201. Rational Atheism

Comment #65035 by Janus on August 22, 2007 at 5:17 pm

Chezzyd, we've already explained why.

1) Because "using the carrot" is dishonest, not to mention condescending.
2) Because it's been tried for decades, with rather poor results.
3) Because if you do something like refraining from criticizing a person's religious beliefs in order to get them to accept the theory of evolution, you're only reinforcing the source of the person's delusion in order to get rid of a symptom.
4) Because we want to break the taboo that protects religious and spiritual beliefs.

202. Open letter to Michael Shermer in response to his letter...

Comment #64936 by Janus on August 22, 2007 at 12:40 pm

Good reply to Shermer's letter. I prefer mine, though. :P

As for the people above me moaning about sexism, kindly get over yourselves.


BicycleRepairMan,

Just one comment about your comment: I don't think I've ever heard a "new" (i.e. forthright) atheist like Dawkins or Harris attack a fellow atheist for using a different tactic to criticize religion. I've only ever seen them attack those who attack their tactic!

203. Rational Atheism

Comment #64906 by Janus on August 22, 2007 at 9:23 am

Shermer is playing right into the hands of religionists.

Point 1 is the only good one, and it always has been understood by the four people the letter is addressed to.

Point 2 is simply false. Even something as basic as refuting the good old theistic arguments (cosmological, ontological, design, pascal's wager, etc) does work and needs to be done more often. Shermer seems to think that nearly all theists know that these arguments are flawed, but for the most part they don't. And if Shermer thinks that merely doing science is enough to make people more rational and more sceptical, he must have been living under a rock for the last decade.

Point 3 is a perverse and ineffective tactic, and rests on a false supposition. The truth is that religious believers do think like children where their religion is concerned, and the means by which they keep their beliefs from crumbling down are inherently dishonest. Condescension and mockery are the only natural and honest reactions to religion. The only real question is whether or not we should be dishonest and hide our true feelings. If our only goal is to convince religious people they're wrong this would probably be the best tactic, but Dawkins and the rest have made clear time and again that this is only part of their objective. The other part is to break the taboo which has brainwashed most people into being respectful of religious beliefs merely because they are religious.
You don't break a taboo by adhering to it.
And besides, it's not true that religious people will "respond in kind". In accordance with the aforementioned taboo, they usually respond by calling us intolerant. And they're not the only ones, atheistic appeasers are just as guilty of promoting this taboo.

Point 4 is just nonsensical. How, exactly, are we "prejudging" theists? By stating their beliefs are false and by calling them irrational, credulous, and delusional? That's not prejudging, it's just judging, and it's an accurate judgement. As for not wanting theists to prejudge atheists, I don't mind at all if a religious person comes up to me and tells me I'm wrong for such and such reasons. What is Shermer talking about?

Point 5 is the big one.
"As long as religion does not threaten science and freedom, we should be respectful and tolerant because our freedom to disbelieve is inextricably bound to the freedom of others to believe."

It's at this point I had to scroll up the page to make sure this article wasn't written by some postmodernistic nut.

Mr. Shermer, would you be so kind as to explain to us what, exactly, is the connection between the freedom to believe, and your statement that we should be respectful of religious beliefs?
What does freedom have to do with respect or the lack of it?

Why, absolutely nothing. Not once have I read or heard anything by Dawkins and the other three authors that even suggests that the freedom of religious people should be restricted in any way; have you? Why isn't it possible to uphold the right of someone to believe and say whatever he likes, while pointing out that this person is a superstitious moron?

To be tolerant means just that, to tolerate, not to respect.

204. Artificial Life Likely in 3 to 10 Years

Comment #64375 by Janus on August 19, 2007 at 8:44 pm

Well, of course they'll shift the goalposts once life has been artificially created, in the same way that many creationists became theistic evolutionists after Darwin. But even so it will be a victory, however incomplete. You'd be surprised how many people still hold to a brand of God-powered vitalism.

205. Artificial Life Likely in 3 to 10 Years

Comment #64372 by Janus on August 19, 2007 at 8:24 pm

Yup. It's not about abiogenesis, it's about demonstrating once and for all that there is nothing mystical or supernatural about life. Biology reduces to chemistry, chemistry reduces to physics. This is already obvious to most scientifically literate people, but the creation of artificial life will prove it even to uneducated laymen.

206. 'Delusion' Revisits Faith Vs. Reason Debate

Comment #62987 by Janus on August 12, 2007 at 7:23 pm

Also, is it just me who finds this modern distaste for rhetoric so irritating? Personally I really enjoy a good bit of polemic and bombast in what I read...

Agreed. My guess is that it's a symptom of the mentality that people's sensibilities must be protected at any cost.

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

Comment #62985 by Janus on August 12, 2007 at 7:19 pm

The interviewers were soooooo annoying. Let the Professor speak, for the FSM's sake!

Kudos to RD for remaining calm and composed. I'm very much looking forward to The Enemies of Reason.

208. Richard Dawkins, TV evangelist

Comment #62826 by Janus on August 11, 2007 at 6:39 pm

Like all people who've been infected by the post-modernistic mentality, Gordon Lynch toils under the misconception that the road to utopia consists of being respectful and tolerant of all beliefs. This probably stems from the impression that what makes religious fundamentalists so scary is their certitude about their beliefs and their outspokenness against beliefs they believe are false. This is superficially true, but it has lead many people to conclude that being certain about one's beliefs is necessarily "fundamentalist", "militant", or "intolerant". But that's obviously nonsense. I am absolutely certain that my body is made of cells; does that make me a fundamentalist? I am also absolutely certain that someone who believes he can divine the future by observing the patterns formed by his feces in the toilet bowl is utterly deluded; does that make me intolerant? If the aforementioned fecal diviner starts charging people money for his services in my area, I'll do everything I can to expose him as a fraud; does that make me a "militant sceptic"?

There is nothing wrong with being certain about your beliefs, as long as your certainty is directly proportional to the amount and quality of the evidence. What is wrong is to be certain of your beliefs for the wrong reason: Because it's comforting, because you happen to have been raised that way, because you don't like the alternative... in a word, because of _faith_.

Fundamentalist believers are indeed scary, but not because they are certain and outspoken _per se_. They're scary because they're certain and outspoken about faith-based beliefs. Religious moderates are better than fundies, not because they're less certain and outspoken _per se_, but because they're less certain and outspoken about faith-based beliefs. And even better than either of them are people who hold no faith-based beliefs at all.

As "intolerant" and "militant" as it sounds, any comparison between forthright atheism and religious fundamentalism is inherently flawed, because you see, we're _right_ and they're _wrong_. That is to say, we hold our beliefs for the right reasons, while they hold theirs for the wrong ones.

That is something that a religious moderate is simply incapable of understanding, because religious moderation is based on a schizophrenic denial that there is an objective reality, and thereby that some beliefs are right while most are wrong. In order to be the people they want to be (nice, meek, and respectful of all beliefs) moderates have no choice but to delude themselves into thinking that all beliefs are equally true, because there is no such thing as a true belief. And from this comes the dogma that certainty and outspokenness about one's beliefs is the great evil of our times.

209. Charles Brooker's screen burn

Comment #62807 by Janus on August 11, 2007 at 2:28 pm

If religious people studied science with an open mind, they would acquire a greater appreciation of the magnificence, immensity and infinite power of God and would become more tolerant of those who have different beliefs then the beliefs of their own particular religion. If scientists studied religion more seriously, they would conclude that it is possible for one God to exist and for human self-awareness (THE SOUL) to continue after death.

Darwin2,

since punching yourself in the throat would do us little good, perhaps it would be better to break all of your fingers instead.

210. Curriculum for Baptist School

Comment #62401 by Janus on August 9, 2007 at 3:35 pm

Yes, this should be illegal. I don't mean that this school and its ilk shouldn't be granted accreditation, I mean that it shouldn't be legal to send a child, any child, to such a school. It's obscene.

211. Atheist 'Metaphysics' and Religious Equivocation

Comment #62124 by Janus on August 8, 2007 at 8:57 am

But of course, no religion is composed entirely (or even mostly) of subjective beliefs. They all make claims about objective reality.

212. Arrogance, dogma and why science - not faith - is the new enemy of reason

Comment #61789 by Janus on August 6, 2007 at 10:13 pm

Ugh. So much nonsense it's next-to-impossible to address everything. I'll get started, someone else can finish the job.

Disturbing indeed. But where Dawkins goes wrong is to assume this is all as irrational as believing in God. The truth is that it is the collapse of religious faith that has prompted the rise of such irrationality.

We are living in a scientific, largely post-religious age in which faith is presented as unscientific superstition. Yet paradoxically, we have replaced such faith by belief in demonstrable nonsense.

It was GK Chesterton who famously quipped that "when people stop believing in God, they don't believe in nothing - they believe in anything." So it has proved.But how did it happen?

The big mistake is to see religion and reason as polar opposites. They are not. In fact, reason is intrinsic to the Judeo-Christian tradition.

The Bible provides a picture of a rational Creator and an orderly universe - which, accordingly, provided the template for the exercise of reason and the development of science.

1) It is true that an uncompromising, fundamentalist belief in Christianity (or Islam or some other similar religion) effectively stops its followers from believing in a lot of nonsense. But it's not because these religions favor rationality. It's simply because the fundie believer sees everything that doesn't fit with his faith-based picture of reality as false by definition. A fundie Christian will believe that Islam, mystical chi energies, and evolution are all false, not because Christianity gives him a rational picture of the world, but because his version of Christianity dogmatically excludes these three things, and more. What Ms Phillips is doing is akin to praising an extremely dangerous and devastating bacterium because it also happens to kill many other pathological bacteria while it is killing its human host.

2) Another point that needs to be made is that, of course, while a fundamentalist view of Christianity does mean that the "natural" universe must behave in a coherent manner, it doesn't make Christianity a rational worldview. All of Christianity is still based on faith, that is to say, belief without evidence, and in order to sustain itself, Christianity elevates faith as the ultimate virtue, making it one of the greatest anti-reason forces in the history of mankind. Also, by explaining everything by appealing to an incomprehensible, unexplainable entity, Abrahamic religion blocks the way to complete understanding, which is why methodological naturalism is such an essential part of science.

3) Unfortunately, as much as I wish that Ms Phillips was right about this, we are NOT living in a "scientific age". Some parts of the world are irreligious, true, but that doesn't mean that a majority, or even a significant part of the population thinks scientifically. To think scientifically means to be sceptical, to only hold falsifiable beliefs, to refrain from resorting to cop-out answers which explain nothing, etc. A scientific age is very, very far away indeed.

4) Ms Phillips seems to think that belief in new age nonsense is somehow worse than religious beliefs because it is _demonstrable_ nonsense. But in truth, it is precisely as demonstrable as religious beliefs. That is to say, it is as demonstrably false as its believers make it. When his belief is criticized, a religious believer will say, "Oh, but my god doesn't _do_ these kinds of obvious miracles", or "Oh, but that was meant to be interpreted figuratively, not literally", or "Oh, but my god works in mysterious ways". Likewise, a believer in new age nonsense will say, "Oh, but my powers only work in conditions X and Y, not in these conditions Z", or "Oh, but that paranormal phenomenon can't be detected by mere physical senses, because it's beyond nature", or "Oh, but Guru Apapablanca works in mysterious ways". It is precisely the same kind of cowardly evasion.

Dawkins pours particular scorn on the Biblical miracles which don't correspond to scientific reality. But religious believers have different ways of regarding those events, with many seeing them as either metaphors or as natural occurrences which were invested with a greater significance.

The heart of the Judeo-Christian tradition is the belief in the concept of truth, which gives rise to reason. But our postreligious age has proclaimed that there is no such thing as objective truth, only what is "true for me".

That is because our society won't put up with anything which gets in the way of 'what I want'. How we feel about things has become all-important. So reason has been knocked off its perch by emotion, and thinking has been replaced by feelings.

This has meant our society can no longer distinguish between truth and lies by using evidence and logic. And this collapse of objective truth has, in turn, come to undermine science itself which is playing a role for which it is not fitted.

This isn't a bad analysis of the post-modernistic attitude which reigns in our societies, but it is profoundly ironic that Ms Phillips simultaneously praises religious moderation, which claims that all the miracles (e.g. the falsifiable parts of Christianity) are only metaphors, and that all religions are different paths to truth, and criticizes the post-modernistic mentality which says that nothing can be learned about objective reality.

Earlier in this post I was careful to say that a fundamentalist view of Christianity is a fairly effective defense against other kinds of irrationality, and so it is. But this doesn't apply at all to this modern form of moderate, post-modernistic Christianity which all "sophisticated" believers like Ms Phillips advocate. Christianity as practiced by fundies is indeed about truth. Christianity as practiced by moderates is about what feels good. It can't be any other way, because if Christianity is the One True Religion, then the two other thirds of humanity is simply wrong and deluded, either by themselves or by Satan. This thought is displeasing to modern intellects, which is why the metaphorical, fuzzy-wuzzy, post-modernistic, moderate version of Christianity came into being.

In order to be able to grant equal respect to all beliefs, so that we can be nice and polite and tolerant and open-minded towards all religious and philosophical beliefs, truth must be done away with. As Ms Phillips says, what matters to moderate religious believers is what is "true for them", which means "comforting and the truth be damned".

If anything is responsible for this departure from the search for truth, it is moderate religion.

When science first developed in the West, it thought of itself merely as a tool to explore the natural world. It did not pour scorn upon religion; indeed, scientists were overwhelmingly religious believers (as many still are).

In modern times, however, science has given rise to 'scientism', the belief that science can answer all the questions of human existence. This is not so.

Science cannot explain the origin of the universe. Yet it now presumes to do so and as a result it has descended into irrationality.

Utter nonsense. Like all religious believers, Phillips attempts to divide reality into two parts, "the natural world", where the rules of evidence, logic, and reason apply, and "the spiritual world", where they think they are allowed to believe anything they like on faith without having to justify their beliefs. In truth, no such division exists. There is only one reality, over which science holds absolute dominion, because science is purposefully designed to know everything that can be known about reality. The limitations of science are pragmatic, not dogmatic. That is to say, the scientific method incorporates all methods for discovering truth that _work_, and discards all methods that _don't work_. If theology did work, it would be incorporated into science. But of course it does not.

If there are things which the human mind cannot comprehend, which is certainly possible, then of course these things are beyond science. That does not mean they are within the reach of theology or of religion in general. All that faith "allows" us to do that science does not is to make ignorant, unfalsifiable, meaningless guesses. A guess, such as "God created the universe", is not an explanation. It is just a guess, and we know from experience that guesses about the nature of reality are almost always false.

There is no evidence for this whatever and no logic to it. After all, if people say God could not have created the universe because this gives rise to the question "Who created God?", it follows that if scientists say the universe started with a big bang, this prompts the further question "What created the bang?"

This is a complete misunderstanding of what the Big Bang theory (and science in general) is about. The ambition of science (and human reason) is to explain complexity down to the level of fundamental, ultimate simplicity. Goddidit doesn't work because it "explains" complexity by positing a Mind as the ultimate explanation, which doesn't explain anything because a mind is complex by definition. The Big Bang, inflation theory, etc, on the other hand, do explain complexity in terms of simpler entities, which is what a real explanation does.

This is why Intelligent Design fails. We are trying to explain complexity. If we "explain" it by appealing to a complex entity, we haven't made a single step forward.

Intelligent design is only a valid explanation when it is an intermediate explanation, not an ultimate one. For example, explaining a watch by saying it was made by a human is fine because,
a) The evidence shows that watches are made by humans.
b) We don't say that humans appeared magically or are timeless or always existed, we explain humans themselves in terms of simpler entities and their coming into being by a simple process.

The most conspicuous example of this is provided by Dawkins himself, who breaks the rules of scientific evidence by seeking to claim that Darwin's theory of evolution - which sought to explain how complex organisms evolved through random natural selection - also accounts for the origin of life itself.

No, he doesn't. This is simply a lie. Evolution starts after the formation of self-replicating molecules, and Dawkins has said this many, many times.

Indeed, if the origin of life were truly spontaneous, this would constitute what religious people would call a miracle. Accordingly, this claim in itself resembles not so much science as the superstition that Dawkins derides.

Spontaneous doesn't mean magical or supernatural. We know that amino acids and many other complex molecules form "spontaneously", but this is because of known and understood laws of chemistry. It is certainly no miracle.

Moreover, since science essentially takes us wherever the evidence leads, the findings of more than 50 years of DNA research - which have revealed the almost unbelievable complexity of the arrangements which are needed to produce life - have thrown into doubt the theory that life emerged spontaneously in a random universe.

Ah, so this is what Ms Phillips misunderstands. As I said above, evolution starts with self-replicating molecules, not with fully-formed cells. The complex nano-machinery of cells _was_ formed via evolution by natural selection.

213. Face to faith

Comment #57752 by Janus on July 20, 2007 at 10:24 pm

Aye, a sociologist that approaches things through the cage of theology. But what's that got to do with it. What does it matter what he calls himself? It's what he's written that needs to be the object of discussion.

Uh, he IS writing about sociology.

214. Face to faith

Comment #57748 by Janus on July 20, 2007 at 9:55 pm

It's not a courtier's reply; the guy's a sociologist, not a theologian.

That said, I don't see the point of this article. As I was reading it I kept telling myself, "Ah, this must be where he starts giving us reasons to believe what he's saying." But he never does. This is nothing more than an argument from authority.

215. A force for good?

Comment #55330 by Janus on July 10, 2007 at 4:13 pm

I'm so fucking tired of reading this kind of crap. It's true that many religious people are intelligent, but none of them, not a single one of them is intelligent about religion.

216. Ah, the fervour in returning to my flock

Comment #54406 by Janus on July 6, 2007 at 11:39 pm

No honey, atheism isn't a religion, it's not a belief system, it doesn't have values, there's no indoctrination involved in being taught there's no evidence for deities, and if your reason for raising your children as atheists is to carry on a tradition, you're pathetic.

What the hell was the point of that article?

217. Yes, the universe looks like a fix. But that doesn't mean that a god fixed it

Comment #53532 by Janus on July 2, 2007 at 12:22 am

Davies' hypothesis may explain the complexity of the "laws of the universe", but it does nothing to solve the Goldilocks problem, which as far as I can tell can only truly be solved by a multiverse of some sort.

To use an analogy, accretion theory explains the origin of planets, but it doesn't explain why the Earth is so perfect for carbon-based life to evolve on it. That is explained by the huge number of planets that exist in the universe. In other words, we're faced with two problems: Explaining complexity (which is solved by accretion theory in the case of planets, and Davies' hypothesis in the case of universes), and explaining the coincidence (which is solved by there being so many planets in the case of Earth, and by the multiverse in the case of our universe).

Richard Dawkins asserts that living organisms are immensely complex and seem to have been intelligently designed. Similarly physicists like Hoyle, Davies, Hawking acknowledge that this is also the case with the physical constants of the universe. Therefore, we propose, quite reasonably that the universe and the organisms within it were designed.
The question as to the Designer's origin is resolved by saying that it is uncaused or Necessary which is in line I might add with the Bible.

Yes, I see. What if our ancestors who lived before Darwin had been as lazy as you are and said, "There's no need to explain why humans exist, the first humans to exist were uncaused and necessary. Problem solved!"?

Because that's all that it takes to explain complexity according to you, call it "uncaused and necessary", and we're done with it! It's like magic, man!

If we go along with your logic, why should scientists even try to explain the laws of the universe, as Davies is attempting to do, and the universe's so-called fine-tuning? They can just call the universe and its laws "uncaused and necessary!" and voila! Everything's been explained!

But no, fortunately we're not all as eager to give up as you are, and scientists have figured out the real reason why humans exist: We, and all other lifeforms, have arisen from relatively simple beginnings via the algorithm of evolution by natural selection.

Likewise, Davies is trying to explain the laws of the universe in terms of simpler entities, perhaps fundamentally simple ones. Because you see, that's the only point where it may finally be OK to play the "uncaused and necessary" card you love so much, when our string of explanations reaches the point of fundamental simplicity. Complexity requires explanation, but fundamental simplicity does not. If anything is necessary, it will be that, not an immensely complex intelligent being.

218. An Inquisition in science's name

Comment #51205 by Janus on June 22, 2007 at 12:30 am

This is beyond silly.

The rights of human beings to freedom of conscience and expression should never again nor in the future be abrogated in the name of either faith or science.

No one is saying, or even implying that they should be. No, not even Sam Harris, as the author maliciously insinuates. At the very most, Sam Harris has been promulgating "conversational intolerance", which simply means that rational people should speak out when faced with faith-based beliefs and superstition, instead of meekly looking down and shuffling their feet.

In Canada, for example, where you are lecturing this week, the most spiritual members of the population are aboriginal peoples. Many profess to believe something "spiritual" resides not only in every human, but also in animals, rocks, and trees - by your lights, an unscientific notion.

But to suggest their children should be taken away from them and re-educated in some sort of scientific residential schools would be to make a grievous mistake - exactly the same mistake we once made.

The author's suggestion that Dawkins and other prominent atheists would want to put all children of religious parents in "scientific residential schools" is of course laughable.

That said, a distinction that needs to be made is that freedom of expression does not mean freedom to indoctrinate. Speaking in public about your false, repugnant beliefs is one thing. Filling a child's mind with said beliefs, while taking steps to prevent exposure to contradicting beliefs, is another thing entirely. The latter is precisely what many fundamentalist parents do.

That religious people in general tend to teach their children a bunch of silly, but mostly harmless superstitions is no more deserving of special attention than those parents who occasionally give their children a slightly-too-rough spanking. What concerns Dawkins and many other rationalists are those believers who inflict upon their children the intellectual equivalent of a brutal, bloody, daily beating. Have you seen the movie Jesus Camp? That is true child abuse, as much as the physical sort, and that's what needs to be prevented.

What was our great mistake? It was to assume that we the church had an absolute monopoly on how truth was to be defined, discovered, and interpreted

No, not at all. "Your" mistake is the mistake that all "people of faith" have always done and will always do: "You" hold beliefs purely because of your emotional attachment to them.
The rational thing to do is to hold beliefs because there are good reasons to believe they are true; because they are supported by evidence. Had "you" been a skeptic instead of a faith-head, you would have been willing to change your mind when presented with new evidence, and you would have had little or no emotional reasons to hold on to your false beliefs.

It's not certainty that's the culprit. There is nothing wrong about being very certain about some of one's beliefs.
You see, there is this thing that sane people believe in, called "reality", which exists independantly of any one person, of any mind. While we may never be able to know everything there is to know about reality, we can learn a great deal thanks to careful, dispassionate observation and reasoning. Claims about reality which are supported by lots of evidence tend to be true, while claims about reality which are supported by no evidence are mere guesses. And we know from experience that guesses about the nature of reality are almost always false.

No doubt you think that the above paragraph is more than a little condescending, but it's unfortunately necessary when dealing with fuzzy headed postmodernists such as yourself, who believe that real knowledge isn't possible, and that certainty is an illusion.

The Catholic Church's mistake wasn't that they were certain, per se. It's that they were certain for the wrong reasons. They were certain of their beliefs because they were comforting beliefs, beliefs that gave an artificial (but pleasant) meaning to their lives, beliefs that were sheltered from criticism and from evidence, beliefs that had been drilled into their heads from infancy.

And it's not just the Catholic Church's mistake, it's the mistake of every religious believer on Earth. That's the mistake we are trying to correct, but that you and your ilk are promulgating. By protecting faith, you're making sure people will continue to be certain for the wrong reasons.

And we're not doing it (or even suggesting that it should be done) by oppressing anyone, but merely by speaking out and by making sure that all people, especially children, are given the good education that is their right.

219. Richard Dawkins and Alister McGrath

Comment #48345 by Janus on June 7, 2007 at 2:08 pm

Dianelos,

Um, yes, "I lack belief in gods", "I do not believe in gods", and "I disbelieve in gods" all mean the same thing.
What they don't mean (even though they imply it for all practical intents and purposes, as I explained) is "I believe gods don't exist".

220. Richard Dawkins and Alister McGrath

Comment #48309 by Janus on June 7, 2007 at 11:39 am

Dianelos,

Half of your definitions say that atheism is either disbelief in or denial of God, which is precisely what we've been saying: There is weak and strong atheism. Obviously, all atheists at least disbelieve in God, and some atheists believe there is no God.

The difference between weak atheism (what some people mistakenly call agnosticism) and strong atheism is an unimportant one, anyway. When you lack belief in something because there's no evidence for that something, you necessarily assume that this something doesn't exist for all practical intents and purposes, if and until there's evidence for that something.

For example, I acknowledge the possibility that there is a burglar sneaking up behind me as I'm typing these words, preparing to slit my throat. Unless I were to turn around now and look behind me, I wouldn't say that I know that there is no burglar in my house, I only "lack belief" in him. But, practically speaking, there's no significant difference between a lack of belief and belief in his non-existence.

There is an infinity of supernatural entities that might exist, and might be the explanation for some group of phenomena or another. If these entities are sufficiently discreet, there is no way to show they exist, or don't exist. But, in the absence of evidence, we assume their non-existence. It would be impossible to live our lives otherwise, for the same reason that I'm not going to turn around and look behind me every 5 seconds just in case I'm about to get my throat slit.

221. Lightning damages Jesus statue

Comment #44416 by Janus on May 24, 2007 at 3:17 pm

And so, once again, we are forced to ponder The Question: "Why are people so fscking stupid?"

222. The Creation Museum: Prepare to believe

Comment #41267 by Janus on May 15, 2007 at 6:31 pm

Why is this allowed? It's not as if this is a free exhibit. They'll get people to pay to "learn" things that a 100% false. It's a con.

223. God . . . in other words

Comment #39953 by Janus on May 12, 2007 at 11:30 am

I must say, I can't seem to identify with some of the posters here who express such utter distain and frustration with those who hold different beliefs.

I never express disdain for those who hold different beliefs, I express disdain for those who hold false beliefs.
Wait, no, even that isn't right. I express disdain for those who hold false beliefs and who go out of their way to delude themselves into thinking that their beliefs are rational. It's these dishonest mental gymnastics that piss me off.

I think we can all agree that extremism, regardless of where or how it may manifest itself, is dangerous in society.

I disagree. There's nothing wrong with being extremely concerned about the truth. I also disagree in a more general way: I don't think conformism is desirable.

Anyway, I think the problem here (in your comment) is a certain confusion about the word "belief". To believe can mean "to accept or hold something as true". It's in that sense that I believe in germ theory, in evolution, in general relativity, and that I believe that Christianity and Islam are false. To believe can also mean "to feel strongly about something". In that sense, I believe in freedom, I believe in scientific and technological progress, etc.

It's only in that second sense of "believe" that extremists are generally dangerous. It gives you people like Stalin and Hitler and most of the Popes in history. The first sense of "believe" can only be dangerous if you think about truth in a postmodernistic way, i.e. nothing is really true, even scientific theories are just social conventions or something. Assuming you accept that such a view is nonsensical, you'll agree with me that to hold a belief about objective reality that is supported by evidence can never be "extremist". Certainty, even near absolute certainty, is indeed warranted in many cases, and to be certain that some beliefs are bullshit isn't a sign of extremism.

Who the hell has time to be angry that Ruth Gledhill may believe in God, or is attempting to better understand Dawkins.

I'm not angry that Gledhill believes in God, I'm angry at the mental gymnastics she's using to delude herself (and many of her readers) into thinking that her beliefs are very much like those of Dawkins, and that they are therefore perfectly rational. Because that's what she's doing, not "better understanding Dawkins".

224. Dawkins transcendent

Comment #39900 by Janus on May 12, 2007 at 8:29 am

There's intellectual dishonesty as practiced by creationists... it's easy enough to recognize: Quote mining, misreprentation of the words of famous scientists, outright lies and misinformation. And then there's intellectual dishonesty as practiced by post-modernistic moderate religionists, who muddle up and dilute the meaning of words so much that there's almost nothing recognizable left. Demand an interpretation of a religious text from a dozen of these religious believers, and you'll get a dozen completely different messages with absolutely nothing in common. In their own way, they're as dogmatic in their beliefs as the fundamentalists. It's just that where the fundies refuse to let their beliefs be altered by evidence by denying it exists, the moderates refuse to let their beliefs be altered by evidence by denying that there is anything to be altered.

225. God . . . in other words

Comment #39067 by Janus on May 9, 2007 at 10:58 pm

It always irks me when religious moderates play with words, as they always do when they begin to realize how silly their beliefs are. They just can't seem to stop themselves from repeating stuff like "God is love", or that their belief isn't so different from naturalistic pantheism. Doing so allows them to feel different from the crass fundamentalists while keeping their distance from what they see as cold, hard, unforgiving rationalism. But they're only deluding themselves, of course. Their beliefs are only slightly less stupid than those of fundamentalists. They believe that the universe was designed by a supernatural, intelligent Creator, they believe that this Creator cares very much about how humans act and think, they believe in miracles, they believe that some of their prayers will be answered, they believe that their Holy Scripture is at least partly inspired by this Creator, they believe that when they die good people will go to paradise and bad people will go to Hell, they hold hundreds and hundreds of laughably ridiculous, irrational, faith-based beliefs.
Even a man as "sophisticated" as the Bishop of Oxford believes in the resurrection of Jesus and other impossibilities.

I'm truly sorry for Ruth Gledhill, but as much as she would like to believe that her worldview is a reasonable one, it's not, and it won't magically become reasonable because she muddles up the meaning of words like "god", "transcendent", and "religious". Fundamentalists may be more dangerous than moderates, but they at least have the guts to admit the full extent of their irrationality. The same can't be said of moderates like Miss Gledhill. Obscurantism always has been and always will be the enemy of intellectual honesty.

226. Christopher Hitchens and Al Sharpton: A Debate God Is Not Great

Comment #38598 by Janus on May 8, 2007 at 5:48 pm

I've only read the summary in the New York Times article, but it seems to me that they're not even talking about the same thing. Sharpton wanted to have a sort of pseudo-scientific debate about the existence of God. Hitchens wanted to have a debate about the actual religious beliefs and their effects on society.

227. Richard Dawkins in the Time 100

Comment #37223 by Janus on May 3, 2007 at 6:27 pm

Because he's a hack and a sell-out? And because he's using the standard creationist tactic of making it look like there's any question as to whether he and his ilk are dead wrong.

228. Now Muslims Get Their Own Laws In Britian

Comment #36808 by Janus on May 2, 2007 at 11:39 am

I think you're all being naive with this "Well, if they want to be judged by Sharia law it's their business" stuff. In theory it would work fine, but in practice I can't believe that there isn't some severe intimidation going on among Muslim communities to _force_ their fellow Muslims (and especially their women) to be judged by Sharia law. I imagine that a woman who decided to be judged by British law instead could very well be faced with contempt, social isolation, and perhaps even a little violence.

Before someone jumps me, no, of course not all Muslim communities are like that, but it seems likely that the communities that want Sharia in the first place would be regressive, oppressive, and sexist enough to do this kind of stuff.

229. 4 Sermon for Matins: 'Dawkins and The God Delusion'

Comment #36519 by Janus on May 1, 2007 at 12:00 pm

Has there ever been a more disgustingly obscurantist mix of ideologies than Christianity and post-modernism?

I very much doubt it.

230. Convention ends with Satan and immigrants

Comment #36187 by Janus on April 30, 2007 at 12:44 pm

What amazes me is that no matter how many stories like this they read, no matter how many statistics we show them, many moderate believers (and even atheists) will continue to think that fundamentalist nuts are a small minority in the USA.

231. 'god is not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything' by Christopher Hitchens

Comment #36186 by Janus on April 30, 2007 at 12:39 pm

Are these people (people like the article's author) truly that naive? Do they think that all non-religious people are aware of religion's true nature? Do they think that all unbelievers are firmly against things like the religious indoctrination of children? On the contrary, I think that the majority of non-theists have the same feelings about religion that moderate believers do, except that they don't believe in it themselves. Most people, many atheists included, still see religion as a good thing overall, or at least not something that needs to be done away with.

So no, Hitchens (and Dawkins and Harris) aren't preaching to the choir. They're preaching to non-believers who should be in the choir, but aren't.

232. One Hell of a Religious Read

Comment #34377 by Janus on April 23, 2007 at 10:50 pm

That line about the Quran does seem silly. The Quran, unlike the Bible, doesn't treat several aspects of sexuality as dirty and evil.

233. Dinesh D'Souza says I don't exist: an atheist at Virginia Tech

Comment #33575 by Janus on April 20, 2007 at 3:52 pm

When does lying become immoral?

Is it OK to tell a woman whose son just died that he didn't really die, that he just moved to another country permanently and won't see her again? Why isn't it OK? The woman is happier than she would have been otherwise, she thinks her son is alive. All we're doing is comforting her. Why does the idea of doing this make most of us feel uneasy?

Is happiness really the ultimate good?

234. Gay hate church to picket VT gun rampage funerals

Comment #33507 by Janus on April 20, 2007 at 12:51 pm

Where are Christians when Bad Things happen?







Oh, there they are!

235. NEXT MONDAY: Bill O'Reilly interviews Richard Dawkins

Comment #33166 by Janus on April 19, 2007 at 1:59 pm

Holy shit!

Well, good luck Richard. I don't think there's a very big chance you'll get to make a nice, reasoned argument. The best you can hope for is probably to make a good impression, a bit like you did in Colbert's show. Shake the preconceptions that the fundies who'll be watching most definitely have about you (and atheists in general).

236. Nisbet and Mooney in the WaPo: snake oil for the snake oil salesmen

Comment #31900 by Janus on April 14, 2007 at 10:42 pm

Yup, PZ rocks. A brilliant and utterly devastating rebuttal.

237. Thanks for the Facts. Now Sell Them.

Comment #31899 by Janus on April 14, 2007 at 10:36 pm

This article is a fine example of anti-science mentality, albeit in a more subtle form than the crass kind we see in creationists. Instead of dismissing science entirely, this fellow accepts the importance of scientific facts in policy-making and the like, but completely ignores the deeper goal of science. Science isn't just about accumulating a bunch of useful facts about the universe, it's about rational inquiry, it's about intellectual honesty, it's about curiosity, it's about understanding and knowledge and the quest for truth.

People like Prof. Nisbet want us to accept the end result of science, they want everyone to acknowledge the bunch of useful facts we end up with, but they don't give a crap about how we discovered those facts, they don't care about the web of understanding that ties all of these useful facts together, they don't care about rationality and skepticism and intellectual honesty. Individuals who agree with the article's message would be entirely satisfied if every American just nodded his head when asked if he believes in evolution and global warming. But, unless you're a sheep, it's not enough to accept the facts, you also have to understand why you should accept the facts. WHY is evolution true? WHY is global warming a reality? WHY is it rational to believe in the conclusions of science? WHY, if you're interested in the truth, is it a good idea to be a skeptic instead of a faith-head? Scientists like Richard Dawkins and P.Z. Myers want people to be able to answer questions like these, and short-term thinkers like Nisbet are standing in their way.

And you know what, even if we agreed with Prof. Nisbet that it's perfectly OK to leave millions of people in their current delusional, sheep-like, intellectually-stunted state, I don't think his tactic of only aiming at making the facts accepted would work. When you're trying to get rid of an ant infestation, what's the smart strategy? Just standing outside the nest and stomping on the ants as they come out? Or leaving poison nearby so as to kill the ant queen, the source of the infestation?

The truth is that there IS a conflict between the scientific method and religion, between rationality and faith. Creationists don't deny evolution because scientists have presented evolution as being anti-God (quite the contrary). Creationists deny evolution because they've been indoctrinated since birth to place their religious faith ahead of the facts, to believe in a litteral interpretation of Genesis no matter what the evil secular liberals say, and to never, ever question what mommy, daddy, and the local pastor have taught them. Abrahamic religion is the cause of creationism, and of a good deal of the anti-GW movement. Does anyone seriously believe that if the Bible and Christian tradition said absolutely nothing about the origin of the universe and of the human species, that 50% of Americans would still be creationists?

So let's not waste any more time stomping on the ants. Just repeating the facts again and again, no matter how attractively they're worded, no matter how seductively they're presented, can only have temporary benefits (if any). It's time to go for the ant queen; it's time to erradicate faith itself.

238. We'd be better off without Religion

Comment #31078 by Janus on April 10, 2007 at 10:44 pm

Anyone else find Ruth Glendhill's review of the event induced an urge to bang one's head on one's desk?

Yes.

239. Religion useless to Dawkins

Comment #29429 by Janus on April 2, 2007 at 10:53 pm

Well, that was a complete waste of my time.

Please tell me she doesn't get paid to write this crap.

240. U.N. Panel OKs Measure on Islam

Comment #28871 by Janus on March 31, 2007 at 12:15 pm

*laughs* Humanity is so f*cking screwed.

241. Richard Dawkins at The Sunday Times Oxford Literary Festival

Comment #28549 by Janus on March 29, 2007 at 5:07 pm

"I love that the final "comment" was Professor Dawkins having a quiet chuckle in the background, at the obvious absurdity of McGrath's final statement."

LOL, I heard that. Sometimes all you can do is laugh.

242. Hell is real and eternal: Pope

Comment #27981 by Janus on March 27, 2007 at 1:37 pm

Good. Anything that makes the Pope look like a fundy nut is a good thing.

243. Happy 66th Birthday, Richard Dawkins!

Comment #27639 by Janus on March 25, 2007 at 10:51 pm

Happy birthday, Professor!

Thank you for being an inspiration to us unbelievers for all these years.




- Janus

244. Orr vs. Dennett/Dawkins

Comment #27613 by Janus on March 25, 2007 at 4:39 pm

The argument usually goes that since God is defined as the designer and creator of the universe, he must have been able to hold in His mind the concept of the universe before actually creating it, therefore He must be at least as complex (and probably more) than the universe.

But anyway, it really doesn't matter whether you can compare the complexity of the universe to that of God. The point is that God, being an intelligent being, must be at least somewhat complex, and therefore cannot be the ultimate explanation for complexity. Even if He is less complex than the universe, we still need to explain God. And since God is by definition the cause of Everything except itself, God refutes the theistic assumption that complex things cannot "just exist" (and therefore require a Designer); if this assumption is false, if a complex being like God can "just exist", then why can't the universe "just exist"? It no more needs a designer than God does. Logically speaking, God is therefore either non-existent (if complex entities cannot "just exist") or superfluous (if they can).

245. 'God Is Not a Moderate'

Comment #27313 by Janus on March 23, 2007 at 10:06 pm

Andrew has posted a message that has some relevance to the debate: a link to an essay by a theistic scientist about science and religious belief:

"Sam Harris and I aren't the only ones debating and blogging about this eternal subject. A new blog has a new post on the subject.
http://www.waagnfnp.com/2007/03/21/science-and-belief/ "


I've started a thread on the subject in the RD forums:
http://richarddawkins.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=11259

246. Debate between Alister McGrath and Peter Atkins

Comment #27270 by Janus on March 23, 2007 at 4:51 pm

gimlibengloin wrote:
"Its not clear as to how the multiverse theory solves the problem becuase they're exists no causal relation between myriads of other universes and our own universe. Ultimately the multiverse theory says that the universe is the result of chance but considering the number of trial runs it could conceivably happen. But chance is still the absense of an explanation.

On the other hand God does explain because as acknowledged by Dawkins living organisms give every appearance of having been designed by an intelligence. Therefore the creator hypothesis is a perfect fit with the facts."

The multiverse solves the problem of initial complexity because our universe, at its "beginning", was relatively simple; in fact, if some theoretical physicists are correct, it was fundamentally simple. Therefore all that still needs to be explained is why our universe has the kind of complexity it does, why the laws that govern it are those described by our theories (as opposed to other, imaginary theories). The multiverse hypothesis answers that last question. So complexity in general is explained, as is our universe's so-called fine-tuning.

On the other hand, God, defined as the uncaused designer and creator of Everything That Exists except itself, doesn't explain anything. Explaining something means describing the behavior of an entity in terms of simpler entities. Explaining a complex entity (the universe) by saying it was made by another complex entity (God) is an intermediate explanation at best, not an ultimate one. Let's say, for example, that we want to explain the origin of the first proto-cells on Earth. What would you think of someone who explains them by saying they were created by alien bio-engineers who came to Earth in their space-ships billions of years ago? That person may be right, but he hasn't explained much. He may have explained the origin of life on Earth, but he obviously hasn't explained the origin of life, period.

Likewise, saying God made our universe universe may explain the complexity of our universe, but it doesn't explain complexity, period. By appealing to the God hypothesis you're only pushing back the real problem, just as the person who appealed to alien bio-engineers did. It doesn't solve anything. The only way to truly explain complexity, to truly explain _everything_ is to come up with a real explanation: An explanation that describes the origin and behavior of everything in terms of fundamentally simple entities. Theories like those of Paul Davies (Google him) combined with the multiverse hypothesis do just that.

And by the way, chance isn't the absence of an explanation. Chance is a perfectly good explanation for why I got a '6' three times in a row when throwing a six-sided dice. Chance can be a _bad_ explanation when the odds are astronomically bad against a certain outcome, certainly, like it is in the case of lifeforms more complex than relatively simple self-replicating molecules, hence why natural selection is necessary.

An absence of an explanation (i.e. a hypothesis with no explanatory power) amounts to saying that complexity "just is", or "simply exists". For example, saying that the human species and all animals on Earth "just exist" would be a cop-out, obviously. Complexity begs for an explanation. Likewise, saying that God "just exists" is a cop-out, because God, by definition, has designed the universe, and must therefore be very intelligent indeed, and intelligence must be complex, again by definition.

Design cannot be the ultimate explanation for Everything That Exists, because it's explaining complexity by appealing to complexity. Chance might be the ultimate explanation, if the odds are good enough. If they aren't good enough, a complexity-generating process such as natural selection must be involved. It's the only true solution to the problem of complexity.

And now, after reading your latest post, I see that you're a creationist, which makes me very sorry I wasted my time replying to you. Ah well.

247. Debate between Alister McGrath and Peter Atkins

Comment #27230 by Janus on March 23, 2007 at 3:37 pm

Well, planets beyond the solar system have been discovered, yes. According to wikipedia, 215 extrasolar planets have been found so far, with our limited means. It's not much of a stretch to induce that there must be many, many more, since we have a good idea of how many stars there are in the observable universe.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extrasolar_planet

248. Debate between Alister McGrath and Peter Atkins

Comment #27222 by Janus on March 23, 2007 at 3:27 pm

That billions of planets exist is a fact. Occam's razor tells us not to posit the existence of superfluous entities. Things that we know exist aren't superfluous, by definition.

As for multiple universes, while it's not an entirely stupid argument that they're just as superfluous as God, the multiverse hypothesis has the advantage of actually solving the problem of the universe's initial complexity. It has "explanatory power", as Atkins says. God has none whatsoever.

249. Debate between Alister McGrath and Peter Atkins

Comment #27213 by Janus on March 23, 2007 at 3:02 pm

Keith, he probably means that the light that was leaving the stars _at that moment_ would take hundreds of years to reach Earth, i.e. he was seeing those stars as they were hundreds of years ago.

250. Debate between Alister McGrath and Peter Atkins

Comment #27150 by Janus on March 23, 2007 at 9:42 am

Atkins is brilliant, his explanations are always perfectly clear.