201. Dawkins's version of the deity does not exist

Comment #8384 by johnc on November 21, 2006 at 5:23 am

Hi Greywizard, my aim was to render invalid the conclusion of determinism from the necessary proposition that consciousness is a result of brain function. I was not trying to outline a materialist theory of consciousness (which does not in any case yet exist) but simply staking out the strong claim that consciousness is ontologically emergent. This I believe is sufficient to dispose of the "free will problem", which is in any case a bit of a non-issue for a physicalist. (Nor, by the way, was I soley relying on Heisenberg, but that's another story.)

In general, I agree with your observations (not surprising, really ;-/) but have a keen awareness of how far we are from even having a consensus on the approach towards a theory of consciousness (and in this I am much influenced by Thomas Nagel). We do though have ample empirical evidence that a a materialist explanation is both valid and adequate. Nagel said 30 years ago: "... [w]e may have evidence for the truth of something we cannot really understand ... It is conceivable that we are in such a position with regard to physicalism." What was conceivable then, is incontrovertible now, given our ability to see brain function in detail and in real time.

In the end this debate with theism is really all about their outdated metaphysical premises. We should not allow our enthusiasm for winning that debate overpower our humility about the size of the task that yet faces us in constructing an adequate account of animal conscisousness in general and human consciousness in particular.

202. Remember, Remember, the Fifth of November...

Comment #8350 by johnc on November 21, 2006 at 1:36 am

It is a poignant comment on the difference between the US and other developed coutries that people are vigorously organising to protest to the BBC about a nobody in Devon saying something that would be regarded as positively mainstream in the US (of course treason to God lands you in the flames of hell!). So spare a thought for our American compatriots, who ironically live in a nation with the most clearly delineated separation of church and state, as you prepare to munch on your Devon sandwich ...

203. BEYOND REDUCTIONISM: Reinventing The Sacred

Comment #8282 by johnc on November 20, 2006 at 7:56 pm

Superb essay! Three short observations:
1. Advancing the cause of secularism requires both the Dawkins attack-dog approach to religion AND the construction of an alternative, naturalistic spirituality that Kauffman outlines here. This is not hard cop/soft cop act but reflects the reality that the two approaches require each other to both create the intellectual space and to then fill that space.
2. While reintroduction of the "G" word will be hotly rejected by many regulars on this site, particularly those who have come to atheism after years of mental self-abuse with religion, it has a clear validity given the scope of the project Kauffman outlines. But is also an optional embellishment, providing a point of connection for those require it.
3. Firm theoretical establishment of emergent properties is of cardinal importance in constructing any world view that has a ghost of a chance of genuinely competing with religious ideology. Those who claim that reductionism leads to a state of cold pointlessness indeed have a point. And it need not be so ...

204. Dawkins's version of the deity does not exist

Comment #8273 by johnc on November 20, 2006 at 7:36 pm

A Stuart Kauffman essay, Beyond Reductionism, has just been posted here which provides a superb summary of precisely the kind of world view that will eventually retire Catholicism (and the rest) into the gallery of honoured superstitions which already houses such luminaries as Zeus and the Rainbow Serpent :-) Until that happy day, it nonetheless cogently outlines precisely the kind of theoretical perspective that underlies my own scribblings here in response to Quentin. And is particularly good on consciousness as an emergent property ...

205. Dawkins's version of the deity does not exist

Comment #8258 by johnc on November 20, 2006 at 6:38 pm

Quentin,
Though there is perhaps some misunderstanding of each other's language, the stumbling block here is what I identified much earlier (at #41): "The problem is not lack of awareness but a completely different conceptual foundation." Regrettably, a somewhat longer post is called for.

1. On a technical matter first. In dealing with determinism I specifically avoided those hardy perennials of "pop science": Heisenberg, quantum uncertainty and Godel. Stochastic theory is in fact a staple of classical physics, and is generally the only way of tying together different "levels" of description, eg the individual behaviour of gas molecules with the behaviour of gases in varying pressure and temperature. This is, in my view, all that is required to defeat the assumed determinism of those who believe there is a problem with free will. However, for the sake of completeness, I would describe myself as an "incompatabilist" and certainly see a role for quantum uncertainty and chaos theory in a proper discussion of emergent properties. The philosophical terrain is probably best described by the different positions of Robert Kane and Daniel Dennet, which are well beyond the scope of this post.

2. I repeat, establishing "freedom of will" only presents an intractable problem for those who believe in an all-powerful God, which requires mind-boggling contortions to avoid the implications of an omniscient, eternal deity. From a secular viewpoint, all that needs to be avoided is the explanatory collapse into either chance or determinism. The former I do not believe is a serious issue (it is rather like dealing with the common misconception that natural selection is a theory of random chance). However on determinism ...

3. I am aware that my aversion to strong reductionism (and hence both the rejection of determinism and a materialist defence of free will) is not shared by all secularists. In fact, as with Christians there is a division between those who believe in free will and those reject it. Among theists that divide separates Catholics from (many) Protestants. Among scientists, physicists tend to most strongly positivist and hence least likely to accept free will. Einstein, for instance, explicity rejected free will:

I don't believe in the freedom of the will. Schopenhauer's saying, that a human can very well do what he wants, but can not will what he wants, accompanies me in all of life's circumstances and reconciles me with the actions of humans, even when they are truly distressing. This knowledge of the non-freedom of the will protects me from losing my good humor and taking much too seriously myself and my fellow humans as acting and judging individuals.

So differing accounts of free will do not after all divide the secular from the theistic but define independently positions that cut across the religious divide.

4. Much more seriously, though we apparently agree altruism has a selective advantage I strongly reject your invalid conclusion that this reduces altruism to an "instinct" in homo sapiens rather than the biological basis for the exercise of rational moral choice. By strong analogy, humanity has inherited a mating instinct but that does not provide warrant for saying science reduces marriage to the exercise of that instinct. That would be a preposterous distortion of kind peddled by the likes of Robert Ardrey (remember him!). The same logic when applied to altruism is even more egregious - just ask RD, he's the ethologist :-)

5. However, at the end the real problem reveals itself. You write of the "rational grasp of an obligation to do the good and avoid the evil". I am afraid that good and evil in the strong sense you obviously intend them are derivatives of a theistic moral philosophy that presupposes a divine moral law and supernatural law-giver. In other words you are smuggling in a theistic premise that can then be used to exclude a priori any naturalistic account of morality which of necessity rejects all foundationalist conceptions. Tsk, tsk.

As a separate matter, in dealing with the headlined contention of your original review: namely that RD has criticised a God that does not exist, you have spectaculary failed to answer any of the specific points in this thread (or by RD) about the actual content of belief by either the Bible writers or believing Catholics. The issue is not anthropomorphic terminology but that real Christians really do believe in a cosmic magician who answers prayers, performs miracles (which are of course the things prayed for) and generally behaves as precisely the kind of superbeing you reject. What's more - and you know this is true - the Church has always encouraged this kind of superstitious belief; it has been an essential part of its historic hold on the unsophisticated believers who make up the bulk of its flock. Vague allusions to your "insider knowledge" just don't cut the mustard, I'm afraid, and certainly do nothing to dispel the distinct odour of hypocrisy that surrounds Catholic theology and practice. If the Dawkins was ever on the money in his disputes with Steve Gould it was his assertion that NOMA referred to a deity that would be unrecognisable to those in the pulpit or on the prayer mat. You will need to do more if you are to avoid the same charge.

206. Top court refuses to hear whether religion can be a murder defence

Comment #8087 by johnc on November 20, 2006 at 11:35 am

"I'd be interested to hear from anyone who feels they understand or empathize with Humaid's actions or defence. It seems incomprehensible." - MB

While I cannot claim sympathy with this defendent, there are probably a few points about the basis of the defence argument worth considering:
1. The defence is essentially cultural, not religious, in that it is used in a wide variety of circumstances in common law jurisdictions. For example, in Australia (where I live) the Northern Territory courts have long made special allowance for purported Aboriginal custom that are argued to sanction everything from child marriage to wife-beating. Happily, the Chief Judge has recently had to retrace on this trend after some scandalously light sentences. But cultural factors can still constitute a valid argument, and cannot be summarily dismissed as without merit.
2. The same reasoning has been successfully used in many jurisdictions by members of the dominant culture (white males) in cases of gay bashing and murder - the so-called homosexual panic argument.
3. Historically, it takes the legislature to make a definite pronouncement that a particular form of this defence is not permissible - and that usually only happens after widespread community outrage eg female genital mutilation, homosexual panic, widow burning. The courts are well aware that such cases often provoke strong feelings on all sides, and usually try to chart a course that keeps jurisprudence in line with "community standards".

207. Dawkins's version of the deity does not exist

Comment #8064 by johnc on November 20, 2006 at 10:23 am

Quentin,
The problem with your "challenge" is that the dice are loaded. Neither free will nor morality are primary phenonema on whose definitions we already agree and therefore can meaningfully compare competing accounts.

The "problem" of free will is in fact so definitionally different for theists (as I mention at #108) that Wikipedia, for instance, has a separate entry for free will in theology. From a materialist perspective, whether rational agents can exercise control over their choices is a phantom argument bound up with determinism. I say phantom, because the philosophers fond of wasting their time on this canard fail to recognise that even in physics stochastic theories abound, requiring a concept of emergent properties that effectively eliminates the problems of determinism without forsaking naturalism. And since any sensible physicalist theory of mind must posit human consciousness as an emergent property of brain function, rational choice escapes the net of determinism while of course still being constrained in various ways (that are not strictly relevant here).

As for morality (as discussed at #35 and #41), once theist presumptions are eliminated a secular account primarily centres on the cultural sources and historical transformation of moral norms. At the biological level, it has occasionally been asserted that altuism, which is a necessary property for any moral schema (and probably any mammalian social system) is incompatible with natural selection. In "popular" critiques this usually involves a misreading of evolution that owes more to Herbert Spencer than Charles Darwin. Among scientists, however, much work - including mathematical modelling - has been done on the issue of altruism, and it would be perverse to still maintain (as the intelligent design folk do) that biologists are unable to account for the evolution of altruism.

In summary, morality and free will are no longer mysteries in the realm of metaphysics, but seem perfectly susceptible to naturalistic explanation, and their properties are certainly not incompatible with any known scientific principles or findings.

208. Dawkins's version of the deity does not exist

Comment #7985 by johnc on November 20, 2006 at 4:03 am

Sam, I don't think anyone is (or at least should be) ridiculed because they change their views about the empirical world in line with the evidence, be they theists or scientists. However, that is a different question to the changing conception of God'd nature and laws (which are after all supposed to be a revealed, immutable truths) in line with cultural-historical changes. It is unquestionable, as I have observed above, that the God of the Bible writers bears little relationship to that of the Catholic Church, which has reinvented (or just plain invented) its theology in line with changing social realities for almost 2000 years. That the fantastical world of the supernatural mirrors prevailing human knowledge and concerns seems an unexceptional observation for the historian but has fatal consequences for faith.

209. Dawkins's version of the deity does not exist

Comment #7858 by johnc on November 19, 2006 at 5:06 pm

Paul,

The Quran does not mention the circumcision of men or women (these pre-existing Semitic pracitices are justified from the hadith) and it probably represented a progressive position on the status of women in the tribal societies of the time. Also, the Caliphate was in fact remarkably tolerant of non-Muslims living in its lands (though at the price of a kind of super taxation).

But that was 1300 years ago. Nowadays, even ultra-orthodox Jews do not advocate the literal application of the Levitical prescriptions (stoning adulterers, etc). The murderous medievalism that seeks to implement so-called sharia law in the 21st century is clearly a sociopathic reaction against the modern world. Though it draws on the Quran for its justification, religion is arguably more the vehicle, rather than the cause, of this problem.

To take one example the Islamists hate: classical Islam was highly tolerant of male homosexuality, producing a great deal of homoerotic writing - much of which still only exists in Arabic. So whatever the source of virulent homophobia in contemporary Muslim cultures (Iran regularly carries out public hanging of gay men), it cannot simply be religious proscription.

210. Dawkins's version of the deity does not exist

Comment #7854 by johnc on November 19, 2006 at 4:41 pm

On rationality, it is clear that many animals engage in behaviour that from a functional point of view is indistinguishable rational choice-making. The most parsimonious explanation for this is that the neural circuitry for reasoning evolved as the balance of behaviour moved from instinct to choice, and that this circuitry formed the basis of the same, more elaborated capacity in humans. This is completely consistent with natural selection, since more flexible behaviour, which requires the ability to make choices that are functionally rational, clearly confers a survival benefit.

211. Dawkins's version of the deity does not exist

Comment #7839 by johnc on November 19, 2006 at 4:01 pm

On free will, it should be said that this is only an intractable problem if you already believe in an omnipotent and omniscient God. For instance, omniscience strongly implies absolute predestination, not only of all human activity but also as a limit on the deity's free will. Consequently, this has been an area of major dispute between Christians, with Luther denying the existence of free will and Calvin embracing predestination. In the real world, however, we are all aware that people exercise choices ie free will actually exists whether or no theologians can reconcile it with their apologetics.

However, there is a real issue here for science. Namely, we have neither a theory of consciousness nor a consensus yet on how one can be constructed. The type of reductionism favoured by Dawkins and other positivists has been criticised (eg http://members.aol.com/NeoNoetics/Nagel_Bat.html) as defining the problem out of existence. But reductionism (unlike naturalism) is not an obligatory stance of scientists, many of whom would regard consciousness as an emergent property of brain function which is not reducible, even in principle, to neurophysiology.

Consciousness, therefore, is a primary problem awaiting the development of a satisfactory theoretical framework. Free will is in this context an empirically confirmed phenomenon (fact) whose proper explanation is dependent on the development of a theory of consciousness, which by the way does not presuppose any "unique" position of homo sapiens, since consciousness is a clearly a property of many of our cousins in the animal kingdom.

But this has of course provided a "gap" into which apologists are only too ready to insert God, which is what I guess Quentin is trying to do. But there is no reason to believe that a naturalist explanation will not be forthcoming, and certainly elaborate theological schemas have proven the least intuitive and parsimonious approach to these issues, as a glance at the Catholic Encyclopedia (http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/06259a.htm) amply confirms.

212. Dawkins's version of the deity does not exist

Comment #7823 by johnc on November 19, 2006 at 2:25 pm

Quentin, a few thoughts on transcendence.
1. Even to say "growing awareness of this is implicit in Scripture" (presumably the few strands of Hellenistic thought in John) is still stretching matters to breaking point. The fact is that the Bible writers, Old and New, operated in a cosmology that conceptualised their God as a super being of the world, literally living in the heavens beyond the clouds. That is why their notion of eternal life had little to do with souls, but was conceptualised as the reconstitution of their earthly remains into a state of permanent, though altered, corporeality, living out eternity with an equally substantial deity. The notion of a soul separate from the body it animated was totally alien to their thinking, as was what you call a transcendent God.
2. To appeal to the tradition of scholastic thinking from Aquinas on is to substitute apologetics for analysis. This is fine, I suppose, for debate between Catholics, but of no avail in discussion with those who do not already accept the magisterium of the Church. No serious thinker would for instance grant any time to the antique conceptions of substance and accidents required to make sense of transubstantiaton. Aquinas's arguments on the nature of God are cut of the same cloth.
3. In any case, real Catholics do not worship a transcendent being, but a deity of the world who performs miracles and answers prayers. This is the God under discussion, not the dessicated philosphical abstraction to which apologists retreat when the going gets tough. The faithful are required to believe, for instance, that the physical, fleshy body of Mary is residing with God in Heaven. They call on the Church to examine weeping statues, they go to see "holy relics" and incorruptible saints, and they pray for rain, or good health, or for their boss to get sacked. There is nothing transcendent about this medieval muddle of superstition, which forms the true target of Dawkins' argument.

213. Dawkins's version of the deity does not exist

Comment #7654 by johnc on November 19, 2006 at 1:05 am

"The writer is here a victim of what RD calls the tyranny of the discontinuous mind ..."

Same symptom, different cause though. Since for a Catholic morality (ie awareness of God's moral law) is a property of the soul it must be all or nothing, since you clearly cannot have half a soul. Which is why JPII, in giving his assent (sort of) to evolution, insisted that it would be impermissable for science to deny that God decided to at some point to implant the soul into the first human. Of course, he didn't put it like that but what else can this mean:

If the human body take its origin from pre-existent living matter, the spiritual soul is immediately created by God ("animas enim a Deo immediate creari catholica fides nos retinere iubei"; Humani Generis, 36). Consequently, theories of evolution which, in accordance with the philosophies inspiring them, consider the spirit as emerging from the forces of living matter or as a mere epiphenomenon of this matter, are incompatible with the truth about man.

Oh what a tangled web we weave when first we practise to believe ...

214. Dawkins's version of the deity does not exist

Comment #7644 by johnc on November 19, 2006 at 12:13 am

Thanks, vega. The problem is not lack of awareness but a completely different conceptual foundation. For Catholic natural theology, morality is a fundamental property of the soul, our spiritual essence. Without that the entire edifice of sin and redemption, together with its supporting props such as free will, collapses. What De la Bédoyère is asking of Dawkins is a naturalist account of morality that leaves the category structure intact. Like many influenced by "new theology" he is more or less happy to abstract "God" into oblivion if the moral categories into which he has been acculturated can still find intellectual terra firma.

In addition, this reviewer has a most definite, though undisclosed, agenda that has little to do with Dawkins. This from the blurb of his book, Autonomy and Obedience in the Catholic Church:

Quentin de la Bedoyere's contends that the principle that the Catholic must follow his or her own conscience, rather than the dictates of the Church, is documented from Aquinas onwards, and that this is beneficial in retaining the loyalty of the faithful. He discusses the autonomy of the individual, and describes the relationship between the law of love and the tenets of the moral law.

Catholic guilt without God (and the Pope as a kind of ritual accessory), I think is the aim :-)

215. Dawkins's version of the deity does not exist

Comment #7623 by johnc on November 18, 2006 at 10:54 pm

On the matter of morality, the question is loaded if we ask for its "source" as if morality were a singular quality or essence. Morality may have some biological moorings but in the main it is clearly a historical and cultural construct. Take as a simple example our notion of "all men are created equal" and the concept of rights that flows from that. When these words were first writ large in France and the United States in the late 18th century they were revolutionary. Feudalism, whose ideology was overseen by the Church, had no such concept - instead there were obligations and privileges appropriate to the various estates (peasantry, nobles, clergy, etc). Those estates defined people (rather than the reverse) and located them within the "great chain of being", which had God at its apex, with serfs and slaves at its base.

Our notion of human rights is neither "God-given" nor a product of biological evolution; it is a relatively recent cultural construct. This has immense implications for our moral universe, implications of which we are usually ignorant because of our anachronistic reading of history, turning the divine right of kings, or slavery, or tribal genocide into moral errors rather than the agreed moral laws they actually were.

"Do unto others" did not mean for Jesus what it means for (most of) us. It did not mean free your slaves or allow women to teach in the Temple, since they were not the "others" of the Golden Rule.

So real morality is not a pure essence from either the genes or god, but a product of the messy real history and development of human societies. It is like biological evolution in being both unplanned yet having the appearance of design. But is quite different in being acquired by each individual directly from its environment rather than being the expression of some internal principle, spiritual or otherwise.

216. Dawkins's version of the deity does not exist

Comment #7542 by johnc on November 18, 2006 at 6:43 pm

It is fascinating to watch Catholic mysticism at work, particularly in hands of a clearly intelligent writer. However, on the "central problem", the "nature of God", we have as MakingBelieve points out something of an own goal. First of all, if "many Christians" believe in a non-existent anthropomorphic God, they do not do so without warrant. It is very hard to read the account of Yahweh wandering around the Garden of Eden calling "yoo-hoo, are you there" to Adam and Eve in anything other than an anthropomorphic sense. Indeed, the Bible does not present God as anything else - directly or indirectly, explicitly or implicitly - but that the deity is exactly a kind of SuperGod, with fits of temper, moments of tenderness, schemes that succeed or backfire, truimphs and disappointments. If Yahweh in the first Book is such a deity, the fearful Almighty of the last Book is also most distinctly in and of this world, though in a rather different and more hallucinogenic sense. And of course, everywhere in between (I have a particular literary fondness for the Book of Job).

Anyone who believes the fascinating, frightening and funny "Father" of the Bible is meant to provide an answer to the source of the "primal energy" that started the universe, then they really are in the grip of a serious delusion. Indeed the question, as we now understand it, would have been incomprehensible to the Bible writers since they had no meaningful concept of universe that a deity could "transcend".

That leaves Catholics such as De la Bédoyère with no answers except that provided by Magisterium of the Church, which is clearly a historical, human and demonstrably fallibe construction - unless one wants to assume that which is to be proved: namely, a transcendent God who nonetheless manages to guide the musings of European prelates, but no one else. No wonder Catholics have always regarded reading the Bible as something of a subversive activity ...

217. We Might Be Chosen, But We're Still Going to Hell: Jews and the Christian Right

Comment #6869 by johnc on November 16, 2006 at 12:06 am

This would be just an amusing freak show except that this line of thinking has a mass following in the US. And no one, as far as I can tell, is coming up with any explanation as to why. It is as dangerous as the fact the loony ravings in Mein Kamph found an audience in one of the educated countries in Europe.

218. Is Apple Computer Insulting Islam?

Comment #6522 by johnc on November 14, 2006 at 4:50 pm

Professor Silay self-identifies as a moderate Muslim about whom Dawkins would presumably say he is part of the problem by providing a blind for irrational Islamic beliefs. From where I sit, people such as Silay are an essential part of any solution to religious insanity. A more nuanced position by Professor Dawkins on the role of religious moderates would seem to be in order.

219. Hatred (of Gays) Unites Jerusalem's Feuding Faiths

Comment #6508 by johnc on November 14, 2006 at 3:58 pm

In general, I would say that when a group's cultural norm involves trespassing on the rights of others - including other members of that same group - then that norm is incompatible with the obligations of civilized society and needs to be challenged. And that is so whether or not the affected group itself protests (eg female genital mutilation is usually done by women on "consenting" minors), since we are talking about society's broader obligations to all its members and itself.

There is nothing novel here; the principle is well-established in ethics and law. For instance, the courts have consistently held that the sincerely held beliefs of Jehovah's Witnesses do not authorise them to withhold blood transfusions from their children. Presumably a similar line of argument was followed by the Israeli courts in permitting the Jerusalem gay pride march over the objections of the ultra-orthodox. This is the real meat and potatoes of separation of church and state. Consistent application of this principle would necessitate radical changes to Blair's faith school nonsense.

220. Hatred (of Gays) Unites Jerusalem's Feuding Faiths

Comment #6466 by johnc on November 14, 2006 at 12:00 pm

Though issues of etiquette are not without interest, they are somewhat beside the point here. The lesbians and gay men who sought the parade were just as much Jewish as the rabbis that opposed them. It was not cultural sensitivities but religious homophobia that was being confronted - in and of itself sufficient justification for wanting the parade in the first place. I have yet to read a single syllable that would justify siding in any way with the ultra-Orthodox bigots and the Vatican against the legitimate civil rights of Jewish homosexuals.

221. Hatred (of Gays) Unites Jerusalem's Feuding Faiths

Comment #6409 by johnc on November 14, 2006 at 5:12 am

And hot off the press, the New York Times is running a lead story For Evangelicals, Supporting Israel Is 'God's Foreign Policy'

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/14/washington/14israel.html?_r=1&th&emc=th&oref=slogin

At least no one can accuse Dawkins and Sam Harris of crying wolf ...

222. Hatred (of Gays) Unites Jerusalem's Feuding Faiths

Comment #6403 by johnc on November 14, 2006 at 4:35 am

Jenna, this is not the forum for a sensible debate over such a large swathe of histories and culture. But a few signposts seem called for:
1. On the principal question you say @37 "why should religious sensibilities trump the right of free speech? They shouldn't ..." But you continue to deny the legitimacy of Jerusalem gays to hold a gay pride march through their own streets. You can't have it both ways.
2. You claim without citation that same sex relations in antiquity constituted "child sexual enslavement". Modern historical scholarship on this question was probably begun with the late John Boswell's Christianity, Social Tolerance and Homosexuality in 1980. You may want to read this excellent scholarly volume, and subsequent work, before you start making such generalisations. (The main criticism of Boswell, by the way, was his overly accommodating approach to the Judea-Christian tradition. His book nonetheless shows your opinions to have little in common with the historical realities as far as we have been able to recover them.)
3. "It's said that about 10% of the population is gay." Distrust the passive voice! The 10pc figure is in fact a violent distortion of an interpretative framework used by Alfred Kinsey to understand his data on homosexual behaviour. He would have regarded the statement as absurd. Be that as it may, one of the most important insights that come from the study of sexuality in antiquity is that in the classical and hellenistic periods same-sex behaviour between males was both socially accepted and ubiquitous, and did not stand in any contradiction to the expectation of marriage and production of children. (Nor was there any meaningful sense in which people could be said to be gay, though that is another story.) The seminal work here is KJ Dover's Greek Homosexuality (1978) and though there has been much subsequent scholarship his findings still stand. While the actual roots (and extent) of Judaic homophobia are still a matter of debate, your pop histriography I'm afraid bears little relationship to the actual scholarship.
4. While there is no agreed explanation for American religiosity, the immigrant nature of its population is hardly a candidate. I live in Australia which is even more immigrant in character yet distinctly secular is disposition.
5. No one is disparaging Jewish cultural identity, but that does not place all manifestations of that identity (eg religious zealotry) and all Jews beyond criticism. The heritage of the Holocaust did not confer some magical immunity from hatred and bigotry on Jewish people. To end where we began, the attempt to deny gay men in Jerusalem their freedom of expression is intolerable. That you have felt the to need to, at best, prevaricate on this issue is a perfect example of the negative consequences that such tribal identification can have for those who are not vigilant. That this virulent homophobia is being led by a bunch of deluded rabbis clinging to medieval customs and bronze age beliefs is as strong an endorsement of Richard Dawkins' aggressive approach to religion as one is likely to find.

223. Hatred (of Gays) Unites Jerusalem's Feuding Faiths

Comment #6283 by johnc on November 13, 2006 at 1:27 pm

Hi Robert. The book that really broke open the archeological debate was The Bible Unearthed by Finkelstein and Silberman, which to summarise in a single paragraph (!) says:

Much of what is commonly taken for granted as accurate history — the stories of the patriarchs, the Exodus, the conquest of Canaan, and even the saga of the glorious united monarchy of David and Solomon — are, rather, the creative expressions of a powerful religious reform movement that flourished in the kingdom of Judah in the Late Iron Age. Although these stories may have been based on certain historical kernels, they primarily reflect the ideology and the world-view of the writers.

Since the 19th century biblical apologists have claimed that archeological discoveries have "confirmed" the historical accuracy of Old Testament. That claim is now being turned on its head but, as with Dawkins, the theological thought police have unleashed their attack dogs to those who would disrupt the consoling ignorance of the faithful.

224. Hatred (of Gays) Unites Jerusalem's Feuding Faiths

Comment #6241 by johnc on November 13, 2006 at 10:58 am

Four short, not necessarily connected, points:
1. The temperature of discussion about the Holocaust initially rose after I wrote: "I object to pulling out Holocaust guilt to support the position of these beskirted religious obscurantists." The tendency to misuse the Holocaust as a catch-all moral cover should be firmly denounced. It certainly cannot be used to justify the illegal Israeli annexation of East Jerusalem, let alone homophobia by the religious right in that city. The fact that homosexuals were also victims of the Holocaust (and that many conservative Jews have tried to deny/disguise this fact) makes the misuse of Holocaust guilt particularly poignant in this case.
2. It is generally accepted that worship of Yahweh was originally henotheistic, ie tribal worship of only one god, while recognising the existence of other (people's) gods. The move to genuine monotheism (as a religious practice, not just a philosophy) was probably influenced by the Egyptians. There is currently a lively debate over how much the Jews actually borrowed from Egyptian worship of the monist deity Aten (Hebrew: Adon).
3. The real dangers of monotheism, to my mind, only emerged when it was combined with universalising claims and evangelical-prostelysing practice - first in Christianity and then in Islam. It was the insistence that everyone (not just your tribe) recognise your god as the only deity that is the source of both the strength and mischief of these two faiths.
4. There is no more "Jewish blood" than there is "Aryan blood". Though such tribal thinking probably has genetic roots, the very definition of civilization must involve extending our concept of tribe to include the entire human race, and ultimately the tree of life itself, if we and the biosphere of which we are merely one part are to survive. This is surely one moral lesson that can be directly read from supposedly amoral Darwinism.

225. Hatred (of Gays) Unites Jerusalem's Feuding Faiths

Comment #5929 by johnc on November 11, 2006 at 10:36 pm

whoops! 35 is of course by me :-)

226. Hatred (of Gays) Unites Jerusalem's Feuding Faiths

Comment #5911 by johnc on November 11, 2006 at 6:44 pm

Jenna,
Your politics are your own; I've stated my case and I'll leave it at that. But you have now clearly defined an issue that is of particular interest in these threads, namely to what extent should we defer to religious sensibilities in exercising our own freedom of speech. The position you outline it essentially identical to the message of support the Vatican issued to the ultra-Orthodox about this march:

"The Holy See has reiterated on many occasions that the right to freedom of expression... is subject to just limits, in particular when the exercise of this right would offend the religious sentiments of believers," the Vatican said. "It is clear that the gay parade scheduled to take place in Jerusalem will prove offensive to the great majority of Jews, Muslims and Christians, given the sacred character of the city of Jerusalem."

This is in fact the same issue as the Danish cartoons, Salmon Rushdie and countless other situations in which religious folk claim a special privilege to silence the the opinions of others. (A march, after all, is simply the exercise of one's right of free speech.)

To take another controversial example, various Blair government ministers yesterday foreshadowed a tightening of the laws governing "religious vilification" following the acquittal of a right-wing politician,who described Islam as a "wicked, vicious" faith. Now the politician in question is a grub, but if such remarks are deemed illegal because they offend the religiously inclined, Dawkins and Harris are headed for jail.

I do not see how it is possible to not support the right of gays to express their views in the streets of Jerusalem. The Israeli Supreme Court agrees, and you are very much on the wrong end of this dispute.

As a footnote, I object to pulling out Holocaust guilt to support the position of these beskirted religious obscurantists. Many millions of people in addition to Jews were incinerated in the Nazi death camps, including every homosexual they could lay their hands on. What's more, it's cheapening to the memory of Holocaust to enlist it in the service of a suppression of free speech by a bunch of religious extremists.

227. Hatred (of Gays) Unites Jerusalem's Feuding Faiths

Comment #5810 by johnc on November 11, 2006 at 7:54 am

Jenna,

All this drivel about the gay movement not "flaunting" homosexuality is deeply wrong. If gay liberation (basing its strategy, as did feminism, on the black civil rights movement) had not taken the offensive - in every sense - from the 1960s, we would be living in a very different world today. These links are not accidental. Many Americans are still deeply troubled by "uppity" blacks and women, and indeed the resurgence of religious fundamentalism in the US is intimately linked to the victories of the civil rights movements, including gays. Maybe Martin Luther King should have shut up and kept his dream to himself? Those black athletes who made the Black Power salute at the 1968 Mexico Olympics were met with exactly the same attack as you've made on gay people - in that case offending against "non-political" nature of sport, which is as real as the non-political nature of religion.

But, of course, in a classic piece of homophobia, you claim sexuality is different. "Sexuality, unlike race, gender, and ethnicity, is a private issue." You seem not have noticed that gay people at this very moment are the subject of very high-profile campaigns by the religious right in the US to deny them rights of partnership in perpetuity that are a given for the rest of society. Or the regular torture and judicial murder of Iranian gays by the mullahs. Or ... it's a long and depressing list, so just drop the "private" stuff, eh.

Rabbis, imams and priests around the world have honed the gay issue into the cutting edge of their campaign to restore theocracy and medievalism. They will fail. But no thanks to your style of mealy-mouthed liberalism, which calls on the oppressed to swallow their outrage and their anger and not offend the sensibilities of the "nice" people, who somehow find the mere mention of sex more troubling than the hate rhetoric of the religious.

I might just add that it is over such human rights issues that the real battle against religion is taking place, not abstract ideas about creator gods and stone tablets. If secular humanism (I prefer the term to atheism) is worth anything, it is through its unflinching support for the people on the front lines of these real struggles.

228. A Dissent: The Case Against Faith

Comment #5083 by johnc on November 7, 2006 at 10:22 am

As an addendum, the separation of church and state does not prohibit people from founding their beliefs on their own religion convictions. Indeed the principle was invented to guarantee that right!

229. A Dissent: The Case Against Faith

Comment #5082 by johnc on November 7, 2006 at 10:17 am

I did not say it was incumbent on science to prove or disprove the existence of the soul; rather, I agreed with Gould that it is impossible to do either.

So stem cell research is what is debated in public policy. That most of the hard opposition is motivated by a belief in "ensoulment at conception" is something we should understand if we are to be effective. But simply telling these people that their belief is a fantasy achieves precisely nothing - we in fact have been diverted from discussing the policy itself, which I maintain we (that is secularists) can only do on the basis of particular ethical principles, with which our opponents in turn may disagree. A debate is not possible at all unless each side respects the right of the other to found their position on beliefs with which they disagree.

So how is the matter resolved - well, as long as the majority of people don't dogmatically believe in ensoulment at conception, and we are persuasive in our ethical arguments, then majority rules. Part of our being persuasive is to point out that the basis of our opponents' position is a particular, minority religious conception which does not depend on belief or disbelief in the soul as such.

230. The New Unbelievers

Comment #5014 by johnc on November 7, 2006 at 7:57 am

Robert Wright's contribution really needs to be firmly nipped in the bud: "These guys want to talk about religion at the dinner table," he complains.

Well, most Christians start dinner with saying grace! And they have no hesitation about invoking God in every conceivable circumstance at all other times of the night and day. The US is a nauseatingly God-soaked society that never shuts up about religion. Wright's position amounts to denying the non-religious a voice - ie only talk about religion if you have one.

Outrageous!

231. A Dissent: The Case Against Faith

Comment #5003 by johnc on November 7, 2006 at 6:44 am

Sam's example of the stem cell debate (and the related issue of abortion) provides an interesting case study of the difficulties facing secular humanists.

Neither ignorant American Protestants nor sophisticated Catholic theologians, who nowadays share the belief that "ensoulment" occurs at the moment of conception, are likely to be persuaded by the argument that since the soul is a superstitious fantasy they should drop their objections to stem cell research. Lambasting "unjustified religious beliefs" is therefore hardly likely to do more than alientate those moderate Christians who do support sensible policies on these questions (the majority, in fact).

On the other hand, Gould's NOMA principle also fails to help since, as he correctly argued, science is unable to prove or disprove the existence of the soul. (Ironically, it was the progress of embryology in the 19th century that led to the formalisation of the doctrine in its current form, since only then did "conception" gain its modern meaning.)

Finally, one is able to mount a quite reputable secular ethical argument against, for instance, the "farming" (ie deliberate production) of human embryos for medical research purposes. Removing the supernatural does not eliminate ethical difficulties.

What this leaves us with is our social and ethical reality. We do not (should not) count the human embryo as nothing (or less than the brain of a fly), but neither has any human society acknowledged it as a legal person. Somewhere in the genuinely grey area in between we recognise the benefits to the living that can accrue from stem cell research, and strive for a policy that actualises those benefits without cheapening our ethical awareness of the specifically human origins of the blastocyst.

232. The God Conundrum

Comment #4616 by johnc on November 4, 2006 at 9:27 pm

Paul, following on from my post above, the problem with allowing the anger of former believers to determine one's strategy is it sets one on the wrong course of action. The real battle is for a truly secular society, changes in belief follow from that. The problem with religious fanatics is not their ideas (however wrong they may be) but their desire to impose those ideas on others and society as a whole.

233. The God Conundrum

Comment #4615 by johnc on November 4, 2006 at 9:06 pm

However, on your final point you are dead wrong. The fundamentalists strains of the major religions, with their eerily similar proponents, have much in common, not least the fact that we tolerate them.

Might I suggest that it is not that I am "dead wrong" but that we are looking at the same thing from totally different angles. You are seeing fundamentalism from the inside out, as a subjective configuration and set of ideas. That is not unimportant, but no help at all in understanding how it comes about, or what to do about it. Dawkins has the same problem, but for a different reason - he is an academic and the ideas offend his sense of rationality.

Both of you are adopting an idealist, rather than naturalist perspective. Religion may be a set of convictions to a believer, but to the investigator it can only be understood as a social phenomenom. The question is: why do those particular people hold those particular convictions. That is why there is a world of difference between, say, the grand mufti in Cairo and Jerry Falwell. Both of them may uphold the literal truth of some book they claim was authored by "god", but the mainsprings of their beliefs are quite dissimilar. They lie in the very different social and political conditions of the Middle East and the southern United States.

234. The God Conundrum

Comment #4543 by johnc on November 4, 2006 at 12:19 pm

Brian,

I have for 40 years urged and argued a secular world view on anyone who's been willing and interested to listen. And necessary though this is, I am under no illusion that such intellectual arguments make much impact on the overall levels of belief, since those willing to be persuaded have already made a decision and are simply looking to be equipped with the arguments.

The reason argument has no effect on the levels of belief is that for societies with a given level of modernity (say advanced capitalist countries), the variations in levels of belief are the result of socio-political - not intellectual - factors. Dawkins does not understand this because he is a political illiterate, which means he has no explanation for the high levels of religiosity in the US versus, say, Australia or Sweden. No explanation, means no strategy.

On suicide bombing, the major work has been done by Robert Pape, and a summary can be found here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dying_to_Win:_The_Strategic_Logic_of_Suicide_Terrorism

Finally, to say the US must deal with its own fundamentalists first is shockingly wrong. The US conjured the mujahideen into existence to use as puppets against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. It has now given these fanatics an unbelievable global boost through its catastrophic policy in Iraq. It has a responsibility to the world community to undo the damage it has caused. (Clearly, some kind of "Marshall Plan" to the Arab world is required, starting with a new Palestinian State.)

But can you not see that while Muslim and Christian fundamentalism are intellectually similar, the causes of these two phenomenon have almost nothing in common. This in itself is a refutation of the Dawkins and Harris non-political analyses. Religious fundamentalism in the 21st century is not a disease of the brain but a symptom of diseased societies.

235. The God Conundrum

Comment #4504 by johnc on November 4, 2006 at 8:24 am

Interestingly, we are clearly coming from totally different perspectives, since God or religion has never been a part of my life, and this may account for some of the difference. But I am certainly heartened to hear the positive effect Dawkins had on you. On some specifics:

a. "where something useful has emerged, it is generally in spite of crude religious views" - what is crude here, I'm afraid, is your generalisation. Consider Max Weber's The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, a founding masterwork of sociology. Or indeed, the work of any competent historian of ideas and culture. Ideologies cannot be so blithely disaggregated, however much we may dislike their premises today. There is a simple error at work here: the analytic separation of an idea from its context does not demonstrate its historical independence from that context.
b. The Greek question is complicated, but consider some of the following. Greek philosophy as a creative force essentially died with its subjugation by Rome. The subsequent conversion of Rome to Christianity was a symptom, not a cause of its fall. The preservation of Greek learning, and its at least partial elaboration, was undertaken by Islamic civilization. The "re-starting" of genuine critical inquiry involved casting aside reverence for "Greek learning" - Aristotle, Galen, etc - in the Renaisance as part of a fundamentally Christian - and after Galileo, Protestant - enterprise.
c. People do "stupid things", as they do wise and moral things, for many reasons (including what Dawkins would call an inbuilt moral compass), but the extent to which religion is a cause rather than a consequence is precisely the point at issue; it is precisely the thing that is not "self-evident". Take suicide bombing: the evidence-based research undertaken so far fails to find the kind of correlation with faith that Dawkins (and Harris) would require to sustain their polemics. So do we defer to the evidence or our anti-religious prejudices.
d. What harm? Take the most serious religious-related social problem facing us today - Islamic fundamentalism. The only road forward anyone can see is the empowering of moderates to lead a comprehensive modernisation - social, economic, political and intellectual - of the Islamic world. They will need all the help they can get - they are not the problem, they are the only road to a solution. More broadly, if our only strategy for defanging fundamentalism in the world is mass conversion to atheism we have already been defeated by our own naivety.

I am not opposed to Dawkins in any fundamental sense; indeed, I am pleased by the success his book is enjoying. But TGD should no more be exempt from critical scrutiny and scepticism than religion itself, or we become the very thing we are fighting.

236. The God Conundrum

Comment #4483 by johnc on November 4, 2006 at 5:14 am

Brian,
1. For most of humanity through most of history, knowledge of world beyond that of everyday experience was "theological". And the summation of that "theology" is not crap; it embodies the bulk of human culture and thinking - from Pythagoras to Aboriginal Dreaming to the Sistine Chapel ceiling.
2. Surely, what we must object to is not the subjective configuration we are calling here "belief in God", but what people do in the name of that belief - whether it be burning witches and heretics, attacking modern biology or imposing their personal moral standards on their fellows on questions such as abortion and human rights.
3. The argument that says the reason people behave in these disagreeable ways is because of their belief is itself an article of faith by Dawkins. The opposite view, say that of crude Marxism, is that religious belief is only ever a reflection of material conditions, and this is ultimately also an article of faith. The reality is likely somewhere in between, and can in fact only be mapped on a case-by-case basis.

For example, did people fly into the WTC because of their religious belief? Or, what objectionable activites does, say, Ken Miller engage in because of his subjective adherence to theism? And does it make him a worse biologist?

As the reviews come out, many careful critics - such as Sean Carroll - have tried to point out that Dawkins has moved well beyond his own philosophical limitations in TGD. And while this is most clear in his crass, idealist thinking about why moderate theists constitute a problem, this is in fact only a symptom of his blindness to his own embedded hypotheses and political naivety. And this is not new. His position on socio-biology, now called evolutionary psychology, has always been on the fringe of acceptable scientific consensus. The real biological consensus always favoured Gould's scepticism against the adaptationist speculations of the sociobiologists.

This is relevant, because Gould's underlying position on the relation of science and religion is in fact also the mainstream position of scientific orthodoxy, and it is Dawkins who is at odds with virtually every scientific body that has cared to comment on the question. The failure to account for his own heterodoxy, is surely a most surprising failure in one so renownedly scientistic.

237. The God Conundrum

Comment #4455 by johnc on November 4, 2006 at 12:49 am

Maryhelena,

You paraphrase Ellis as saying "the religious slate is not clean - but neither is yours" in relation to Hitler. I don't think you meant my slate, but then who's? I think of the haunting words of Jacob Bronowski from the conclusion of episode 11 of the Ascent of Man:

It's said that science will dehumanise people and turn them into numbers.
That's false - tragically false. Look for yourself. This is the
concentration camp and crematorium at Auschwitz. This is where people were
turned into numbers. Into this pond were flushed the ashes of some four
million people. And that was not done by gas. It was done by arrogance. It
was done by dogma. It was done by ignorance. When people believe that they
have absolute knowledge, with no test in reality - this is how they behave.
This is what men do when they aspire to the knowledge of gods.

My intellectual sympathisies are with Bronowski, and with Gould, as a liberal, secular humanist who regards the integration of scientific knowledge with other forms of human culture as an essential precondition for the humility and sense of awe towards the world that is our best protection against monstrosities such as Nazism.

One of my core criticisms of Dawkins has always been his positivism and pinched perspective on the human journey.

238. The God Conundrum

Comment #3761 by johnc on October 31, 2006 at 1:02 pm

Interesting point, Riley, but I think tackling the whole area of non-evidence-based beliefs would take Dawkins (and science in general) well beyond the required levels of competency. My own view is that TGD could have done with a narrower focus, since it seems TGD already bites off rather more than it can chew (as per comments by Carroll and other sympathetic reviewers).

239. The God Conundrum

Comment #3760 by johnc on October 31, 2006 at 12:44 pm

The Ellis comments about social Darwinism (which are dealt with in a subsequent post in that blog) are deeply questionable, not just for their intellectual pedigree but also as a valid analysis of the intellectual roots of Nazism. And Dawkins is immune from the Humean critique that atheism cannot be proven, since he specifically and repeatedly states that the existence of God cannot be disproven scientifically. Overall, both the Carroll and Eagleton are far less problematic than Ellis, IMHO.

240. KPFA Interview with Richard Dawkins

Comment #3685 by johnc on October 31, 2006 at 6:48 am

While every fibre of my intellectual being shudders at the equation of Stalinism and Marxism, the fact is that for at least 30 years Stalin was the self-proclaimed master of "Marxism-Leninism" and believed to be such by hundreds of millions around the world - communist and conservative alike. So the reality is that trying to argue Stalin was not a Marxist is a little like saying none of the churches are Christian because they don't really follow the authentic teachings of Jesus.

The only solution, I think, is to separate Marx from the "-ism" and say that the writings of Karl Marx and the ideologies that subsequently bore his name are quite different things. To start playing the game of who is or isn't a "true" Marxist is as pointless and idealist as assertions about "true" Christianity.

241. The God Conundrum

Comment #3665 by johnc on October 31, 2006 at 4:20 am

David,
Yes, I'm aware of Dawkins' position on "religious moderates", which I have criticised on political grounds elsewhere in these threads. However:
1. This is not the same as saying moderates and fanatics are the same, just because they both believe in God. Dawkins' complaint about moderates is essentially that they provide theism with some intellectual respectability, which you could hardly say of fundamentalists.
2. Eagleton does not fit into either category, since he is not a theist. This misreading comes from a "if you're not for Dawkins, you're against atheism" cheer squad, who are exhibiting an excess of enthusiasm over intelligence.
3. There is a distinct odour of anti-intelectuallism hanging over many responses to Eagleton (see the main thread), which I am quite sure RD would find distateful and inappropriate.

242. The God Conundrum

Comment #3643 by johnc on October 31, 2006 at 2:15 am

Eagleton is not a post-modernist, nor is his writing "incomprehensible". His 1983 book Literary Theory has sold more than 1 million copies and in addition to his academic work, he has written novels, plays and memoirs. Parading one's ignorance and hostility to the humanities is hardly an effective response to Eagleton's review, and does grave damage to the kinds of dialogues that are an essential ingredient in the fight against superstition.

243. The God Conundrum

Comment #3639 by johnc on October 31, 2006 at 1:31 am

We could play semantics, but anyone who doesn't see that there is a real difference between, say, Hans Kung and Jerry Falwell because they are both Christians is blinding themselves to important real-world distinctions. Nor do I think there is such a school of thought as "atheistic thinking", beyond mere denial of theism. Dawkins' case is not helped by such cartoon carictures, which I am quite sure he himself would not endorse.

244. The God Conundrum

Comment #3629 by johnc on October 30, 2006 at 9:52 pm

There is much of interest to discuss, but it should be noted first off that Carroll agrees with a major thrust of the criticism levelled at TGD both by Eagleton and in these threads, noting that Dawkins sacrifices some of the credibility he would have retained had he stuck to the ontological question. As Kenan Malik notes, sentences such as - 'Imagine no suicide bombers, no 9/11, no 7/7, no Crusades, no witch-hunts, no Gunpowder plot, no Indian partition, no Israeli/Palestinian wars, no Serb/Croat/Muslim massacres, no persecution of Jews as "Christ killers", no Northern Ireland "troubles", no "honour killings", no shiny-suited bouffant-haired televangelists fleecing gullible people of their money.' - really do leave Dawkins looking like a "happy clappy" kind of atheist.

However, on the theology issue Carroll nails a crucial point - that there is a yawning chasm between the desiccated philosophical entity "sophisticated" theologians retreat to when challenged and the personal God they really believe in. While Buddhism, for instance, may be able to shelter from this critique, it is impossible to see the Abrahamic faiths doing so. If one does not believe in the resurrection of Jesus or that Allah dictated the text of the Koran to Muhammad, it is difficult to see how one can be called a Christian or a Muslim at all.

I would add that the Abrahamic God is definitionally a "personal" entity who acts in the world, who answers prayers. The etymology of the word prayer still vivifies believers' understanding of the practice today: precarius (Latin) - obtained by entreaty. Of this God, the real God (in the sense, that he is the God that people actually believe in), I am a thoroughgoing atheist and will further insist that the burden of proof (in a genuinely scientific sense) rests with believers.

But I'm with Carroll in wishing that Dawkins had kept his focus on the refutation of this God - the God of the pulpit and prayer mat - rather than muddling into murkier terrain, both philosophical and political, which he seems ill-equipped to traverse.

245. Lunging, Flailing, Mispunching

Comment #3534 by johnc on October 29, 2006 at 11:20 pm

Andrew,

Do you have anything interesting to say. If you're going to be a troll, and least be an amusing one.

246. I don't believe in Richard Dawkins

Comment #3473 by johnc on October 29, 2006 at 5:30 am

Further to Islamic suicide bombing, the NYT has a very extensive magazine article just out:
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/29/magazine/29islam.html?th=&emc=th&pagewanted=all

247. I don't believe in Richard Dawkins

Comment #3468 by johnc on October 29, 2006 at 4:29 am

Owen,

The most systematic study of modern suicide attacks was undertaken by Robert Pape and published last year. A summary can be found on Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dying_to_Win:_The_Strategic_Logic_of_Suicide_Terrorism

The section on al-Qaeda says:

With increasing knowledge of al-Qaeda, we see that “the presence of American military forces for combat operations on the homeland territory of the suicide terrorists is stronger than Islamic fundamentalism in predicting whether individuals from that country will become al-Qaeda suicide terrorists” (103). “Al-Qaeda is less a transnational network of like-minded ideologues . . . than a cross-national military alliance of national liberation movements working together against what they see as a common imperial threat” (104). The nature of Salafism, a Sunni form of Islamic fundamentalism, is complex (105-07). Statistical analysis fails to corroborate Salafism-terrorism connection, but it does corroborate a connection to U.S. military policies in the Persian Gulf (107-17) ...

One is not required to accept everything Pape says to see that nonetheless there is serious doubt whether religion was a primary cause rather than an enabler of the 9/11 attacks. Certainty by Dawkins or anyone else is not sustainable with marshalling a serious argument that takes account of the Pape data.

248. I don't believe in Richard Dawkins

Comment #3462 by johnc on October 29, 2006 at 3:37 am

Will,

It is possible to be both supportive of Dawkins' main message while being critical of aspects of his argument. That doesn't make a review negative.

In the same vein, I applaud his popularisations of evolutionary theory while being critical of many of the particular stances he takes within the scientific controversies. The only person I agree with 100pc is myself, and even then probably only at the time of utterance :-)

249. I don't believe in Richard Dawkins

Comment #3461 by johnc on October 29, 2006 at 3:30 am

"Inevitable, true, but important?" challenges David McCulloch. But the rest of Malik's paragraph presents the justification for "importance", and I would be interested to hear why you think it is incorrect.

250. I don't believe in Richard Dawkins

Comment #3446 by johnc on October 28, 2006 at 10:51 pm

Further to silly posts about Malik (and Islam), the following rather long quotation is certainly worth the reprinting since it is as clear a defence of a Dawkinsian "take no prisoners" as one is likely to find (the essay is about the Danish cartoon reaction and can be found at his website: http://www.kenanmalik.com/essays/cartoons_prospect.html )

In a truly homogenous society in which everyone thought in exactly the same way then giving offence would be nothing more than gratuitous. But in the real world where societies are plural, then it is both inevitable and important that people offend the sensibilities of others. Inevitable, because where different beliefs are deeply held, clashes are unavoidable. And we should deal with those clashes rather than suppress them. Important because any kind of social change or social progress means offending some deeply held sensibilities. The right to 'subject each others' fundamental beliefs to criticism' is the bedrock of an open, diverse society. 'If liberty means anything', as George Orwell once put it, 'it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear'.

Ah, say the would-be censors, the problem is that you poor secularists simply do not understand religious believers' depth of attachment to their faith, and hence their outrage at any insult to it. As Ian Jack, editor of Granta magazine, has put it, an individual might have the abstract right to depict Mohammed, but the price of free speech is too high when compared to the 'immeasurable insult' that the exercise of such right causes - even though 'we, the faithless, don't understand the offence'.

This argument might reveal how little attached many liberals are to their own beliefs (one can imagine Jack arguing about Galileo 400 years ago, 'He has an abstract right to depict the earth orbiting the sun, but imagine the immeasurable insult that the exercise of such a right would cause...') but there is no reason to treat Muslims (or, indeed, any religious believer) as a special case. Communists were often wedded to their ideas even unto death. Many racists have an almost visceral attachment to their prejudices. Should I indulge them, too, because their beliefs are so deeply held? In any case I would challenge anyone to show me how my humanism is any less intensely felt than the faith of a Muslim or of any other believer. There is something deeply pernicious, almost racist, about the claim that Muslims are somehow so different from everyone else.