251. Researchers Crusade against American Fundamentalists

Comment #3445 by johnc on October 28, 2006 at 9:36 pm

I don't think our Matrix-namesake troll is an IDer but a Young Earth Creationist. The whole point of the discredited 2nd law argument (trailblazed by the doyen of YEC Henry Morris) is to deny that evolution can occur at all.

252. I don't believe in Richard Dawkins

Comment #3443 by johnc on October 28, 2006 at 9:13 pm

The silly rant by aiyer (#23) is a particularly embarrassing addition to these pages, given the distinguished track record of Kenan Malik, including an important essay in Prospect that says, among other things:

But does Islamophobia exist? The trouble with the idea is that it confuses hatred of, and discrimination against, Muslims on the one hand with criticism of Islam on the other. The charge of "Islamophobia" is all too often used not to highlight racism but to silence critics of Islam, or even Muslims fighting for reform of their communities.

253. Researchers Crusade against American Fundamentalists

Comment #3415 by johnc on October 28, 2006 at 11:55 am

... a troll is a person who enters an established community such as an online discussion forum and intentionally tries to cause disruption, most often in the form of posting inflammatory, off-topic, or otherwise inappropriate messages

254. Researchers Crusade against American Fundamentalists

Comment #3414 by johnc on October 28, 2006 at 11:47 am

And the debate in peer-reviewed literature is where, neo?

255. I don't believe in Richard Dawkins

Comment #3413 by johnc on October 28, 2006 at 11:39 am

Will, I don't see this as a particularly negative review, but it does zero in on a real weakness in TGD, specifically its over-simplified politics.
ps #21 above was me, sorry :-/

256. Researchers Crusade against American Fundamentalists

Comment #3393 by johnc on October 28, 2006 at 8:23 am

Well, well ... a creationist troll!

Before anyone wastes too much energy, Mr Neo might first like to point us to where in the peer-reviewed scientific literature this debate on the second law of thermodynamics is taking place.

In fact, there is no debate, since there is no contradiction between the 2nd law and evolution (Unless of course there is an evil global conspiracy by physicists to cover up a 150-year-old error by biologists!). Case closed.

257. Researchers Crusade against American Fundamentalists

Comment #3374 by johnc on October 28, 2006 at 12:55 am

There is currently a most interesting thread running attached to a passionate defence of atheism by PZ Myers at:
http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2006/10/a_godless_ramble_against_the_d.php
Among the many contributions of interest is this characterisation of American fundamentalists:

The Religious Right, rooted in the Pentecostal and Charismatic movements, is organized more like guerilla armies. (They even think of themselves this way.) Individual, independent cells under the absolute authority of local pastors networked loosely with other autonomous pastors and a bewildering array of ever-shifting coalition groups. They will not engage in open battles or debates. They have almost no concrete ideology or theology or metaphysics to disprove. The bible is like an I-Ching opened at random to a verse that inspires an awareness in the pastor whose validity is proven to the congregation's satisfaction by the pastor's alleged holiness, which is proven in turn by the congregation's faith. These people dump Wesson oil on one another, think the world is literally filled with demons, and pray for you and I to commit suicide. How do you argue with people that fucking crazy? And there are many tens of millions of them.

... the conflation of "Bible scholars" with theologians ... merits jumping on. They're very often not the same thing. Bible scholars have played a crucial role in destroying beyond any hope of repair the fantasy of inerrant Holy Writ. I'll be so bold as to suggest that this achievement can be mentioned, without ridicule, in the same breath with biology from Darwin on. In both cases, a crucial demystifying of the world has taken place. That many Bible scholars continue to believe in God doesn't nullify this achievement, any more than the religiosity of this geneticist or that physicist impairs the power of science.

258. I don't believe in Richard Dawkins

Comment #3369 by johnc on October 27, 2006 at 10:51 pm

The complexities of the parenting argument can be seen when one looks at what should be a relatively straightforward case: namely, the "right" of Jewish and Muslim parents to mutilate the genitals of their male children in the name of religion.

There have historically been numerous attempts to ban religious circumcision - the Roman empire under Hadrian (but Jews were apparently exempt); the Spanish Christian Visigoths (no exemptions); the Soviet Union (Muslims exempted); and most recently a Finnish court found earlier this year that the circumcision of a Muslim boy was illegal, saying: "The court notes that not even a long religious tradition justifies protecting the bodily inviolability of boys to a lesser degree than that of girls."

The British Medical Association ethical guidelines say:

The BMA is generally very supportive of allowing parents to make choices on behalf of their children, and believes that neither society nor doctors should interfere unjustifiably in the relationship between parents and their children. It is clear from the list of factors that are relevant to a child’s best interests, however, that parental preference alone is not sufficient justification for performing a surgical procedure on a child ... Parents must explain and justify requests for circumcision, in terms of the child’s interests.

259. Sermons and straw men

Comment #3319 by johnc on October 27, 2006 at 11:20 am

Some good points being made here. I agree that there is no requirement for us all to be singing from the same hymn sheet, as it were, and there is a definite role for a Dawkinsian (bad cop) voice in the debate. It is a point, however, that cuts both ways, and should be borne in mind by some of the "born-again" atheists who are reacting so negatively to reviews such as that of Krauss, whose position derives from the real frontline of battle. In any case, I stick by my view that TGD is both politically and epistemologically naive (the latter has been nicely amplified somewhat by maryhelena).

But I was also struck by the observation of a "sense of relief expressed by so many posters". It is easy to overlook how isolated and beleaguered American non-believers must feel when one lives, as I do, in a society where expression of devotion to a deity is generally regarded as being in poor taste.

While it is true that the political climate has resulted in some credulous people making weird turns (to Protestant sects, wearing veils, etc), this side-effect of greater global polarisation I don't think is having much overall impact on the continuing desecularisation in Europe and Australia. Indeed I expect a larger number of people to react by strengthening their secular convictions in the face of more visible lunacy. But I will be interested to see the latest census figures here (due out by year's end) to confirm my hunch of a continuing linear decline in religious affiliation.

As a final note, it is not an option for literalists to make common cause with "Gouldians" (ie the mainstream scientific establishment) without abandoning the very tenets that make them fundamentalists. Looked at another way, the central alliance opposing theocracy is in fact defined not so much by people's position on religious belief, but their commitment to a secular, rational and compassionate society. I know Dawkins and his most avid supporters find this intellectually intolerable (if not unintelligible) but it is both true, and our best hope.

260. Sermons and straw men

Comment #3297 by johnc on October 27, 2006 at 8:07 am

Martin writes:

Also as both Richard and Sam have said it is the moderates (indirectly) that allow the fanatics to hide and prevail in our society. By respecting "Islam" we have to respect not just those that are nice and friendly but also those that think the way to paradise is to kill as many of us as possible, because, if you come down to it, their views of the Koran or the Bible or whatever are just as legitimate as anyone else's.

261. Sermons and straw men

Comment #3256 by johnc on October 27, 2006 at 1:18 am

Rieux,
Let me say first off that at the level of tactical decisions there are definitely times when a Dawkinsian (is that a new word?) approach could be appropriate. But the example I cited is not one of those, and it has many analogues. For instance, if one were trying to unseat pro-ID school board members in a US election, then attacking Christianity, all Christianity, as a superstition rendered redundant by the evidence of science would be downright foolish (and in my view incorrect, of which more in a moment).

On moderate Muslims, I was thinking of a recent essay by Harris (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/sam-harris/who-are-the-moderate-musl_b_15841.html )in which he concludes: "There is no question that we must give Muslim moderates every tool they need to win a war of ideas with their coreligionists."

But you are right that there is an unresolved tension in his work between the eloquent debunking of Islam and such and the sober recognition of the required strategy in these dangerous times. I have no problem with being bald, or frank, or rude, etc if that is what the situation requires; the problem is that while such tactics may make one feel good it runs directly counter to the actual real-world need to build alliances against religious extremism - alliances of which mainline believers must be a key part.

Finally, there has been an altogether too facile a deployment of labels like "truth" in this debate. At an epistemological level Dawkins is simply wrong that the existence of God can be treated like a scientific hypothesis. But rather than engage in what one unhelpful contributor labelled philosophical "nitpicking" let me just refer to the position of the National Academy of Sciences, whose stance - like that of every other peak science body I know of - is thoroughly Gouldian. The strongest forulation possible is the modern science has made being an atheist possible - to go further has no warrant from either the evidence or the scientific community.

262. Sermons and straw men

Comment #3244 by johnc on October 26, 2006 at 7:04 pm

Perhaps a real world example might bring into starker relief what supportive of critics of Dawkins, such as Professor Krauss, may be trying to say, highlighting along the way the dangerously naive perspective of some posters in these threads.

This week excerpts of a Ramadan speech by the mufti of Australia were published, causing universal outrage in both the Muslim and broader community. The mufti, among other things, likened immodestly dressed women to "uncovered meat" and, referring to sexual assault, said that if cats come along and ate the meat you cannot blame the cats. The allusion was specifically linked to the recent sentencing of some Muslim youths for a horrific gang rape. The mufti also opined that women were "90pc responsible" for adultery because they "possessed the weapon of seduction". (See editorial here that covers the main facts: http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,20651307-601,00.html )

There have been calls made from the Prime Minister down for the Muslim community to act and remove the mufti from his position of leadership within the community, and indeed virtually all Muslim groups - including women's organisations - have expressed condemned the comments.

Now while it is true that the mufti's comments find full support in a literal reading of the Koran, what effect would denouncing Islam as such have, apart from alienating the very people who need to take action - the Muslim community? Instead, reaction has focused on the incompatibility of the mufti's views with contemporary Australian values, which has meant that Muslim, Christian and atheist have been united in their condemnation.

Sam Harris raises this very problem - how do we support moderate Muslims to effect the required changes in Islamic culture to bring it into the modern world? Surely not by piously intoning that all religion is superstition and arrant nonsense. The fact that some of us may believe all religion is based on fantasy does not make such as an intellectualisation the basis for effective action. In the end, we should be fighting for a secular and humane society; if we achieve that the secular minds will follow. Dawkins is right in one sense, but he has process the wrong way around.

263. Sermons and straw men

Comment #3192 by johnc on October 26, 2006 at 8:23 am

... it is plain silly to complain that the author's attack is too much like an attack, that his polemic is too polemical, that his anger seems too much like anger

264. Sermons and straw men

Comment #3178 by johnc on October 26, 2006 at 6:28 am

Though everyone is entitled to say what atheism means for them, it is not tenable to describe it as "a philosophy" in the same way as empiricism or neo-Platonism. This is not semantics, but pointing out that the only thing that has united atheists historically is disbelief in a personal God - everything else is up for grabs. The diversity of views on this site is an eloquent demonstration of that fact.

265. Sermons and straw men

Comment #3174 by johnc on October 26, 2006 at 5:12 am

Clive, I admit to mixed feeling myself, partly because I do see a role for strident clarion call, which Dawkins and Harris do well, even if it is decoupled from anything that would constitute a program of action.

But the issue in these threads is that people often seem perplexed and/or hostile when confronted with quite reasonable critiques of RD's position, as if criticism of TGD was automatically an affirmation of theism, or worse.

This reaches absurd levels when someone like Krauss is reprimanded for being unaware of the dangers posed by the religious right!

At day's end there is also the fundamental issue of whether the problem of religious fanatacism is a problem of belief or of politics.

266. Sermons and straw men

Comment #3154 by johnc on October 26, 2006 at 1:49 am

Other than Sam Harris, I can think of no other living person who has more "insight into what it means to fight the attacks on science" than Richard Dawkins. In fact I would say that he has more experience with controversy than any other person alive on this planet. And this is a very heady claim indeed.

For religious belief hinges not on knowledge, but on superstition alone ... and the truth is what we're after.

267. God only knows who's right or wrong

Comment #3150 by johnc on October 26, 2006 at 1:08 am

Of course RD supports church-state sep, but he is attacking the very people who predominate in the frontline of that battle in the US - religious moderates and agnostics.

Rather than bailing anyone out, many would argue he is making the actual struggle on public policy (as distinct from a theoretical battle about people's personal beliefs) harder. Personally, I would not go that far, but I can see how such a judgement can be made in good faith.

ps I'm in Australia, where Xtianity is withering away of its accord, with an unbroken linear decline in affiliation being recorded since the census began asking the question in 1971.

268. Sermons and straw men

Comment #3142 by johnc on October 25, 2006 at 10:50 pm

Krauss has in fact been the most high-profile scientist involved in turning around the Ohio fiasco.

From a recent NCSE press release:

A newly formed coalition in Ohio, Help Ohio Public Education, is seeking to unseat a member of the board of education who was at the forefront of efforts to compromise the treatment of evolution in the state science standards. Speaking to the Columbus Dispatch (August 12, 2006), HOPE’s chair, Lawrence M. Krauss of Case Western University, explained, “We hope to raise the profile of school-board elections … We’ve seen in Ohio and Kansas how significant these elections can be.”

269. Sermons and straw men

Comment #3140 by johnc on October 25, 2006 at 10:16 pm

The fact scientists such as Lawrence Krauss, who among other awards is a recipient of the AAAS Award for the Public Understanding of Science and Technology (2000), are critical of TGD should make people here pause for thought. Instead we hear juvenile accusations of "pointless nitpicking and trite sensationalism".

And ID did not arise as a result of the "passivity" of scientific communities, but from a hard-fought victory that expelled creationism from the public classroom and forced a change of tactics. That's what the damning testimony in the Dover case about Of Pandas and People demonstrated beyond doubt. What's more, both the Edwards and Kitzmiller victories owe much to the principled hard work of "religious moderates" whom Dawkins would have us believe are part of the problem.

270. God only knows who's right or wrong

Comment #3118 by johnc on October 25, 2006 at 6:28 pm

Sorry, anonymous be me.

271. God only knows who's right or wrong

Comment #3054 by johnc on October 25, 2006 at 9:30 am

"allowing a single message overwhelming air time, is not helping either"

I'll happily agree, and take this opportunity (in case anyone should get the wrong impression) that TGD is a good thing - but not without flaws :-)

272. God only knows who's right or wrong

Comment #3047 by johnc on October 25, 2006 at 9:06 am

To say people generally inherit their religious beliefs from their social context is of course true but doesn't deal with the question, which if we start at that point becomes: why do social contexts change, differentially altering the patterns of belief among peoples.

Over the 30 years of survey that I have seen the US has stubbornly retained the same high levels of religious affiliation as today (with a relatively larger proportion of non-mainline Protestants than elsewhere) while belief has markedly declined in all other developed nations. Why?

We cannot do something about this problem (find a strategy) if we don't understand what is causing it, and simply pointing out, however vigorously, that belief has no empirical basis will likely have zero effect. RD seems to believe, in the teeth of all evidence to the contrary, that you can reason someone out of belief.

273. God only knows who's right or wrong

Comment #3039 by johnc on October 25, 2006 at 7:49 am

Paul, I'm broadly familiar with these evolutionary conjectures which hopefully one day will make a real contribution to psychology and related fields.

However, even then science will not have come remotely close to answering questions like why the US is measurably more religiose than say Australia (where I live). This is because religious beliefs analysed at any useful level of detail are emergent properties of human society and history, and therefore highly contingent. To believe that evolutionary biology has much of value to offer in that discussion is surely the worst kind of scientism (with some very negative historical resonances of its own). It seems to me that RD is neither academically nor temperamentally suited to deal with such questions. This would be okay, if he displayed a little more awareness of his own limitations. That he doesn't is, I think, the source of the unjustified charge of arrogance.

274. God only knows who's right or wrong

Comment #3023 by johnc on October 25, 2006 at 6:59 am

@Graham Davis
"Imagine me cutting away the foreskin of a male infant for no good reason than I want to."

Well that's exactly what Americans do to more than 1 million infants each year - and not for religious reasons, but for long discredited medical reasons that have become a social norm. And no amount of rational discussion, or comparisons with other developed nations, etc etc, seems to have the slightest impact on this barbaric practice.

There is a lesson here that is close to the point Mary is trying to make in her somewhat obtuse review. Namely, Dawkins may have masterfully criticised WHAT people believe, but has precious little understanding of WHY they believe. (And "meme" theory is really not a contender, I'm afraid.)

As has been pointed out repeatedly in these threads, this line of critique has some justice to it and is the reason that many intelligent, progressive people - theists, agnostics and atheists - are registering a negative reaction to TGD. Because without knowing WHY, you cannot formulate a workable strategy. To butcher Chairman Mao: "Where do incorrect ideas come from? Do they fall from the sky?"

That is the question Mary believes Dawkins does not answer, and she is probably right.

275. God knows why faith is thriving

Comment #3015 by johnc on October 25, 2006 at 6:37 am

"It seems credible that religious people are more likely to have more offspring."

Before this gets too far, it should be pointed out the confounding factors are particularly problematic when looking at the correlations. But I would suggest that religion per se probably has little independent effect on fertility. Note in the article I referenced above:

Mr Ahmadinejad's call is similar to one by the late Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, after the 1979 Islamic revolution. The policy led to a population explosion but was reversed because of the strain on the economy, and population growth dropped from an all-time high of 3.2 per cent in 1986 to about 1.2 per cent ...

276. God knows why faith is thriving

Comment #2994 by johnc on October 25, 2006 at 5:52 am

This reactionary drivel dovetails nicely with the call yesterday by Ahmadinejad for Iran to abandon its birth control policies (http://www.smh.com.au/news/world/breed-and-well-beat-west-says-ahmadinejad/2006/10/24/1161455724103.html).

It's clear that atheism for this nasty ideologue is just a stalking horse for his ultra-rightwing agenda (note the title of his forthcoming book - must put in my order now!).

I particularly like the shift to passive voice "the economic explanation is now being questioned" as the launchpad for his preposterous population theories.

277. The Fact of Evolution

Comment #2984 by johnc on October 25, 2006 at 5:17 am

The issue is not about being "nice" or even pragmatic. There is nothing particularly polite about, for instance, Ken Miller's attacks on ID. But we would not expect him to savage Dawkins in the same way, or vice versa, despite the existence of real disagreement.

There is an issue of principle here. We make alliance based on what we can all agree is both wrong and dangerous while recognising that the things which divide us are far less amenable to statements of strident conviction. The "war" is not AGAINST some abstract propositions concerning the meaning of the universe (about which reasonable people can hold differing views). The war is FOR a secular, humane and compassionate society - and for that we need all the allies we can get.

@Jonathan Dore
It seems to me that belief (eg creationism) precedes the screening out of contrary views (eg modern biology), a screening certainly made easier in the US by the fragmented education system. But I'm quite sure that most Americans could see and enjoy Jurassic Park while continuing to believe that humans and dinosaurs once shared the planet. That's why telling people "truths" doesn't work - they have to have a reason to embrace those truths (eg in Michigan, ID in schools is bad for attracting high-tech industry seems to have hurt Devos; in Kansas, we look like a bunch of hicks, etc). Beliefs are rarely "changed" - they are more likely shouldered off centre stage by other beliefs, which pick up their justifications post facto.

278. The Fact of Evolution

Comment #2954 by johnc on October 24, 2006 at 10:54 pm

Only those who are completely devoid of reason will be spouting creationism and more will look at them and laugh.

279. Lunging, Flailing, Mispunching

Comment #2948 by johnc on October 24, 2006 at 10:13 pm

While it is true that the majority of Xtians believe in a god who is "some sort of chap" (and indeed fundamentalists generally are the least theologically oriented of believers), the moderates, essential allies in the battle for a secular state, generally hold the more sophisticated forms of theist belief.

It occurs to me that the reason Dawkins and Harris can so blithely condemn all such beliefs is that they haven't been the ones rounding up rabbis and pastors to sign amicus curie briefs and petitions supporting science or opposing the imposition of religious strictures in education or medicine. In other words, Dawkins' lack of political sophistication isn't just at the level of analysis, it also involves his poor understanding of how to conduct the fight. His appallingly naive comments about being willing to lose a battle in order to win the war are ample illustration of someone who hasn't really had to engage in either.

280. Lunging, Flailing, Mispunching

Comment #2829 by johnc on October 23, 2006 at 11:21 pm

In the end, the question is why many people (including life-long atheists such as myself) have felt a much stronger affinity with the work of people such as Gould? It is not just a question of style or tone; rather I sense the failure to integrate a broader conception of human experience into his analysis. Gould knew that understanding why people believed was in many ways more important than what they believed. He was an opponent of scientism in all its manifestations not just because it is wrong but because it is dehumanising. And he managed that while being one of science's most eloquent advocates. There is not space to develop the argument here, but Gould always struck me as in a broader tradition of European humanism than Dawkins' somewhat bloodless Anglo-Saxon rationalism. By way of illustration let me offer the following example of humane skepticism that I think has always eluded Dawkins.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8mIfatdNqBA&eurl=

281. Lunging, Flailing, Mispunching

Comment #2747 by johnc on October 23, 2006 at 8:27 am

Brian, the evidence-based disciplines do not encompass all human understanding and significance. Art and culture, ethics and politics, loyalty and love, and much besides are all crucial ingredients of the human experience and until recent times were largely discussed within a theological context (that nonetheless often only bore the most tangential relation to the ontology of the supernatural). You can't just eliminate this historical context by an act syllogism.

This raises two questions:
1. Can these aspects of human experience be reduced/explained/superceded by science, to which all but the most scientistic would answer No.
2. Can they be "secularised", to which I would answer Yes, though not because the God hypothesis has been falsified by science but because what many (including perhaps Sam Harris) would call the spiritual basis of human subjectivity loses its dependence on supernatural explanation. This is inevitably a long process that cannot ignore the theological origins of these discourses without losing their meaning.

Dawkins projects a vision where science mated with some jolly old British commonsense will somehow suffice as a basis for human existence and meaning. This horrified Gould, and today deeply offends many of our allies (religious moderates and agnostics) in the fight against the real forces of darkness.

282. Lunging, Flailing, Mispunching

Comment #2739 by johnc on October 23, 2006 at 7:06 am

I don't think anyone, including Eagleton, has a problem with Dawkins' comprehensive critique of fundmentalism. But if you are going to extend the assault to ALL theology then you should have a good idea of what it is you are attacking. Dawkins appears to believe that by skewering the God hypothesis, all religious beliefs and theologies are thereby rendered equally false. This is unlikely to be true. It is rather like saying that because Newtown made incorrect assumptions about the nature of space and time, his entire physics is rendered invalid.

In fact most serious theology has not been concerned with the existence of god but has been more bound up with the spiritual, moral and scientific issues of its day.

Dawkins would not be open to criticism about his lack of historical, political and theological knowledge except that he launched himself into those territories. And unlike Gould, Dawkins does not have a historian's sensibility and tact - he has stepped beyond his limit of competency. Eagleton, who is no friend of religiousity, has tried to put his finger on this problem, with at least some success IMHO.

283. Do We Really Need Bad Reasons To Be Good?

Comment #2735 by johnc on October 23, 2006 at 6:28 am

Matthew,

We can all agree that increasing happiness and minimising suffering should be the outcome of any system of ethics (and politics) - but identifying the goal tells us nothing about how to get there, particularly in the complex world we inhabit today. Is torturing information out of suspected terrorist ethical? Does euthanasia uphold or violate human rights (and what is the basis for such "rights" anyway)? Is the failure of the US to provide a universal healthcare system a moral outrage or an exercise in freedom? ...

Ethical systems are meaningless outside of their historical and social contexts. Uncountable millions have seen no ethical problems with slavery. Were these people stupid? deluded? wicked? Ethics and gravity are not analogous, not even remotely.

Reading your undoubtedly well-meant post brings home sharply why Steve Gould became increasingly concerned about the ignorance and disregard scientists often showed towards the humanities (including philosophy). Do not dismiss what you do not understand is an injunction we should all take to heart.

284. Lunging, Flailing, Mispunching

Comment #2725 by johnc on October 23, 2006 at 5:18 am

"Terry Eagleton’s a fascinating and provocative writer if what you’re interested in is literary or cultural theory."

A point I made earlier (borrowing from Steve Gould) is that the barriers that are constantly being erected and reinforced between science and humanities are a major problem in building a consensus in the fight for Englightenment values. Dawkins I think well understands this but has not always been successful in practice.

"If the alternative is Eagletonian pessimistic thumb-twiddling in a quagmire of passive theoretical pedantry ..."

Eagleton, as a prominent Marxist of long standing, actually has rather more of a track record in practical political engagement than most academics. When he criticises RD's rather naive formulations on Northern Ireland, for instance, it comes from someone who actually knows something of the real conflict, in the real world. It is Dawkins, with his Oxbridge middle-class liberalism, who is most vulnerable to critique of ivory towerism and theoretical reductionism.

285. Lunging, Flailing, Mispunching

Comment #2716 by johnc on October 23, 2006 at 3:45 am

CiG,

If Eagleton is so incomprehensible, how do you know he being an apologist? Less rhetorically, what is he supposed to be an apologist for?? Writing a critical review of RD's book, does not make one an enemy of critical thinking. Personally, I find your tone of belligerent anti-intellectualism much more threatening to the Dawkins project than anything Eagleton has written.

286. Lunging, Flailing, Mispunching

Comment #2708 by johnc on October 23, 2006 at 1:49 am

It might help rational discussion if criticism is directed at what Eagleton actually says which, among other things, is that if RD wants to show that ALL religion is a delusion he needs to "confront that case at its most persuasive".

287. Lunging, Flailing, Mispunching

Comment #2697 by johnc on October 22, 2006 at 9:54 pm

Eagleton's point was not that anyone should embrace theology, but that a rebuttal of religion has an obligation:

"... to confront that case at its most persuasive, rather than grabbing themselves a victory on the cheap by savaging it as so much garbage and gobbledygook."

288. Do We Really Need Bad Reasons To Be Good?

Comment #2686 by johnc on October 22, 2006 at 6:10 pm

Finding a "rational" basis for morality will prove as difficult as showing that religion provides such a foundation. For instance, until modern historical times slavery has been regarded by a very wide range of societies and people as acceptable and moral. That Christians, for instance, now oppose slavery (with many in the forefront of its abolition) is no more a result of their religious beliefs than their previous support of the same institution. Such examples can be multiplied to show that religious ideology largely reflects prevailing moral codes rather than creates them.

This should be hardly surprising to anyone who disbelieves in a God, since the only source then of morality can be human society itself. The real weakness for Dawkins (and Harris) is that they seem to not even have the glimmerings of a theory about the historical emergence and mutation of moral codes. Evolutionary theory is of little or no help, since morality is clearly an emergent property of human societies. Indeed it is difficult to see how any theory of moral codes can get off the ground without a historical analysis of political and economic frameworks of human societies.

While Harris may find the "golden rule" appealing, deriving it from rational contemplation of the human condition is rather a different matter. This is the strength of the religious moderate position - namely, the claim for an ahistorical basis for "natural morality". That claim, in my view, ultimately falls foul of the same historical problems but Dawkins' dismissal of their position is seriously weakened by not having a credible alternative approach.

289. Lunging, Flailing, Mispunching

Comment #2564 by johnc on October 21, 2006 at 10:04 pm

Any dolt can joust with the "big Christian sellers" in the US. If atheism is going to mean more than simply a rejection of theism, if it is to have some intellectual content, then it needs to compound scientific, philophical and artistic thought into some coherent framework.

Dismissing Eagleton as "full of BS" simply counts one out of that discussion.

Take Eriugena: how can one dismiss negative theology if you don't even understand its basis? The argument is not so obscure - namely, to say God exists is not to commit to the view that God is a special kind of thing (being), since existence and being are not philosophically identical. If this argument can be sustained (and made compatible with a providential God?), then Dawkins' assertion that God constitutes a scientific hypothesis fails.

These are non-trivial lines of argument. To recoil from the literature in favour of "taking on Billy Graham" is simply to advertise one's lack of seriousness. I don't think Dawkins himself does that, he just seems not to have as extensive a philosophical background as the task he set himself would require.

290. Lunging, Flailing, Mispunching

Comment #2454 by johnc on October 21, 2006 at 10:25 am

Richard,

I was not referring to tone. Both Gould and Dawkins were sharp but principled polemicists with admirably thick skins, and with a genuine mutual respect - as their final correspondence shows. This involves something deeper.

Take the very heated sociobiology dispute as an example. Both sides definitely thought the other was the bearer of "bad ideas" which would have harmful consequences. But at least among the main academic disputants, there remained considerable mutual respect. No one claimed that the source of bad ideas was that their opponents were bad people - befuddled, but not bad. And the argument goes on today.

The analogy is pertinent here, because it shows that even if Dawkins is right, and the God idea should be treated as a scientific hypothesis (though it's by no means clear he is right), it does not necessarily follow that anything will be settled as a result. For that invokes an impossibly Pollyanna version of science that is somehow miraculously disembodied from the social interests swirling around and through it.

So we cannot stop according people respect simply because we believe they have wrong ideas, since that ultimately must presuppose an absolute certainty that we are right - and that in turn is the road to dogmatism, albeit clothed in the costume of science.

291. Lunging, Flailing, Mispunching

Comment #2446 by johnc on October 21, 2006 at 9:33 am

A Zeus-worshipping President would be an oddity, harmless enough in itself. But one that attempted, for example, to ban hetrosexual marriage because he wanted to appease the powerful Ganymede cult would be a different matter :-)

A political or a religious problem?

292. Lunging, Flailing, Mispunching

Comment #2442 by johnc on October 21, 2006 at 9:20 am

Hugh,

You quote Eagleton but ignore something crucial. After his long exposition of an interpretation of Christianity he concludes:

Now it may well be that all this is no more plausible than the tooth fairy. Most reasoning people these days will see excellent grounds to reject it. But critics of the richest, most enduring form of popular culture in human history have a moral obligation to confront that case at its most persuasive, rather than grabbing themselves a victory on the cheap by savaging it as so much garbage and gobbledygook. The mainstream theology I have just outlined may well not be true; but anyone who holds it is in my view to be respected, whereas Dawkins considers that no religious belief, anytime or anywhere, is worthy of any respect whatsoever.

293. Lunging, Flailing, Mispunching

Comment #2436 by johnc on October 21, 2006 at 9:05 am

Brian,

On imaginary friends, I'm with Gould (at least part of the way). We cannot disprove the existence of the supernatural, but we can investigate and adjudicate on consequential empirical claims. Contra Dawkins, however, I don't think this includes beliefs such as the Virgin Birth (for which no empirical evidence exists either way, though the documentary record would disfavour such a claim, even for Christians).

So while I do not subscribe to such beliefs, that is a long way from feeling "honour bound to ridicule" those who do. I guess I feel closest to Sam Harris's formulation of changing the rules of conversation such that everyone's non-empirical values and beliefs are treated equally, ie no special dispensation for religion. Or perhaps to borrow (from memory) from Dawkins, the plumber has as much right to an opinion on morality as the priest.

294. Lunging, Flailing, Mispunching

Comment #2430 by johnc on October 21, 2006 at 8:40 am

I'm not intending to single anyone out, but the following is a perfect example of the problem I was discussing immediately above:

98. Comment #2412 by Hugh Blanchard on October 21, 2006 at 7:44 am
... The dark ages are not called that for nothing. Fervent born again Christians ensured hundreds of years of complete misery in Europe where to be intellectual meant death ...

295. Lunging, Flailing, Mispunching

Comment #2427 by johnc on October 21, 2006 at 8:34 am

I'm not intending to single anyone out, but the following is a perfect example of the problem I was discussing immediately above:

98. Comment #2412 by Hugh Blanchard on October 21, 2006 at 7:44 am
... The dark ages are not called that for nothing. Fervent born again Christians ensured hundreds of years of complete misery in Europe where to be intellectual meant death ...

296. Lunging, Flailing, Mispunching

Comment #2416 by johnc on October 21, 2006 at 7:59 am

You seem to be trying to equate what Dawkins has written with the kind of genocidal stupidity we see in all the sacred texts of the major religions.

... there are a body of rationalists in the world today who feel beleagured and helpless by the lunacy of what is happening to our planet

Dawkins quite rightly detests fundamentalists; but as far as I know his anti-religious diatribes have never been matched in his work by a critique of the global capitalism that generates the hatred, anxiety, insecurity and sense of humiliation that breed fundamentalism. Instead, as the obtuse media chatter has it, it’s all down to religion.

297. Lunging, Flailing, Mispunching

Comment #2403 by johnc on October 21, 2006 at 6:27 am

I consider myself both an atheist and pro-science, but like Clive on the previous page I am deeply concerned by both the tone and content of much of this thread. Many contributors seem to either have never heard of Eagleton or to have no idea about his intellectual position - and this of someone The Guardian described as "Britain's best-known academic rebel and literary critic". He cannot be simply dismissed in the puerile way that many have attempted here. Doubly so, since some of his points surely strike home. Most telling, to my mind, are the observations that (1) Dawkins is a political naif whose views on global complexities are very much rooted in a pinched Oxbridge "liberalism", and (2) the conclusions "would come rather more convincingly from a man who was a little less arrogantly triumphalistic about science".

The problem here, more so for the uncritical cheer squad that seems to have sprung up in this thread than Dawkins himself, is something that Steve Gould was increasingly concerned about in his final years (see for instance The Hedgehog, the Fox, and the Magister's Pox, 2003) - namely the growing divide between science and the humanities.

There is after all no doubt where Eagleton stands on the important issues:

As far as such outrages go, however, The God Delusion does a very fine job indeed. The two most deadly texts on the planet, apart perhaps from Donald Rumsfeld’s emails, are the Bible and the Koran ...

298. Heaven can wait

Comment #502 by johnc on October 2, 2006 at 1:45 am

Let's leave Jung (and Freud) out of this, and look at some empirical research. "Cross-National Correlations of Quantifiable Societal Health with Popular Religiosity and Secularism in the Prosperous Democracies" from the Journal of Religion & Society (http://moses.creighton.edu/JRS/2005/2005-11.html) shows pretty conclusively that religiousity (and disbelief in evolution) positively correlate with higher incidences of homicide, mortality, STD, youth pregnancy and other social problems among Western nations.

As the paper notes, further research is needed to explore these correlations, but assertions about the positive role of religious belief seem to have more to do with the religious propensities of those making the claims than anything in the real world.

299. Richard Dawkins on BBC 2's Newsnight

Comment #280 by johnc on September 24, 2006 at 2:44 pm

Christian, there is room for "don't know", namely - to quote myself - "if there is some, but as yet insufficient, evidence for it". Someone who believes this is the case is a genuine agnostic, as I am for instance about the competing conjectures concerning the nature of dark matter.

However, G. Tingey, a testable hypothesis that has not yet been falsified is not the same as truth. Take, for instance, Lee Smolin's "evolutionary" multiverse - its testability makes it amenable to scientific investigation but positive empirical verfication is needed before even he would make any truth claims for it.

There are some who believe that the existence of god can be (or has been) scientifically disproved eg Vic Stenger. But this is a minority position among atheists since, in my view, it relies on making certain assumptions about the nature of the deity, but that's another story ...

300. Richard Dawkins on BBC 2's Newsnight

Comment #260 by johnc on September 24, 2006 at 8:03 am

"To 'not believe' is to accept as true the non-existence of god(s)"

Sorry, Christiaan, I disagree, since truth statements about the world must be evidentiary, not merely logico-deductive.

The things I do believe can be framed as truth statements, supported by evidence and rationality (ie proof). The things I disbelieve, however, do not require a symmetrical truth statement about their converse. Disbelief is the status quo, since the set of statements I disbelieve is infinite.

In other words, the onus is on someone propounding a belief to produce evidence and argument for the statement to be even considered. It may be that those who disbelieve a proposition will then try to prove its converse (eg disprove the existence of God), but this is neither necessary nor even common in science or other evidence-based disciplines when testing hypotheses.

An "open mind" means being prepared to consider fresh evidence - that is, it is an epistemological not an ontological stance. An open mind does not mean agreeing (in the absence of such new evidence) that any and every belief "may be true".

A belief "may be true" if there is some, but as yet insufficient, evidence for it - this would seem one possible definition of the position of agnostics on god that would distinguish them from atheists.