1. Investigating Atheism

Comment #170863 by Jonathan Dore on April 28, 2008 at 5:35 am

As a follow on to my last comment: if we can find 50 members of "Regent House" (basically current working members of the University and Fellows of the colleges) to sign a motion to censure the department we can get it debated and possibly get the site taken dowm. At the very least I can guarantee such a procedure would get a lot publicity.

Be careful what you wish for suffolkthinker. Censure -- fine; but getting the site taken down would be a spectacular coup for the "Investigating Atheism" group. What better validation for them than to be able to say atheists were so afraid of what they had to say that we had them censored? No: censorship always puts you on the wrong side of the argument, and cedes massive legitimacy to the censored, whether deserved or (in this case) not.

What such a motion should aim to do is simply to ensure the site is accurately labelled, rather than getting away with presenting itself as an unbiased academic research project. The Divinity Faculty at Cambridge needs to be obliged to clarify what kind of institutional imprimatur it has given to this project, and if the answer is "none", then the site should stop using the University logo and should present itself as what it is: the personal project of a group of individuals. If it does have faculty backing, then the faculty should be required to explain what checks and balances there are in the project's research design to ensure its results are intellectually credible and worthy of a great university.

2. Investigating Atheism

Comment #167519 by Jonathan Dore on April 24, 2008 at 6:08 am

This Cambridge centre is another aspect of the institutional advantages that the religious continue to enjoy but which are seldom remarked on. They have their own cadres of academics at universities, specifically employed to teach and research their beliefs, organized in faculties that provide an institutional launching pad -- providing funding, facilities etc. -- for their "investigations". Atheists, of course, are spread about in every department, which is as it should be (a "department of atheism" would be a meaningless concept). But that does mean they have no institutional focus to allow them to conduct similarly privileged "investigations" into why people love to believe unevidenced nonsense. I suppose the most we can hope for are those conducted by philosophers and psychologists.

Oh, and a "spate" of atheist books? No mention then of the veritable tsunami of anti-atheist responses, feeble as they were.

3. Mecca should become core to measure time zones: scholars

Comment #165764 by Jonathan Dore on April 22, 2008 at 9:03 am

j.mills wrote

The famous Peters Projection and other equal-area projections are a response to this, trying to put the countries of the world in a clearer perspective. (Even made it to an episode of West Wing!) It's a better map for the classroom wall.

Not sure I agree with that. The Peters projection simply goes to the other extreme (maximum distortion of shape to preserve complete fidelity to area) to Mercator. The result is, in my view, grotesque, like looking at the continents reflected in one of those fairground mirrors that makes you look twelve feet tall. As you say, Mercator's distortion of area is at least an accidental byproduct of a serious practical purpose: to create a navigational tool where a straight line on the map corresponds to a true bearing from a compass. Arno Peters doesn't even have that excuse, since in his case the distortion (of shape) is the entire purpose of his projection, not an accidental byproduct. That's what happens when you let historians do geography -- a map projection that's a monument to political correctness.

Recognizing that distortions are unavoidable when representing a three-dimensional surface on a two dimensional one, it's far better for schools to use a projection that sensibly compromises with some distortion of both shape and area, such as the fine Robinson projection favoured by the National Geographic Society.

Re the Pastafarian preference for a zero meridian, surely the answer is not Rome or Parma but the true gastronomic capital of Italy: Bologna. They don't call it la grassa for nothing!

4. Saudi Arabia Leader Calls for Interfaith Dialogue

Comment #150584 by Jonathan Dore on March 27, 2008 at 6:23 am

This is an interesting example of a phenomenon also shown by Rowan Williams's recent remarks about incorporating aspects of sharia into UK law: the increasing realization among religious leaders that their world-views have more in common with each other than they do with an increasingly vocal secular world. It's a sure sign that the non-theist position is being articulated ever more strongly. Good.

And like others here I can't help but be amused that these comments were made -- with almost studied ineptitude -- in the course of a conference with the Japanese, who are famous for nothing if not their remarkable historical resistance to all forms of monotheism ... Abdullah may be a king, but he's no diplomat.

5. John Templeton: God's sugar daddy

Comment #149125 by Jonathan Dore on March 25, 2008 at 6:40 am

"We can cure all the malaria we want, but if we're living brutal, nasty, empty lives, it will only do so much good."

Can I just underline the fact that this quote is from a professor of bioethics? bioETHICS?! I certainly wouldn't want to buy a used ethic from this man, bio or otherwise. Does it not occur to him that having malaria might actually be a major reason why many millions of people lead brutal and nasty lives in the first place? It's a thoughtless comment probably not uncommon in someone who's never lived in a tropical zone in which such lethal diseases are endemic, but that's the sort of thoughtless ignorance anyone holding the title of professor (in any subject) should be ashamed to be caught spouting.

Interesting to see both he and Charles Taylor independently pooh-poohing the philanthropy of Bill Gates. Must be hard for believers, accustomed to seeing overtly faith-based charity taking such a large share of the limelight, come to terms with the fact that non-theists like Gates and Buffet are making all the running in philanthropy that actually has a connection to the real world.

6. Ban anti-Catholic books in schools, says bishop

Comment #143469 by Jonathan Dore on March 14, 2008 at 6:23 am

British Catholic bishops seem to be getting more aggressive in exposing their prejudices recently; I wonder if this is some concerted new policy?

The more clear it is that such people wish to use church control of schools to push an obscurantist and illiberal agenda, the less defensible the whole concept of "faith schools" will become. Amen to that.

7. Over half of Britons claim no religion

Comment #132697 by Jonathan Dore on February 25, 2008 at 6:15 am

Steinsky wrote:

I can actually imagine things being the other way around -- people answering "no" to the God question (whether agnostic or atheist) but stating that they are "Christian" because they grew up in a Christian family and went to a CofE school, vaguely remember the parables and nativity, and just don't relate to islam, hinduism, and all the rest of them.

Yes, I think that's a very real issue, especially when people are given the option of identifying themselves as "Christian" on census returns. I think there's good reason to believe that a large proportion of the UK population use the term "Christian" to identify a sort of cultural allegiance that simply involves being white, British, and English-speaking, without necessarily involving any specific theological or supernaturalist belief. That's why any survey that seeks to measure actual adherance to belief systems needs to be much more carefully worded than they ever seem to be, to avoid people making irrelevant associations with cultural or ethnic identity.

8. Dumb and Dumber: Are Americans Hostile to Knowledge?

Comment #127451 by Jonathan Dore on February 15, 2008 at 9:56 am

Obviously Americans are not, as a group, distributed any differently along the IQ bell-curve from anyone else. But as epinephrine notes above, there is a particular strand of American cultural attitudes that has made the unfortunate equation of inarticulacy with sincerity, and of articulacy with duplicity. (You can see this, for instance, in the common casting of the well-spoken, often aristocratic Englishman as the villain in movies, from the voice of Shere Khan in Disney's "Jungle Book" to just about anything involving Mel Gibson -- this surely has deep cultural roots, probably going back to the War of Independence.)

Since inarticulacy can also disguise idiocy, this has had the even more unfortunate result of allowing lack of intelligence to seem virtuous, and when lack of intelligence is combined with malevolence (step forward, Shrub), this can make a pretty lethal combination.

Once again I emphasize that this is merely one strand in American thought, and by no means characterizes all, or even most, Americans; nor is it remotely confined to Americans. But if anyone doubts that there is a broadly national, and not just personal, element to this thinking, I invite them to try to imagine someone even remotely like Bush being elected chief executive in, say, France, Britain, Norway or Denmark ...

9. Cal scientist reflects on Darwin's genius

Comment #126743 by Jonathan Dore on February 14, 2008 at 5:29 am

Gustaf wrote:

I would personally feel better about celebrating dates of discovery rather than days of birth. Even if Darwin was the man who had the ideas it is the ideas and the process and not the person that should be celebrated.

Yes, I think this is a serious issue worth considering, though it's sad that a defensive concern not to be misunderstood is compromising our ability to pay tribute to the man as well as the work.

Fortunately, next year is also the 150th anniversary of the publication of Origin of Species, so we get to do both.

10. Scientists want rewrite of Earth's time line

Comment #117584 by Jonathan Dore on January 29, 2008 at 6:53 am

Johnny O

I'm not American, and this isn't an Americocentric viewpoint (for the reasons Opisthokont has already carefully explained in comment 5 above).

Of course there is a long history of transcontinental transfers before 1492: the point is the change in magnitude that kicks off at that point. Google "Columbian Exchange" for details.

11. Scientists want rewrite of Earth's time line

Comment #117578 by Jonathan Dore on January 29, 2008 at 6:26 am

You're assuming that I meant 'you' as in a personal note to Opisthokont. But this is a public forum and in fact I meant "he or she, as appropriate".

So you're using "yo" interchangeably as both a second-person and a third-person pronoun?

And this would aid comprehension how?

12. Scientists want rewrite of Earth's time line

Comment #117559 by Jonathan Dore on January 29, 2008 at 5:39 am

*Yo = sex neutral, personal pronoun

Azven, "you" is already a sex-neutral personal pronoun (and indeed, in modern English it's even number-neutral, standing for one or many), so your "yo" gives us nothing we didn't have before while at the same time making your meaning less clear rather than more.

I'm inclined to agree with Opisthokont's choice of 1492 as emblematically marking the point when transcontinental transfers of species began to ramp up by orders of magnitude more than they had before; I also agree that, looking back from several million years in the future, this will look like a change deserving of a new epoch designation. However, the precise point at which this begins, whether 13,000 years ago or 500, is less important than it appears now, since from a perspective of several million years, and using only geological strata as evidence, surely no-one will be able to mark the point with sufficient resolution to be able to distinguish the difference.

13. Banks are helping sharia make a back-door entrance

Comment #117030 by Jonathan Dore on January 28, 2008 at 5:55 am

Chris Bell wrote:

I may not like it because I think it needlessly separates and alienates Muslims from mainstream culture. If that is all the article is saying, then I agree.

Yes, I think this is the essential point Chris. Even if it doesn't involve the creation of a new law or the amendment of an existing one, it carves out yet another area of normal human life in which muslims are made to feel by their leaders that they cannot participate in the same institutions, or in the same way, as the rest of the population. One more sense in which they are made to feel separate from the mainstream, rather than a part of it. Since driving a wedge between Western populations and the muslim populations they host is a key goal of Islamists everywhere, this is right up their street, and a compelling reason why this sort of development should be strenuously resisted.

14. The real danger in Darwin is not evolution, but racism

Comment #115644 by Jonathan Dore on January 24, 2008 at 1:12 pm

I've just posted the following on the philly.com feedback site (I encourage you all to protest there; it's at www.philly.com/philly/about/feedback/):

"It's sad to see you allowing Tony Campolo's shameless lies (www.philly.com/inquirer/currents/13930496.html) to be published without a little fact-checking. Campolo writes:
"Had they actually read Origin, they likely would be shocked to learn that among Darwin's scientifically based proposals was the elimination of 'the negro and Australian peoples'."
This sounded suspicious to me, so I've just done a full text search of all six editions of Origin of Species (which anyone can do at http://darwin-online.org.uk/ -- I encourage you to have a look). The phrase "the negro and Australian peoples" does not appear anywhere in any of them. So I searched for all the occurrences of "negro/es" and "Australia/n" separately—a handful of occurrences, none of which are remotely connected to anything like the meaning or sentiment Tony Campolo puts in Darwin's mouth. Nothing to report under "dark" or "black" either.

In "The Descent of Man" Darwin makes a rather regretful prediction that, given what we know about the operation of natural selection, in the future "the civilised races of man will almost certainly exterminate and replace throughout the world the savage races". Quite apart from the fact that anyone with any knowledge of the 19th century knows that this was an entirely conventional and unremarkable viewpoint at the time, the fact remains that this is a prediction, *not* a proposal. Many people in the 20th century predicted that humanity would be exterminated in a nuclear war; does Mr Campolo think they were *hoping* it would happen?

Anyone reading even a few paragraphs of Darwin, and knowing what passed for conventional wisdom in his time, will realize he was one of the most remarkably *un*-racist people of his age. And coming from a long line of abolitionists, he certainly stands morally head and shoulders above most of his Christian contemporaries, millions of whom were busily using the Bible to excuse slavery rather than condemn it, and whose descendants continued to use it to excuse legally institutionalized racism in the US South for a further century. What conveniently short memories today's American evangelicals have."

15. The real danger in Darwin is not evolution, but racism

Comment #115401 by Jonathan Dore on January 24, 2008 at 6:46 am

Had they actually read Origin, they likely would be shocked to learn that among Darwin's scientifically based proposals was the elimination of "the negro and Australian peoples,"

This sounded suspicious to me, so I've just done a full text search of all six editions of Origin of Species (which anyone can do at http://darwin-online.org.uk/). The phrase "the negro and Australian peoples" does not appear anywhere in any of them. So I searched for all the occurrences of "negro/es" and "Australia/n" separately—a handful of occurrences, none of which are remotely connected to anything like the meaning or sentiment Tony Campolo puts in Darwin's mouth. Nothing to report under "dark" or "black" either.

For a fuller discussion of what's gone on here, see http://groups.google.com/group/talk.origins/msg/95e84795b4de9560.

So it looks like Tony Campolo is a shameless liar, on two counts:

1) He hasn't read Origin either, while implying that he had.
2) He deliberately misrepresents Darwin's prediction, in The Descent of Man, as a "proposal".

Sad to see Clinton, who I always rated as rather intelligent, should associate with such a man.
Sad also to see that philly.com, where this garbage comes from, doesn't allow comments on their site.

16. Mandrake: Charles's letter in support of Islamic 'fundamentalism'

Comment #113967 by Jonathan Dore on January 21, 2008 at 5:23 am

"Proper fundamentalism": My guess is that at some earlier point in the letter Charles had proposed some special, probably rather anodyne, definition of fundamentalism, which he's referring to here as "proper". I doubt that he's advocating literalist readings of religious texts -- we'd need to see the whole letter to get the context.

17. Controversial Anti-Muslim Dutch Film Adds to Already Simmering Tensions

Comment #98742 by Jonathan Dore on December 14, 2007 at 7:18 am

Fanusi, I think banning the Koran, apart from being impossible in the age of the internet, would simply be counterproductive. When you ban something it makes you the oppressor, and you never want to be caught on the wrong side of that equation -- everything you wish to promote is undermined by association with the oppression (the little appeal that David Irving has is based on the fact that he can present himself as a "martyr" to an idea that "the authorities" are "afraid" to let people hear -- and once the argument is shifted in that direction he no longer has to defend his actual ideas). The second reason is that, by banning a text, and thus oppressing its adherents, you are giving it a dignity it does not deserve. The most fatal poison for religious pomposity is mockery: oppression only serves to puff it up.

18. Islam's Silent Moderates

Comment #96202 by Jonathan Dore on December 10, 2007 at 6:43 am

brainsys and jupiter5: yes, as jupiter5 mentions, the statements by Inayat Bunglawala of the MCB about the teddy affair were distinctly tepid, saying only that Gillian Gibbons should be freed because it had all been "a misunderstanding". When asked earlier to condemn the punishment against the "girl from Qatif", he explicitly declined to do so because lashing had been used in Mohammed's time, and so had his (at least implicit) approval, so that "when you ask me to condemn lashing, you're asking me to condemn my prophet": a perfect illustration of the mental prison alluded to by AHA at the end of her piece.

19. Fear of Barbara Forrest

Comment #93048 by Jonathan Dore on December 2, 2007 at 3:56 am

Thanks for the link Brian. I've just posted this:

"I am writing to protest the treatment of your employee Chris Comer, Director of Science Curriculum, who was recently bullied into resigning because forwarding an email advertising a lecture was deemed "highly inappropriate". Quite apart from the suppression of free speech issues involved, the lecture in question was in fact *very* appropriate for a director of science curriculum to publicize, since it is by a speaker (Barbara Forrest) known for her staunch defense of science teaching against those intent on subverting it with an irrelevant religious agenda. If anyone should be fired it is your advisor Lizzette Reynolds, who seems to have an agenda to introduce creationism/ID into Texas schools. As Judge Jones's ruling in Kitsmiller v. Dover has demonstrated, creationism/ID is not science, and has no place in a science curriculum. Unless you want to make Texas look as crackpot as the Sudanese Muslims prosecuting a teacher for naming a teddybear Muhammad, you need to get hold of this situation immediately, re-hire Chris Comer (if she'll agree to come back) and find yourself a new senior advisor."

20. Turkey probes atheist's 'God' book

Comment #91736 by Jonathan Dore on November 29, 2007 at 5:34 am

Thanks Fanusi, but I was hoping for a bit more detail than that ... Oh well, looks like I'll have to answer my own question. www.legislationline.org/?tid=1&jid=51&less=false says

The preamble [to the Turkish constitution, as last amended in 1995] enshrines the principle of separation of powers and enunciates, amongst others that no protection will be accorded to thoughts or opinions contrary to the national interests of Turkey, Turkish historical and moral values or the principles, reforms and modernism of Ataturk. The preamble also establishes the principle of secularism, whereby there is to be no interference whatsoever of sacred religious feelings in state affairs and politics.

In other words, the contradiction is enshrined right there in the preamble, in the obvious room for conflict between criminalizing (or at least "not protecting") opinion "contrary ... to Turkish ... historical moral values" and ensuring that "there is to be no interference ... of religious feelings in state affairs".

On the bright side, however (and it would have been nice if CNN had mentioned this, though not surprising that they didn't), the operative law (Article 301) is in the process of being scrapped. See the following BBC report from 6 November (at http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/7081747.stm):

The Turkish government says it will change a controversial law restricting freedom of expression.
Justice Minister Mehmet Ali Sahin said a new bill would be put before the Turkish parliament in the coming days.
The law being reviewied, Article 301, bans perceived insults to Turkish identity or the country's institutions.
It has often been invoked by nationalists against those who argue the Ottoman empire committed genocide against Armenians.
"Several drafts have been prepared in line with proposals by civic groups. The cabinet will discuss them at first opportunity, select one and submit it to parliament," Mr Sahin told Anatolia news agency.
He did not give details of how the law would be reformed.
Earlier on Tuesday the European Commission said restrictions on freedom of expression were blocking Turkey's progress towards EU membership.
"It is not acceptable that writers, journalists, academics and other intellectuals... are prosecuted for simply expressing a critical but completely non-violent opinion," EU Enlargement Commissioner Olli Rehn said.
"The infamous Article 301 must be repealed or amended without delay," he added.

21. Turkey probes atheist's 'God' book

Comment #91393 by Jonathan Dore on November 28, 2007 at 8:13 am

Does anyone have any background info on how the relevant law came to be passed, and when, given its clear contradiction of the secular nature of Turkey's constitution?

22. Rome playing politics

Comment #84742 by Jonathan Dore on November 3, 2007 at 12:12 pm

Detox: waste of time, I'm afraid. The Catholic Church has never considered biblical texts to be essential to doctrine -- it considers itself, as an institution, to be an equally valid source of authority. After all, the whole theological edifice of veneration around Mary (immaculate conception, perpetual virginity, flying to heaven on her deathbed etc.) has been entirely contrived by the church over the centuries without any help from the bible. To believing Catholics, every papal bull and encyclical carries as much weight as a gospel.

23. Evolution to be taught in SA schools

Comment #83109 by Jonathan Dore on October 29, 2007 at 1:18 am

Part of the problem seems to be that evolution is considered to be something taught to those in late teenage years just before they leave high school. They wouldn't encounter so much resistance if they started teaching it to 5 year olds.

24. If Muslim doctors are intolerant, let them go

Comment #77751 by Jonathan Dore on October 10, 2007 at 11:45 am

Vinelectric -- thanks for the quote from the GMC Good Medical Practice handbook, but clearly what's happened here is that neither they nor the BMC have actually issued any statement about these particular events beyond saying they don't approve of them.

Well I'm sure it's not a surprise to anyone that they don't approve -- but what are they actually going to do about it? "Doctors" (and pharmacists too) who take this kind of position should be struck off, because eventually someone's going to die because of their wilful refusal to do their jobs properly.

There's another factor that may be playing into this situation: we're accustomed to thinking of medicine as a career choice with a strongly ethical, humanitarian component -- a perception that goes all the way back to Hippocrates. But it's worth asking how widely that perception is shared in the world. I have the feeling that in many cultures medicine is regarded not primarily as a humanitarian vocation but as a prestigious one, and that parents encourage their children to take it up in the same attitude of merely functional self-betterment with which they might recommend engineering or accountancy. Does anyone have any thoughts on that, or am I barking up the wrong tree (or simply barking)?

25. If Muslim doctors are intolerant, let them go

Comment #77691 by Jonathan Dore on October 10, 2007 at 7:24 am

The regulating bodies are aware of these rarities and have issued the appropriate policy statements.

Thanks for that, Vinelectric. Can you point us towards the appropriate statements please? I've googled but can't find any statements by either body specifically relating to this.

26. If Muslim doctors are intolerant, let them go

Comment #77532 by Jonathan Dore on October 9, 2007 at 2:52 pm

I recently heard that it costs about 250,000 pounds to train a doctor in the UK. If, at the end of that process, some of them refuse to do their job properly, they should be required to pay that money back. Better still, to prevent time wasters clogging up the system, get them to fill in a legally binding statement before they start their medical training, affirming their willingness to carry out all of the functions the job requires.

27. The Price of Freedom

Comment #77302 by Jonathan Dore on October 9, 2007 at 1:49 am

I think the response to that is that she is more at risk in the Netherlands than she is in the US. Why should she be required to put herself in greater danger in order to obtain the Dutch government's protection?

I haven't seen a comparison between the cost of protection in the US with the cost in Holland. Is the difference really going to be so significant?

I don't think it's so much about the cost (though being obliged to subcontract presumably increases it). I think the issue is more about getting Hirsi Ali to clarify her intentions. I got the impression she had left the Netherlands for good, and was quite surprised, when this story broke, to hear that the Dutch were actually still paying for her protection (I assumed the AEI would have put their money where their mouth is and be paying for it themselves). How long is she planning to live and work in one country while her protection is paid for by another? If it is a permanent move, then at what point would the Dutch government feel justified in asking others to pick up the tab? If, say, Madonna made some remarks about Islam that occasioned death threats, would the US government pay for her protection (living, as she now does, in the UK)? Would anyone even expect them to?

28. The Price of Freedom

Comment #77281 by Jonathan Dore on October 9, 2007 at 12:06 am

Yes, I think Hitchens is being unfair here: what he didn't make clear is that the Dutch are no longer willing to pay for her protection while living *abroad*. There's no question that she will continue to be protected in the Netherlands, so they've just told her she needs to come home if she wants them to continue to pay. That doesn't seem unreasonable to me.

29. The Problem with Atheism

Comment #75772 by Jonathan Dore on October 3, 2007 at 3:34 pm

Sam suggests that meditation arises from a feeling that there must be a way to have a more firmly grounded happiness than the transitory, plain-vanilla happiness most of us make do with. I'm a bit uncomfortable with this idea, because it seems to operate on the assumption that, somehow, the universe owes us happiness -- that we have some sort of right to it. And the reason I'm uncomfortable with that is that it's alarmingly close to one of the assumptions commonly underlying theistic arguments: that religion gives us a ready-made sense of purpose, and that humans (believers indignantly assert) have a right to a sense of purpose, whether we've done anything purposeful with our lives or not. Well, it doesn't. And we don't.

Personally, I'd much rather end my life feeling I'd achieved something, left something tangible behind that enhanced people's lives, maybe some body of work -- or if you're a parent, the bodies of your children -- and just take my plain-vanilla happiness where I can get it. To fritter away half of your few precious decades on earth achieving nothing but a greater attention to your mental processes sounds like a waste to me. What a shame that would be: we've only got one life.

30. Review of Darwin's Angel

Comment #75302 by Jonathan Dore on October 2, 2007 at 9:19 am

It's interesting to compare these reviews of Darwin's Angel with those of TGD a year ago. The breezy, off-the-cuff mischaracterizations of Dawkins's position is more pronounced now, the caricature even more distorted than the first time round, and the reason is not hard to fathom: the people writing this round of reviews haven't actually read TGD (mostly too scared to, I'd imagine), but have desperately wanted to give it a good kicking. Now Cornwell's book allows them -- so they think -- to break cover and have their say about TGD without the inconvenience of actually reading it. Hence we have the phenomenon of this sort of meta-review -- a piece of fluff ostensibly about one book but actually targeting another book, which the author only knows about through the distorting prism of the first book (though of course they never admit as much). Pathetically, they don't realize how clearly the absence of their own reading of TGD shows through, since their misrepresentations of Dawkins always unwittingly match Cornwell's own.

31. Do you have to read up on leprechology before disbelieving in them?

Comment #70880 by Jonathan Dore on September 17, 2007 at 6:38 am

brainsys writes: "Biblical scholarship doesn't imply belief in God or Jesus."

Indeed not, but biblical scholarship -- a historical, archaeological, and literary critical endeavour -- is not theology, and Dawkins has said many times that he has no quarrel with biblical scholarship. Theology is, rather, the study of thinking about gods -- the supernatural, whose existence it simply *assumes*. These are quite different fields, and you're not doing anyone any favours by trying to blur the boundaries between them.

Different again is the question of *why* people believe, which as you rightly say Dawkins made some tentative suggestions about in TGD. In the absence of more data, I think he's done as much as any one person can be expected to in this area: it's no more his special responsibility to "offer a cure" than it is anyone else's. In the meantime, you seem to be suggesting we should all refrain from pointing out the non-existence of gods until we have a fully developed explanation for how religion came about in the first place. Why is that?

32. Do you have to read up on leprechology before disbelieving in them?

Comment #70877 by Jonathan Dore on September 17, 2007 at 6:22 am

Denoir writes:

The Courtier Reply is a binary proposition - the emperor is nude or he is not. Religion is true or it is not. It is that model that most moderate religious people and even liberal atheists have a problem with.

Suppose instead that there is a gradient - that some of the ideas are true while others are not. Then a binary model is inadequate.

To illustrate, let's take the bible as an example. Suppose we edited it and removed all supernatural references. Apart from a much thinner book, what would be get? Well, as Sam Harris would say, a lot of bronze age philosophy and morality and a little bit of other stuff. Suppose we removed the relay idiotic bronze age stuff, would there be something left? Possibly. And to discuss that remaining part, wouldn't it be advisable to read up on what influential thinkers throughout the ages have said about it? We don't entirely dismiss the ancient Greek philosophers today do we? In that context theology can be useful as a philosophical guide through the body of human religious works.

It is within that frame that you find legitimate disagreement with Dawkins' et al approach.

Sorry if I've missed something, but it seems to me that the questions "does a supernatural realm exist or not?", and specifically, "does a supernatural creator exist or not?", are indeed binary propositions, at whatever point you place them in a coninuum of other questions. Either they do exist or they don't. In your hypothetical example relating to the bible, by suggesting that one first strip out any reference to the supernatural you seem to me to be implicitly assuming a negative answer to this question. But if that's the case, then all that's left at the end of your biblical distillation process is some poetry and some moral philosophy, which requires no theology to engage with (except for historical purposes of studying past modes of thinking about morality).

So what I'm unclear about is how this distillation exercise would yield any information furnishing a "legitimate disagreement with Dawkins' approach", since the only point Dawkins makes that matters -- that God very probably does not exist -- has already been conceded.

33. The Rise of Atheist America

Comment #69041 by Jonathan Dore on September 9, 2007 at 3:25 pm

Basically, this article is a blast from those who'd like to think the United States was founded in 1620 against those who remember it was founded in 1776, previous settlement notwithstanding. The faultline in America today -- red v. blue, coasts v. middle, north v. south -- can be summed us as a battle between the 1620ers and the 1776ers.

34. The Fleas Are Multiplying!

Comment #68740 by Jonathan Dore on September 8, 2007 at 11:33 am

ChrisMcL writes:

... why would the religious reader of Harris and Dawkins want to read a response to a book they have never read?

First, just to clarify your meaning, I'm guessing this should be "... why would a religious person who hasn't read Harris and Dawkins want to read a response to a book they have never read?"

Assuming this is your meaning Chris, I'd have to say that, as a former believer (in my youth), I can very well understand how such a person would want to read one of these books (if you've never been a believer yourself, you may be enviably unaware of the mentality it engenders). I remember very well the sense of foreboding and angst that well-thought-out atheist challenges to faith produced in me, and how I actively avoided reading them or even thinking about them. Just seeing such books produced a response nothing short of fear in me -- both for my own faith and what it might do to others'. I remember once gleefully laying hands on a book called Holding Fast to God, which was a collectively written book responding to another called, if I remember rightly, Letting Go of God. I don't think I'd ever heard of the latter book, but the important point to note is that I had absolutely no desire to read it, and no intention of doing so. I was simply content to know that a book had been published that "dealt with it". It never occurred to me to wonder whether or not the authors of the response book were misrepresenting the arguments of the original book. I just assumed they knew what they were talking about, that the argument was over, and my side had won. So there.

I can see the same thing happening in the latest round of "reviews" of the flea books. Reviewers who clearly haven't read TGD -- because, like my former self, they were too scared to -- have just been waiting for a response book to come along so that they can be told what to think about it; so that the emotional pain of having to read one of Dawkins's devastating sentences is mitigated by the context of a comfortingly immediate "rebuttal". Authors like Cornwell are functioning as reassuring hand-holders to fearful readers who just want to be told that they don't need to worry, sky daddy's still there really, it's just that silly, self-important Mr Dawkins who can't see him.

So to sum up: Yes, I think there will be a big market for these books among believers who have never read the books they're responding to, and have no wish to. The more such books there are, the happier they'll be. It doesn't matter if they all repeat each other's sterile non-responses: if you need comfort, you can never have too many comfort blankets.

35. 'Root of All Evil? The Uncut Interviews' Released on DVD

Comment #67906 by Jonathan Dore on September 5, 2007 at 5:29 am

Most DVD players are capable of playing DVDs from anywhere -- they're simply disabled from doing so before being shipped. It's easy to re-enable them, and it doesn't cost any money or involve doing anything technical to the machine itself: you just have to input a code of a few digits using your remote control, and you only have to do it once.

Go to www.videohelp.com/dvdhacks, type the name of your DVD make and model into the search box, and if there's a code available to unlock your player, someone will probably have posted it. If you input the "region free" code (rather than just changing it from one region to another), your player will automatically load and play discs from any region, so you don't have to change it again or input any further code. Just sit back and watch DVDs from all over the world!

36. India to charge writer Nasreen with 'hurting Muslim feelings'

Comment #67872 by Jonathan Dore on September 5, 2007 at 3:51 am

Thanks Philip, I hadn't realized that. So in Arabic "peace" and "submission" are essentially interchangeable -- which is even more scary! Would be interesting to know if that dual meaning pre-dated Islam or not.

Reminds me of the words of the Pictish chief Calgacus (according to Tacitus), describing the Roman Empire:

They make a wilderness, and call it "peace".

I guess they don't call it "pacification" for nothing!

37. India to charge writer Nasreen with 'hurting Muslim feelings'

Comment #67753 by Jonathan Dore on September 4, 2007 at 4:05 pm

Philip1978 (Comment 30):

Islam means peace yes?

In fact, no: "Islam" actually means "submission".

Let that sink in a little.

Frightening, isn't it?

38. Orthodox Call on Sinners To Give Chickens a Fairer Shake

Comment #67385 by Jonathan Dore on September 3, 2007 at 7:29 am

In general, I don't think that PETA is taken very seriously in the Orthodox community, or in any civilized society

I look forward to the day when "PETA" and "Orthodox community" will have changed places in that sentence.

39. Review of Darwin's Angel: An Angelic Response to the God Delusion

Comment #67356 by Jonathan Dore on September 3, 2007 at 5:42 am

Thanks to Veronique for posting that reply from Salley Vickers. I think the most revealing sentence, in response to the many claims that she hasn't read The God Delusion, is this: "And I have read Dawkins – and admire some of his earlier books."

You'll notice that she's carefully *not* claiming to have read "The God Delusion" -- only to have to "read Dawkins" (by which she actually means, if you pressed her, "some of his earlier books"). She evidently hopes to give the *impression* that she's read TGD in the hope that no one will press the matter and put her to the inconvenience of having to tell a direct lie.

Edit: whoops, just spotted Salley's second reply. So she really did go to the inconvenience ...

40. Review of Darwin's Angel: An Angelic Response to the God Delusion

Comment #67069 by Jonathan Dore on September 1, 2007 at 4:55 pm

Here's the comment I posted on the Times site, since it probably won't appear there: they seemed to stop allowing new comments after the first 8 (perhaps because every one of those 8 showed the author to be a ludicrous liar).

From the shamelessness of the mischaracterizations of Dawkins's arguments -- all precisely echoing Cornwell's own mischaracterizations -- the answer to this puzzling "review" seems clear. Salley Vickers has not actually read "The God Delusion". She's simply been waiting for a "rebuttal" book to come along so that she can be told what to say about it.

To take just one example, she writes: "The seraph begins by politely nailing Dawkins's first sleight of hand which ... dishonestly bundles all religious belief and practice into one crude bag that supposedly equals fanaticism."

Anyone who has actually read Dawkins's book would know his argument is not that the moderately religious are fanatical, but that by legitimizing the attitude of "faith" (in the sense of belief unsupported by evidence), they stifle criticism of -- and give unwarranted respect to -- the unevidenced beliefs of fanatics. They thus enable the fanaticism of others, even as they claim to disown it.

41. A Daddy Longlegs Tells the Story of the Continents' Big Shifts

Comment #66708 by Jonathan Dore on August 31, 2007 at 3:55 am

Informational note for UK readers confused by the Daddy Longlegs reference: while in the UK a Daddy Longlegs is a cranefly (i.e. an insect), in the US it refers to a type of spider (i.e. an arachnid), so the genetic connection is not as remote as it seems (harvestmen are also arachnids).

42. Anger over 'blasphemous' balls

Comment #66159 by Jonathan Dore on August 29, 2007 at 5:31 am

HunterZolomon - thanks for your response. Yes, a somewhat parallel example in the West is the Zionist claim that any criticism of Israel must be motivated by anti-Semitism. But what I think is unusual about the Islamists' use of the tactic is the unashamed aggression of the response -- the naked threats (and acts!) of physical violence -- completely disproportionate to the triviality of the supposed "offences".

43. Anger over 'blasphemous' balls

Comment #66056 by Jonathan Dore on August 28, 2007 at 6:18 am

The breathtakingly low threshold for taking offence that seems to be characteristic in modern Islam -- so low that it takes in many obviously unintentional, and even well-intentioned, acts as well as those that are intended to prickle -- deserves some serious study. Islam may well particularly encourage this attitude, though it must be acknowledged that before the Rushdie affair in 1989 any offence felt by individual Muslims rarely had any international impact. I suspect that at some point since then this tactic -- of actively seeking out potential sources of offence, no matter how small, and then complaining about them as loudly and intemperately as possible -- was identified as being fruitful by Islamic religious leaders of a certain type, and has been systematically cultivated as a means of reinforcing group identity and group discipline, and furthering their political goals (i.e. destabilizing non-fundamentalist governments in Islamic countries and fomenting unrest among Muslims in the West). It would be interesting to know if any research has been carried out to document the growing use of this tactic as a political tool, and what the most effective means of comabatting it might be.

44. Does the Bible have a place in public schools?

Comment #62074 by Jonathan Dore on August 8, 2007 at 5:22 am

Here's a condition that would test how much proponents of these courses really want them, and what they really want them for: you can have your bible studies/bible in literature class, so long as the staff teaching it are exclusively atheists. Ok? Fine.

45. Fears Grow Over 'Mega Mosque'

Comment #56620 by Jonathan Dore on July 16, 2007 at 3:17 pm

Sadly, the full wording of this petition is as follows:

We the Christian population of this great country England would like the proposed plan to build a Mega Mosque in East London Scrapped. This will only cause terrible violence and suffering and more money should go into the NHS.

Oh dear.

46. God not out of the question for most Canadians

Comment #54244 by Jonathan Dore on July 6, 2007 at 5:43 am

As a UK-Canadian who's lived in both countries (most recently four years in BC) these results don't surprise me: Canada usually comes out midway between the US and Western Europe in surveys of religiosity. To me, the most politically hopeful aspect of this finding is that, even though Canada has some similarities to the US in its religious makeup, religious issues don't tend to become political issues there. The political fortunes of the right wing illustrate this: the Reform, then Alliance parties had a strong religious element when they were regionally based in the west, but as soon as they merged with the PCs to reunite the right under the reformed Conservative Party, and became truly national, they realized that the national electorate wouldn't stomach such a strong religious tone and have been backpedalling on religious issues ever since -- precisely the opposite dynamic to what's taken place in the US Republican Party over the last three decades, where religious issues have been progressively amplified rather than muted.

47. The God Delusion - Dawkins Feature

Comment #51506 by Jonathan Dore on June 23, 2007 at 7:02 am

Michael Ruse understandably has some personal motive for his attitude -- after all, it can't be pleasant to find oneself labelled a Neville Chamberlain, even if it's justified. More generally -- and with great respect for the part Quakers played in the struggle to end slavery in the 18th and 19th centuries -- if all believers were like today's Quakers in their beliefs, no-one could have worked up enough indignation to write an atheist book to counter them. By the same token -- and for the same reason - today's Quaker scientists like Ruse aren't going to make much impact in countering creationism and the other politically dangerous aspects of contemporary theism. They're simply too accommodating.

48. His word

Comment #51448 by Jonathan Dore on June 23, 2007 at 1:35 am

Perhaps it would have been helpful if our Dave had got to the end of the book before writing his piece ...

49. Doctors' beliefs can hinder patient care

Comment #51446 by Jonathan Dore on June 23, 2007 at 1:29 am

Medical schools should screen students for beliefs that would prevent them doing their job properly as doctors, and politely suggest to such people that they find another line of work. And if a doctor develops a supernatural delusion later in life in such a way as to bring on this peculiar obsession with controlling women's sexuality, they should be disbarred -- not for their religion, since many such doctors nevertheless manage to maintain a sense of proportion and do the right thing in spite of their faith's teachings -- but because they have rendered themselves unfit to perform their jobs properly. Depending on how long they've been practising beforehand, they should also be required to repay a portion of the costs of their wasted medical training, so the money can be recycled to other, hopefully more worthy applicants.

50. Rushdie knighted in honours list

Comment #50616 by Jonathan Dore on June 19, 2007 at 5:28 am

Lord Ahmad was on the news last night condemning (to be fair) the Pakistani minister's comments, but also complaining that someone like Robert Fisk hadn't been honoured instead, because he and Rushdie were both "writers". I was sad to see no-one on the programme make the obvious point that journalism and novel-writing are completely separate activities. Extraordinary to realize that vast swathes of people out there simply don't understand "fiction" as a literary category.