1. Comment #444953 by Richard Dawkins on December 28, 2009 at 7:59 am

I am at a loss for words, to express my contempt for this sort of deepity tosh! I can summon up a kind of wry (if not affectionate) amusement at the antics of a Ray Comfort, but this sort of obscurantist deepity makes me want to throw up. The very apotheosis of the theological mind.

Richard

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2. Comment #444954 by stevencarrwork on December 28, 2009 at 8:06 am

How can you keep people in the dark?

You can put them in dungeons, or like the author, you can envelop them in fog.

As Carl Sagan said, science is a candle in the dark.

But some people prefer the darkness.

Religion is not a different way of knowing, as the author proves.

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3. Comment #444955 by Metch on December 28, 2009 at 8:08 am

Deepity: sums this whole article up perfectly. Same old poetic language, straw-man, etc.. I have asked the question, I think it's a question worth asking. I've looked into it, and the more I look into it, the more it confirms my unbelief.
The existence of a God seems highly unlikely, because intelligence such as ours is only known to be possible through terrestrial evolution.
My beliefs are temporary, they change with evidence.

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4. Comment #444957 by Mr DArcy on December 28, 2009 at 8:27 am

The trick is to develop a path that feeds the doubt, that re-invigorates the question, that keeps the mystery alive. That might be a good definition of religion.

I think this author got that bit right. The more "mystery" the more obscure the view of the world. If that's a reason for Rowan Williams, (Archbishop of Cant), to be happy, then ignorance is indeed, bliss. What was that old saying: "A fool can ask more questions in 5 minutes than a wise man can answer in 5 years".

When the theologians eventually do come up with "answers", reality invariably proves them wrong. Keep it vague, keep it vague! Don't let the dog see the rabbit.

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5. Comment #444958 by Richard Dawkins on December 28, 2009 at 8:30 am

Don't let the dog see the rabbit.

Talking of rabbits, MirandaCeleste has a nice rabbity parody on her blog:
http://www.mirandacelestehale.net/?p=1041
Richard

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6. Comment #444960 by Mr DArcy on December 28, 2009 at 8:44 am

I suppose the true meaning of Easter is the Easter Bunny. Personally, I've always sympathised with Mr. MacGreggor in his battles with Peter Rabbit!

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7. Comment #444961 by Stafford Gordon on December 28, 2009 at 8:47 am

The instant that god is invoked in any discourse meaningful exchange is at an end.

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8. Comment #444962 by Richard Dawkins on December 28, 2009 at 8:54 am

Josh called it 'theo-masturbation'. Excellent expression, and it perfectly sums up what Karen Armstrong, Terry Eagleton and all those pretentious pseuds do, all the time.

Richard

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9. Comment #444963 by mmurray on December 28, 2009 at 8:56 am

The Oxford church historian tells of a 'wise old Dominican friar' who informed him that God is not the answer. Rather, God is the question.

Xmas cracker theology. How appropriate for the season.

Michael

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10. Comment #444964 by John Desclin on December 28, 2009 at 8:58 am

Questions of which we know beforehand that they are unanswerable are, IMHO at least, devoid of any meaning. They are the symptoms of mental pathology!
(perhaps philosophers have another opinion, but this is beyond me)

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11. Comment #444966 by Adrian Bartholomew on December 28, 2009 at 9:06 am

God as the cause of existence, not something that exists.

Possibly the dumbest thing ever written… Or perhaps unintentionally honest :-)

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12. Comment #444967 by MattHunX on December 28, 2009 at 9:10 am

Deepity?

Strange word. I never heard that before. Can someone be a dictionary-for-a-day for me?

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13. Comment #444968 by chalkers on December 28, 2009 at 9:12 am

Here's to another article void of any substance - it leaves you so unsatisfied you feel your mind has become a vacuous landscape.

Seriously, these people who fluff up the existence of god in this 'poetic language' answering no questions at all, revelling in the obscurity of their own language need a sharp dose of common sense. Do they have to suppress their common sense for the appearance of intellect or are they genuinely inept?

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14. Comment #444969 by Adrian Bartholomew on December 28, 2009 at 9:20 am

I just read the Holy Rabbit link above and I gotta say I don’t like this counter argument much. It’s funny and yes the argument it’s poking fun at is indeed dumb as nuts but the rabbit analogy isn’t a fair one IMO. I’ve seen theists do the same kind of “analogy fail” on evolution, likening it to dice rolling and casino games and the problem isn’t evolution but the crap analogy and I’m uncomfortable when I see us do similar analogies to the theists. I think the humour of comparing god to a rabbit actually DISTRACTS from the ridiculousness of the arguments the theists put forward.

Or perhaps I’m still in a bad mood from this Christmas malarkey :-)

PS: Deepity: Any statement that has two meanings one of which is true but superficial and another that is profound but meaningless. I would like to expand the meaning to any statement that on the face of it appears deep and insightful but on further examination is stupid as I want to use the word more often.

EDIT:I apologise for the appalling grammar in this post. I am suitably ashamed of myself.

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15. Comment #444970 by Peter Grant on December 28, 2009 at 9:23 am

Where does this guy get off quoting Douglas Adams?
Blasphemer!

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16. Comment #444971 by Richard Dawkins on December 28, 2009 at 9:34 am

Deepity: Any statement that has two meanings one of which is true but superficial and another that is profound but meaningless.

This word was coined by Dan Dennett at the AAI conference in Burbank this year. I feel quite possessive about it because his talk was one of the highspots in the symposium on science that RDFRS sponsored, and Liz Cornwell initiated and organized on our behalf.
Richard

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17. Comment #444973 by Rodger T on December 28, 2009 at 10:03 am

If

God is the question

is the answer ,Fuck off?

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18. Comment #444974 by Cartomancer on December 28, 2009 at 10:04 am

As Terry Pratchett wryly observed, once you get the hang of it you can easily bash out these sorts of pearls of wisdom at a rate of ten every minute...

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19. Comment #444975 by flying goose on December 28, 2009 at 10:21 am

I have to say I rather liked it, but then I am religious tending towards agnosticism and Mr Vernon is formally religious and now agnostic. Perhaps my mindset finds it easier to feel empathy with his.

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20. Comment #444976 by Mark Jones on December 28, 2009 at 10:28 am

Mark Vernon and his apophatic friends have 'nothing positive' to say about God.

I guess we can agree on that.

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21. Comment #444977 by bucketchemist on December 28, 2009 at 10:37 am

I'm at a loss to see how this article is in any way obscure or obfuscating. It seems very straightforward to me. The only possible confusion could be over the word 'god' which, because of its historical baggage, is open to misinterpretation, but since it is here used only as a synonym for 'mystery' I don't see the problem. Am I missing something?

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22. Comment #444978 by decius on December 28, 2009 at 10:44 am

Comment #444977 by bucketchemist

Am I missing something?

A dictionary.

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23. Comment #444979 by flying goose on December 28, 2009 at 10:54 am

decius

A dictionary

Thereby, hangs the difference between different kinds of people.

If only things were that black and white, red and blue, Green and purple.

We would not have all the arguments we do have.

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24. Comment #444980 by mmurray on December 28, 2009 at 11:01 am

The only possible confusion could be over the word 'god' which, because of its historical baggage, is open to misinterpretation, but since it is here used only as a synonym for 'mystery' I don't see the problem

It becames difficult to have a rational shit if you keep changing the meaning of words. Of course I am using the word shit here as a synonym for discussion so don't be distracted by its historical baggage.

Michael

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25. Comment #444981 by bucketchemist on December 28, 2009 at 11:14 am

@mmurray
As the article mentions, there is something of a history of the god concept which does align it with 'mystery', as opposed to the anthropomorphic entity which nobody with half a brain could entertain for five minutes. As for your example, if there was any kind of history at all of the word 'shit' being used in place of the word 'discussion' you might have a point, but since there isn't then I would have to conclude that you are talking pure discussion.

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26. Comment #444982 by critica on December 28, 2009 at 11:14 am

Theology has only obfuscation as its guiding principle. Any attempt at actual clarity would undo the theological thread and the whole thing would fall apart.

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27. Comment #444983 by mmurray on December 28, 2009 at 11:15 am

Jerry Coyne has a discussion of Dennetts notion of deepity on his blog

Dan Dennett talked about interviews with active priests and ministers who are atheists, and also mounted a hilarious attack on theologians like Karen Armstrong, who mouth pious nonsense like, “God is the God behind God.” Dennett calls this kind of language a “deepity”: a statement that has two meanings, one of which is true but superficial, the other which sounds profound but is meaningless. His exemplar of a deepity is the statement “Love is just a word.” True, it’s a word like “cheeseburger,” but the supposed deeper sense is wrong: love is an emotion, a feeling, a condition, and not just a word in the dictionary. He gave several examples of other deepities from academic theologians; when you see these things laid out — ripped from their texts — in a Powerpoint slide, they make you realize how truly fatuous are the lucubrations of people like Armstrong, Eagleton, and Haught. Sarcasm will be the best weapon against this stuff.

http://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2009/10/04/from-the-atheist-meetings/

You can find the talk on youtube.

Michael

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28. Comment #444984 by flying goose on December 28, 2009 at 11:15 am

Michael

It becames difficult to have a rational shit if you keep changing the meaning of words. Of course I am using the word shit here as a synonym for discussion so don't be distracted by its historical baggage.

It becames difficult to have a rational conversation if you keep changing the meaning of words. Of course I am using the word conversation here as a synonym for discussion so don't be distracted by its historical baggage.

I word say that words are not fixed in quite the way some would want them to be. Language is always on the move.

Take the words 'Warden' and 'Guardian', their origins are the same, french, however the first is Norman whilst the latter is Parisian and later.

Their meanings, whilst similar are different.

The art of conversation seems to me to hold with it an ability to pick out the these nuances and ask for clarification when needed.

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29. Comment #444985 by mmurray on December 28, 2009 at 11:28 am

bucketchemist & flyinggoose

I take your point that the word God has some more flexibility than shit. But if God is a synonym for question what sense am I to make of these statements:

Question says homosexuality is a sin.

Question says my children will burn in hell for all eternity because they do not believe in Question.

One nation under Question.

When the religions of the world stand up and admit God is a question and therefore they don't know anything about him/her and declare that from now on they are no longer going to tell people what to do then I will stop being annoyed at this game. Until that happens my conclusion is that this is a dangerous semantical game being played to preserve the power and influence of the major religions.

Michael

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30. Comment #444987 by flying goose on December 28, 2009 at 11:33 am

Question says homosexuality is a sin.
Question says my children will burn in hell for all eternity because they do not believe in Question.

That's not my Question!

Post Script

When the religions of the world stand up and admit God is a question and therefore they don't know anything about him/her and declare that from now on they are no longer going to tell people what to do then I will stop being annoyed at this game.

I think that is what Vernon is about, his words are read here as an attack on atheism. Perhaps they should be seen as attack on dogmatic religion.

He and me are engaged in a process not of apologetics, but one of undermining rigid religious answers.

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31. Comment #444988 by alabasterocean on December 28, 2009 at 11:34 am

Last night I was listening to the "Theological room" on Swedish radio. They did like so often stumble over the question of atheists.

They dealt with the matter by citing Terry Eagleton (!) and concluded that non belief (deniers of convictions past the agnostic) is fundamentalism. People who have no respect (a better word might be: use for) the mystery of the Christian God and it's profound texts.

This is just appalling. Like Comfort and Co they solve the questions towards religion, critique and doubts, not by clarifying and giving straight evidence and reasons. They did it by mystifying, obscuring, adding a poetic dimension and behaving like children faking English language (Or in UK, Swedish language) - It has similarity's to the real language but it's just a lot of random noises with no real content.

As far as I can see this is just another way of promoting knowledge from what we can't know instead of from what we can. It's relativism, another hat and coat but the same scare crow underneath.

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32. Comment #444989 by mmurray on December 28, 2009 at 11:37 am

That's not my Question!

Is that the no true question fallacy ?

Michael

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33. Comment #444990 by A on December 28, 2009 at 11:39 am

There is a garden that does not exist, at the bottom of this garden, there is a large hole, not a 'hole' as in the sense of a hollow space within a structure, but a hole as in an absence, literally a 'nothing', and in this nothing there is a thought, not a thought that has been thought by a man, but a thought of itself, having no substrate nor vessel this thought can never be known, an unknown thought. This is the thought that informs the hole of it's 'selfness', How? You may ask, but it is not a 'How' question, nor is it a 'Why' question, it is an 'is', yes, the 'seed' of the 'is' is an 'is' not a non-'is'. Or more straightforwardly - the thought of the hole is not just the hole ('whole') but the thought of the hole, itself being not in the garden, but of the garden. Which brings us back to the garden that does not exist, and compels us to ask the question - does it need to exist ?

I realise this is deeply profound, perhaps a little too effete for some of the so called 'wise' who visit this website, but my real question is can I get tax exemption ?

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34. Comment #444991 by Balance88 on December 28, 2009 at 11:39 am

It's essentially what some politicians are really good at - talking endlessly without actually saying ANYTHING.

Mystery this, mystery that, wooo.
The basic claim of all major religions is that god(s) intervene(s) in our physical realm and if that is so, it wouldn't be a deep hidden mystery because then we could observe it ALL THE TIME.

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35. Comment #444992 by GBile on December 28, 2009 at 11:41 am

Some time ago I proposed the 'Falwell' as unit for indicating someones amount of 'god delusion', Falwell himself scoring 1.0 on this delusion scale.

For the ability to write complete nonsense about the concept of 'God' an appropriate unit might be the 'Armstrong', Karen of course being at the 1.0 level.

Mr. Vernon, I rate you 0.9 Armstrong.

Good day.

Edit. A. Wow, you only make 1 milliArmstrong (mArm).

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36. Comment #444994 by AllanW on December 28, 2009 at 11:43 am

Comment #444990 by A on December 28, 2009 at 11:39 am

I don't know about tax exemption but it sounds to me as if you could become a Professor of Theology or English or Modern Studies at any university in the land.

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37. Comment #444995 by decius on December 28, 2009 at 11:44 am

Comment #444979 by flying goose

Sorry, but the discussions we are having, hopefully, shouldn't be marred in semantics, whereby a side changes the rules at whim in a ludicrous attempt to polish turds.

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38. Comment #444997 by mmurray on December 28, 2009 at 11:48 am

I think that is what Vernon is about, his words are read here as an attack on atheism. Perhaps they should be seen as attack on dogmatic religion.

He and me are engaged in a process not of apologetics, but one of undermining rigid religious answers.

Thanks flygoose. Did you see that Dennett talk ? There is more than deepitys there is an interesting discussion about his research on clergymen (and women I think) who are secretly non-believers. It was on RDnet awhile back.

http://richarddawkins.net/articles/4547

Michael

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39. Comment #444999 by BicycleRepairMan on December 28, 2009 at 11:56 am

Whatever God might be, God is not visible: God's invisible. Whatever God might be, God cannot be defined: God's ineffable. Nothing positive is said. But nonetheless something is said of God

Help! I'm stuck in drivel, somebody pull me out!

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40. Comment #445000 by decius on December 28, 2009 at 11:59 am

Comment #444981 by bucketchemist

As the article mentions, there is something of a history of the god concept which does align it with 'mystery', as opposed to the anthropomorphic entity which nobody with half a brain could entertain for five minutes.

Just another way to put the argument from ignorance known as 'god of the gaps'.

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41. Comment #445001 by Alternative Carpark on December 28, 2009 at 12:13 pm

If "God" is the question, then the answer must surely be "bollocks".

Am I right, or am I right?

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42. Comment #445002 by black wolf on December 28, 2009 at 12:17 pm

Words have meanings.

Making up meanings that are designed to not be meanings for words that were designed to have meanings is fraud.

Earning money by publishing deepities is fraudulent business. The article itself states that people keep themselves occupied and paid by making stuff up. It would be great if it was for entertainment purposes only, and if it actually fulfilled that purpose. That such theo-vacuity occasionally achieves a minimal entertainment value is by pure coincidence I suspect. The intent is to keep people occupied who pretend to be working on profoud problems. But this article informs us that they aren't - they're working on emptying a question of all possible content it once held, a question they themselves define as useless, in order to maintain the fraud.It's pure self-gratification, reaching a climax every time similar pieces of waffle cite each other.

Get a job guys, do something useful with your hands. You've proven your mind to be a tool you're incompetent to wield, but I guess you have enough potential to put rocks together to form a sidewalk. You'd be allowed to make up names for each and every one of those little friendly rocks, and you can also make up descriptions of them, and then you could make up new meanings for each word you use. That should keep you nicely occupied.

The year is 2064. Theologian (noun): a person putting rocks in sidewalks. Known to mutter to themselves. Harmless.

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43. Comment #445003 by pipsy on December 28, 2009 at 12:22 pm

There is nothing mysterious about the non-existence of a deity.

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44. Comment #445004 by flying goose on December 28, 2009 at 12:35 pm

Everywhere I am folded, there I am a lie.

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45. Comment #445005 by epeeist on December 28, 2009 at 12:49 pm

Comment #445002 by black wolf:

Words have meanings.

Note the response by Ophelia Benson on this front

Well quite, and that's why it's so irritating. On the one hand protection against all substantive argument, because you can just shrug and talk of mystery and the apophatic, on the other hand still endless talk about God even though nothing positive is said. It's all way too convenient, it's pseudo-profound, it's evasive and proud of it, and it's meaningless.

You can find it in this comment

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46. Comment #445006 by black wolf on December 28, 2009 at 12:53 pm

epeeist,
I'm actually just reading the comments now, and as it so happens I just switched to this browser tab to see if anyone had replied to my post the very moment I had read Ophelia's over there. Uncanny.

I call this incident God.

It has passed, and it's not coming back. Sorry, theists.

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47. Comment #445008 by flying goose on December 28, 2009 at 1:09 pm

What I find so frustrating about all this is that I think I know where he is coming from, a similar place to me. But I might express it differently.
I find myself in a similar place trying to put certain experiences into a set of words so that you the reader can some how get inside my mind. But it’s difficult if not sometimes impossible.

Here is an experience of a few years ago, what is it about? do you see my memory? and is that accurate any way?

She sat,
In dim darkness,
Her thoughts unknown,

Her cigarette smoke
rising,
Like incense,
Over her baby’s hidden dreams.

That child?
Her darling?
Or product of her profession?
Cause of it maybe?
Who knows?

Yet there she sat,
Head held forward,
Gazing into gloom.
Eyes seeming,
Uninterested in,
Indifferent to,
Eyes that beheld her.

Other women,
more brassy,
were happy to engage,
offer a glimpse of their…
merchandise.

I noticed only her,
a mother with sleeping child.
I knew I would remember.

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48. Comment #445009 by esuther on December 28, 2009 at 1:12 pm

I have nothing to add but applause for the elegant deflating of Vernon's hot air by mmurray, Richard D, alabasterocean and A. When I read the original article I thought immediately of Karen Armstrong and all the theological double bubble-talk I've read and heard over the years. But when it comes to letting out the hot air, you guys are the best. In my mind's 'ear' I distinctly heard the sound of a balloon zooming around the room as it expelled its gasses.

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49. Comment #445010 by zeroangel on December 28, 2009 at 1:17 pm

As the theologian Thomas Aquinas asserted, from whom McCabe draws much, God cannot even be said to exist.

Oh? Aquinas said that? Then why the F are we still having this conversation centuries later?!

I am going to resolve to read the first 3 comments from now on before I read an article. What a pathetic waste of time.

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50. Comment #445012 by Adrian Bartholomew on December 28, 2009 at 1:19 pm

Oh great now we can add: God is Poetry.

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