101. How Old is the Grand Canyon? Park Service Won't Say

Comment #15398 by JohnC on December 31, 2006 at 1:22 am

Strak, indeed atheism actually implies virtually nothing about one's world view more generally, from an in-principle point of view. But as a matter of fact, an American atheist, for instance, is much more likely to be anti-Bush for reasons that are not too hard to divine. Corellation, not causality, though.

Now the reasons for the invasion of Iraq were not to establish a "staging post" against Iran (if they wanted such a thing they already had huge bases is Saudi Arabia). The neocon adventure against Saddam has a long public record of rationales as the necessary first step in asserting American exceptionalism. It has failed in the most spectacular and tragic way.

Meanwhile, the notion that the appropriate response to the likely development of a nuclear capacity by Iran is military is yet another stupid delusion. On the other hand, some effective diplomacy might do wonders. The Persian semi-theocracy is a complex beast. Making a genuine attempt to understand it might be a good starting point.

102. How Old is the Grand Canyon? Park Service Won't Say

Comment #15393 by JohnC on December 31, 2006 at 12:47 am

Veronique, get a grip.
The NPS, which is an agency of the Department of Interior, has not "banned" anything.
And as a frequent visitor to the US, I can assure you it is no kind of "police state", though it is very different from Australia.
Travel broadens the mind, perhaps you should try it.

103. Islam and science

Comment #15389 by JohnC on December 30, 2006 at 9:58 pm

Interesting point: during the Regan-era arms race with the Soviets, there was not nearly as much pressure to teach creationism in public schools as there was/is at other times in history.

Sorry, wrong. The Edwards decision was 1987, and the previous 10 years was a period of intense activity. Creationism and biblical literalism has always been the overwhelming majority position of Americans in the South and Mid-West. Political activity around the issue has been determined by prevailing political climate, which in fact was most favourable during the Ronald Ray-Gunz era. Understanding these recent events is crucial to locating the ID movement in its historical context.

I am constantly amazed by the inability of Americans to understand their own history, never mind the rest of the world.

104. Ghosts in the Machine

Comment #15386 by JohnC on December 30, 2006 at 9:33 pm

ghosts aren't real.

Of course they're not, as far as we can tell at the moment. But we need to come to grips why they, and angels, fairies, leprechauns, sex-obsessed aliens, and poltergeists continue to be reinvented - and find purchase - in the popular imagination. Prescribing a diet of algebra and cold showers, which is the kind of caricature of RD that has been quite common, is surely a trap we don't want to fall into. Sagan's Demon-Haunted World comes to mind as one serious attempt to understand why this could be happening.

The Houdini story is an interesting, but unhappily rare, example of a popular cultural figure who took the dangers of supernaturalism seriously. The genuine intellectual precursor of the Amazing Randi.

But we need more than this, and more than simple condemnation.

105. The Only One in Step

Comment #15370 by JohnC on December 30, 2006 at 7:44 pm

McIntosh in the news this morning, being quoted by the Sunday Times about a government statement that seems to be paving the way for the teaching of ID in religious classes:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk:80/article/0,,2087-2524442,00.html
My favourite quotes are from the clerics, particularly this:

Canon Jeremy Davies, Precentor of Salisbury cathedral, said: "I don't see why religious education should be a dumping ground for fantasies. If it is claimed that this is a scientific theory, why isn't it explored in science classes? Its validity or otherwise should be tested against the usual criteria."

McIntosh said: "People like Dawkins are pushing atheism through schools, which is a religious view, and not a scientific one. Atheism is not the natural state of a scientist, since there have been scientists who have been theists both before and after Darwin."

106. Ghosts in the Machine

Comment #15368 by JohnC on December 30, 2006 at 7:18 pm

"Why should anyone favor B"@fun2bfree

Well, if we can't understand why, then we have no hope changing things. Impotently excoriating people for being stupid will get you nowhere.

One might start with the observation that American popular culture is thoroughly soaked in supernaturalism. Indeed, Column B is a perfect general description for the plots of many of the largest grossing movies to come out of Hollywood.

I recall Neil DeGrasse Tyson's admonishment of RD at the Beyond Belief conference that you can't just denounce people for believing wrong things. Public education involves persuasion. Richard accepted the rebuke in good grace.

107. How Old is the Grand Canyon? Park Service Won't Say

Comment #15361 by JohnC on December 30, 2006 at 6:03 pm

The Park Service should be ashamed for printing this nonsense @Pilot22A

Just to be clear, this is not an NPS publication, but a 2003 creationist coffee table book edited by Tom Vaill, of Canyon Ministries, who is also a Christian river guide, and has essays by such YEC stalwarts as Henry and John Morris, Duane Gish, Ken Ham, and Kurt Wise. It seems to sell about 300 copies a year.

The issue is that it is being sold by the half-dozen park bookstores whose stocklists are vetted by the NPS. Earlier episodes in this saga saw the Paleontological Society, American Geophysical Union, National Association of Geoscience Teachers, Association of American State Geologists, Society for Vertebrate Paleontology, American Geological Institute and the Geological Society of America writing to the NPS, saying: "We urge you to remove the book from shelves where buyers are given the impression that the book is about Earth science and its content endorsed by the National Park Service."

The Alliance Defence Fund, a fundamentalist legal front founded by James Dobson among others, has threatened the Department of the Interior with court action if any move is made to remove the book from the shelves. Its First Amendment status is unclear.

108. Ghosts in the Machine

Comment #15307 by JohnC on December 30, 2006 at 9:24 am

Before we shoot the messenger, let's try to undersand the message: I suspect that we'll dwell forever in the haunted landscape of our beliefs. To many people it's a world more interesting — bigger, stranger, more mysterious — than the one offered by science. Why choose instead to be creatures of chemical impulse and electrical twitch? We would rather gamble on even a tiny, electrical spark of a chance that we are something more.

There is no creator god here, but a clearly expressed yearning for something more, based on the feeling that science is something less. This is not going to go away anytime soon, and indeed for our American friends let me predict that as Christianity inevitably diminishes, this kind of thinking will grow. And it is, at least, less obviously dangerous.

Part of the answer is the kind of mind-broadening approach to science that Sagan and nowadays Neil DeGrasse Tyson does so well. A pox on those who look down on science popularisers.

But the many projects that seek to combine the humanities with science are also an essential part of the picture. Think of Edge, but I continue to be inspired by Bruno's Ascent of Man and some of Gould's best essays. One way or another, Professor Blum is speaking for a constituency that will only get larger as the religious community gets smaller, unless we get smarter.

109. How Old is the Grand Canyon? Park Service Won't Say

Comment #15301 by JohnC on December 30, 2006 at 8:29 am

I would hope that the creation myths of the local indigenous population were presented to park visitors

I am reminded that in October I took my 16yo to the heart of Australia to see, among other thing, Uluru (formerly known as Ayres Rock). This extraordinary geological structure is reputedly the largest visible rock on the planet, and its ownership was handed back to the traditional custodians some years ago.

The cultural centre had a wealth of literature and displays about the myriad stories and customs associated with the rock. But it also had a publication on the geology. The pamphlet's introduction actually began with a statement that the traditional owners had explanations for the origin of the Rock, but that the content of this publication was the explanation that science had been able to deduce - and what an amazing story that is!

Now spot the difference, because it's not obvious from what I've said so far. It is that no one - not the most deranged post modernist nor the most chauvinistic Aborigine - would for a second contemplate replacing the narrative of geology with that of the Rainbow Serpent. These are stories that explain different things and assign different meanings to the same piece of geology, but they are not in competition. This is something Steve Gould tried to explicate, with uneven success, and perhaps something that RD has at least not communicated as well as he could.

Uluru is not a site of culture wars, but cultural enrichment, as should be the Grand Canyon (even though it's not a canyon).

110. How Old is the Grand Canyon? Park Service Won't Say

Comment #15289 by JohnC on December 30, 2006 at 7:21 am

Let's put this in persperctive. The YEC crowd had for some time turned the Grand Canyon into a symbolic cause. Documentaries about GC flood geology were made (even seen on this side of the world), "researchers" were sent out and many press releases issued. The incoming Bush-Rove-Cheney cabal knew that they had to be seen to be doing something for their base. So, what do we have? A silly book in the shop. That's the best 6 years of theocon ascendency could deliver to their base. Oh, and a pregnancy for Mary Cheney (whoops!) and the hanging of a 69yo deluded ex-tyrant (clutching his Koran) in the midst of sectarian maelstrom that has claimed hundreds of thousands of lives.

They are now in retreat, and I have no doubt that the Grand Canyon bookstore will be revising its stocklist in the near future.

God Bless America!

111. God's Enemies Are More Honest Than His Friends

Comment #15285 by JohnC on December 30, 2006 at 6:47 am

"without the most careful specification", which you have now provided in your last couple of posts. And, yes, these are matters of interest. But I don't think my concern, or characterisation of the earlier discussion, were off-target. And in any case, I think Santa is a bit of a distraction if you are going to be really serious about promoting critical thinking in children. Piaget would be my point of entry

112. 10 myths - and 10 truths - about atheism

Comment #15283 by JohnC on December 30, 2006 at 6:35 am

rww, "the argument against this" has nothing much to do with Climbing Mr Improbable (which is nonetheless a fine popular exposition) but everything to do with a rather large body of existing scientific work.

Andy's position rests on assertions:
1. Specific contadiction of the 2nd law at the level of biochemical bonds of the DNA and RNA molecules. Well, he is not a biochemist and his assertions have got zero traction with the relevant community of experts.
2. A more general claim, of long pedigree, that natural selection can only produce destructive change - a kind of analog of the YEC notion that everything was created in its full diversity in the beginning and it's been downhill ever since. This broader claim has not been falsified in any one place but wherever it has been sufficiently specificied it has failed.

The unfortunate thing for Andy, and for his US counterpart Behe, is that they formulated their ideas at the very time that biochemistry was just really hitting its straps. Their challenges were being met as the ink was drying on their polemics.

For ideological reasons these people are trying to strap some propellors to this dead duck in the hope that it will yet fly. But if it smells like a corpse, it probably is a corpse.

113. God's Enemies Are More Honest Than His Friends

Comment #15278 by JohnC on December 30, 2006 at 5:54 am

That's all kool with me. I am the last to argue we have the parenting issue sorted out! But running the Santa discusion through a forum such as this is probably a very poor idea, without the most careful specification. I've already said why, so I won't belabour the point any further.

114. 10 myths - and 10 truths - about atheism

Comment #15276 by JohnC on December 30, 2006 at 5:45 am

Nikki, thanx for the tip. Personally, I think YECers should be given wide publicity. Unlike arguing against ID, which is like trying to pin down an oil slick, tangling with YEC is real fun. They actually put hypotheses and positions out there. The fact that assembled together these contradict the central finding of almost every branch of science you can think of is delicious. More Andy McIntosh, less boring Bill Dembski, I say

115. 10 myths - and 10 truths - about atheism

Comment #15268 by JohnC on December 30, 2006 at 4:44 am

Brian, I've never been a Christian of any sort. My first memory of discussing the matter was at age 8 telling a friend who was explaining why he went to Sunday school that it seemed wrong to me. But I know you are one who has travelled back down from the road to Damascus so you have insights that I - happily, on balance - will never have.

116. God's Enemies Are More Honest Than His Friends

Comment #15267 by JohnC on December 30, 2006 at 4:23 am

Logicel, all childhood fantasy derives from the tropes supplied by the adult world; this is as true for Santa as Superman. Both in fact are products of the American merchandising machine. As parents we all make judgements about some of these being harmful, and some benign. Though I have wondered whether my aversion to "Rambo" dolls is as dispassionately in children's interests as I tell myself, since I actually have no evidence that Sly's militaristic fantasies are any more reactionary or damaging than the "cowboy and indian" analogues of my own childhood.

But none of this has anything to do with religion. To link Santa to support for a rational secular society is to volunteer oneself as a burnt offering for late show comedians. Because it's wrong. Do yourself, and your fellow humanists, a favour and give Santa, the Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy a miss.

ADDED: One distinctive feature of the santa, bunny etc stuff is that they provide an opportunity for parents to share and shape the fun of the fantasy, and may be one of the few times adults give themselves permission to engage with their children's imaginative world in collaborative activity.

Separately, "meme" is an interesting metaphor that can quickly mislead. Caution.

117. 10 myths - and 10 truths - about atheism

Comment #15265 by JohnC on December 30, 2006 at 3:50 am

Against my better judgement, I'll have one last stab. (But I now do understand why others here regard you a time-wasting prat.)

The point at issue is the claim of the resurrection. An extraordinary claim. And therefore demands extraordinary evidence. Or a leap of faith. Why not just admit your belief is based on the latter, since no amount of polemical hocus pocus is going to produce the evidence required.

On the JS, you not only fail to reply to the accusation of ad hominem attacks, but reiterate the most vacuous of them (voting with "coloured balls" - would balloons have been better?) without noticing that the finding on the resurrection was really one of the least problematic conclusions, from a strictly empirical point of view. But you have nothing to say about the evidence, except the patronizing suggestion that I start with some "basic reading", including a demonstrably loony tome by Josh McDowell. How to win friends and influence people. Not!

A clear example of your rhetorical style can be seen with the chain that goes: "All this had been said before in 19th century liberalism" [has it?]; "and has largely been discredited" [when, by whom]; but "most atheists, including Dawkins, are stuck in a 19th century timewarp" [big jump here]. Now this does provide good evidence that you are no kind of slouch when it comes to polemics. You are well aware that there are many friendly critics, who no more share you faith than I do, who have used the 19th C throwback label about RD. But for entirely different reasons. But by latching your conclusion onto this same point, a fake legitimacy attaches to the other propositions in the chain.

The bottom line is that showing there is no evidentiary basis for belief in the resurrection does not discredit a faith that Jesus was resurrected. That requires a separate discussion about faith. But your tying this faith to an unsupportable view of the evidence is really doing Christianity no good. And it has certainly lowered my opinion of your intellectual integrity from when this discussion began.

118. 10 myths - and 10 truths - about atheism

Comment #15255 by JohnC on December 30, 2006 at 2:04 am

David, I had entertained the faint hope that you might respond with something of substance, since the evidentiary basis of the resurrection claim is a real historical question. Instead you have actually retreated to your former rhetorical puffery. Discussion over from me.

119. God's Enemies Are More Honest Than His Friends

Comment #15254 by JohnC on December 30, 2006 at 1:58 am

I'm sorry, but all this nonsense about Santa is not just irrelevent to religion, it's downright stupid. Fantasy - whether it's Santa, Harry Potter, or running around the backyard slaying dragons - is an essential component of childhood. Piously intoning about the "exposure to the Santa meme" is surely some kind of caricature of atheism. Indeed, even as I am writing this I find it hard to believe people are not engaging in some kind of satire. Tell me it's a joke ...

120. God's Enemies Are More Honest Than His Friends

Comment #15247 by JohnC on December 29, 2006 at 11:49 pm

The ABS of course put many Jewish Jedi knights in a difficult position :-)

But the statement also points to a more serious issue. Governments actually do divvy up their social welfare funding to "independent" bodies at least partly on basis of such breakdowns of nominal affiliation.

Now much of the huff and puff about the record of Christians in charity work depends directly on the fact governments find it convenient to fund religious outfits to run services for the homeless, drug addicts, etc. They get paid to do it - and with our money. What would the record of Christian charity look like if churches were not the recipients of vast amounts of taxpayer funds to run programs that governments find bothersome to administer themselves.

121. God's Enemies Are More Honest Than His Friends

Comment #15243 by JohnC on December 29, 2006 at 10:24 pm

By the way the Australian Bureau of Statistics was sufficiently concerned about people not taking the religion question seriously in the 2001 Census that they issued a statement entitled The 2001 Census, Religion and the Jedi with the serious warning: If your belief system is "Jedi" then answer as such on the census form. But if you would normally answer Anglican or Jewish or Buddhist or something else to the question "what is your religion?" and for the census you answer "Jedi" then this may impact on social services provision if enough people do the same.
I await the results of the Flying Spaghetti Monster campaign in this year's Census with interest.

122. God's Enemies Are More Honest Than His Friends

Comment #15241 by JohnC on December 29, 2006 at 9:45 pm

Nikki and Aussie,
While complacency is always dangerous, I don't think there is any serious cause for alarm. Some things to consider:
* Nominal Christian affiliation has been in linear decline since the question was first asked in its current form in 1971. The trend is strongly age biased, with fewer younger people claiming any affiliation
* The churches' own surveys show church-going collapsing at an even faster rate, with attendence falling by 7pc from 1996 to 2001, to just over 1.5 million. And while the evangelical outfits like Hill$ong showed strong growth (20pc for Assemblies of God nationally), the base is very low (taking attendence to less than 120,000, in this case). Baptist attendance also rose, but affiliation fell. There are actually more Buddhists than Baptists in Australia today.
* Actual belief can be best gauged from unrelated mass surveys, such as the recent Relationships and Sexual Health study whose results have been progressively analysed and released: 10,173 men aged 16–59 years from households in all states and territories of Australia were asked their religion and 4577 said none, while 4512 said Christian. Again the trends were strongly age-skewed. Note this is substantially less than the numbers for denominational affiliation as asked in the Census, since many people will say "Anglican" or "Catholic" if they were baptised or confirmed etc regardless of their actual belief. And I'm willing to bet that a large percentage of that minority who did identify as Christian hold a vague belief that has more in common with Luke Skywalker than Archbishop Pell.

Meanwhile, the intelligent design dog whistle spectacularly backfired on that animanted raccoon Brendan Nelson in the face of the immediate response from the science community last year. Here is how the Sydney Morning Herald reported it: "Intelligent design is as unscientific as the flat Earth theory and should not be taught in school science classes, a coalition representing 70,000 scientists and science teachers has warned."

This was followed by the Dover decision in the US, which in Australia seems to have shredded any remaining vestige of intellectual credibility the Campus Crusade for Christ may have been hoping for.

Whatever views Australians may have about the American alliance (most support it), there is unquestionably great alarm at the antics of Bush and his religious backers. And not even the usual suspects of the right-wing commentariat seem prepared to go into bat for US fundamentalism, since to do so would destroy their own credibility on other issues (and they tend in the main to be atheists themselves).

Finally, the continuing brouhaha about the dangers of Muslim fundamentalism has the effect on most people of a "plague on all your houses" reaction. Australians are generally deeply averse to overt expressions of religious zealotry, whatever its source.

But, yes, we cannot just take this progressive secularisation for granted. The corpse will be twitching for a while yet. And we have such wonderful events as the World Catholic youth fest to endure. But remember Pell was particularly keen for Australia to host this because Catholic attendence is falling most rapidly of all.

123. A Christmas thunderbolt for the arch-enemy of religion

Comment #15191 by JohnC on December 29, 2006 at 12:21 pm

I would be interested in engaging Dawkins himself in some of these debates.

Well, you may want to have some more arrows in your quiver beyond your current rather slender bolt, no matter how elaborate your bow.

124. A Christmas thunderbolt for the arch-enemy of religion

Comment #15177 by JohnC on December 29, 2006 at 10:09 am

binx, you quote my posted summary of your position: any perspective that denies the supernatural either: A. eliminates morality, or B. must erect an alternative supernaturalism in its place. And say: That is a fair enough summary.

Well, that's good enough for me. I am happy to have defined the disagreement, I don't expect to resolve it, given your obvious pleasure in the pyrotechnics of the polemic.

Be safe.

125. A Christmas thunderbolt for the arch-enemy of religion

Comment #15168 by JohnC on December 29, 2006 at 9:09 am

Binx, RD can speak for himself, of course. Gesturing at unspecified "supporters" gets us nowhere. Since the reply was addressed to me, are you saying that I have been "constructing elaborate supernatural fantasies about emergent morality".

Moving beyond this polemical argy-bargy, I think the issue is that you want to define true morality as being grounded in a transcendental reality. And therefore, any perspective that denies the supernatural either: A. eliminates morality, or B. must erect an alternative supernaturalism in its place.

But if we agree that for any given social context in the naturalist version of this story that our moral sense is real and that human actors have the freedom to act with or against that sense, what else do you want? Isn't that all we ever required of a moral philosophy?

126. God's Enemies Are More Honest Than His Friends

Comment #15164 by JohnC on December 29, 2006 at 8:47 am

Chris, rest assured that on my little patch of the planet no-one is avoiding the term atheist because of negative consequences. Belief, or lack of belief, is generally not part of public discourse and when it arises there are often more relevant and specific designations at hand.

127. A Christmas thunderbolt for the arch-enemy of religion

Comment #15160 by JohnC on December 29, 2006 at 8:02 am

Binx@15158
True, but I don't see what religion, from our current global perspective, has to add. The gentlemen who flew their planes into the Twin Towers presumably believed they were destined to travel the highway to Paradise, but if in the final moments before impact they had had a revelation of Jesus they would suddenly have seen the hellfires of their fevered imagination as their terrible fate, before they actually ignited the real thing under thousands of innocent people.

Both scenarios are preposterous illusions that offer no more guarantee of actual moral behaviour than the entirely credible story provided by science and history. The story Richard, not Nietzsche, tells.

128. A Christmas thunderbolt for the arch-enemy of religion

Comment #15157 by JohnC on December 29, 2006 at 7:50 am

Binx, you admit the existence of the constraint not to burn down one's neighbours house, including on yourself (I even enjoy feeling constrained myself, in some ways) but that such a moral constraint is no guarantee of compliance, ie "free will" exists so each of us is "free" to operate within or against these constraints. Sounds like all the components of a moral philosophy to me. Meanwhile, should you actually initiate the "big fire" that would suit you well, I can only hope that the justice system, which is an imperfect embodiment of this moral sense, will deal with you appropriately.

129. God's Enemies Are More Honest Than His Friends

Comment #15152 by JohnC on December 29, 2006 at 6:56 am

Luthien, agreed that our sense of humour is a precious commodity, and when it starts to slip away we know all is not well. But "cowardice" is pretty strong and serious language, and a serious reply is not inappropriate. By the way, the last person I know of to be charged with blasphemy in this state was a woman activist dressed as nun wearing a placard saying: "I was fucked by the Almighty Steel Prick of the Lord", which was a literal translation from a the writings of a famous saint (Teresa, from memory). She went on to become a renowned journalist who played a central role in exposing one of the most notorious cases of police corruption to ever hit the courts. Divine justice.

ADDED: I've now checked my memory (from more than 30 years ago) against the record and found that Wendy Bacon's final conviction was for obscenity, and that the placard quoted a poem of hers, which was nonetheless based on the aforementioned translation from the saint's writings. The Sydney Morning Herald reported recently:

Bacon has written that her trial was "for blasphemy as much as obscenity"; that, by wearing the nun's costume, she (and the other women who dressed up as nuns) was protesting about the extent to which the church was being protected by the state. She also defends the poem, calling it "a celebration of sexuality" and "an attack on a religion which protects virginity as something to be clung to at all costs".

130. God's Enemies Are More Honest Than His Friends

Comment #15149 by JohnC on December 29, 2006 at 6:25 am

Chris,
Before you starting throwing around imputations of hypocrisy and cowardice, you might look at what people have actually said.
1. It is a matter of social context. In an effectively post-Christian society non-believers feel no compelling need to make the identification. Yes, magical thinking needs to be confronted, but quite frankly in my world crystals, ouiji boards and "alternative" therapies" are rather more pressing issues (matters that RD is intending to address in a major way in the new year) than organised religion. Do not read your own context (whatever that is) onto everybody else's situation.
2. Rejecting the god hypothesis is just that. It does not imply any philosophical or political positions that could be meaningfully united in any kind of "ism". Organising atheists is like herding cats precisely because a collection of people so defined is likely to disagree on virtually all other important issues. A site like this both illustrates this point but also partly disguises it, since Richard's own published work puts something of frame on matters (eg support of science, opposition to ID).
3. There may well be places (such as the US) where the identification of atheism is the correct strategic approach. There are probably others where Apostates Liberation may be a more suitable tactic. These are not questions of principle but of strategy, and I would be the last to declare that I know better than those who are actually engaged in the struggle. But what struggle? Surely it is about the kind of world we live in and how we behave towards each other, rather than some abstract concern about other people's subjective delusions.

ADDED: Nowadays I use secular humanist and sceptic, depending on context, as terms of identification for such discussions on my home turf.

131. God's Enemies Are More Honest Than His Friends

Comment #15142 by JohnC on December 29, 2006 at 5:08 am

And while I'm totally off-topic, it appears the Somali Islamists have disintegrated and lost control of the capital, Mogadishu. While it is too early to say what this means for the 15-year nightmare that has gripped Somalia, there are at least some glimmers of hope. The New York Times report includes the following:
"The Islamist leaders may have also miscalculated the appetite among Somalis for the harsh brand of Islam they were pushing. On Thursday, to celebrate the departure of the Islamists, many Mogadishu residents stuffed their mouths with khat, a mildly narcotic plant that the Islamists had outlawed, and cranked up Western music, which some clerics had tried to ban."
Now while I don't think drugs, sex and rock'n'roll provide any kind of answer to the problems of this ravaged country, this is surely better than stoning to death those who fail to pray 5 times a day.

132. God's Enemies Are More Honest Than His Friends

Comment #15136 by JohnC on December 29, 2006 at 4:38 am

Nikki, I worked for News Ltd for 13 years and I can tell you that they positively seek out grubs like Muehlenberg to spice things up, particularly this time of year. Ironically, though, there are probably fewer believers working for News mastheads than for Fairfax. (BTW, it was the Herald Sun - home of Andrew Bolt - not the Sun Herald, the Fairfax sunday.)
Added: I should say that they actually don't much care about the topic, which is why they prefer people who can write preposterous but provocative nonsense on a wide range of subjects. The problem with Christianity for them is that no one cares, unless there is a sex scandal or some other shenanigans attached.

133. God's Enemies Are More Honest Than His Friends

Comment #15135 by JohnC on December 29, 2006 at 4:30 am

"Have you ever noticed that nearly all the attacks on RD come from people in the paid employment of religion?"

Well as a simple matter of fact, I don't think that's true (but a simple check through the archive here would settle the matter). What I find interesting is that there seems to be a layer of the intelligensia, particularly in Britain, that have decided RD's critque represents some kind of "poor form" or breach of etiquette. Certainly there have been an extraordinary number of ad hominem attacks, of which the double page spread in the Times is only the most recent. It reminds me of the extraordinary lengths some people went to in order to paint Steve Gould as some kind of second-rate thinker and closet Marxist. I think it has something to do with disliking scientists being able to speak directly to the public rather through this self-appointed, paternalistic elite, who think they are the best judges of what the masses should know on controversial subjects.

134. God's Enemies Are More Honest Than His Friends

Comment #15130 by JohnC on December 29, 2006 at 4:14 am

FYI@6, Muehlenberg is not just a lecturer at a number of theological colleges (and a Phd candidate) but a notorious right-wing rogue and homophobe to boot. To give you some flavour of his publishing activities, they include: attacking the president of the Australian Medical Association for supporting lesbian parenting; describing the Lian Neeson Kinsey film as dangerous and frightening; and joining the McGrath attack on RD (Dawkins God) in a review last year that contained such revealing titbits as "ID has landed some telling blows on an already shaky evolutionary edifice".

135. A Christmas thunderbolt for the arch-enemy of religion

Comment #15123 by JohnC on December 29, 2006 at 3:44 am

There are many silly things said about the "dark ages", starting with the name. But in any period of mass illiteracy, the few centres of literate culture will of course be bearers of what knowledge and civility exists. That in certain historical periods and places these were monastaries does not establish anything other than a contingent link between religion and the values of civilization. And once literacy becomes more widespread, such religious centres quickly become brakes on those values as their ossified teachings straitjacket the growth of the critical, inquiring spirit that popular literacy brings in its wake. Witness the role of religious schools in Indonesia or Pakistan today.

136. God's Enemies Are More Honest Than His Friends

Comment #15122 by JohnC on December 29, 2006 at 3:31 am

To comment on use of the term atheist: in the world I mainly inhabit domestically (inner-city Sydney) and professionally (newspapers) the word atheist is rarely heard. As far I know the great majority of people with whom I mix have no belief in a creator god, but the matter is rarely a topic of conversation. It is being a believing Christian that is anomalous and requires a label to pigeonhole our perplexity that so-and-so is (voice lowers) an Anglican, or whatever, but otherwise seems a sensible person. These are cases of genuine cognitive dissonance for us.

One of the commercial television stations screens a couple religious broadcasts (Benny Hinn, etc) at around 4.30am week nights and a few more than that on Sunday morning in the same time slot. It seems you must be an insomniac if you want to see your fantasies discussed on TV.

The federal Opposition in Parliament recently elected a new leader, and virtually every commentator made the point that the fact he is known as a practicing Christian had actually been on balance something of an obstacle in this rise to the top. As it turns out, I have yet to hear him utter the word Jesus and his values would have him branded a kissing cousin of a communist in the good old U S of A.

I am not claiming that my little patch of the world is representative of anything other than itself, but the point is that in such an environment the term atheist is actually more redundant than anti-astrologer, since there seem to be many more people who regularly glance at their "stars" than those who would admit to attending a church or praying. So atheism withers with organised religion, and in this context providing fertiliser for one also provides sustenance for the other. But matters are clearly different elsewhere.

137. 10 myths - and 10 truths - about atheism

Comment #15114 by JohnC on December 29, 2006 at 2:26 am

If the Jesus Seminar was not the best credentialled group of non-apologist scholars to have examined the evidentiary basis of NT claims, which group was? Of course voting is not how science is practised, but NT scholarship is not science (though is should be evidence-based), and it has historically been heavily compromised by its association with apologetics. Under those circumstances, voting seemed an eminently sensible way to extract outcomes on these hot potato issues.

Your aversion to letting the evidence speak is revealed by your barely concealed horror that some members of the Seminar were atheists! Presumably, this is the the result of the reflexive belief held by most Christians that only those with a predetermined view about the outcome can reliably examine the evidence concerning the historical Jesus.

Of course, any apologist (including yourself) is going to reject the finding that the evidence does not support the resurrection since that eliminates the historical basis for central tenet of Christianity. But at the very least anyone who now wants to persist with the claim that the Resurrection was an actual historical (rather than visionary) event must deal with evidence and argument produced by the Seminar. And that is quite different to trying to discredit the process (an ad hominem attack) through such risible strategies as complaining that it *only* had 14 leading NT scholars.

138. Fallen Angels Assault: Heaven at Christmas

Comment #15105 by JohnC on December 29, 2006 at 12:02 am

How fortunate I am not to worry that I will ever be arrested for blasphemy."

Indeed, but that is a relatively recent state of affairs. It was only in 1952 that the Supreme Court held that the New York State blasphemy law was an unconstitutional prior restraint on freedom of speech. The court stated that "It is not the business of government in our nation to suppress real or imagined attacks upon a particular religious doctrine, whether they appear in publications, speeches or motion pictures."

The trend to repeal (or otherwise render inoperative) blasphemy laws occurred across the developed world. It was not a specifically American phenonemon.

139. A Christmas thunderbolt for the arch-enemy of religion

Comment #15096 by JohnC on December 28, 2006 at 10:45 pm

And thankyou Jonathan Dore for a marvellously compact and erudite summary.

140. A Christmas thunderbolt for the arch-enemy of religion

Comment #15094 by JohnC on December 28, 2006 at 10:32 pm

"Show me the data", what? for the proposition that we are "the products of our biological evolution and historical development" and therefore our moral sense, for instance, is a contingent result of these processes? So it is "real" without being derived from some transcendent reality. So like our sweet tooth or desire for companionship, our moral sense is an effective universal quality resulting from the complex historical processes that have brought us here.

"Make statements that are verifiable ..." If you really want to have a discussion, rather than simply play polemical games, you might try discarding that snotty, undergraduate air of superiority, and show some signs that you have tried to understand what other people are saying.

141. A Christmas thunderbolt for the arch-enemy of religion

Comment #15084 by JohnC on December 28, 2006 at 8:58 pm

"The remote possibility that there really is truth, goodness, and beauty, that love and compassion may stem from a higher truth, can make life worth living."

Whoa, Binx. That's quite a manoeuvre! That truth, goodness, beauty, love and compassion exist is not a remote possibility but an empirical fact. But that does not for a second empower some Platonist metaphysics which defines these human qualities as dimly perceived emanations from a higher power squatting outside the world. Your dichotomy between nihilism and Platonism is false, not because I say so but because there are self-evidently other philosophical alternatives out there.

That morality is a biological, social and historical construct does not make it less real than if it were a set of laws delivered from on high and valid for all time. It makes it more real, because there is no such law-giver on the one hand, while on the other we are most certainly the products of our biological evolution and historical development. We are the children of contingency, and while many us may yearn for absolutes - whether it be absolute truth or an absolute moral standard - they are not there to be had. But that does not empower pure relativism either, as the example of science clearly shows. Neither absolutism nor relativism, but contingent reality. Get used to it.

142. A Christmas thunderbolt for the arch-enemy of religion

Comment #15038 by JohnC on December 28, 2006 at 11:32 am

Binx, since it is unlikely you have completed the suggested reading in the short time between posts I shall have to fumble my way through as best I can.
1. There is no "prescribed" morality because there is no law-giver.
2. Yet there appears to be a moral sense distinguishable from mere social convention (see for instance Marc Hauser's work at Harvard).
3. The likely explanation is that a combination of evolutionary "rules of thumb" and common cultural development have given us a sense of "ought" that is reliably but not infallibly shared by all Homo sapiens alive today.

So if you burnt your entire neighbourhood down I would maintain that (unless you were mentally ill) you would have been aware that this was "wrong" (and this awareness would be quite independent of your religious convictions or social conditioning). Why? We don't know, yet. But we're working on it.

143. Orr on Dawkins

Comment #15031 by JohnC on December 28, 2006 at 10:48 am

QP, uncountable pages have been written in an attempt to understand the evil of the Holocaust. Yet for my money Bronowski's unscripted crie de cour in that muddy pond at Auschwitz came as close to the heart of matter as we are ever likely to get. It showed not the power of rationality as such, but the power of a fully human response in possession of a rational mind.

144. A Christmas thunderbolt for the arch-enemy of religion

Comment #15030 by JohnC on December 28, 2006 at 10:24 am

Binx, so it comes down to the fact that you have an issue with finding a basis for morality outside of the supernatural. Well, there is a rich philosophical history on this question - let's start with Plato, Hume, Spinoza and Kant - and a great deal of current scientific work.

But all Richard (and Sam) are saying is that wherever our morality comes from, it is not from the creator of the universe who was also a ghost-writer of one of our books. And that's enough to achieve the task they have set themselves. As a bonus RD also provides some additonal thoughts as possible points of departure for further investigation. Certainly, the established biological basis for altruism is a significant contribution to the discussion.

So you want to know more? Go figure, all contributions welcome!

145. 10 myths - and 10 truths - about atheism

Comment #15028 by JohnC on December 28, 2006 at 9:59 am

Brian, I was momentarily taken in by the Deceiver, Richard Dawkins, and his so-called Christian stooges, but after seeing the REAL EVIDENCE of Dr Miranda I am moving to Houston. How can one doubt a flesh-and-blood Messiah! Thank you.

146. 10 myths - and 10 truths - about atheism

Comment #15020 by JohnC on December 28, 2006 at 7:27 am

David, I'm afraid you can't dispose of the Jesus Seminar in such a cheap and unworthy fashion: these were not people picked off the street; 14 of its number are regarded as leading NT scholars. Their method of decision-making was novel, but hardly negates their conclusion. A serious person, as distinct from an oily polemicist, would engage the argument rather than indulge in the equivalent of an ad hominem dismissal. Like it or not, they are still the best credentialled single group of scholars to have examined this issue. And all you propose as an alternative is that your private examination of the evidence persuaded you otherwise. Perhaps you should be writing less and thinking more.

147. The God of the Bible is No Delusion!

Comment #15018 by JohnC on December 28, 2006 at 7:12 am

Peter,
The situation with Deut 28. is worse even than that, since the text is clearly not intended as "prophetic" at all, but as a warning to enforce obedience. A warning takes the form of:
IF you do x, THEN y will happen.
A prophecy is of the form:
You WILL do x, AND y will happen.

Thus verse 1: "And it shall come to pass, if thou shalt hearken diligently unto the voice of the LORD thy God, to observe to do all His commandments which I command thee this day, that the LORD thy God will set thee on high above all the nations of the earth." etc for 15 verses, but then:
"But it shall come to pass, if thou wilt not hearken unto the voice of the LORD thy God, to observe to do all His commandments and His statutes which I command thee this day; that all these curses shall come upon thee, and overtake thee."

The section from verse 49 is clearly the Deuteronomist drawing on the memory of a recent invasion to show that the aforementioned curses had once before come to pass, and so would again if obedience was not forthcoming. But written of course from the fictitious perspective of being an older text that predated the events it describes. It is as if I wrote a text tomorrow, but dated it 1950, in which I predicted that whenever Americans voted in a Texan as president a terrible fruitless war would result.

This all makes much more sense within the current scholarly consensus about the "discovery" of the book, which is why I asked our friend to comment on the provenance of the text.

This appears to be the current scholarly consensus. Rabbinical views vary. But no serious person is going to suggest this text is a prophecy of the Roman occupation, or indeed any kind of actual prophecy at all. Except of course for the loony extremists circling in the Kuiper belt of the Xtian solar system.

148. The God of the Bible is No Delusion!

Comment #15016 by JohnC on December 28, 2006 at 6:33 am

One verse, that's all. Text and alleged interpretation. Let's get down to the nuts and bolts of this delusion. Unless of course you are uncomfortable at moving beyond the level of untestable generalities. (Sorry your wife won't let you play.)

149. The God of the Bible is No Delusion!

Comment #15010 by JohnC on December 28, 2006 at 5:08 am

Ok, I'll play for a bit. You make much (at 405) of Deut. 28 - please let's start with a verse from this chapter that in your view represents a clearly fulfilled prophecy, with your view of the provenance of the chosen text. You might also add which qualified authorities - historians, textual critics, rabbis - share your interpretation. With links, please.

150. The God of the Bible is No Delusion!

Comment #15008 by JohnC on December 28, 2006 at 4:56 am

"The law of Moses, even by your reckoning, is at least 2600 years old, but was decidedly ahead of its time"

Compared with what! The "law" - and let's drop the Moses fiction - was noticeably more barbaric, reflecting its closeness to its tribal past, than that of most competing civilizations in the last millenium BCE.

Therapy, Mark, therapy ...