1. Interview with Richard Dawkins

Comment #63585 by JohnC on August 15, 2007 at 2:17 am

I have absolutely no credentials or any expertise in science. All I am doing is exercising my God given right to free inquiry into the existence of God and the survivability of consciousness after death. On these two issues I am on an equal par with Darwin and the greatest scientists on our planet today.

2. Interview with Richard Dawkins

Comment #63319 by JohnC on August 13, 2007 at 10:19 pm

darwin2: I am perplexed that scientists can actually come to this conclusion. I believe the opposite of what Dawkins says is true and that the preponderance of scientific evidence demonstrates ...

3. Interview with Richard Dawkins about 'The Enemies of Reason'

Comment #63317 by JohnC on August 13, 2007 at 9:59 pm

I think it's a good thing that such an interview has someone like Judy who asks exactly the sorts of questions that are on the minds of credulous viewers - as long as RD gets to answer, which he did. In that sense it's good television.

My two favourite moments, btw, are around 6:50 when Judy is giving RD a look that would etch glass; and the perfunctory conclusion - "thank you Richard, very interesting" (now get out of my studio!). Hopefully, equally discomfited viewers will find themselves tuning into the programs as a result.

4. Christopher Hitchens and David Allen White discuss the impact of Christianity on Western Civilization

Comment #63146 by JohnC on August 13, 2007 at 8:40 am

Cartomancer,

Was going to post something similar (though probably not as erudite), but got distracted (my boys needed dinner). But I might now elaborate on a couple of points.

First, artists are constrained to work within/against the dominant cultural narratives of their time. So in the case of Renaisance Europe, biblical themes and vocabulary are ever-present. So what? Is this a contribution?

Michelangelo's David used the motif of a crucial Israelite myth without communicating an atom of meaning about that myth. The marble is about many things, including the civic pride of Florence, but the biblical David? - the Jewish scribe who invented the story would have been aghast.

But no exception. Look at Donatello's even more homoerotic bronze of David from 1430 (http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1272/1104576245_334c3f51cc_o.jpg)
Generations of Jewish scribes should now be spinning in their graves, and not just because both Davids have foreskins firmly intact. Whatever these works are about, they have only the most distant connection with the dominant theology of their day.

Or consider Caravaggio, who produced a large number of "religious" paintings, with a shocking realism that is derived from drawing his models from the street life of Rome and Naples - prostitutes, rent boys, down-and-outs, you name it.

What are these paintings about? Well now is not the time for Art History 101, but most assuredly the Christian cultural narrative was the vehicle not the message of these astounding works (and one must really see them in person to understand their impact).

Art that survives does so because it creates something new out of the narratives and raw materials surrounding the artist.

What is astonishing is that DAW is a Shakespeare scholar, and must be aware that he is reading a supreme poet of the human condition, who while drawing on many sources ultimately owes a debt to none, least of all religion.
Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate

should have the evangelical right spinning as well (though Ted Haggard might draw some comfort) if they had the wit to realise it was written to a young man with whom he was deeply in love. Christian contribution - don't think so.

5. Interview with Richard Dawkins about 'The Enemies of Reason'

Comment #63125 by JohnC on August 13, 2007 at 7:16 am

Being on the other side of the world, I've never seen this dynamic duo before, but I'm familiar with the genre. Seems the perfect demographic.

I have no doubt that if you cumulated from the audience all those who believed just one of the quackeries mentioned (astrology, dowsing, mediums), you would probably have a strike rate of near 90pc.

What difference it will make is altogether another question - I am somewhat pessimistic, on two grounds.

There really does seem to be a need for "magic" in people's lives (JK Rowling is not the richest author in history for nothing). Second, most people are educationally/intellectually unable to grasp what RD is talking about when discussing the wonders of astronomy or biology (same applies to literature and art, btw) so the need for wonderment is fulfilled in other, simpler, ways.

Finally, for instance, though I loathe astrology with a passion, it is not clear to me that it does any significant damage in the Western world. One's horoscope does not dictate attitudes towards women or Israel or condoms, or indeed anything much. Astrologers are not given a place at the table when issues of import are discussed, and while people from Hitler to Nancy Reagan indulged in such nonsense, you would have to be very naive to believe there has ever been any effect on actual decision-making in the real world.

6. Science and the Islamic World

Comment #63092 by JohnC on August 13, 2007 at 5:15 am

mandelstam,

The problem here is finding an adequate designation for the period that historians describe as the "Islamic Golden Age". We are talking about a more-or-less unified polity whose primary intellectuals were not Arab, but Persian or Andalusian, despite modern attempts to Arabise them.

To take a smattering of names: the Persians included Alhazen (though born in Baghdad), Jabir, Biruni (though born in Uzbekistan), Avicenna, and Omar Khayyám; while the Andalusians included Averroes and Abulcasis.

Now while it is true they mostly published in the lingua franca of the "empire", namely Arabic, that does not make them Arabs, nor their science or philosophy Arabic.

Whether you like it or not (and you obviously don't), the common denominator of this polity and cultural tradition was Islam - stretching from Afghanistan to Cordoba. Therefore, the term "Islamic science" is actually the least misleading of the labels on offer, and is therefore favoured by historians.

7. Why Richard Dawkins is right on alternative medicine - but not when it comes to religion

Comment #63066 by JohnC on August 13, 2007 at 3:52 am

Today's Independent (13th August) has a crop of four Letters to the Editor ...

8. 'Delusion' Revisits Faith Vs. Reason Debate

Comment #63042 by JohnC on August 13, 2007 at 2:21 am

Whether the book is marred or enhanced by some rhetorical devices is probably a matter of taste but from a pragmatic point of view the mix has clearly been a success - propelling the debate into the mass market.

South Korea is an interesting place. Having undergone massive social disruption through war and accelerated development, it has given birth to all kinds of religious lunacy (think of the Moonies). It also bizarrely embraced non-religious male circumcision, and is the only country outside the US where this barbarism is inflicted on the majority of males for secular reasons.

A dose of Dawkins can do no harm :-)

9. Christopher Hitchens and David Allen White discuss the impact of Christianity on Western Civilization

Comment #63029 by JohnC on August 13, 2007 at 12:57 am

Despite his polite and erudite manner, one can see that White is rather more of a religious neandertal than was fully exposed here.

Hitchens was clearly taken aback (as was I) when Wilson declined to endorse the surely incontrovertible finding that Homo sapiens have been around for at least 100,000 years. And who knows what he had in mind with a "literal Adam and Eve" but he is clearly an enemy of modern biology. I don't think RD would have let him off the hook so easily.

10. Science and the Islamic World

Comment #62961 by JohnC on August 12, 2007 at 2:29 pm

mandelstam wrote: "Arabian Science, not Islamic."

I think that would be misleading for the period in question, since:

1. the huge assemblage of territory and peoples clearly were larger than simply Arab, ethnologically and linguistically (eg Persians)
2. there was a degree of transnational identity under the caliphate that was never achieved in, say, Catholic Europe

11. Science and the Islamic World

Comment #62913 by JohnC on August 12, 2007 at 9:46 am

mandelstam,

Okay, we agree on the most important thing ;-)

On the minor point, I think it makes sense, prior to the birth of fully modern (and hence global) science, to speak of "Islamic science", in the same way we speak of Greek philosophy or Roman engineering. This is a question of how we deploy and understand historical paradigms, and for what political/polemical purposes. In this context, I do not believe the usage is invalid.

12. Richard Dawkins, TV evangelist

Comment #62909 by JohnC on August 12, 2007 at 9:24 am

Richard Dennett would be a good friend of Dan Dawkins :-)

13. Richard Dawkins, TV evangelist

Comment #62904 by JohnC on August 12, 2007 at 9:01 am

magetoo asked:

But the comments seem to imply that he is attacking atheists, and Dawkins, for being (just as bad as) a loony cult. Where does this come from?

American neoconservatives and radical Islamists found in each other the perfect enemy, so future conflict between militant atheists and religious conservatives may have the rest of us ducking in the crossfire. In this sense, while Dawkins's intentions are doubtless well meant, the rise of the atheist movement he symbolises could do more than the alternative spiritualities he disparages to threaten the fragile cohesion of our societies.

14. Science and the Islamic World

Comment #62901 by JohnC on August 12, 2007 at 8:36 am

mandelstam,

The author is issuing a clarion call for secular humanism as a precondition for the development of science education and practice in countries with predominantly Muslim populations. He is not calling for "Islamic science".

Have you actually read the article?

15. Why Richard Dawkins is right on alternative medicine - but not when it comes to religion

Comment #62897 by JohnC on August 12, 2007 at 8:26 am

For the most part, however - and certainly in the mainstream - the Christian churches have retreated to the safe high ground of ethics.

16. Richard Dawkins, TV evangelist

Comment #62886 by JohnC on August 12, 2007 at 7:54 am

We are now seeing a concerted effort being made to validate an atheist cultural identity

17. Science and the Islamic World

Comment #62882 by JohnC on August 12, 2007 at 7:25 am

There is a big danger here of missing the point, particularly by FG. The author's point was clearly stated at the start: "Internal causes led to the decline of Islam's scientific greatness long before the era of mercantile imperialism."

Quibbling about the extent of "greatness" is irrelevant - the origins of scientific thinking and mathematics are rooted in Greece and the thread unquestionably passed through the Islamic world before being wedded to an independently developed European emirical tradition that gave birth to science as we know it.

What this courageous article is about, though, is linking the present stultifying effect of Islam on science to its historical roots, and from that launching a call for a policy of secular humanism as "our only reasonable choice for governance and progress".

In that light, I find many of the comments here both churlish and short-sighted.

18. Electrons to Enlightenment 4: Debating Darwin

Comment #62878 by JohnC on August 12, 2007 at 7:07 am

Comment #61665 by howtoplayalone asks:

If anyone wants to comment on why the convergence idea is so ridiculous I'd appreciate it, or post links.

19. Send a Message to God: He has gone too far this time

Comment #17775 by JohnC on January 16, 2007 at 7:31 am

Russell, there is a profound difference between political discourse in Australia and the US. When was the last time you heard a frontbencher of either political party utter, let alone invoke, the word "god". I cannot remember an occasion. And that's the case with even the most publicly Christian of our conservatives, Tony Abbott, whom I have known for 30 years. He succeeded me as president of Sydney Uni SRC in the 70s and 15 years later he turned up as a leader writer for The Australian when I was foreign editor, and now of course he is health minister. But despite his scummy right-wing politics and well-known Catholic convictions, have you ever heard him invoke the god-word in his polemics? It is so very different in the US, where even politicians we suspect are non-believers feel the need to drop the G-word into their public discourse at regular intervals. Here is John Howard, our Prime Minister and a Christian, whom I loathe, in 2004, being put on spot by Compass, about the only thing that passes for a religious TV program produced in Australia:

Geraldine Doogue: Because using God as a credential for office. It's pretty American isn't it?
John Howard: Yes well I don't do that. We are quite different from the Americans in that way. There are things that an Australian political leader, no matter what his or her private beliefs are, there are things that an Australian Prime Minister would never say. I mean for example John Curtin was an avowed non-believer. I didn't agree with him but I respected his views, and I think you have to in our society respect that.

20. Wash. school board restricts Gore's global-warming film

Comment #17764 by JohnC on January 16, 2007 at 12:54 am

Gee, I thought Frosty was a clown. And I was right, apparently.

But seriously, you just have to glimpse the deranged bleatings about carbon dating (which by the way is valid to about 60,000 years) to know there is no possibility of meaningful dialogue. So whoever our friend actually is, let's not waste too much time on him.

21. Creationism special

Comment #17761 by JohnC on January 16, 2007 at 12:32 am

On falsification, Wolpert - who fancies himself as a bit of an epistemologist, while excoriating the philosophy of science in general - of course knows his Popper (and the subsequent debates); well enough indeed to be aware that falsifiability is not some gold standard to sort the scientific sheep from the superstitious goats.

This is actually a bit of general conundrum. While most scientifically literate people have no problem differentiating science from non-science, this is in fact (whether we care to admit it or not) based on the rule of thumb that science is whatever the community of scientists says it is (ie it owes more to Kuhn than Popper or Lakatos).

Get down to details - think of oft-discussed definitions of "fact" and "theory" - and any consensus among serious people disappears pretty quickly. So we have a real handicap when we want to explain these issues to a scientifically illiterate public in the context of a highly charged debate over ID. Particularly when our most dangerous opponents are not just dishonest, but not stupid either.

In the end it is political fortitude that wins the day: that scientists pull their heads out their labs, recognise the danger, and act. That Wolpert is prepared to do this, and lead by example, is what is important.

22. Creationism special

Comment #17751 by JohnC on January 15, 2007 at 11:06 pm

Old Coppernose, no, sorry - me, not moderator. Let me explain: When I initially composed the post I went into fit of rhetorical overdrive, so "folk at the Discovery Institute" was, for instance "lying scumbags at the Discovery Institute" (I really do dislike them!). When I returned to the thread somewhat later I realized that not only had I overdone things, but that given the specific context (about whether it was appropriate to describe Wolpert as a "pompous ass") I was rather shooting myself in the foot. However, the post had already been up for a couple of hours, so I thought it appropriate to note (somewhat tongue-in-cheek) that I had done an edit.

I have since asked Josh if we can get a software-generated "edited" line at the end of each post, which he has kindly agreed to instrument when he gets some time.

23. Readers Write: Atheist Sam Harris on Torture and Faith

Comment #17744 by JohnC on January 15, 2007 at 10:14 pm

Fondness for Beetles I am not saying Sam hasn't thought about this, nor have I been "glib" (and quite frankly I object to that characterisation), but that doesn't mean his arguments are sound or his conclusion is correct.

And now you run a deeply unsound argument by analogy about imprisonment. You may want to reflect on the fact that in the developed world the US has both the highest imprisonment and crime rates, and therefore a propensity to imprison may have a null or even negative effect on crime.

But none of this has anything much to do with torture, which is clearly prohibited by international law in all circumstances. If Sam, and you, believe there is a case for the US to reverse its own legal and moral commitments on this issue then a rather more serious case needs to be made than any I have read so far; one that actually addresses the legal, historical and political realities.

Augmenting one thought experiment about a ticking bomb with another about an abducted child is to prop up the inadequate with the fatuous.

24. Lil' Markie live, part 2

Comment #17741 by JohnC on January 15, 2007 at 9:36 pm

Mitchie2006, I downloaded the mp3 of "Diary of an Unborn Child" from your link, but had to hit the Stop button after 30sec (even though I made it through the entire clip on this site).

The problem is not that Mark Fox exists, but that he has an audience, and that the audience mostly comprises parents who think this obscene tub of lard provides spiritually uplifting entertainment for their children while Al Gore's film is a work of Satan that should be banned from schools.

I like and admire the US, and try hard not to be anti-American. But much of it is a frighteningly alien social landscape that is deep in the grip of what can only be called a social psychosis.

25. 10 Questions for Heather Mac Donald

Comment #17735 by JohnC on January 15, 2007 at 8:32 pm

Whether one thinks Mac Donald's neocon polemics on social and political issues are "excellent" is strictly a matter of opinion and not relevant to the concerns of this site. What is at issue here is that she has decided to deploy her skills to challenge the religious consensus that now prevails across American conservatism. One can applaud the latter without endorsing the former.

26. Send a Message to God: He has gone too far this time

Comment #17733 by JohnC on January 15, 2007 at 8:22 pm

Veronique, the argument by Giles Frazer ("in their struggle for secular values, commentators such as Polly Toynbee are effectively handing fundamentalists the title of official opposition") should be taken seriously become it arises quite often, and it's dead wrong.

If the vicar of Putney used his high-profile media platform to attack the fundamentalists rather than Toynbee he would resolve both problems in a single stroke. In the face of a serious challenge by fundamentalists, the best the "moderates" can muster is some muted dribblings in the Church Times while the lunatic fringe is actually pumping out press releases and demonstrating in the streets. And he then has the gall to blame "media atheists" for the high profile of the fundamentalists.

If the moderates really want to claim that their brand of superstition is compatible with a rational, secular society then they need to do a lot more to take on their co-religionists and actually fight for their values rather than simply clucking about them over tea and scones, while denouncing in hurt tones the courageous resistance of people like Toynbee and Grayling.

27. Creationism special

Comment #17732 by JohnC on January 15, 2007 at 7:28 pm

Thanks for that info, John Phillips. The last thing I saw was at New Year:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk:80/article/0,,2087-2524442,00.html
which says:

THE government has cleared the way for a form of creationism to be taught in Britain's schools as part of the religious syllabus. Lord Adonis, an education minister, is to issue guidelines within two months for the teaching of "intelligent design" (ID) ... Adonis said in a parliamentary answer: "Intelligent design can be explored in religious education as part of developing an understanding of different beliefs."
He announced that the Department for Education and Skills (DfES) is to hold discussions with the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority, the assessment regulator, and said local advisory councils would decide whether particular schools should teach the theory.

28. The Only One in Step

Comment #17650 by JohnC on January 15, 2007 at 9:42 am

Simon, if you want a real discussion then it has to be about biology, not engineering. And we need to agree on our premises. The main proponents of ID, Behe and Dembski, do not deny either the fact of common descent and its analogue, the evolution of species through descent with modification. They challenge that natural selection is an adequate explanation for the observed evolutionary process.

Do you agree with this? If yes, we can proceed to the next part of the discussion. If no, could you please outline what explanation and scientific model you propose.

29. Creationism special

Comment #17646 by JohnC on January 15, 2007 at 9:15 am

Logicel, there is no doubt that the point he was trying to make was aimed at the "teach the controvery" strategy.

But having said that it is also true that his epistemological approach (in for instance The Unnatural Nature of Science) would bias him towards a view that it is too difficult for non-scientists to understand science (nothing special about children, note Sancus). This of course is a grave contradiction for someone who is also a science populariser (as he is), which is why he will never be a Carl Sagan or Steve Gould, both of whom held strongly to the view that science could be discussed intelligently in the public square without either jargon or patronising simplicities. And they proved it in practice.

That said, it is unfair to hang all this on Wolpert in the context of rapid-fire radio science program in which his brief was to dispatch the IDiots in as few a words as possible.

It is the lack of perspective in the criticism that I suppose I object to most. This little program was about dispatching ID off to beyond the fringes of respectability in the public mind, not a disquistion on the pedagogy of evolution. And Lewis Wolpert did his duty. That's enough.

30. The Only One in Step

Comment #17639 by JohnC on January 15, 2007 at 8:42 am

Simon, you may want to check the spelling of words such as "consensus" before you deliver yourself of the perfect confirmation of everything Richard has said in TGD.

31. Creationism special

Comment #17634 by JohnC on January 15, 2007 at 8:29 am

Sancus, I am actually deeply sympathetic to your passion about the plight of children. But on the questions at issue, I have stated my position, and you have been kind enough to quote my words in your reply. I don't think I need add anything further.

32. Conservative Atheists

Comment #17632 by JohnC on January 15, 2007 at 8:13 am

Thanks, Logicel. Though I think your thoughts about Wolpert are inadvertently in the wrong thread, so I won't pursue them here :-)

33. Conservative Atheists

Comment #17627 by JohnC on January 15, 2007 at 7:19 am

Sancus, the D'Souza link is of interest for several reasons, not the least being the degree of irritation his writing's have generated here. I offered it as footnote with all of the qualifications you generously quoted.

But yes, I have in fact been homeless rather recently, directly as a result of what looked for all the world like the end-stage of a lifelong battle against alcoholism. However, I'm here today, sober and with a roof over my head. You don't have to tell me what it's like to sleep in a huddle of unwashed men snoring, farting, urinating, and worse, with no desire to even see tomorrow, let alone any curiousity about what it may bring. None of which should give me a millimetre of extra (or less) credibility for any post I write on any topic here. Et tu Sancus.

34. Lil' Markie live, part 2

Comment #17604 by JohnC on January 15, 2007 at 5:00 am

If we are going to start showing clips of preposterous things that go in American churches we will be here till the heat death of the universe.

A good reminder though of what this fabled sense of community that churches are supposed to supply is actually about.

35. Conservative Atheists

Comment #17600 by JohnC on January 15, 2007 at 4:37 am

Thad, I don't think there is any problem being a Republican among the most of the godless (it was the party of Lincoln, after all). But there most certainly is a problem being godless among most Republicans.

Now why is that?

36. Conservative Atheists

Comment #17580 by JohnC on January 15, 2007 at 12:47 am

By the way, those who are as perversely fascinated as I am by the disintegration of religious/right-wing rotten bloc that brought Bush to power might be interested in this piece:
http://www.classicalvalues.com/archives/004439.html
From an American conservative commenting on a new book by Dinesh D'Souza, who would be familiar to regulars here as having written two separate attacks on Richard (re-posted at this site). The title "If homo lovers are liberal, then mullah lovers are conservative?" gives you some idea of the content.

I hasten to add that I'm not endorsing anyone's view here. This is strictly a conservative infight (from which I am by definition excluded), but which nonetheless has important implications for the progress of atheism and secularism in the US. Expect more on D'Souza, by the way; Andrew Sullivan is apparently writing a review for New Republic.

37. Creationism special

Comment #17578 by JohnC on January 14, 2007 at 11:17 pm

Melisande, I suspect that this was a replication of what happened in Australia in 2005, which I might just describe (UK posters would be in a better position to comment on the similarities and differences.)

What is sent out is not just a DVD but an "education pack", with the hope that out of thousands of mailings they will hit gold with a few Christian fundamentalist teachers. The packs are produced and funded by the Discovery Institute in Seattle but distributed through some local surrogate. In Australia, which lacks any kind of anti-evolution organisation, it was the Campus Crusade for Christ which did the distribution, while in the UK it appears Andy McIntosh and his co-thinkers actually formed TiS as a way of capitalising on this piece of American cargo cult.

Inevitably there is a reaction. In Australia, the then federal education minister unwisely opined that he could see some sense in exposing students to "both sides" (he is a former president of the medical association, making his comments particularly scandalous). However, within days a coalition representing 70,000 scientists and science teachers slammed ID as equivalent to flat earth theory in a well publicised statement, and the whole thing died in weeks, not to be heard of since.

In the UK there is apparently some statement due from a junior education minister saying it would be okay to discuss ID in religious classes. But I have no further update on that situation. More info would be appreciated ...

In both cases I think you'll find the folk at the Discovery Institute are responsible.
Edited for both tone and good taste

38. Creationism special

Comment #17562 by JohnC on January 14, 2007 at 6:29 pm

Sancus, let me try, in good faith, one last time. Wolpert's point was that the TiS line of "teach the controversy", which would involve throwing both science and ID at children so they could "decide", is simply preposterous. Surely we can agree on that, can't we?

Now in trying to make that point on live radio he used some phrasing that could be misinterpreted as saying that school children are incapable of understanding evolution. And on this you have seized as a drowning man to a liferaft. But clearly he doesn't believe that evolution is too difficult for school students to understand, which would mean he would oppose the teaching of biology at all in school!

Wolpert has been a fellow of the Royal Society for over 25 years, and a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature since 1999. In addition to being a distinguished developmental biologist, he is also one of a tiny handful of scientists who have worked to popularise science, through both books and broadcast. He has also shown enormous courage in using his own experience of depression to investigate and raise consciousness about that debilitating condition.

Some perspective, common sense and generosity of spirit are surely in order.

39. Conservative Atheists

Comment #17559 by JohnC on January 14, 2007 at 5:58 pm

I think I'm done with this thread.

Look on the bright side, Jack: it is often more effective to let people condemn themselves out of their own mouths. I think we can trust in the general good sense of the vast majority of participants at this site.

Added: By the way, Sancus, there are four threads here relating to Mac Donald. I have contributed to each of them (and indeed originally excavated two of them). I am quite happy for others to judge my state of deep ignorance about conservative atheism on the basis of what I've posted :-)

40. Creationism special

Comment #17558 by JohnC on January 14, 2007 at 5:49 pm

If Wolpert is a "pompous ass", what does that make Jerry Falwell? There is an impoverishment of language happening here that leaves us quickly running out of sobriquets, particularly when such ad hominem attacks cannot distinguish between friend and foe.

41. Creationism special

Comment #17549 by JohnC on January 14, 2007 at 4:50 pm

Sancus, that would be Wolpert not "Walpert", and the point he was making is that it is bizarre to throw both ID and evolution at children with the aim of having them "decide" which is correct. In other words, it was a repudiation of a "teach the controversy" strategy. Admittedly he could have expressed it a little better, but it was live radio.

And you might take pause for thought before you start tagging a distinguished scientist, with whom you are apparently unfamiliar, as a "pompous ass".

42. Conservative Atheists

Comment #17539 by JohnC on January 14, 2007 at 3:43 pm

Sancus, while some people may be interested in digesting libertarian tracts (I myself would rather drink Lysol), I really don't think this is the appropriate site to be touting for your political beliefs.

43. Conservative Atheists

Comment #17530 by JohnC on January 14, 2007 at 2:40 pm

As for gay marriage, the one thing we can say about Christianity with a high degree of certainty is that one of its distinctive contributions has been an obsession with regulating people's sexual behaviour. While the Jesus portrayed in the gospels seemed to be fairly relaxed about sexual matters, Pauline doctrine already shows signs of deep neuroticism on matters of the bedroom. And it has been with us ever since. (The fact that to this day the Catholic and many other churches still insist that masturbation is a sin shows how deep such anxieties run in the Christian imagination.)

But of course this intrusive, regulatory approach to sexuality (it wasn't that long ago that many US states still criminalised oral sex in marriage in their sodomy statutes) is deeply at odds with conservative political values espoused by the very same right-wing Christians. What this shows, I think, is that for the religious right "conservatism" means an aversion to modernity, and has little in common with the traditions of Burke etc.

That a "real" conservative such as Mac Donald should take a blast at the theocons is therefore not completely unintelligible. The religious right is currently yoked to the Republican Party by cynical bonds of mutual deception that lack any foundation in principle. It makes this particular controversy (and others, such as Mary Cheney) all the more fascinating to watch.

44. Conservative Atheists

Comment #17526 by JohnC on January 14, 2007 at 1:38 pm

The problem with statements such as liberalism is basically just another religion is not that it's introducing politics (at a site like this one just has to live with the fact that there'll be some people with whacky political ideas), but that it does serious injury to the concept of religion, stretching it into some useless catchall: religion = anything I don't agree with.

The same goes for such superficially attractive propositions as Stalinism = religion or Nazism = religion. Such intellectual laziness, even as analogies, stops us being able to properly understand both religion and the political doctrines under discussion

45. Conservative Atheists

Comment #17507 by JohnC on January 14, 2007 at 7:56 am

Rational and wrong are not mutually exclusive :-)

And in a more traditional formulation, the fact that reasonable people can disagree is the reason we have democracy at all.

I would probably disagree with most of the views on which Mac Donald has built her career, but it would be possible to engage in a rational debate. Is that enough: no! But it's an important start.

46. Religiously Arguing: A response to Michael Novak

Comment #17483 by JohnC on January 14, 2007 at 3:11 am

Thankyou, Logicel. I must admit to a certain fascination with the nitty gritty of American politics, once you look beyond the many dolts who are its public face. The neocons (defined in part as intellectuals who came from a "liberal" background) represent a larger force in conservative politics than their numbers suggest because many of them are real thinkers with real ideas (however wrong) which have evolved from some understanding of what the other side is saying. That one of their number (and a social, not foreign policy, neocon - the latter labouring under the Iraq disaster) should break ranks on the Christian consensus is a real conundrum for them. And in a political environment in which the Rove strategy of relying on evangelical base has just spectacularly failed, it could just provide the catalyst for a wider outbreak of honesty. (Ironically, the "closet" metaphor is very apt, given that the recent scandals have brought to light along the way the large number of Republican politicians and staffers who are also gay!) The key importance here is that this is a constituency that TGD could otherwise never reach. These people are Balkanized within their own politico-religious enclaves, in which every challenge is "the other". The message moves in mysterious ways, this probably being one of the more mysterious.

47. Conservative Atheists

Comment #17476 by JohnC on January 14, 2007 at 1:59 am

Ought and Is. It's the US we are talking about, where religion is the politics that brought Bush to power. Unravelling this toxic mix is precisely the calling of our times. And if it can come apart by forces within as well as from without, all the better.

48. Religiously Arguing: A response to Michael Novak

Comment #17473 by JohnC on January 14, 2007 at 1:52 am

But a beautifully honed polemicist:
I fully subscribe, however, to Novak's eloquent statement that the "Catholic Church . . . answers something deep in the human spirit, which secularism does not, and cannot." For the religiously inclined, only religion will satisfy that particular need for transcendence.
Religious institutions and beliefs are, however, human creations ...

No punching or stabbing, just an elegant fillet segueing nicely into a total rejection of all religion without seeming to give any offence through what appeared at face value a gracious concession.

The art of rhetoric was a much esteemed subject in its own right in Elizabethan times, and it is still fascinating to watch it practised by a real expert, particularly in such an incongruous context.

49. Send a Message to God: He has gone too far this time

Comment #17468 by JohnC on January 14, 2007 at 1:15 am

No, not naive but a light touch, since she hadn't yet declared her hand (it was 2005). My reading is that the decision to write the full-scale polemical assault the following year (and not in her own magazine, but in a central organ of conservatism) was much influenced by Richard and Sam's books. TGD in particular, given the ubiquity of his "coming out the closet" metaphor for atheists that bizarrely made its way into the 10 questions piece (what are these conservatives to make of that?)

I have no intention of repeating my thoughts from that first thread, but would underline that this has been a highly significant development in the US (though perhaps not exactly of the form RD had in mind) since it challenges the nexus of morality and religion in the heartland where this linkage matters most. To hear a leading social neocon deny the connection sows doubt for the first time and starts shutting down the polemical space within which it can be simply asserted.

50. Homophobia, not injustice, is what really fires the faiths

Comment #17463 by JohnC on January 14, 2007 at 12:26 am

Joadist, was the poster I was responding to @3 :-)

But I now notice he responded with: "It is a thought crime."

No! The discrimination is real and objective, it is the grounds for the discrimination that are "subjective", though establishing them in court is still a matter of evidence. And this is an issue in most cases of any discrimination that make it to the relevant tribunals or courts. The most common defence against a charge of discriminating on the basis of sex or race is to deny the grounds: he/she wasn't a suitable job candidate, or was a rude customer, or didn't meet the criteria etc etc. There is nothing special about sexuality as a ground.

This is why these laws are effective more through their pedagogical effect than actual litigation (though a couple of high-profile cases always help). But effective they are, changing the terms of the conversation, and banishing the kind of excuses for homophobia that we have seen on even this site to the outer margins of unacceptable discourse.