thus was free to blather on about whatever crossed his mind.
For example, the claims of the physicists have resulted in the ability to build and deliver, with amazing accuracy, a nuclear device that can destroy a city in a flash. That’s real. That’s knowable. It happened at Hiroshima and Nagasaki and at many test sites all over the world. Einstein wasn’t just talking out of his ass.
But you theists are not able to do a damn thing with your phony knowledge. Oh you claim to have the ability to cure diseases etc. but you’re never able to pull it off under replicable conditions. Nuclar weapons, unfortunately, are all too replicable.
October 14th, 2008 at 3:18 pm
Hugo,
I think that as religious people, you and I should probably stay out of this conversation. That’s what I intend on doing. This thread has gotten 122 replies in a couple of hours, which suggests to me that there are a lot of pisses-off agnostics out there who need a place to vent. Let them do it. Trying to witness to Christ here would be a fool’s errand.
I agree with your point, for the most part. I’m not sure that ‘dreams foretelling the future’ is a good example of un-Christian superstition however. There is scriptural warrant for prophetic dreams (see the Book of Daniel) and the Catholic Catechism, as far as I know, allows that dreams may sometimes (not as a general rule) be a way that God uses to reveal Himself to people, and not a form of immoral divination forbidden by the first commandment. I think this is about right. I know quite a few people (including some agnostics) for whom dreams have been a vehicle of genuine religious experience. I wouldn’t say that dreams are always spiritually inspired, but they can be.
October 14th, 2008 at 3:22 pm
I’m not sure I understand your point, at least as it supports the “cherry-picked hermeneutics, and generally disingenuous, dishonest argumentation.” Not trying to be difficult, I really am not getting how Dawkins is out-of-bounds on this.
(I do agree with your earlier point that Dawkins’ chapters on religion and evolutionary biology are considerably more interesting than his semi-pro forays into etymology, though.)
October 14th, 2008 at 3:23 pm
Shorter Hector:
Hugo,
Yikes! We should probably stay out of this conversation since we are way out of our depth and have no way to respond rationally to these devastating arguments. If we were in public somewhere we could probably shut them up with peer pressure but there are too many of them and they’re too unafraid around here for that to work.
By the way, my psychic can predict the lottery.
October 14th, 2008 at 3:23 pm
Casper,
I’m not sure what the ‘almah interpretation’ is?? Personally I (with most Christians) believe that when the translators of the Bible mistranslated ‘almah’ as ‘parthena’, that they were impelled to do so by spiritual guidance. No critic of Christianity seriously claimed that Jesus was the child of Joseph until the modern era- not Muslims, not Jews, not pagan Romans, not Persians and not the Gnostics.
October 14th, 2008 at 3:28 pm
This thread has gotten 122 replies in a couple of hours, which suggests to me that there are a lot of pisse[d]-off agnostics out there who need a place to vent. Let them do it. Trying to witness to Christ here would be a fool’s errand.
Funny, I look at most of the comments, and see a generally respectful dialog, with almost none of the vitriol and disrespect of your average political thread.
Of course, I’m only posting here to have stimulating conversation with other sentient humans, rather than anything so pendulous as “witnessing,” which I am sure must require a far more nourishing atmosphere.
October 14th, 2008 at 3:34 pm
I’m sorry, you’ll have to point out where I said anything about ‘theists’ (whatever it is you think that means.)
The holes in the arguments of the public atheists (of whom we are discussing here…) are large. Taken in and by themselves, they don’t, in any way, point to what it is I believe or don’t believe. I’ve never said anything in this forum about what it is I believe. I’ve only said what I think are fatal flaws in the arguments of Maher and Hitchens (and perhaps Dawkins, though I’ve readily admitted that I’m not as familiar with him). A critique of an argument is not, either implicitly or explicitly, endorsement of the counter-argument. Sometimes the argument falls apart on its own. For all you know, I might be an atheist who wishes that intellectual lightweights like Maher, and yourself, would stop masturbating in public. Or I might be Jerry Falwell. Nothing I’ve said indicates either way.
You do nothing but talk past me. You have not heard what I’ve said, and, apparently, don’t wish to. That makes you a fool.
October 14th, 2008 at 3:34 pm
hector: “witness”? LOL. You never witnessed god in your whole life, and you know it. Witness, my ass.
Regurgitate the propaganda you were brainwashed with? Yes. Witness? Give me a break. That’s precisely the problem.
October 14th, 2008 at 3:36 pm
@ibc 121,
In Hebrew, the NT describes Mary as an “almah,” which according to Dawkins means “young woman” (as opposed to “virgin”), and which obviously (to him) undermines the premises of Catholicism. I understand his agenda here — he wants to show that Christian dogma didn’t arise a priori, and that it was subject to the whims of committees and politics — but in my adventures in Wikipedia, I haven’t really seen the same concrete certainty that his thesis is the right one. AFAICT, the virgin/young woman issue has been debated for millennia, and a cranky biologist isn’t one to put it to rest.
Also, I think he mentions that science “materia” is better than the religion “materia,” which is beyond out of touch because materia hasn’t been included in Final Fantasy since VII.
October 14th, 2008 at 3:36 pm
One very salient point that this article somehow manages to miss is that Dawkins et al think that more sophisticated, theologically informed forms of theism are just as intellectually bankrupt as their cruder cousins. I believe I even recall Dawkins making the argument that the simpleton versions are actually intellectually preferable, since they are at least honest about the implications of their views.
Now, you may of course think that such a view is wrong, and that such a view is dangerous. It certainly does not lend itself to intellectual reconciliation with the theists whom Dawkins no doubt views as political allies in other contexts. But it is disingenuous in the extreme to suggest that these people adopt a strategy counter to their fundamental views.
October 14th, 2008 at 3:36 pm
petr: I may have been a bit rash in assuming you are a theist, but that was completely inicdental to my argument. And you know it. It did not escape my notice that you latched onto this phony non-issue rather than confront the actual argument. We all know why you made that rhetorical move.
Weak. And getting weaker.
October 14th, 2008 at 3:39 pm
What I get tired of is the “wink, nod” aspect so many intellectual religious types have that seems to say, “it doesn’t matter if it’s true or not, the real discussion is its value.”
Well, let us know: WHAT ISN’T TRUE? How about this one: is God true? A real, physical God that has existed or does exist?
Until these questions can be answered with any kind of clarity, how are we to see these arguments made my theists as anything other than a hollow defense of their lifelong beliefs?
Question: who here is religious yet doesn’t believe in ghosts, gods, snakes, or virgin births? Any of those things? Is the God real but the snake not? Is the world 5 billion years old but there still was a resurrection? Does heaven exist but not Eden?
As far as I see it, you have to explain away the supernatural stuff before we can have a discussion about the value of it. This is what Maher largely confronted, and what needs to be confronted before the discussion can go any further.
October 14th, 2008 at 3:40 pm
I’ve only said what I think are fatal flaws in the arguments of Maher and Hitchens (and perhaps Dawkins, though I’ve readily admitted that I’m not as familiar with him).
Well, right, you did say what you thought were fatal flaws in the “new atheists” central argument. Then you were corrected. This is the point where you’re supposed to either 1) say *why* you still think these “fatal flaws” are fatal, or 2) find some other more reasonable objection, or 3) start flinging chaff about public masturbation.
Oh, wait. Never mind…
October 14th, 2008 at 3:48 pm
As an atheist, I am a bit torn. I do not want to see atheism become as rigid as a religion, and when ANY group forms, it needs to create boundaries which must be rigid for the group to keep any sense of cohesion or to prevent itself from splintering. But, on the other hand, religion is very organized. They have great political power, great information distribution systems and strong get out the vote campaigns. Much of their motivation is not the free practice of their religion (something I support as a crucial piece of the Bill of Rights), but an overt attempt to have their religious views imposed on society at large as a matter of public policy. To prevent this, you do need a motivated and unified group of people to stand up to such trespasses against their freedom to define their own religious way of life.
So how do you form a group predicated on being dogma-free when the basis for most any group is a common dogma amongst its members?
My basic stance is, “you are free to practice whatever religion you want (provided it does not infringe on individual rights of others), but you are absolutely NOT free to impose your beliefs or laws on to other people. IE, if your church won’t marry gay people, that’s cool, but don’t tell others they can’t do it either. You can tell your kids that Noah walked with the dinosaurs, but don’t you dare make that the official state educational policy.
October 14th, 2008 at 3:51 pm
The question I have for Bible-thumpers who come to me with the notion that the Bible is the absolute word of God is this: If the Bible is perfect, why don’t you abandon God and worship the Bible? (some, perhaps, do…) The answer is usually incoherent. I don’t often care whether they are right or wrong, but whether they take their ‘conceptual framework’ (religions have that too…) altogether too seriously.
I’m intimately acquainted with the scientific method and think that the conceptual frameworks that move us towards understanding are not, in fact, to be mistaken for that understanding. Much peer review, perhaps even most, is wrong in some way (maybe trivial, maybe non-trivial). I accept that. I don’t know how to move forward with science outside of that. Falsifiablity and reliability are much much more slippery concepts than you let on here.
Regardless of how sound the scientific method might be, I don’t see why religion has to bow to it… If you want to judge religion on sciences terms…well, good luck with that. Personally, I think in that way lies madness. What I don’t believe is that either religion or science, necessarily requires, demands or enables either idiocy or genius. Not every religious person is a fundie nutjob. Not every scientist is a fount of rationality. I don’t judge science by the number of mediocre scientists and I don’t judge religion by the number of hypocrites it may contain (indeed, if the word ‘hypocrite’ is to have any meaning, or use, then there has to be an earnest ‘conceptual framework’ by which we judge deviations.)
October 14th, 2008 at 3:54 pm
I think the basic rule is, “you don’t tell me how to live my life, and I won’t tell you how to live yours, and there is no way in heck the government can tell either us what to believe in.”
Both sides agree with the “you don’t tell me how to live my life” bit. But, both sides seem to try to tell the others how to live their lives. And, as for the third part, the religious movements do seem to think that the government can tell us what to believe. The religious people try to conflate the stance of atheists so that people think the atheists are trying to get the government to tell them what they can believe, by saying that “you can’t force this on the public” is in itself just another way to force things on the public. One could argue that there is a tinge of truth to that, but its probably a pretty spurious argument.
So, in my opinion, the religious groups are 1/3 right, the atheists have almost 2/3 of it down, but no one is going about things 100% the right way.
October 14th, 2008 at 4:04 pm
Right. Because your ‘rash’ assumptions are so tangential…
Riddle me this, sweetums, who died an made you chief? Where did we all say you get to decide what the debate is? Are we all a sudden arguing on your terms (your arguments (sic) being about what ‘theists’ can or cannot believe) or are we discussing the general prospect of atheists perspicacity being relevant in the public sphere… which is, ya know, kinda what the owner of the blog here put out there.
‘Cause, you see, I specifically tried not to engage in the over-arching God exists/God doesn’t exist argument. That’s not where this started and you’re the one who brought that into play… Instead I tried to focus on the efficacy of the argument put forth by Maher et al.
I know you’ll call that a dodge, because you just wanna rage against whatever it is you want to rage against. That’s fine. Just don’t expect me to be your monkey, mkay…
October 14th, 2008 at 4:05 pm
You’re really losing it now petr.
Somebody mentioned chaff upthread. Chaff it is.
October 14th, 2008 at 4:10 pm
If you want to judge religion on sciences terms…well, good luck with that. Personally, I think in that way lies madness.
Right, but if you’re going to say that, you might give us at least one example of where that breakdown occurs.
Falsifiablity and reliability are much much more slippery concepts than you let on here.
On “reliability,” I agree. But falsifiability is a simple binary quality: does this make claims that can be disproved? If yes, it’s falsifiable. If no, it’s not.
Not every religious person is a fundie nutjob. Not every scientist is a fount of rationality.
But you’re setting the bar too high. I don’t think any atheist here has claimed that every religious person is a fundie nut job. Dawkins has certainly never claimed anything of the sort. Of course there *are* fundie nutjobs. But there are plenty of completely rational folks out there who hold completely irrational beliefs (religious or otherwise). This doesn’t make them bad fathers, wives, etc…
I am interested in hearing a specific example of something “in the realm of religion” about which science has nothing to say, though.
October 14th, 2008 at 4:23 pm
Insofar as you say ‘corrected’ I think you mean ‘ledgerdemain’. I do believe my arguments stand because I’m arguing something different from what you’re arguing.
That happens quite often when you don’t listen to the other persons arguments. I only see a substitution of arguments. I critiqued the arguments and pronouncements of Maher and Hitchens in the context of Linkers article. You have nothing whatsoever to say about that, and instead substitute what you perceive as ‘the fundamental argument’ of atheists, the existance of God, making reference to the scientific method and what not.
While that might be an argument worth having, it’s not the argument we’re having here… It’s pretty clear from Mahers show, and from Hitchens books, that they make the critique of religion MAINLY on the practices of religious adherents. My argument is that this is a ridiculous critique that isn’t made about any other social activity. That’s the gist of Linkers articles and the reason the director of Mahers movie was the guy who did Borat: he specializes in showing up foolish people in all their glory. It does not address what I believe or don’t believe and doesn’t even go near the idea of God… We’re simply not having that argument.
Sheesh.
October 14th, 2008 at 4:43 pm
Ooops. I’ve lost the thread. I have no *idea* what we’re arguing about then.
Again, sorry.
October 14th, 2008 at 4:53 pm
peter:
I don’t think Mahers and Hitchens’ self-righteousness invalidates their point of view, at least, not in the same way they seem to think ‘religious’ self-righteousness invalidates religion. I think the comic irony here is that they’re both sorta extremists who repeatedly (tiresomely) use the examples of extremists on the ‘other side’ to invalidate the entirety of the ‘other side’. But if you remove the fundies as examplar of religious habit (because, well, they’re not examplars) then their arguments collapse.
I think the fundies are actually the only respectable ones in a way. At least they’re serious and not wishy washy. Have some balls, I mean you know what God thinks and all of the other religions across the globe are wrong.
As for the herbivorous, wishy washy, feel-good religions, Hitchens put it well, “the fact is that the bacilli are always lurking in the old texts and are latent in the theory and practice of religion. ”
He was referencing Albert Camus’s The Plague:
“And indeed, as he listened to the cries of joy rising from the town, Rieux remembered that such joy is always imperiled. He knew what those jubilant crowds did not know but could have learned from books: that the plague bacillus never dies or disappears for good; that it can lie dormant for years and years in furniture and linen-chests; that it bides its time in bedrooms, cellars, trunks and bookshelves; and that perhaps the day would come when, for the bane and enlightening of men, it roused up its rats again and sent them forth to die in a happy city.”
October 14th, 2008 at 4:59 pm
Is anyone in here interested in tackling Anselm’s ontological argument for the existence of God? Or is that a bit too much for you people?
October 14th, 2008 at 5:09 pm
It’s pretty clear from Mahers show, and from Hitchens books, that they make the critique of religion MAINLY on the practices of religious adherents. My argument is that this is a ridiculous critique that isn’t made about any other social activity.
If I assert that a social activity which millions of people engage in is in fact a route to moral improvement, and if I assert that I can in fact tell you of what moral behavior consists, then the degree to which the behavior of the people engaged in said activity match said definition of moral behavior is, and I do not say this lightly, data.
October 14th, 2008 at 5:15 pm
@Hector:
Anselm’s ontological argument is bunk. It assumes the conclusion it is attempting to establish.
October 14th, 2008 at 5:19 pm
hector: the ontological “proof” is nothing more than word games. And you can’t make all powerful beings out of definitions. Its ridiculous.
October 14th, 2008 at 5:21 pm
The Flying Spaghetti Monster is that flying spaghettin monster than which no greater flying spaghetti monster can be conceived. But is is greater to exist than not to exist. Therefore the Flying Spaghetti Monster exists.
Now get down on your knee and kiss the Flying Spaghetti Monster’s ass. Because that is what He commands. I KNOW. He told me.
Don’t hate me just because I’m bearing witness, jack.
October 14th, 2008 at 5:26 pm
The Fool,
Er, calling it bunk doesn’t disprove it. The logical steps seem convincing to me. A perfect being which exists is more perfect than one which doesn’t exist, hence a perfect being must necessarily exist.
October 14th, 2008 at 5:29 pm
hector:
Interesting. So I take it you accept that my proof of the existence of the Flying Spaghetti Monster is rock solid, no?
Have you kissed His ass yet? He told me if you don’t He will torture you for all eternity. You better get on it, stat, bro. He’s getting pissed.
October 14th, 2008 at 5:29 pm
@The Fool
Heretic!! The proof goes as follows:
God is that being which it is impossible to imagine a being greater than.
A God which is make of pork is greater than one not made of pork.
Thus, God is made of pork.
October 14th, 2008 at 5:32 pm
Hector thinks he can make the hypothetical real just by thinking about it. You must think you’re pretty powerful, huh Hector?
I got news for you pal. The perfect Flying Spaghetti monster thinks your claim is sacrilege. Only He can make things exist just by thinking about them. Do you dare pretend to be Him?
He just told me you have to kiss his ass twice now. Or you will BURN!!!!!!!!!
October 14th, 2008 at 5:33 pm
@Hector,
You are including that which you are attempting to prove — i.e., existance — as a subset of one of your premises — that is, perfection.
October 14th, 2008 at 5:36 pm
Woody: I like that. haven’t heard that one before but it shows very neatly how much they twist out of the meaning of the words “great” and “exist”. After all who can argue that it is greater to be made out of pork than not to be? Seems perfectly obvious that porkitude is a perfection.
October 14th, 2008 at 5:36 pm
It is entirely possible that this is the case. What is it to you? I mean, I’m kinda touched at your concern, and all, but really, why is it important? Generally, when I see that people are ‘losing it’, I tend to leave them alone and, beyond a general hope that they ‘get better’ kinda just go about my business.
Christopher Hitchens makes this argument: That he’s just an earnest atheist wishing nothing more than to be left alone. He’s actually said that…
Somehow, somewhere, somebody conspired to force him to change the title of his book from ‘please, won’t you leave me alone?’ to the altogether more provocative ‘God is not great.’
Don’t get me wrong… I understand that Hitchens is perfectly willing to forgo moral grandstanding and the concommitant high that results from engaging in an orgy of supposed moral and intellectual superiority… he’s perfectly willing, just not able. Or, put another way, the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak.
I may inded be losing it… but now you got it. Good luck with that.
October 14th, 2008 at 5:43 pm
By the way, The Fool, what do you make of Joan of Arc’s visions of the archangel Michael? Was she lying, insane, or did she really see him? I should tell you that professional (and atheistic) psychiatrists have reviewed her court records and concluded that she matched none of the diagnostic features of any mental illness. And she appears to have lacked the sophistication to effectively lie. So….was she isnpired, or not?
October 14th, 2008 at 5:44 pm
Of course. Whether it’s fresh-cut bacon, teryaki pork tenderloin or a full rack of ribs, Memphis style… porkitude is perfection.
October 14th, 2008 at 5:44 pm
re: Anselm
1) The only way to prove something a priori is if its opposite implies a contradiction.
2) If something implies a contradiction, then it is inconceivable.
3) Everything can be conceived not to exist.
4) Nothing can be proven to exist a priori, including God.
Ah, Hume! We miss ye…
October 14th, 2008 at 5:46 pm
If I can paraphrase Raymond Smullyan’s take on the ontological argument (Descartes’s, not Anselm’s):
If we take “an existing unicorn” to be a unicorn that exists, then considering the following two possibilities:
1) An existing unicorn exists.
2) An existing unicorn does not exist.
…it is obvious that possibility 2 is contradictory; therefore, unicorns exist. Smullyan follows:
“Similarly with Descartes’ proof; all that properly follows is that all Gods exist, that is, that anything satisfying Descartes’ definition of a God must also have the property of existence. But this does not mean that there necessarily exists a God.”
October 14th, 2008 at 5:48 pm
australian philosphopher Douglas Gasking:
1) The creation of the world is the most marvelous achievement imaginable.
2) The merit of an achievement is the product of (a) its intrinsic quality, and (b) the ability of its creator.
3) The greater the disability (or handicap) of the creator, the more impressive the achievement.
4) The most formidable handicap for a creator would be non-existence.
5) Therefore if we suppose that the universe is the product of an existent creator we can conceive a greater being — namely, one who created everything while not existing.
Therefore, God does not exist.
October 14th, 2008 at 5:49 pm
Hector: I seem to recall that at one point your intention was not to get involved in this thread. Given that you’ve now descended into citing modern psychiatric evaluations of court records from almost a thousand years ago to prove the existence of God, I’d say you should have gone with your first instinct.
October 14th, 2008 at 5:50 pm
‘Cause we know how definitively we can diagnose mental illness and its causes from 500-year-old Court records.
October 14th, 2008 at 5:57 pm
Re: They’re just telling the truth.
Stanley Kurtz and his groupies believe the same things about their William Ayres rants. A more correct statement here would be that Dawkins et al are stating their opinions– forcibly (as is their right).
Re: (some) religious people, mostly politically powerful conservatives, have in the last ten years, called off the informal “live and let live” truce that seemed to apply during my formative years of the 80s and 90s.
Don’t know where you spent the 80s and 90s but in my America religious conservatives were loud and racucous and quite demanding all through both decades. There was no truce at all (just ask Bill Clinton about that).
Re:because not confronting it has produced such wonderful sensations like the recent unitarian church massacre and Eric Rudoph.
Not sure what Eric Rudolph had to do with religion– like most nuts he was very sui generis. But please note that the Unitarian Church was in fact a church. Both perpetrators and victims were motivated by religion to be where they were that day.
Re: you see no value in an organized movement of people dedicated to rationality?
Fanatics in the cause of rationalism are no better than fanatics in any other cause.
Re: that’s only because the beliefs of the religious (specifically Christians) has been coddled for so long, and held from even the most gentle criticism.
Where have you been living? Since the middle of the 18th century religion has been mocked and criticized by a whole succession of public figures: Voltaire, Hume, Jefferson, Marx, Nietzsche, Lenin, Russell, Rand, now Dawkins and Hitchens.
It has decidedly not been protected from criticism, either in the US or abroad.
Re: The fact that Christians as a whole have, in this country, united around a set of public policy actions to deny rights to other citizens, and to implement *bad* policy based on theological wishfulness as opposed to facts makes them the subject of much-deserved public ridicule.
Blaming all Christians for the political antics of the obnoxious few is like blaming all low income people for the mortgage meltdown.
Re: the NT describes Mary as an “almah,” which according to Dawkins means “young woman” (as opposed to “virgin”)
Some quibbles here: the NT does not use the Hebrew word “almah”; it uses the Greek “parthenos” because the NT was written in Greek. Moreover this analysis is ignorant of the social realities of the ancient world– words like “parthenos” and “almah” mean BOTH “virgin” and “young woman” because this was synonymous back then. Even among “progressive” people like the Greeks and Romans unmarried daughters were given no opportunity to lose their virginity. There’s some trace of this reality even in modern languages: German Jungfrau which is literally “young woman”, is the word for “virgin”.
Re: who here is religious yet doesn’t believe in ghosts, gods, snakes, or virgin births?
Is this an SAT test? Which term does not belong with the others in the list. Does anyone not believe in snakes at all?
October 14th, 2008 at 6:03 pm
I think the reference is to the talking snake in the Garden of Eden. Did a snake really talk to people?
October 14th, 2008 at 6:20 pm
I’m not sure that’s possible with you. I mean, I know it’s possible, but you’re not really willing to say that the scientific method isn’t the only valid ‘conceptual framework’.
I mean, on one level, you’re absolutely correct: many things are silly, demonstrably so, when viewed only through the lens of the scientific method. And you’d be completely in the right if the scientific method were the only valid game in town. But I can’t convince you that it isn’t, so the dialogue really can’t continue can it?
I mean… I might take the view that the scientific method, almost by definition, is incomplete (say on the grounds Newton set when he refused to use science to answer ‘why’) and therefore this proves the existence of a conceptual framework more complete…. of which I’m unable to say more. You’d reply by asking “how do you prove it.” I say I can’t. I may not even want to prove it. I’m OK with not being able to prove it. (Newton was too…) but you won’t accept that. You require proof on your terms to ensure validity. I don’t.
Incidentally, if I make the claim that the numinous is that larger conceptual framework that may encompass the incomplete scientific method, we’ve entered the territory of ‘breakdown’, no?
October 14th, 2008 at 6:22 pm
DRAT! Futzed up the formatting on the previous… sorry.
October 14th, 2008 at 8:10 pm
After 169 posts in this thread, I’ll just add my two cents, quoting the late great Aleister Crowley:
The Christians to the lions!
October 14th, 2008 at 9:40 pm
Petr K. @ 145:
Great stuff. And the name of Camus’s protagonist makes a great online handle.
petr @ 167:
Apparently so, given that that’s the “simplistic postmodernist bulls…” er, the postmodern sophistry you were called on previously. Rudolf Otto’s penetrating (cough) analysis aside, though, one merely wonders what the point of concocting such a “framework” actually is. Neuroscientists have no particular problem explaining numinous experiences and what they consist of, within one particular framework that shall remain nameless. But as Dawkins, among many others, has noticed, it’s hard to identify any reason why anyone should take your offered framework seriously:
October 14th, 2008 at 10:27 pm
Hmm…
First…
And then…
I suppose uncritical acceptance of Camus and Dawkins is fine as long as they make you feel good… I guess it also helps you put me in a box, but it sure ain’t intellectual endeavor. When you’re ready to respond to what wrote, as opposed to what you think Camus and/or Dawkins said about what I didn’t write… I’ll be happy to respond.
October 14th, 2008 at 10:54 pm
Oh, fer fuck’s sake. An English newspaper editorial writer made a dumb offhand remark, therefore religion is meaningless? What a wanker Richard Dawkins is. And what a double wanker you are for being impressed by him. Sorry, Rich, I’m gonna need the names of these theologians you’ve vanquished or a reference to a single theological idea. I might as well tell you how many, many heavyweight boxing champions I’ve beaten up. They weren’t so tough, really.
October 15th, 2008 at 2:11 am
Wow–I do indeed like Albert Camus. You’ve got me there, Pete. Though I can’t say I understand your basis for concluding I’m “uncritical” about, well, anything.
Er, sure. Again, I don’t see where I’ve claimed that Camus has any particular relevance to your postmodernist silliness here, but go ahead and knock yourself out on that windmill.
As for Dawkins, you have offered verrückter Onkel Rudolf’s notion of “the numinous” as “that larger conceptual framework” that outclasses the scientific framework that you have steadily bashed on this thread. However, Dawkins (and countless other skeptics) has noticed that your glorious framework is simply patent horseshit, tortoises all the way down, made up entirely of the “platitudinously obvious [and the] downright false.”
So go ahead, bash away at that sorry old scientific framework. Dawkins and several commenters on this thread have got your number regardless.
October 15th, 2008 at 2:16 am
JBJ @ 172:
Yeah, uh, that summary doesn’t speak well of your reading comprehension skills. Try again.
October 15th, 2008 at 6:06 am
If you’re such a fan of Camus, you ought to know that he’d be horrified at your use of his arguments to prop up a hoary old dogmatist like Dawkins. Probably spinning in his grave. Using Camus to back up Dawkins is patently uncritical. Its. right. there.
I proffer no notions. I merely use rhetorical frameworks to posit some questions about IBC and his view of the world. I make no endorsements here. That you want to pigeonhole me into your view of what you think my view is… that too, is uncritical in extremis.
October 15th, 2008 at 8:34 am
Now this is just specious… If ‘utility’ were the sole valid criteria, or even just the most valid of criteria then Dawkins has to eschew music, dancing, recreational sex and brightly colored clothing. Zoot suits are long past vogue. Did anyone notice?
At this point, Dawkins finds himself in bed with Shakers, Baptists and the Amish… awkward!
October 15th, 2008 at 11:14 am
…hoary old dogmatist like Dawkins…
I think the disconnect here is that, 177 comments on, we’re still waiting for someone to point to anything, you know, specific that Dawkins has said or written that could be described as “dogmatic.” It’s a bit like the McCain campaign accusing Obama camp of “running the most negative campaign in history.” Is it merely a rhetorical device to preemptively deflect criticism, or are we meant to take it seriously?
October 15th, 2008 at 11:41 am
First, the hell he would. Second, again, the only thing I’ve said about Camus is that I think he (actually, that La Peste) is swell. I haven’t made “use of his arguments” in any manner whatsoever.
No. It‘s (note apostrophe) in fact. Not. In real life, I’m not “using Camus to back up” anything.
Suuure you don’t. Challenged by ibc above (@ 142) to explain “where [the] breakdown” in our use of the scientific method “occurs,” you responded (@ 167):
Couched though it is in your dainty and smug subjunctive, that’s a “proffer,” pal. You chucked “the numinous” into the arena, whether you’d now like to deny it or not.
I think you’ll find the proper English is “sole valid criterion,” not “criteria.” And given that Dawkins never used the word utility in that short essay, that word doesn’t actually, you know, belong in quotation marks.
Of course, “music, dancing, recreational sex and brightly colored clothing” are fine and dandy–but one goalpost-move ago, you wanted to talk about “larger conceptual framework[s].” Useful though music, etc., are in more limited applications, none of those activities or things purport to be such a “framework.”
Your impressive reasoning (e.g., “hoary old dogmatist”) aside, Dawkins’ point that the scientific method has vast utility, while the alternative “framework” of theology (such as Otto’s “numinous”) has none, stands unrebutted here.
If you actually don’t think utility is a “valid criteri[on]” for choosing one framework over another, then we appear simply to be at loggerheads. Difficult though it may be to understand, atheists (among others) have a tendency to favor interpretive frameworks that actually, you know, work, and to eschew ones that don’t.
October 15th, 2008 at 11:56 am
dancing, and music, etc…
Also, I think Dawkins has written in TGD and elsewhere about the social function of religion.
But I’m not sure I see how God’s existence follows from the argument that going to church is a pleasant (moving, cathartic, etc…) activity.
Unless the argument is that “church ‘works’ therefore god exists.” But that seems a bit of a stretch.
Difficult though it may be to understand, atheists (among others) have a tendency to favor interpretive frameworks that actually, you know, work, and to eschew ones that don’t.
heh.
October 15th, 2008 at 12:17 pm
If the subjunctive merely serves as a foil for your reflexive hurling then all inquiry not salving your emotional needs is, a priori, unneccessary. I guess everybody ought to just genuflect before Dawkins’ oh so obvious clarity and have done… if only to make you feel better.
Let me know how your tail tastes when you finally catch it, mkay…
October 15th, 2008 at 12:30 pm
Well, as I’ve said about the self-righteousness of Hitchens and Maher, might it apply to Dawkins?
Dogmatic: Asserting opinions in a doctrinaire or arrogant manner.
Or…
characterized by or given to the expression of opinions very strongly or positively as if they were facts
Oh… I don’t know… entitling a book ‘The God Delusion’ might just edge into that space… hm? Really now…
October 15th, 2008 at 1:07 pm
[dogmatic:] characterized by or given to the expression of opinions very strongly or positively as if they were facts
I had always assumed “dogmatic” had an element of being deaf to contrary argument. From everything I’ve seen and read, most of these guys we’re calling the “new atheists” seem to welcome addressing and swatting down arguments. Most of the criticism seems to be that they don’t do so with enough tact.
Say, if I propose that a man was born of a virgin, and you tell me not to be silly, and describe in great detail what a gamete is, how an egg is fertilized to become an ovum, etc… I wouldn’t think your response “dogmatic,” per se. “Intemperate” or “impolite,” perhaps?
On the other hand, if I come back at you, and decry your lack of scholarship in cryptic church records, or that you don’t know Greek or Aramaic, and that very smart people have been having complex discussions about these things for millenia…that seems to me a dogmatic response.
October 15th, 2008 at 1:08 pm
Try growing up in the Midwest and being the only kid in school who doesn’t go to church camp (and also, incidentally, being the smartest kid in school).
Um, yeah. The religious thing is the ONLY possible reason you weren’t popular. Speaking of irrational and unexamined beliefs and all.
October 15th, 2008 at 1:08 pm
Of course, I’m willing to entertain I may have a bias…
October 15th, 2008 at 1:52 pm
That would be perfectly fine. But that’s not dogmatic, that’s pragmatic. However, if I say you’re an idiot for believing such delusions and further refuse to countenance anything else you might have to say, regardless of how tangential to ‘virgin birth’ it might be, I’m being quite dogmatic.
Why would you come back at _me_ in that manner? Have I given you any reason to believe, other than a more than passing familiarity with the nomenclature, that I’m advocating any single position? (As opposed to simply knocking down strawmen?) Do you, too, object to the subjunctive? Or do you, too, think the subjunctive clause is a coy slip o’ the old ulterior? Can I not hold an idea and discuss it, and discuss how other people discuss it, without having to endorse it? Why is it that I’m not allowed to look at the arguments and say they stand up or fall down on their own?
I’ll note that three separate posters here have made the assumption that, since I’m arguing against the ‘new atheists’ I must be arguing for religion. One thinks mere mention of the word ‘numinous’ peels the onion back all the way. This is bunk. Perhaps I take the idea of atheism seriously and thus see the ‘new atheists’ as full of BS and thus unhelpful to the cause. Perhaps I’m Elijah blogging from the great beyond hoisting the ‘new atheists’ on their own petard… Regardless, as I’ve said repeatedly, I’ve studiously avoided labelling myself in order to avoid your arguments to that which you think I am, as opposed to critical analysis of the actual arguments.
Whatever the case, the gravitational pull which that dichotomie asserts seems too much for many here to overcome. sigh.
October 15th, 2008 at 2:17 pm
# Colatina wrote:
Maher’s treatment of religion is a lot more stupid than that of Dawkins or Dennett. He’s obsessed with things like talking snakes. For Maher, that’s religion. When he asks a question like: “How could otherwise rational people believe in things like Jonah being eaten by a whale?” he asks it like a joke, and doesn’t really think about what a good answer might be.
There’s the rub though, Colatina… a lot of people in this country really do think Jonah was in the belly of the whale, the earth flooded, that we’ve only been here for 3,000 years, that men walked with the dinosaurs…
Thanks to religion.
Religion encourages some pretty wacky beliefs in this country and it’s holding us back as a society. That’s where Bill Maher’s beef is. He’s afraid that dogmatic Christians are preventing America from being the great country it could be.
Which they are.
October 15th, 2008 at 2:22 pm
All “poor persecuted christians” sentiments are to be immediately discarded on the grounds of being fucking stupid.
October 15th, 2008 at 2:37 pm
The Fool:
So I started reading comments to this post and quickly came across this laugher:
“I was raised in a strongly religious family but after studying pihlosophy for a few years in college I realized it was all unsupported bunk.”
I’m not trying to be a jerk, but you have like 20 comments here and they all seem to be gleaned straight out of your textbooks from those few years in college studying philosophy. Good job.
I’m not sure what I am getting at, but it does seem a bit foolish to be convinced that after studying some textbooks for a couple years you now have all of the answers.
I myself am not religious, but I dont confuse science for religion or religion for science as it seems too often people on both extremes do.
October 15th, 2008 at 2:57 pm
Firstly I don’t think there is any kind of concerted attempt by atheists to form a mass movement, but what is happening is that a “critical mass” is being reached whereby it is no longer reasonable to accept that because you are “religous” this trumps all other arguments with regard to what can and can’t be said about what you believe.
It seems fairly obvious to me that Religion is total nonsense from a factual point of view so why shouldn’t I (or others) be able to say so?
October 15th, 2008 at 3:33 pm
Perhaps the athiests are taking a lesson from the success of the social conservative movement: demonize your opponent and be loud and organized, and the powers that be will cater to your every whim. Stay silent, and they will neglect you.
Calling even the most extreme atheists “assholes” implies that the leaders of the social conservative movement are far, far worse.
October 15th, 2008 at 3:57 pm
Oh, please. Maher made it perfectly clear in the movie that he thinks it’s dangerous to hunger for the End Days in an era of widespread nuclear weapons. If you want to dispute the point, go for it. But to just pretend that he doesn’t have a point or that it’s “beyond” you is silly denial.
October 15th, 2008 at 6:30 pm
I think the key distinction shouldn’t be whether someone is preaching to the choir or not (MY makes a good point about the importance of that) but whether someone is pathologically prone to being an asshole.
My pastor technically preaches to the choir most of the time, insofar as our congregation rarely has non-longtime members in attendance. But he’s never an asshole about it.
October 15th, 2008 at 6:58 pm
Actually, Dawkins, et al’s view of what religion is much closer to that of the ordinary evangelical than it is to Jefferson or liberal religious opinion. They just take a different view of its normative value. For both, liberal religious belief is basically a patent absurdity, a vain attempt to find a middle ground between absolute truth and absolute falseness. They just disagree about which extreme is true and which is false.
Speak for yourself, unless you mean to restrict “atheist” to refer to “people who agree with everything Dawkins, et al, say.” There are enormous differences between Scientologists and Catholics, between Moonies and (non-completely-insane-right-wing) Baptists. That there are a lot of apparent absurdities in virtually every system of religious belief is obviously true. But religious traditions are more than simply a sum of their apparently absurd beliefs.
Perhaps this is because commenters on liberal blogs tend to encounter a larger number of scornful atheists than scornful religious people? Every time there’s a comment on this subject on a liberal blog, the argument is generally between obnoxious atheistic evangelists and, well, everybody else, including a substantial number of us who are not religious believers.
I do think that this points to the substantial source of this divide. Hard-core atheist types, I think, often come from religious backgrounds, or have in some other way suffered for their lack of belief. Those of us who are soft-non-believers of whatever sort probably largely came from basically non-religious upbringings on the Godless coasts. I’ve never really believed in any religion, and I can’t think of a time I’ve ever suffered in any way for it. Most people I know aren’t religious, and few of them seem to have suffered for it, either.
Er…yeah. Do you really believe this? As I said above, I’ve never been religious, I’ve never had any fear of saying so (although I’ve also never gone to any lengths to advertise it, either), and I’ve never suffered any kind of prejudice at all. On the other side, I’m not gay, but I remember that when I was in high school (~ten years ago), the fear of being thought to be gay was an extraordinarily oppressive fact of daily life. Nobody the fuck cared what anybody else’s religious beliefs were. Obviously the situation changes when the family becomes involved, but I’m going to suggest a) that in cases where the parents are supportive it’s much easier to be an openly non-believing teenager than to be an openly gay one; b) that in 1968, there were a lot more people who were openly atheists than openly gay; c) that this has been true since at least the 18th century; and d) that you people need to grow up and stop whining about being oppressed. Non-believers are possibly the least oppressed group of people in the United States. I understand that there can be family issues which can make a big difference in cases like this, and lead to problems, but the idea that it’s inevitably incredibly hard to grow up non-religious is just completely ridiculous – in some cases it’s obviously hard, but there’s plenty of us who have never encountered any problems from it at all. The self-pity, and the self-serving comparisons with groups that have suffered from actual prejudice, is unappealing.
October 16th, 2008 at 5:47 am
This is an interesting discussion of God and religion, but I think most of the arguments against it are framed in terms of Christianity, or at least a specific subset of it. I am Jewish, but consider myself to be agnostic with regard to my belief in God and I think I bring a completely different point of view that I don’t think has really been expressed here.
Unlike a lot of other religions, to be Jewish does not require for you to believe any specific truths. Most Jews, myself included, do not take the Old Testament as a literal document of what happened, but rather as a set of stories. Whether they were written by God or just by inspired people is almost beside the point (although Orthodox Jews would probably beg to differ).
Jews have what are called Midrash where they study the Old Testament and come up with various interpretations of bible stories. This is an ongoing process, and it is used to reflect on how we view ourselves and how we relate to others and the world we live in. It can be used as a way for people to explore the world individually or along with others. The point is not to find some ultimate truth that must be true for everyone, but the point is to search for truth or at least something that seems true or relevant to one’s life. It can be very intellectual, interesting and useful in people’s lives.
Judiasm, like other religions, also provides a basis for people raising families to provide an outlet for spiritual exploration, and like other religions, it provides a basis for a moral framework as well as cultural identity. It is generally not used as a cudgel to say that some specific belief must be right, although again many Orthodox Jews won’t agree about that, but that can be true of any subset of people of a given religion.
I’m not trying to make any particular point with regard to the existence of God, but rather that if you want to denigrate religion in general, you’re acting out of ignorance of at least some religious traditions.
Not that I’m a religious person myself, but at least I understand it well enough to know that it has utility in the lives of individuals, their families and the communities in which they live. Many of you here would not be as hostile of religion and religious people in general if you came from a background such as myself.
I can understand why you might be hostile to some religious individuals and communities, but even they serve similar useful purposes to the members as I have seen in my Jewish upbringing. In summary, don’t throw out the baby with the bathwater.
October 16th, 2008 at 1:59 pm
Can’t stop thinking about this thread. Decided to start my own blog on the subject…
October 18th, 2008 at 5:23 pm
“Maher’s treatment of religion is a lot more stupid than that of Dawkins or Dennett.”
Wow! That’s saying something — I didn’t even think it was possible to be stupider than Dawkins or Dennett on religion!
October 18th, 2008 at 5:32 pm
What has theology ever said that is of the smallest use to anybody? When has theology ever said anything that is demonstrably true and is not obvious? I have listened to theologians, read them, debated against them. I have never heard any of them ever say anything of the smallest use, anything that was not either platitudinously obvious or downright false. If all the achievements of scientists were wiped out tomorrow, there would be no doctors but witch doctors, no transport faster than horses, no computers, no printed books, no agriculture beyond subsistence peasant farming. If all the achievements of theologians were wiped out tomorrow, would anyone notice the smallest difference?”
What a nitwit! Historians of science and philosophers like Collingwood have ably demonstrated how Western science grew out of and is dependent upon Western theology!
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