401. Christopher Hitchens at AAI 07

Comment #80245 by keith on October 21, 2007 at 1:41 am

Diacanu,
Read Dan Dennett. Random chance cannot give you free will. If things simply happen at random in the universe, on what can you base a decision? If you can't know what the results of an action are likely to be there's no point in even trying to choose. You're more likely to have free will in a deterministic universe. At least here you can predict that when you decide to pour yourself a glass of water the chances are that it will end up in the glass rather than randomly flowing out of the tap, snake randomly around your glass and end up on the floor. Where's the free will in that?

402. Christopher Hitchens at AAI 07

Comment #80240 by keith on October 21, 2007 at 1:04 am

Dr. Benway,

Keith, I still think any noble act a Christian performed vastly more often than a non-Christian would be a significant answer to Hitchens' challenge. This isn't a legal game here. It's about who can be trusted.

In a way doctor, you are arguing my point here, i.e. the difference I pointed out to Riley between 'can' and 'do' that should have been the way he was arguing. I'm quite happy to believe that there are some ethical deeds that the religious perform more often than atheists, though I'm not sure that evidence backs this up. I suspect that Christians raise more money for church-funded charities while atheists give more to Oxfam (I'm just guessing here). Even so, even if the faithful do more ethical deeds this does not, taken literally, answer Hitchens' challenge. His challenge is 'could do', not 'do do'.
Incidentally, if you really felt inclined to this line of argument, though I don't think you do, the claim that the religious do more moral deeds than atheists in a way (in your way) answers Hitchens' challenge to precisely the same degree that it negates your previous claim to Riley that 'We don't need god to be good'. Perhaps Riley was right to hold off on the tea and blueberry pie and continue re-arranging the deckchairs for a while!

403. Christopher Hitchens at AAI 07

Comment #80238 by keith on October 21, 2007 at 12:27 am

Riley,

I think I've worked things out and I think you might even be satisfied with the result! After re-reading your posts I realised you had been misunderstood, certainly by me, though you do bear some responsibility for this (to say you 'take the bible at its word' without any further explanation was just asking to be misinterpreted). You were also labelled a troll, completely unfairly. I can now see that you felt that Hitchens had set up a false challenge as a means of tricking believers into refuting something they had never said in the first place. Had a believer pulled such a trick, we would have been up in arms on this website. As it was, nobody seemed to notice, or care, that one of our own had engaged in such dirty dealing. You felt this was hypocritical of us not to hold Hitchens to the same standards that we would have held, for example, the Reverend Al Sharpton. The reason you were taking Hitchens to task was because you felt he was muddying the waters, though you would have been more than happy if he had genuinely been onto something i.e. if his challenge had been a legitimate one. Is this right?

Okay, I think I have the solution. Imagine a conversation between Hitchens and the Rev. Al Sharpton.

Hitchens: Reverend Sharpton. I have a challenge for you. Can you name an ethical statement or deed that could be performed by a believer and not by an atheist.

Sharpton: No, I can't, but then I've never claimed that and I would never claim that. That's a straw man you've just erected.

Hitchens: No reverend. Whether you have ever claimed it is neither here nor there. I never said that you had claimed it. My challenge is simply whether you can name such a statement or deed.

Sharpton: I told you already, no.

Hitchens: In that case you'll concede that a belief in god has nothing to do with morality?

Sharpton: On the contrary, it was god who gave us morality in the first place, the morality that atheists and the faithful alike abide by.

Hitchens: No, reverend, you must have misheard me. I didn't say that god has nothing to do with morality. I said a belief in god has nothing to do with morality. Do you concede that?

The reverend thinks for a while. He has two choices. If he answers 'No, I don't concede it', then Hitchens will repeat his challenge to name the ethical deed that only a believer etc. etc. So, he chooses 'Yes'.

Hitchens: Wonderful reverend! So we are in complete agreement that morality has nothing to do with a belief in god. We have at least some common ground! So, if you ever hear one of your congregation claim that they are more moral due to their faith, I can rely on you to put them right?

Sharpton: Er…I suppose so.

Hitchens has actually won some ground here because the spurious link between morality and a belief in god has been exposed. Your point about whether or not one of the people Hitchens has challenged has ever actually made the claim of unilateral morality turns out to be a red herring.

What do you think?

404. Christopher Hitchens at AAI 07

Comment #80230 by keith on October 20, 2007 at 10:16 pm

Pandemonium,
For the umpteenth fucking time. This thread is not about Iraq. Hitchens talks about religion, someone hears the name Hitchens, he then gets on his hobby horse about Iraq, I respond, I am told that I'm off topic. Please don't start.

The golden rule says do unto others as they would do unto you. Hitchens thinks the Islamists want to kill us. 9/11 was a manifestation of that desire. Therefore he is following the golden rule, not breaking it.
I would say that Hitchens is anti-Islamist rather than anti-Muslim. As long as what people believe doesn't affect him or other right-minded people, I think he is happy to let them believe what they like. This is sometimes true of Muslims but not true of Islamists and not true of Islam as a religion. As Sam Harris points out, it all depends how seriously you take your religion.
Hitchens is against antisemitism as I hope all of us are here, or do you want to wear the mantle of racist? Hitchens is very critical of the Zionists of Israel and he is a champion of the right of the Palestinians to their land. These people often happen to be Muslims.
Yes, the Americans could have taken out Saddam's plane. What about the pilot? What about Saddam's two equally ruthless sons waiting in the wings? What about any future politician that happened to fly to another country or through its air space? By your argument, the best thing to have done was for the American representative to sneak up behind Saddam at a UN Council meeting and slit his throat. Good idea?
Incidentally, it's not that I think the war was a great idea. I just feel obliged to put forward the other side of the story when someone wades in with the tired old sanctimonious "We shouldn't trust Hitchens because bla bla bla Iraq bla bla bla Neo-con bla bla". You don't have to trust him. Just agree or disagree with his arguments.

405. A question of belief

Comment #80172 by keith on October 20, 2007 at 11:45 am

LoneStarTravis,

San Antonio and the surrounding area have many, many Catholic atheists.

What's a Catholic atheist?

Does any city on the planet have more atheists than Austin? I doubt it.

I imagine you're kidding, right? If not, how about Tokyo? Osaka? Stockholm? Oslo? Another 20 immediately come to mind. Or did you mean planet America?

406. Christopher Hitchens at AAI 07

Comment #80170 by keith on October 20, 2007 at 11:35 am

Drichlin,

I think you're wrong on one thing. You say,

The theist reasoning is circular: if atheism were true there would be anarchy. But there is not anarchy, so god must exist. It just presupposes that morality can only come from god, not that nonbelievers cannot be moral.

If this were really how believers thought, they would have no qualms about voting for an atheist president now, after god has departed and left us all with his morality. However, they clearly feel that atheists can't be trusted.

407. Christopher Hitchens at AAI 07

Comment #80168 by keith on October 20, 2007 at 11:22 am

Veronique,

A great example of this was the email debate between Andrew Sullivan and Sam Harris...The reader (us) was persuaded by the arguments of both Sullivan and Harris to the extent that there was an engaging questioning and rational persuasion from both authors of this debate.

Veronique, I can't believe you thought Andrew Sullivan had any persuasive arguments or that he was rational! Like you, I found the debate incredibly entertaining, but I also thought Andrew Sullivan just talked drivel followed by some meta-drivel. His argument amounted to being pleased that god had made him gay because this had made him a stronger person. At no point did he question that it might not have been god who had done this. However, he did say that he didn't expect his 'arguments', which were purely subjective, would, or even should convince Sam. As Sam went on to say, he felt as though he had thrown a tennis ball up in the air ready to service, only to see that his opponent wasn't holding a racket! I thought Sam was at his best and Sullivan, though very articulate, didn't really have any arguments to speak of. I felt the intellectual mismatch between the two was really quite striking.

408. Christopher Hitchens at AAI 07

Comment #80163 by keith on October 20, 2007 at 10:15 am

Dr. Benway,

I think you're confusing the two uses of 'could'. It is used for both ability (I could do this if I tried) and probabilty (the Bears could win this year). You have changed Hitchens challenge from ability to probability.
I agree that the two answers given by Christians could constitute an answer to Hitchens' challenge since he didn't actually include the rider '...a moral act that isn't vacuous and ineffective'.

Windweaver,

While we're on the subject of love thy enemy (this should, I'm sure you'll agree, be 'pretend to love thy enemy'), someone once said that although PC is hard to pin down, you know when you're in its presence. When you hear both 'dehumanize' and 'other' in the same sentence, you can be pretty sure it's in the room. I was a little surprised that 'unhelpful' wasn't in there too. Yes, Hitchens called the mullahs vermin. It's a figure of speech. Technically they aren't vermin so he is dehumanizing them. And if he had called them scum, this would also not have been right because technically they aren't made of dirty, frothy non-human stuff. And if he had called them rotten devils, a fairly harmless term, technically this would also have been wrong because we have no reason to think they aren't healthy or that they are really devils i.e. not human. These are all figures of speech, and some are unpleasant ones, but Hitchens feels we are dealing with some unpleasant people. How bad would atrocities have to get before you would feel it was acceptable to use something less than the language of diplomacy? Never? Even as they were cutting off the head of some poor sod, would you never stoop to that hideous crime of 'name calling'? I have to say that the Hitchens's 'crime', when juxtaposed with those of the mullahs, looks decidedly innocuous.

Although I agree with you that it's best to keep as much decorum as you can, there surely comes a point when this borders on sanctimoniousness, a kind of self-aggrandizement as though one were trying to be Jesus himself, and rather than eliciting respect, it can easily become quite nauseating.

409. Christopher Hitchens at AAI 07

Comment #80092 by keith on October 19, 2007 at 11:31 pm

I hate to offer Riley a get-out clause now that he's been boxed into a corner. The bluster and bravado were quite comical: first rationalising, then saying that the belief itself is irrational, no, I don't think is true, I'm just reporting what Christians believe, no, I'm not claiming to speak for the consensus, no, just maybe, 85%, perhaps, I think it is, no, what gave you the idea that I'm a Christian, how could you jump to such a ridiculous conclusion bla bla.
He took the rather subtle, well-expressed points of 'breadbin' and beat them to a pulp with his sledgehammer answer to all questions: "Christians have never said they have a monopoly on moral acts", something he will continue to chant, even when we come up with a Christian who has claimed precisely that. Pat Robertson? Bah, he's not really a Christian. The pope? Ah, he isn't representative of the consensus. And there we are, back at square one.
Yet there is a loophole that he has so far failed to squeeze through, the one that lies between Hitchens' claim on the one side and Dr. Benway's 'Then you agree that we don't need god to do good'. The loophole exists in the difference between 'can' and 'do'. Your argument Riley, should be this:
Atheists can act as morally as believers but in general, they don't. This is why Hitchens' challenge is false but why we need god to do good.
Riley, you owe me one, though I think you'll claim that you would never for one moment claim that believers generally act more morally than atheists and no self-respecting Christian would ever say such a thing and find me one who has ever said this etc. etc., (exit stage left, riding hobby horse into sunset...)

410. Debate between Christopher Hitchens and Alister McGrath

Comment #80080 by keith on October 19, 2007 at 9:44 pm

Sinbad,

A mother who sacrifices herself for her child does a good and meaningful thing, but the end result has nothing to do with her happiness or her health.

You can't possibly mean this. A woman who dies while saving her child doesn't feel happy? Clearly, she would have felt happier had they both survived, but if her happiness had been just tied up with her own well-being she would have done nothing in the first place. Instead she would have been miserable thinking how she had let her child die without raising a finger. In what way was this not the option that made her happiest? Of course, we often can't foresee the eventual outcome of our actions. Maybe she calculated that she could also survive. But that's really neither here nor there.
To say that this has nothing to do with her health is bizarre. Dying has nothing to do with your health? Did she die or didn't she, in this scenario you have created? Perhaps all this situation shows is that health is subordinate to happiness, not that happiness is subordinate to 'good' (whatever that means).
Actually, the answers to the questions raised by this situation are so much at a tangent to 'happiness versus good' (as though the one had nothing to do with the other) that I suspect it wasn't a great example. However, perhaps your intention was not to make things clearer but, quite the opposite, make them murkier?
You say that you have brought logic to bear on your own Protestant beliefs. Would you mind just running through this logic for us? I honestly believe that it would help us atheists understand believers better if you could do this. Personally, that somebody might claim to "just feel" there is a god is something I find easy to comprehend. However, that someone came to god through logic, therefore not by purely subjective means but by a route we can all follow, interests me much more. I understand that this could take up a little of your time but I'm sure you see that the alternative i.e. just saying you used logic and then refusing to show us how, is not really convincing.

Finally, I laughed at your comment (I'm still not sure if it was intended to be funny):

I think Roe v. Wade is a bad decision on federalism grounds (apologies for the "US-centric" answer but I'm American).

Thus all Americans are US-centric? A much better admission would have been:

"apologies for the 'US-centric' answer but I'm too lazy to spell it out for a non-US readership".

411. Dan Dennett award and speech at AAI 07

Comment #79957 by keith on October 19, 2007 at 8:39 am

While listening to Julie Sweeney I couldn't help thinking of my West German friends' comments a year or so after the Berlin Wall came down, sometime around the moment when they realised that reunification wasn't going to be all milk and honey: "Can't we have our wall back?" they used to ask a little sheepishly. I must confess to feeling a little bit the same while listening to Ms. Sweeney. Couldn't we just take the non-annoying de-converts, rather in the way that Switzerland picks and chooses its immigrants?

412. Debate between Christopher Hitchens and Alister McGrath

Comment #79951 by keith on October 19, 2007 at 8:19 am

Bluejway,

I was thinking if Darwin had a Bulldog, God should have an Asshole. I was trying my hand at it

I can honestly say that I think you did a pretty good job, though perhaps not in precisely the way you intended.

413. Debate between Christopher Hitchens and Alister McGrath

Comment #79929 by keith on October 19, 2007 at 5:29 am

Bluejway,

DearFriends at LetsAdmireOurselvesAndOurAtheismWithRichardDawkinns.Net
I'm impressed with the responses to my pissed-off-act and flaming posts.

Ah, that's good. By the way, I liked the sarcastic way you addressed us. How did you think of that?

But I still think you guys are still way too impressed with yourselves.

Ah, that's bad. To some extent I can sympathise with you. It really must be quite annoying for you to have to read other points of view. We'll try and tone it down in future. Sorry.

First you've got the cheering squad, the Hitchens groupies

How do these differ from the people who think Hitchens was right on most, if not all, of his points in the debate?

and then you got the guys who comment on McGrath's style, his water, his grammar, but who did not hear a word he said.

Ah, now here you're wrong, my friend. At this site we can actually listen to an argument and laugh at mannerisms at the same time! I know, I couldn't believe it when I first saw it either.

To people in these too UNTHINKING GROUPS, let me suggest this rational game. Assume that McGrath is smart...

Phew! Thanks for those capitals. I nearly missed that bit! Well, I don't know about any other posters here but McGrath's smartness has never been in doubt with me. Are you perhaps confusing smartness with intellectual integrity?

assume that he might be able to make sense

Er, okay. Just a quick question: Will this sense include virgin births and carpenter re-births? Sorry, just curious. Go on.

then try to find a few places to back up your assumptions in his talk.

You'd have to admit that this is a fairly horrible sentence but I think I see what you mean.

If you can't do that then feel free to stay in your BIGOTRY. Be my guest. Remember it's a game. Try it.

Okay, thanks for the invitation and yep, I've remembered it's a game. Right, here goes...So, I just tried it and I find him smart and sometimes he made sense. I found the bit about his throat being dry particularly lucid. Now what happens?

414. Debate between Christopher Hitchens and Alister McGrath

Comment #79875 by keith on October 18, 2007 at 10:37 pm

Van Youngman,

You're right, I did totally miss the point. Whether this was due to my obtuseness or the ambiguity of what you wrote is unclear. After all, I can only comment on what you write; I can't crawl into your head and view what's in there.
In the past I have also posted comments that were meant to be (and I thought were) obvious piss-takes of someone else's position. However, if it was taken seriously I put it down to a failure in my writing, not to the other person's inability to read my mind.

415. Debate between Christopher Hitchens and Alister McGrath

Comment #79686 by keith on October 18, 2007 at 7:02 am

Van Youngman,

Scotland debate is no HaHaHa.....

This is one debate I would relish.

And thank you, Wee Flea. This is the first post of yours I absolutely agree with.

I have to say that this is a pretty stupid comment. Are you suggesting that the arguments for religion somehow get stronger once you go north of the border? Do you see it as being similar to a football team playing at home, where the home supporters intimidate the away team? Or perhaps you think you have a particularly strong debater up there in Scotland, someone the rest of the world hasn't heard of. If so, who is he/she?
If I were to claim that "Were Hitchens to come to Leicester we'd give him a run for his money", wouldn't you think I was some bumpkin with an overblown sense of loyalty to the place where he just happened to be born? If so, you'd be right.

I think the flea seriously underestimates McGrath and equally seriously overrates himself. I've read what both McGrath and David Robertson have to say about religion and atheism and although I can't stand McGrath's mannerisms and think he's profoundly wrong and has successfully managed to delude himself, at least I can understand him and his arguments do progress with a strange kind of internal logic. I can't say the same for the flea who really doesn't have the intellectual wherewithal to debate on this site, let alone criticise a much more coherent fellow-Christian debater.

416. The Atheists Interviews

Comment #79371 by keith on October 17, 2007 at 5:04 am

Mr. Darcy,

Unfortunately I'm not new, but I am an atheist. Good luck in seeing if these rookies can give us some information we don't already know.

I'm not absolutely convinced that the idea of the interviews is to "give us some information we don't already know". I think the main appeal will be the emotional lives of others and their intellectual journey to atheism rather than groundbreaking research. To expect some new information from this would be like sitting down to watch an Ibsen play and remarking, "Let's see if this can tell me something I don't already know about Norway".

417. Debate between Christopher Hitchens and Alister McGrath

Comment #79317 by keith on October 16, 2007 at 10:32 pm

Steve,
"I don't want to encourage people to be good :) I am only after effective techniques for attacking religion and irrationality".

Really? Why can't we attack his ideas by using effective techniques and make childish observations about his annoying manner? Are the two really mutually exclusive? I would agree with you if we were attacking something over which he had no control, like having a wooden leg or being devastatingly ugly. However, all of us have some control over our mannerisms and they are to a certain extent chosen. Could Hitler really not help straightening his arm into a nazi salute? Can we not, like Charlie Chaplin, make fun of Hitler's ridiculous frothing-mouthed, rabid delivery while also dealing with his unpleasant ideas?

418. Patience, fairness and the human condition

Comment #78670 by keith on October 14, 2007 at 8:09 am

What a good article, though I can't help wondering if there are other reasons why identical twins might act more fairly towards each other than fraternal twins, reasons other than purely genetic ones. Couldn't simply looking the same make it easier to empathise with that person?
I think articles like these should be regularly interspersed between the ones about arch bishops and Dawkins-bashers, just to give everyone's (i.e. mine) blood pressure a chance to settle down. While reading it I found myself wondering why I spend so much time (through choice!) reading about soppy people who can't help being soppy. If my reading did either the believers in god or myself some good I could understand why I do it, but it does neither and I end up asking myself, just who is the stupid one here?

419. Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams criticizes popular atheist writers

Comment #78611 by keith on October 13, 2007 at 7:54 pm

Wow Jack, you sound a little angry..

420. Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams criticizes popular atheist writers

Comment #78610 by keith on October 13, 2007 at 7:51 pm

Teratornis,
Very good comments. At first I was confused as to why you hadn't used the argument espoused by Ben Hope (a disbelief in fairies) and Richard Dawkins (the moustaches of Hitler and Stalin) as factors in explaining away the mass murders of atheists. But you are right, in the minds of the faithful these don't have the power to transform bad men into good, as does a belief in god. However, it does seem unfair that we atheists should have to claim 20th century mass murderers as our own. Do you have a way out of this? I suppose just say that their actions weren't motivated by their atheism, unlike jihadis.
If you're interested in music, I recommend Where you're eyes don't go by 'They Might Be Giants', a song about the Hide-Behind.

421. Anthropologist finds cultural emphasis on group over individual might hinder democracy

Comment #78491 by keith on October 13, 2007 at 8:33 am

Yes, Jeepyjay,
The UK is a monarchy and many things are located in the capital, something that is true of most countries.
What class would you say you belong to and who do you vote for? My guess, from the little you have said, is that you vote Labour, though you might well not be working class. I suspect most university students vote Labour though we're often told that very few students come from working class families. I generally vote for the Greens. What class would you call them and which class do I belong to? (This is, of course, one and the same question in your eyes).
By the way, do you think for yourself? Your in an awkward position here after claiming that British people don't. You can either take the arrogant route and claim that you are one of the thinking few, (incidentally, in the same way that most people think they have a good sense of humour, most people are also pretty sure they think for themselves. So if you're analysis of the British is correct and they generally don't think for themselves, then the statistical chances of you being one of the undeluded few who actually do, is small). My guess is that you'll say that you, like most others, don't think for yourself. You'll say this not because you believe it, but because such an admission is easier than confessing to arrogance.

422. How China Got Religion

Comment #78437 by keith on October 12, 2007 at 9:53 pm

BAEOZ,
I'm sure your post was right and that your words were correct. They just seem to be in the wrong order.

423. Sam Harris seems like a nice fellow, but very confused

Comment #78205 by keith on October 12, 2007 at 6:12 am

IanG,

"Schism seems to me to be the social equivalent of a form of speciation. As we know, the end result of that is that we end up eating one another, which, as Peter Singer observes, is not without significant practical and moral consequences".

Ian, do you mind unpacking this little gem for me? Or let me have a bash. Schism is a kind of speciation. I'll buy that. The inevitable end result of speciation is that we eat each other i.e. other species. Okay, some species eat other species and some don't and whether you can conclude from this that speciation leads to us eating each other is a moot point. After all, we don't eat gorrilas yet the speciation event we share with them was relatively recent. Anyway, let's say that speciation leads to species eating each other. Okay, schism is like speciation so schismatics will eat each other. Really? Well, Martin Luther didn't try to eat the pope. So no, not really, just metaphorically. So if 'eating' is just a metaphor, what is it a metaphor for? And if it's not really about eating, where does Peter Singer come into all this? Why not choose A.C. Grayling?
Through all the talk of Occam's Razor and pattern-recognition, I think I heard you saying that debate and variety are good as long as they don't lead to schism. So, we can easily accommodate the different shades of beliefs and approaches of Dawkins, Dennett and Ditchens and in this way appeal to more people, a kind of horses for courses approach though, as a movement, we shouldn't let these differences tear us asunder. Thus, we should learn from the history of the Labour Party that living with our differences is better than letting them drive us into schisms where we might get eaten (as happens in speciation as Peter Singer warned us it would etc. etc.) Incidentally, I promise not to draw any conclusions about your political orientation from your mention of the Labour Party, though why you think anyone might, or why this would bother you, is a mystery to me.
I agree with you about it being best if we can steer a course between the Scylla (if you can do it, why shouldn't I?)...between the Scylla of a restrictive no deviation from the party line approach and the Charibdis of unbridled debate leading to schism. However, this is a little like saying that you neither want to die of boredom nor be ripped to shreds by a tiger. It's sort of obvious. The more interesting question and the one pertinent to this thread, is who is right, Sam or PZ?
It seems to me that the argument between them hinges on whether you believe Sam was advocating this new approach just for himself or for all atheists. His idea seems quite a reasonable one and well worth trying - for him and whoever else wants to give it a go. However, if he was advocating it as the way forward for all atheists then I'm not so sure.
You appeared to have taken Sam's side in this and felt he had been misrepresented. At the same time you were advocating a broad church i.e. various approaches. This can only mean that you don't think that Sam was suggesting we all try to go under the radar and that he was only giving a rationale for his own future actions, not stating a blanket plan of action. Though this could well be the case, he certainly seemed to use 'we' a lot and he did criticise the ineffectiveness of the up-front atheist approach. I was wondering how you squared this with your broad church, or does up-front atheism not fit under its roof?
Finally, I'm always amazed at how many opportunities some 'amateur atheists', or 'people-who-use-reason-and-evidence-on-the-specific-topic-of-religion' seem to have for expressing their views in public. You say,

"I have moved from calling myself an atheist to saying I am a secular humanist and Sam's arguments incline me now to eschew the lazy temptation of these one or two word definitions".

That Sam or any of the other almost 'professional' atheists should give so much thought to how they refer to themselves doesn't surprise me. However, in my own daily life I almost never have cause to label myself as anything since down at the meat counter in the supermarket the subject rarely arises. The fact that you are now in the process of changing your label for a third time means either that you belong to some kind of evangelical atheist group where it's important to get the product name right, or that you are a monomaniac, someone who brings up the subject of religion even as England are about to score the winning goal in the World Cup final. I must confess, the thought of you sitting down and telling people that you no longer want to be referred to either as an atheist or a secular humanist but instead as nothing is not an iota less funny than the moment Prince walked into rehearsals and told his band that from now on he wanted to be known as The Artist Formerly Known As Prince. I can't help thinking there must have been a few glances and chuckles when he later went out the back for a piss.
And finally finally, I have to ask (and this is of course the reason for this invective), where did you develop such a style? You write,

"And have you never fallen? Do we have no compassion or understanding whatsoever for those who succumb to that temptation sometimes?"

This sentence is an absolute cracker! You must admit that you'd have to be pretty humourless to read this and not laugh out loud.

Bye for now,

Keith

424. Sam Harris seems like a nice fellow, but very confused

Comment #77941 by keith on October 11, 2007 at 7:33 am

wednesdayguevara,
Sorry, my comment must have seemed a bit odd. It was just that I was pretty sure that your post to IanG was a piss-take. Perhaps it was just wishful thinking on my part.
I'm convinced that Ian must be Jesus come back from the dead, this time in the guise of an atheist. His tone was so measured and weighty, there was such a panoramic sweep to his analysis of the human condition, his words showed such understanding and tolerance for all, it was almost as if he could see the whole of human history, and our future, spread out before him. Still, with such wisdom invariably comes deep sadness so he is not to be envied, poor chap.

425. Sam Harris seems like a nice fellow, but very confused

Comment #77927 by keith on October 11, 2007 at 6:17 am

Wednesdayguevara,

Naughty, naughty.

426. The Price of Freedom

Comment #77407 by keith on October 9, 2007 at 8:10 am

Jimbob,
Please give us a clue as to what an answer to your question about the Middle East might look like.

427. The Price of Freedom

Comment #77384 by keith on October 9, 2007 at 7:19 am

Aragon,
It isn't that your criticism of Hitchens was 'inconvenient'. It was just bloody annoying. Every time Hitchens' name is mentioned someone on this site starts his comment with "Although I agree with Hitchens on bla bla bla, I really can't understand bla bla bla" which often means he hasn't tried to understand or bothered to read why Hitchens holds these views. The poster generally feels he's on safe ground uttering these platitudes because hey, after all, we're all against the war here and we all think Bush is stupid, right?
Then one of us (usually me but also 'neestle' this time) points out that 1) This thread is not about Iraq 2) We have been over this time and time again 3) No, you didn't agree with the invasion and Hitchens did and if you read his reasons you might still not agree with him but you'd see that another view is actually possible, and you might not be left standing scratching your head with cartoon question marks coming out of your cranium.
Just let me give you one or two pointers why Hitchens might have supported the invasion. Whereas some people like to depict this decision as being either for war or for peace (just read the peace marchers' banners), others have depicted it as war on the one hand versus continued torture of the Iraqi population; deafness to Iraqi exiles and Iraqis within the country asking for any kind of intervention; the continuation of sanctions leading to millions of deaths, especially children (if the peace marchers, on their peace-marching days off, are to be believed. Please note that if you're against sanctions too then you have no more tools with which to influence the behaviour of dictators); Saddam continuing to try to obtain nuclear weapons off the shelf (now proven); Saddam continuing not to cooperate with the weapons inspectors and noting that there are no repercussions to this from the UN and presumably drawing his own conclusions from this fact (as would the rest of the (Islamic) world); Saddam continuing to support terrorism; almost certain take over on Saddam's death by one of his two sons with no real end in sight for this oppressive regime; the idea that perhaps the coalition could achieve what it had done in northern Iraq ten years earlier, which is now a well-functioning state.

Of course, it all went horribly wrong because the US did it all wrong and Hitchens' motives weren't necessarily those of Bush, but whether this means the whole thing was bound to fail from the start is another matter. I know some people like to claim certainty on this point and that's their privilege. However, I'm not so sure. If the coalition could have got the majority of Iraqis on its side by sorting out the infrastructure and creating jobs, the story might have been quite different.
The thing to remember is that inaction also has its consequences and although you might have had a clear conscience opposing the war, you would at the same time have been responsible for keeping a steady flow of Iraqis going through Saddam's torture chambers. In retrospect, this seems a very small trade off for the catastrophic mess that Iraq now finds itself in, but it was a trade off all the same. Four years ago, would you have spent sleepless nights worrying about some poor forgotten sod rotting in an Iraqi jail because you had opted to keep him there? I suspect not. Out of sight, out of mind, eh? "I just voted for peace".

428. The Problem with Atheism

Comment #76939 by keith on October 7, 2007 at 10:15 pm

J.J. Ramsey,
You are right. In my mind I had translated Sam's advocacy of 'reason' and 'evidence' into labels rather than things we use. I'm pleased you pointed this out, though I'm not sure that this changes the point I was making, which was to make a distinction between 'changing/refusing a label' and 'going under the radar'. To my mind we achieve the latter by doing the former, but I'm happy to concede that they might be identical.
Just as an aside, what, precisely, does 'ahem' mean? A polite clearing of the throat when someone is being a bit obtuse? And while we're at it (everybody), what does 'IMO' mean? (I'm just sufficiently internet-savvy to understand - and detest - the use of 'lol'. It reminds me of the people who, after telling a joke, insist on informing you that they have just told a joke). And who is Margaret Downey? And does anyone else find the word 'unhelpful' just a little bit irritating?

Jack (Rawlinson),
Re Sam Harris's idea of ditching the term 'atheist' you say:
"I realise you were trying to be Mr. Disingenuous-Devil's-Advocate here"
Really? I'm convinced that Sam meant every word. PZ Myers seemed to suggest the same thing as you and I was equally surprised. Why do you think Sam wasn't totally serious?

Macropus,
I agree. You have put it in a (singularly large) nutshell. The only part that I disagree with is the bullying. Less than being bullied into changing tack, I think Sam's been frustrated into trying something, anything, new by his lack of success in winning over the faithful.

429. The Problem with Atheism

Comment #76524 by keith on October 6, 2007 at 4:41 am

Michael,
Thanks a lot for the information. They were exactly the kind of answers I wanted. I'll check out the two websites you suggest. And yes, it is Reggie Perrin on my avatar. Leonard Rossiter is a hero of mine, especially in the guise of Reggie. Best comic actor I've ever seen.

Richard,
Very handsome of you. I'm not sure about being a nice guy but I'll take my compliments any way they come. Even so, I hope your judgment wasn't based on my posting to 'Downunder'. If so it was misplaced. The truth is that I could barely understand him. Atheism doesn't require a euphemism? What does that mean? Does he mean it doesn't require speech marks? Or perhaps that it isn't a euphemism for something else. Then he continues that 'it requires dropping' altogether. Maybe he means that it 'should be dropped'. 'Require' is usually followed by the infinitive, not a gerund. It was around that point that I decided that I didn't want to be taught about word usage by Downunder.

430. The Problem with Atheism

Comment #76445 by keith on October 5, 2007 at 10:55 pm

Downunder,
Thank you for your wise words. You have certainly made me think again about my use of the word 'atheist'. I'll make a mental note to watch out for your future posts.
Bye for now,
Keith

431. The Problem with Atheism

Comment #76428 by keith on October 5, 2007 at 8:11 pm

Richard Morgan,

Precisely who misunderstood who is open to question. I'll try and spell things out for you. You write:
'It sounds like you have no idea what "going under the radar" is used for. It has certainly NEVER been used just for the purpose of "winning a few arguments."'
That's right Richard. I was referring to Sam's approach of changing our name from atheists to something less negative and less focused specifically on religion, not his description of how he'd go about implementing it.
I wrote:
"I bet Sam could quite happily have strangled him had he been within arm's length".
You wrote:
"This crass (albeit well-intentioned) remark reveals more about your personality than Sam's. Do you really believe that Sam, for one second, harboured hopes of changing anybody's ideas or opinions?"
You might be surprised to hear that this comment wasn't intended to say anything about Sam's personality. I imagined that he might feel a little exasperated at having expended so much mental energy for such little reward. You may remember that Andrew Sullivan's final words in the exchange were,
"You may wonder why my faith endures. My answer is: because it is true and because, now especially, it must".

I would have found this annoying after bringing forth such strong arguments against such beliefs. But no, I didn't really think Sam actually wanted to kill Andrew Sullivan. You were perhaps being too literal-minded.
To tell you the truth, I really have no idea exactly what Sam expected from the exchange. He must have hoped for something or he wouldn't have taken it on. In his final posting to Andrew Sullivan Sam wrote:
"I think, however, that our stalemate conceals some important asymmetries. For instance, I feel that you should have been convinced by my side of the argument".
So, perhaps he did hope for something, after all. However, even if he had hoped for nothing as you claim, I don't see any contradiction between hoping for little and being exasperated. And if you think that sentence of mine about strangling was crass my delicate Welsh flower, wait till I really get going.
I wrote:
"However, simply being happy with not changing the world for the worse seems to be aiming pretty low".
You wrote:
"Have you read Sam's books? Does Sam ever write, speak or act like someone who is happy with not changing the world for the worse?"
Yes, I have read both his books and I was referring to meditation, not to Sam or his writing. Just like the faith heads we're up against, you seem to have a job keeping certain ideas apart. Let's move on. I wrote:
"Still, it's more than possible that I've misunderstood what is actually involved".
You wrote:
"At last you say something accurate and verifiable. Though the silly, mocking pseudo-questions that follow this (welcome) admission of ignorance confirm what we all know : being an atheist doesn't necessarily make a person intelligent".
Actually, my questions weren't 'mocking pseudo-questions' but were tongue-in-cheek questions. This was because some subjects sound slightly ridiculous, too pretentious, when spoken of with too much gravitas. I'm sorry if you thought this too flippant a way of dealing with it. Even so, I have no idea why these questions suggest to you that I'm unintelligent. Please enlighten me. While your doing so, could you give us some more details of your interesting life in France and your past in Wales? Anything will be okay; relatives, French usage, fleeting thoughts, what you had for breakfast, that kind of thing. The main thing is that it's about you, because, of course, we find you just as fascinating as you appear to find yourself.

432. The Problem with Atheism

Comment #76265 by keith on October 5, 2007 at 9:25 am

Sam's advocacy of a change of epithet sounds very much like the idea of a man sick of banging his head against the same old wall. I sometimes marvel at the fact that the words "Jesus Christ, for the umpteenth fucking time..." haven't passed either his or Richard Dawkins' lips; at least not on camera.
I suspect the negative overtones of any word which basically means 'non-believer' will follow it around like a bad smell for precisely the same reason that the word for 'homosexual' seems fated to change at regular intervals. As Steven Pinker has pointed out, this is a sure sign that many people are simply not happy with the phenomenon itself: basically, a turd by any other name would smell as revolting.
Sam's idea of 'going under the radar' sounds like a recipe for making us more invisible than we are now and thus easier to ignore, though we really might win a few more arguments with Sam's approach. However, I'm not sure how much good this does us. Even when we do win arguments, the other side just never seems to notice. Look at the way Sam absolutely trounced Andrew Sullivan in their debate. His points were brilliantly made in his most spectacular prose but Sullivan's last posting showed that it had all been for nothing, despite all the polite assurances from both sides that it had been 'enjoyable' and 'worthwhile'. Yeah, right. I bet Sam could quite happily have strangled him had he been within arm's length.
Re the meditation bit, I can't help agreeing with Dan Dennett when he wrote that the best thing you can say about people who spend all their days meditating is that they don't get up to any mischief. However, simply being happy with not changing the world for the worse seems to be aiming pretty low. Still, it's more than possible that I've misunderstood what is actually involved. I have various questions to those in the know:
1. Can you do as Sam suggests and still hold down a day job?
2. Can you just do it part time or is it full-time only?
3. The constant inner commentary that, if you're successful at meditation, you manage to stifle during the day. What happens to it at night?
4. Does it represent some kind of primal consciousness? If so, why is it so hard to attain? Has culture so mishaped us? If it's not in some way natural, is it just a clever trick, analogous to holding you breath and making yourself go dizzy? That is, something amusing for a few minutes on your ninth birthday but not something you'd want to do all day, every day for the rest of your life?
Please direct me to a website where it is all made clear.
Lastly Richard Morgan, I have to say that I have a certain amount of sympathy with your ex-wife.

433. 1996 Richard Dimbleby Lecture

Comment #74105 by keith on September 27, 2007 at 8:39 am

Wow, some real romance on this site! I was waiting for a Cyrano de Bergerac-like riposte from Yorker to Teratornis's nuanced attack but instead got Phil Mitchell.

434. 1996 Richard Dimbleby Lecture

Comment #74098 by keith on September 27, 2007 at 8:19 am

Just out of interest, why was it so nice to see Douglas Adams? Did you know him?
Maybe what you meant was, "I recognised Douglas Adams in the audience".

435. 1996 Richard Dimbleby Lecture

Comment #73094 by keith on September 24, 2007 at 5:24 am

I agree with 'dancingthemantaray' about programs specifically for Atheists. As I once heard Mark Lawson say when asked about equal time on the BBC for all sections of the public, "What are you going to have for atheists after 'Songs of Praise'? 30 minutes of people chanting "God is dead"?
And re the comment about there being no programs for the gay community, neither are there programs for heterosexuals. This is because there are no programs about sex. If there were, I'm sure the gay community would have every right to insist on a proportionate share of the sex programming (around 5% if current estimates are to be believed).

436. Interview with Christopher Hitchens

Comment #70556 by keith on September 16, 2007 at 3:23 am

Dae,
I have to say that it was a very good reply and it sounds like you're very sensible. The truth is that we all see that things have gone horribly wrong in Iraq and it must be very tempting for all those who were against the invasion to say 'I told you so' and as long as they had some alternative plan in mind when they marched on the centres of major cities (just leaving things as they were does not count as a plan in my book), then perhaps you, and they, have every right to gloat. It certainly appears so in retrospect.
However, there are one or two points that I'd like to make. One is that however the Saddam regime was overthrown the results weren't going to look pretty. As we saw in Yugoslavia in the early 1990s and also in India in 1947, any kind of large-scale changes cause havoc.
Secondly, whatever motives Bush might have had, these weren't necessarily identical with those of Hitchens and it seemed possible to improve the lot of the Iraqis whether Bush was doing it for the right or wrong reasons.
You say that "Our support of the Mujahideen in Afghanistan against the Soviets was a mistake of historic proportions". Back in 1980 the west's biggest enemy was communism and the US would have backed almost anyone who was against it. This made (and makes) sense, for the same reason that the west was right, 40 years earlier, to ally themselves with Stalin's Russia against the Nazis, who were then the biggest threat to western democracy. I hope you wouldn't say that the west was wrong to do this just because a few years later the ally then themselves became the biggest enemy. All these decisions have to be seen in the context of their time.
You say that "history has proved that only the people themselves can shake off their oppression". If this is true, the main reason is that other people couldn't give a shit what was happening beyond their borders and any uprising had to come of necessity from within. However, one positive change in our thinking today is that we do feel responsible for the fate of others and to stand idly by while they painfully try to free themselves isn't necessarily always the best choice. While waiting for the people of Iraq to rise up of their own accord, how many decades would have had to go by and how many people would have been tortured and killed in the meantime? You might be right in replying, "Not nearly as many as are being killed right now" and maybe you'd be right. I find it difficult to say without going back to 2003 and re-running history, this time letting the UN decide what to do.
Apart from this, I'm not sure that the Muslims of Bosnia would agree with you about change having to come from within without any outseide help. Chances are that had the US not stepped in when it did in the Bosnian War, there wouldn't be any Muslims left in Bosnia.
On your dislike of Harris and Hitchens' criticism of Islam, I don't see why we can't try to get rid of the trouble-making Imams and at the same time try to convince the majority of Muslims, a la Hitchens and Harris, that their beliefs are silly and potentially dangerous. Why do we have to chose the one and abandon the other. Why not both?

437. Interview with Christopher Hitchens

Comment #70487 by keith on September 15, 2007 at 5:38 pm

Dae,
Hitchen's and Harris' attack is on Islam, not on individual Muslims. I think they are aware that many Muslims don't subscribe to the same set of beliefs as the Jihadis, or at least not to the same degree. However, unless these moderate Muslims come forward and become a bit more vocal, perhaps we are entitled to worry about just how many of them actually support attacks like 9/11 or 7/7 or would like to introduce sharia law to the UK. Certain surveys seem to suggest that the ones who do support these things are by no means a negligible monority. Perhaps you have information to the contrary.
It's very noble of you to come out in the defence or the 'real' Muslims and protect them from criticism, but your assurances would only help me sleep more soundly if you could offer some kind of evidence that they are as meak and mild as followers of Anglicanism have become.
Incidentally, I think what Hitchens was supporting was the invasion of Iraq, not 'a joint British-American destruction' thereof. He is critical of how things have been run since the invasion.
I may be wrong, but you seem to be claiming that it is only the British and Americans that are destroying Iraq right now and that the Sunni and Shiites who kill each other have little to do with this state of affairs. Is that right? And are these people also Islamic moderates, the real Muslims, who are misrepresented by both Hitchens and Harris out of sheer spite?
You may be right that being in favour of the invasion of Iraq precludes anyone from claiming to be a Humanist. My own point of view would be that being in favour of the continued torture and suppression of the Iraqi people, the continued tolerance of a dictator who it has been proved was trying to procure nuclear weapons, the continuance of sanctions that were apparently responsible for the deaths of millions of Iraqi children, basically, the state of affairs that you would probably call 'peace', doesn't give you much more right to call yourself a Humanist.

438. The smallest signs of retreat

Comment #69445 by keith on September 11, 2007 at 9:16 am

Why didn't The Guardian just get the Pope to write this article? We might even have got a more balanced view.
I realise that none of us comes to a subject totally unbiased, but surely there must be limits. I can imagine that even the religious reader got a little bored with such one-way traffic. Where was the sentence beginning 'But on the other hand...'?
If the Guardian is going to accept reviews like this, then let's go the whole hog and ask O.J. Simpson's mum to decide if was really innocent, or make Yoko Ono the judge of who was the best Beatle?

439. The smallest signs of retreat

Comment #69434 by keith on September 11, 2007 at 8:47 am

Well, had I known it was that easy to become a Guardian Book Reviewer I would have dusted off my 'O' level English certificate, packed in my day job as a postman and applied. After all, I can play the 'Protector of the Weak and Stupid' as well as the next man (or woman). And just think how good I'd feel about myself!

440. Review of Richard Dawkins' new book 'The Fascism Delusion'

Comment #69368 by keith on September 11, 2007 at 2:24 am

JJ Ramsey,
Are you saying that analogies have to have equivalences in every detail? If someone said that eyes were 'windows onto the world', would you object because eyes don't have PVC frames, metal locks and there is no eye equivalent to double-glazing? I can't help thinking you are being a bit too literal-minded here...and I can't help thinking that you know it.

441. Bible Belter

Comment #68267 by keith on September 6, 2007 at 3:07 pm

yes but Hitchens supported the Iraq war and he always wears the same beige suit and he drinks all the time and he's never explained why if atheism is so great why Stalin killed all those people in goulags and he can't find any evidence that there isn't a God so he should find out about a subject before he criticises it because if he wasn't so arrogant and learned more he would know there is a God which has been proven by lots of people even scientists who have let Him into there lifes and he divorced once and where does morality come from if there's no god that's what I'd like to know and he's never answered that one because he can't and he was rude about Jerry Falwell which isn't a nice thing to do if you're dead how would he like it.

442. Teresa, Bright and Dark

Comment #66491 by keith on August 30, 2007 at 5:57 am

Richard Morgan,

The fact that I can't see Hitchens' "and, if it matters, I concur" as a cheap verbal trick could indeed be due to my being a bit dense or it could equally be due to it not being a cheap verbal trick at all. I find it a completely normal thing to say.

I have to add that I find it hilarious that you think Hitchens in some way anticipated this digression on RD.net and this is why he included those six words. You say:

"Does anybody believe that the Hitch himself would be surprised by this "topic drift"?...
No? Me neither. But if not, why not?
...He knew what he was doing when he "threw in" those six words. As a professional, he wants to get people talking, and preferably, talking about him".

Until you wrote that then I thought you were just being a little pedantic. After reading that, I realise you must be completely mad. Have you recently read a book on text analysis and are trying to put it into practice, no matter how hard you have to force it? The truth is that the cheapest verbal trick was your:

"Does anyone believe...? No, me neither".

The suggestion being that you have the whole force of the contributors to this website behind you which, in reality, is probably far from being the case. Physician, heal thyself. Anyway, you continue:

"And yes, I'm a little sad that we have allowed ourselves to get side-tracked by six bracketed words, which most readers will henceforth remember more vividly than the main points of the article".

Firstly, I find it really touching that you're such a sensitive soul and are made sad by a digression on the internet. You must have led a fairly trouble-free existence if something so petty makes you sad. Secondly, of course the reason that I have spent so much time talkng about those six words is because you drew my attention to them, not because Hitchens was determined to get me talking about HIM HIM HIM. And just to indulge in a little homespun psychology, have you ever noticed how mean people see meanness everywhere they look? Without wanting to make this into a general rule, is it possible that in this case you see Hitchens as an attention-seeker because there is something of the same in you?

By the way, getting in before others and admitting to being 'horribly pompous and supercilious' doesn't make you any less so.

443. Teresa, Bright and Dark

Comment #66456 by keith on August 30, 2007 at 3:19 am

Richard Morgan,

I don't really understand your objection to Hitchens' remark

"(and, if it matters, I concur)".

All he's saying is that his opinion on the matter is neither here nor there. What is relevant is what Catholics think.

Incidentally, Richard Dawkins used pretty much the same language in an analagous situation a couple of weeks ago. When being interviewed by Richard Madely and the ridiculous Judy Finnegan, he was asked what his opinion was on whether or not the supernatural existed. His answer was really quite clever. He said, "What my opinion
is is not really important. What the evidence says is what matters" (paraphrase).

The truth is that what Hitchens' views on abortion are were not really relevant in that context. He just threw it in to show that on one issue his views surpisingly coincide with Catholic views. Don't forget that he didn't write the article for this site and not everybody in the world is one of 'his readers'. I just don't see the 'cheap verbal trick' you are accusing him of here. Although I wouldn't describe you as petty, I would say that this particular criticism is.

444. Teresa, Bright and Dark

Comment #66449 by keith on August 30, 2007 at 2:51 am

I think Icculus got it about right: Hitchens thinks abortion is horrible but I'm sure he would support the right of all women to have one since it sometimes represents the best of all the bad options.

Bonzai, if you are right in your interpretation, then Hitchens' sentence,

"Every Catholic is supposed to regard abortion as an abomination (and, if it matters, I concur)"

can only be described (as he himself would say) as a trainwreck of a sentence. And I think he would rather be accused of mass murder than writing a bad sentence, so I'm not sure you're doing him any favours here.

LeeLeeOne. Youwrite:

"What Hitchens is TEACHING all of us is to think FOR OURSELVES in this entire article! Can anyone else see this?!"

No matter how dramatically you plead for insight from us, I don't believe that Hitchens is trying to teach us anything. He is simply writing an article about Mother Teresa. You sound disturbingly like one of Brian's followers in 'The Life Of Brian' and I think Hitchens would see the idea of himself as a teacher as farcical.

Fucking hell! Why does someone always have to bring up Iraq when they talk about Hitchens? Please look into his reasons for supporting the invasion. You might find there is more than just oil and weapons of mass destruction that weren't there. Incidentally, his reasons are not necessarily the same as Bush's, but they are the same as those of other intelligent writers and journalists who supported the invasion, British writers like Ian McEwan, Nick Cohen, David Aaronovitch and Johann Hari (initially). These writers are not stupid, they are not cynical, they don't love all things American and they don't hate the Iraqi people. Even if none of this changes your mind, at least you might see that the situation was not as black and white as you suspect and you might not feel it necessary to voice your perplexity every time Hitchens' name is mentioned on whatever topic arises.

445. BBC Trust rejects Opus Dei appeal

Comment #66136 by keith on August 29, 2007 at 2:28 am

I used to give private English classes to a family of Opus Dei members in Spain and there was nothing creepy about them at all. They were a lovely family with well-behaved kids and intelligent, friendly grandparents who used to invite me to play table tennis with them and swim in their back garden pool while I was waiting for my student (the mum) to turn up. In the year I taught her, religion was never once mentioned and I saw no evidence of it in their daily lives.
Although I find all religious belief backward, the vision of caped and hooded weirdos who meet secretly at midnight in spooky places bore no relation to this family. I suspect they were just 'born into' it, the situation that explains 95% of all religious belief.

446. Fallen Pastor Seeks Aid to Pursue Studies

Comment #65963 by keith on August 27, 2007 at 3:32 pm

Dr Benway,

$100 + $75 = $175

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

Comment #65889 by keith on August 27, 2007 at 9:01 am

Corylus,
You're right, it is no fun to be talked down to. I think I'm so out of touch with American English that I no longer know what passes for normal language and what is insulting to women. In such cases I see what the response from women themselves is. If they're not upset, why should I be?
Decades ago there was a small tendency of some men to muscle into the feminist movement, in some cases 'out-Heroding Herod'. Although there was nothing really wrong with that, surely the whole point of the movement was for women to take more control by themselves.
The point that I was making was that there is a thin line between showing solidarity for certain groups and shouting, "Look at ME! I stick up for the downtrodden of the world". I have to say that I sometimes wonder if Scott Atran, in his stance on the motivations of Muslim terrorists, isn't a little guilty of this. However, I believe you that you were genuinely annoyed by the word 'chick' and I'm sorry for suggesting otherwise. And if you're a woman, please forget I ever opened my mouth!

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

Comment #65833 by keith on August 27, 2007 at 2:10 am

Zarcus,
I am aware that Michael Shermer has spent a lot of his time debunking bunk. I'm actually in the middle of 'The Borderlands of Science' and I like both him and his writing.
However, his article about accentuating the positives of science rather than the negatives of religion, in my view, wasn't one of the highpoints in his writing career. Despite what you might like to believe, there was no knee-jerk reaction involved. Perhaps what you really meant is that I disagree with you?
Rather like the people who claimed that Salman Rushdie shouldn't have been knighted because it would inflame Muslims, thereby allowing Muslims to dictate who we can honour and who we can't, it seems to me that Shermer's (and your own) view is that we should first assess whether or not we are likely to upset the religious and only then decide whether to say what we want to say. By being overly-sensitive, they are able to dictate what we can and cannot say and Shermer and you do their policing for them. They must be laughing up their sleeves. On this view, truth takes a backseat and sensitivity trumps all. There are times and places when the truth perhaps shouldn't be held above all else, (e.g. it's not necessary to tell your best friend that his girlfriend is ugly, even if she is) but I'm not convinced this is one of them. These are public ideas in the public sphere. If the religious are so averse to alternative views, maybe they should keep their own private.
You and I could talk about the best strategy for trying to win over the faithful, but I don't really get your accusation of a more direct approach being a 'circling the wagons'. Around who? Around what? Once again, I will take this to mean that you simply disagree.
Janus called Michael Shermer an appeaser and I agree with him.
You write:
"To claim Michael Shermer is an appeaser, is another way of saying he is offering an apologia for religion, or faith based claims to knowledge. This is the most common rebuttal to skepticism and concern voiced toward the 'confrontational' approach. The fact is, nothing could be further from the truth".
Why did you find it necessary to change the charge of being an appeaser to that of writing an apologia? From this change you go on to complicate things unneccesarily. The charge is 'appeaser', perhaps best to leave it at that.
You continue:
"If in fact, Sam, Richard, and Christopher all respond the way in which others have here, it may be the best thing to happen for the 'confrontational' approach to forwarding Atheism. Perhaps we may see a call for a "gasping outrage" and call for a "united front" against Michael's piece".
I'm not even sure that I understand what your point is as the sentence is a bit convoluted but I think you're saying that if we are going to be so direct about our views, why not start becoming really confrontational? Is that your point? Perhaps just being direct is fine. We are reasonable people. No need to pretend that we're frothing at the mouth yet.
I'm not sure where the vitriol is that you see in Sam Harris's writing. He always seems quite polite and controlled to me. Maybe you have simply bought into the idea that we must tiptoe around ideas of faith?
Finally, it seemed to me that Shermer was accusing Dawkins, Harris and Dennett of trying to silence views of faith, almost of wanting to ban them. This was something that I found really disappointing in a writer that I like. How many times does it have to be said that to offer a contrary opinion to faith is not a call for it to be silenced. These writers are simply putting forward an alternative view. Is the faith of some people so rickety that it has to be defended from exposure to other ideas? And defended by those who hold the alternative views! I'm not sure which is more repellent to me personally, the egg-shell egos of the faithful or Michael Shermer's lofty protection of them.
Maybe the bottom line is that if Dawkins et al keep blasting away (my weapon of choice) and Shermer keeps on with his softly softly approach and the glories of science (your weapon of choice), we might get to where we want to be.

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

Comment #65798 by keith on August 26, 2007 at 5:59 pm

Even if Dawkins and Harris do concentrate on the essential silliness of religious beliefs at the expense of positively extolling the virtues of science, I'm not sure why everyone seems so dead set against this. I actually don't think they do neglect the postive but even if they did, it's not as if their is a dearth of science books on the market to explain the wonders of science. It sounds to me like Michael Shermer, for whatever reason, wants to turn Richard Dawkins into John Gribbin. Maybe always having to be positive is an American thing, in the same way that it's not enough to be active, today you have to be 'pro-active' (presumably this means being really really really active).
Rather than inventing some apparition of your own, sometimes you have to tell your delusional friend that you simply don't see the invisible giant man that he claims to see.
I can imagine a conversation between two people:

A: Hey, see that giant bearded man in the long flowing robes standing over by the wall?
B: Er..no.
A: So, what do you see?
B: Nothing. Just...wall.
A: Wow, that's so negative.

What is B supposed to do, invent his own apparition? This would be more positive but what would be the point?

Re the sexist language claim, why do I often get the idea that the person who objects is often less disturbed by the dodgy language than desirous to show how right-on they are? To British ears, 'chick' (and 'right-on') smacks so much of the 1960s that it almost has comedy value, in the same way as 'groovy' might. And while we're on the subject, who invents phrasal verbs like 'to creep/weird someone out'? Why do I always think of US tv shows with fashion-conscious college girls when I hear them?

450. Interview with Richard Dawkins

Comment #63510 by keith on August 14, 2007 at 3:52 pm

Graham,
You wrote: "I find the element of unrespectful attacks on darwin2 somewhat disturbing".
I can only say that you're very easily disturbed. I'm sure many of the posters were tempted to be a lot ruder than they actually were (I certainly was) and I think they kept themselves in check pretty well.
If you wish to play the all-understanding and thus all-forgiving figure, that's fine, but you shouldn't expect the same from everyone. We can't all attain such Jesus-like perfection.
You wrote in relation to Darwin2, 'There but for the grace of god go I'. I'm not sure which is more insulting to him, our response, which treats him as an equal but wrong-headed individual, or your rather patronising view of him as just another billiard ball to be hit around by fate, without him having any active part in his views.
In the same way that understanding the rise of Fascism in 1930's Germany in no way excuses it, so understanding that poor old Darwin2 is only a deluded sap because of his environment in no way excuses his idiocy.
Hope this hasn't upset you too much.