Thank You, Richard Dawkins
Sean at 2:46 am, February 14th, 2007A few years ago, as a newbie assistant professor, I was visited in my office by an editor at The Free Press. He was basically trolling the corridors, looking for people who had interesting ideas for popular-science books. I said that I liked the idea of writing a book, but I didn’t really want to do a straight-up cosmology tome. I had a better idea: I could write a book explaining how, when you really think about things scientifically, you come to realize that God doesn’t exist. I even had a spiffy title picked out — God Remains Dead: Reason, Religion, and the Pointless Universe. It’s not any old book that manages to reference both Steven Weinberg and Friedrich Nietzsche right there on the cover. Box office, baby.
The editor was actually intrigued by the idea, and he took it back to his bosses. Ultimately, however, they decided not to offer me a contract, and I went on to write another book with more equations. (Now on sale at Amazon!)
All of which is to say: I totally could have been in on the ground floor of all this atheism chic. These days, between Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, Sam Harris, and Victor Stenger, you can’t swing a cat without hitting a prominent publicly-outspoken atheist of one form or another. That could have been me, I tell you.
These guys have gotten a lot of attention — especially Dawkins, who was recently voted Person of the Year by at least one reputable organization. Of course, some of the attention has been negative, especially from folks who are unsympathetic to the notion of a harsh, materialistic, godless universe. But even among self-professed atheists and agnostics (not to mention your wishy-washy liberal religionists), some discomfort has been expressed over the tone of Dawkins’s approach. People have been known to call him arrogant. Even if you don’t believe in God, so the argument goes, it can be a bad strategy to be upfront and in-your-face in public about one’s atheism. People are very committed to their religious beliefs, and telling them that science proves them wrong will lead them away from science, not way from God. And if you must be a die-hard materialist, at least be polite about it and respect others’ beliefs — to be obnoxious and insulting is simply counterproductive. Apart from any deep issues of what we actually should believe, this is a separate matter of how we could best persuade others to agree with us.
I’m sympathetic to the argument that atheists shouldn’t be obnoxious and insulting; in fact, I think it’s a good strategy in all sorts of situations. You catch more flies with honey than with vinegar, etc. But it does not follow that we should keep quiet about comforting illusions because those are the only things standing between the poor dears and overwhelming existential anxiety. If people ask whether, as scientists, we believe in God, we should respect them enough to tell the truth — whatever we think that is. That doesn’t mean we have to go door-to-door spreading the good word of the laws of nature. It just means that we should be honest about what we actually think, giving the best arguments we have for whatever that may be, and let people decide for themselves what to believe.
Arrogant or not, as a matter of fact Dawkins and company have done a great service to the cause of atheism: they have significantly shifted the Overton Window. That’s the notion, borrowed from public-policy debates, of the spectrum of “acceptable opinion” on an issue. At any given time, on any particular question, the public discourse will implicitly deem certain positions to be respectable and worthy of civilized debate, and other positions to be crazy and laughable. The crucial part of this idea is that the window can be shifted by vigorous advocacy of positions on one extreme. And that’s just what Dawkins has done.
In other words, by being arrogant and uncompromising in his atheism, Dawkins has done a tremendous amount to make the very concept of atheism a respectable part of the public debate, even if you find him personally obnoxious. Evidence: a few years ago, major newsmagazines (prompted in part by the efforts of the Templeton Foundation) were running cover stories with titles like Science Finds God (Newsweek, July 20, 1998). Pure moonshine, of course — come down where you will on the whole God debate, it remains pretty clear that science hasn’t found Him. But, within the range of acceptable public discourse, both science and God were considered to be undeniably good things — it wasn’t a stretch to put them together. 
Nowadays, in contrast, we find cover stories with titles like God vs. Science (Time, Nov 13, 2006). You never would have seen such a story just a few years ago.
This is a huge step forward. Keep in mind, the typical American thinks of atheists as fundamentally untrustworthy people. A major network like CNN will think nothing of hosting a roundtable discussion on atheism and not asking any atheists to participate. But, unlike a short while ago, they will eventually be shamed into admitting that was a mistake, and make up for it by inviting some atheists to defend their ideas. Baby steps. Professional news anchors may still seem a little befuddled at the notion that a clean, articulate person may not believe in God. But at least that notion is getting a decent public hearing. Once people actually hear what atheists have to say, perhaps they will get the idea that one need not be an amoral baby-killer just because one doesn’t believe in God.
For that, Richard Dawkins, thank you.
Hello from (mostly) secular Britain, where you can hardly have a chat show without Richard Dawkins..
… There is a strange puzzle here. If I did not know that the USA existed, the secular nature of the UK and most of Europe would seem natural. Obviously - one would think - as material comfort, political freedom, and understanding of nature increase, then fear, ignorance, and superstition gradually erode and people’s minds are liberated. But for a hundred years the USA has been the leader in comfort, freedom, and science …. People don’t need to think deep and decide religion is evil etc etc. I just don’t understand, why, as they sit watching TV after plenty of dinner, watching a Nature documentary, having just come back from voting, they don’t just find God .. well .. unnecessary ???
I don’t know if it’s just me, but I don’t find Dawkins’ manner arrogant at all. In fact the first time I heard his name mentioned that was included in the mention, as if it was the most important thing about him. So I clicked on the video link (can’t remember what it was, now) and waited for the arrogance. I couldn’t see it. He doesn’t seem arrogant to me.
Is it only religious people who find him arrogant? Is it what he says rather than how he says it? Or… could it be the accent rather than the manner? Maybe people are intimidated by the accent.
But I suspect that if his message was a religious one, religious people would be applauding him and would be terribly upset at anybody who called him ‘arrogant.’
Generally, almost any preacher sounds more arrogant to me than Dawkins does. He doesn’t claim to know everything. Religious people insist that they know the mind of god, without any evidence at all, and moreover insist that you should believe them when they say that they ‘know’ something on the basis of faith. (Or on the basis of the Bible, since they believe it was divinely inspired. Same thing - there no evidence for either except what people say.) There is nothing humble about that.
Dawkins strikes me as somebody who really wants to help people.
The United States is obviously quite heterogeneous. But one large constituency is of people who go to church every Sunday (7AM during football season), actually drink Budweiser, and choose what college to attend by their success in sports.
When your whole life is about belonging to and status in a community, nothing scares the piss out of you like the notion that it’s all meaningless and ephemeral. So there’s this myth of the “world’s greatest nation” born by the grace of God in the 18th century, founded upon the goodness of “freedom” granted by God to man, and you better damn stand up during the national anthem.
My impression is that Europe, though secular and loosely federal, has this same theme drawn along national/ethnic borders. Many impoverished countries get a double-whammy of ethnocentrism and religiosity.
I have to admit now to having more than occasionally referred to Richard Dawkins as arrogant, so I feel as if i ought to defend my views, even if I may have slightly different reasons.
The reason I dislike Dawkins is not because he is so outspoken in his beliefs, after all, there are many far more outspoken proponents among religious circles. What I dislike is that he always represents this dichotomy between science and religion which is simply non-existant. Granted, one can not be a “true” scientist whilst also being a young earth creationist, but science cannot and will not “disprove god” in the widest terms.
There are many notable scientists, both past and present, who have been able to reconcile their work with their religious beliefs and I disagree with Dawkins that confronting people with this “choice” between science and religion is a useful or appropriate method.
I’m an atheist, I believe a rational view of the world leads one there. I will fight to utter boredom (but not further) the insane kinds of religion (creationism, but also just general insanity of comfort religion) that I see around me (that is, the UK).
So would several religious people I know. Jesuits, and the like.
What I want to say is that there are forms of religiosity which are (almost or mostly) rational and which do deserve our respect.
My problem with Dawkins is that his attack is a blancket attack on religion instead of on irrationality.
And thereby he positions himself in opposition to those who, while rational, consider themself religious.
You are saying, it’s good to have somebody this extreme in the public discourse, there’s plenty of the other extreme, well true, we still need to make clear when we disagree though.
Beyond that there is a more fundamental issue. To quote Nietzsche:
“Suppose we want truth. Why should we not prefer untruth? And ignorance? Ignorance of the self?”
“For us, the falsity of a judgment is no objection to that judgment—that’s where our new way of speaking sounds perhaps most strange. The question is the extent to which it makes demands on life, sustains life, maintains the species—perhaps even creates species.”
- Beyond Good and Evil 1 On the Prejudices of Philosophers
Inmore amicable language, what if humans are such that a certain level of comfort illusion is essential to our well being? On what ground then do we mandate truth over our humanity?
In that case mandating truth would become irrational.
I have always wondered, what has something being true (or false) has to do with believing in it?
i.e. The action of believing in a statement to be true and well, the statement being true seem independent of each other. Why should anyone believe a statement to be true, when it is true?
Because it is?
I ask this questions independent of the necessity of human beings for the comfort illusion.
“Arrogant” is the wrong word to describe Dawkins. Rather, I would call him “uncompromising”. This has the added benefit of being a more neutral adjective.
Sourav, I like your explanation for the religiosity of the US vs Europe. It may well be true.
There are at least three positions one may take. To be specific, I’ll use Christianity.
1. Christianity is true.
2. Christianity is false.
3. Christianity is a human tradition (or bundle of them) and asking whether they are true or false is a category mistake - like asking whether wearing trousers or wearing kilts is true or false.
That it is proper to talk about the truth/falsity of Christianity is a claim made by Christianity. Dawkins (and Sean and Mark and all) concede that claim and decide on the side of falsity. In this, they are less atheistic than they might be - they at least concede the claim of Christians that their doctrine is true/false.
A more thorough going atheism would hop off the platform of religion, and remind them they are making a category mistake when they talk of true/false.
To me Dawkins is annoying because he is perpetuating the most fundamental claim of religion, namely, to be true/false. (God, angels, heaven, hell, etc. are secondary claims.) It is especially annoying because a study of human cultures will reveal that plenty of them realized the category mistake. Why can’t Dawkins realize that?
What I find “arrogant” about Dawkins’ atheism, and what I’ve criticized him for, is not that he’s outspoken — I’m actually glad that atheists now have visible spokespeople in America — but that Dawkins’ atheism is essentially sound-bite atheism. His CNN interview could have been given by a 15 year old, with his “why don’t you believe in Thor” argument. I suppose that’s how you sell books, and get on TV shows, but I find the philosophical and, quite frankly, scientific (as in the science of religion, culture, and learning, for example) naivete incredibly annoying, and I’d much rather atheists not end up giving arguments and speaking at a level indistinguishable from that of fundamentalist Christians. By the way, Harris is much worse, in this regard, than Dawkins, because in addition to the bad arguments and ignorance, Harris is simply immune to facts (about who commits suicide bombings, and why, e.g.).
Sean, I think your book would’ve been better.
Bundles of tradition or comfort illusions that have attempted to stifle scientific inquiry throughout the ages and continue to do so today deserve to be challenged, and I am glad that Dawkins does so vigorously. In order to be shown arrogant, he will first have to be shown to be wrong.
(He was in fact in error recently in regard to a petition he endorsed, and humbly acknowledged it.)
“Why don’t you believe in God?/Why don’t you believe in Thor?” Not a bad answer for a five-minute interview in which long answers will be edited to simple sound-bites, and considering the audience. Trying to engage Paula Zahn in a philosophical inquiry on CNN would be like trying to teach an elephant to waltz.
I find statements about scientifically disproving existence of God almost as disturbing as “intelligent design” stuff.
Religion and science are two things that are (or rather might be) absolutely disjoint. One is a matter of reasoning, discovery, etc and another is matter of personal choice of what to believe in.
Accordingly, by the very definition of faith and science I find statement “(…) when you really think about things scientifically, you come to realize that God doesn’t exist” to be quite “unscientific”.
So if it were to be demonstrated that prayer to one particular deity worked consistently - regrowing amputated limbs, moving mountains, whatever - while prayer to all other deities resulted in immediate death of the…prayee? prayerer?…by lightning strike, what would you conclude?
Of course, there’s always Clarke’s third law. But there we run the risk of retreating to the position that God and science are orthogonal only for some sufficiently rarefied God that almost no one actually gives a damn about.
Perfection is always inside of reality, and every road which can be traversed is inside of reality. Every attributes which one could be tempted to tack back apart from reality can always be said within reality. There is no need of finding external causes which would justify the internal order of the universe. So, the subtitution of epistemic knowledge with religious belief, similar to abandoning the road when one hardly has just crossed the first turning, should be considered a symptom of insanity.
This, however is not an argument against religion, but merely a way of properly recognizing its own domain. The proper domain of religion is unattackable by rational arguments, and few positivist critics of religions like Dawkins or Russell ever bother to approach it. They attack mostly the preceding symptoms, in order to exorcise its effects as in a theraputical ritual, which is useful only for who is already suffering of said epistemological illness.
The domain of religion is the one where one does not intend any more to talk about such or such road and to find their qualities, structures, or causes. The language switches necessarily in the metaphorical, to symbolize the fact that one is located outside of facts and attempting to refer to what is unexplainable. The religious experience is the expression of the conscience of an irreducible ignorance, i.e. it appears by the sudden consideration of reality as a point of an iceberg, where the submerged part, to which we are linked (re-ligo), is much more than a still unknown or inaccessible reality: it is not reality and cannot be thought by nobody and by nothing. It is more than unknown, as it is completely senseless to even consider to know it or to think it, or to list its attributes.
In that, deep understanding of reality by science does not alter the religious domain (which proceeds from an irreducible feeling of ignorance and is set apart from any epistemic knowledge), but can help to become aware of an “epistemic boundaryâ€. The religious experience can occur from epistemic facts (eg. by seeing a lighting or considering the order of the stars, etc), but that is just a translation, a metaphor, which shall never contradict epistemic knowledge. Thus the dogma could never be opposed to experimental truth.
As a summary, if the religious domain can occur improperly as a manifestation of ignorance, it properly relates to ignorance of what is not a road which could be traversed by science or experiment, so that it occurs properly as the experience of a fundamental tension between speakable and unspeakable.
Excellent post Sean. I’m telling everyone I know to read it, especially the appeasers.
Rob Beagrie writes,
The key word here is “reconcile.” Religious scientists have to work hard at rationalizing their religious beliefs with their science. There’s a very good reason why they find this so difficult.
You mean…gibberish?
Rob and sirix: I have basically the same position as you do, but think about the Overton Window. Our opinion was the very limit of what was publicly acceptable for an atheist to say (I’m not saying you are atheists). Sean’s position (which I don’t agree with) was out of bounds, while any pro-religious comment was in bounds. That clearly is an unjust situation. While I don’t agree with Dawkins, he’s as entitled to be on TV as the one million TV preachers that each have their own channel on my cable package.
As far as I know, the only viable way to be an amoral baby killer is to be religious. I’ll say this loud and clear, the most corrupted people I’ve known are, at the same time, the most religious. (The converse, however, is not true.)
Larry,
Most scientists I know who are religious — almost exclusively Christian and Jewish — have not found reconciling science, including their own practice of it (and some of them are quite successful as scientists), with their religion. Perhaps they’re missing the good reasons that you, Dawkins, and perhaps Sean believe make this necessarily difficult, but as I’ve yet to see such reasons explicitly discussed, I’m going to remain skeptical about their existence.
To say more, as far as I can tell, Dawkins and others make four points about the difficulty in reconciling science and religion. First, science is evidence-based, while religion is not. Some, including Dawkins claim that science is reason-based and religion is not, but this is empirically false (the rationalist tradition of which Dawkins is certainly a part began as a religious one!). It is true that science is evidence-based, and at least at its core, religion is not. But this has been recognized for centuries by the religious, and they’ve had no trouble arguing (successfully or unsuccessfully, depending on your starting premises) that this is not a problem for religion. Some (say, Kierkegaard) have even argued that this makes religion more important.
The second is that science makes religion unnecessary. If you can explain the origins of the universe in general, and life (including human life) scientifically, the old myths about how these things came to be become superfluous at best. This is true, of course, if you are religious specifically because you believe the creation stories of your religion are literally true. However, I think most religious scientists (and perhaps most religious people in general, even if they believe that the creation stories of their religions are literally true) are religious for other reasons. In fact, most religious people I know, scientists or not, treat the creation stories of their religions as non-literal. They have no problem reconciling naturalistic explanations of the origin of the natural universe and life with their religion (e.g., there are always why questions that science is unequipped to answer).
The third is a version of the second. It says that science directly contradicts religious teachings. Again, this is only true if you accept literal interpretations of a few passages of scripture, and since I doubt most religious science do, this is not a problem.
The fourth is one that I’ve only seen Dawkins use recently, but which I’ve heard for years from others (in fact, it’s one of the more prominent atheistic, scientistic arguments of the 20th century). It says science works, while religion and metaphysics in general do not. In one sense, this is true. Science has been spectacularly successful at explaining the natural world, leading to the production of increasingly sophisticated technology. Religion and metaphysics were never going to do that, and I think every religious scientist is completely aware of that. Setting aside the philosophical, moral, and social problems that go hand in hand with this sort of pragmatic argument for the truth of science, and for the elimination of religion and metaphysics, the argument only extends so far. Since the purpose of religion has never been to produce better technologies, and since its purposes go beyond the mere explanation of the natural world in formal, mathematical terms, this argument has little impact on the status of religious beliefs. In fact, it leaves huge openings for religion, because religion has always been, and continues to have pragmatic uses that science doesn’t and will never have. Of course, pragmatic arguments for religion also have philosophical, moral, and social problems, but that’s why very few people (with the exception of some anti-positivists in the middle of the 20th century) have used pragmatic arguments to justify religion.
So again, I’m skeptical about the existence of any reason to believe that the reconciliation of science and religion, in a person’s personal beliefs, is all that difficult. Perhaps you can spell them out for me, Larry.
“I had a better idea: I could write a book explaining how, when you really think about things scientifically, you come to realize that God doesn’t exist. ”
Uh oh. I still haven’t come to that conclusion, even after thinking about science and God for many years! I’m so scared! What’s wrong with me?!
I’m somewhat sympathetic to Chris’s “soundbite atheism” criticism of Dawkins. (And it’s a great phrase, although I’m hopeful that “atheism chic” will catch on.) And I’ve tried to be much more careful myself, e.g. here and here.
But my specific point here was, regardless of one’s view of Dawkins’s level of philosophical sophistication, at the rhetorical level he has scored a great success, by moving atheism into (or at least toward) the realm of acceptable public discourse. Contrary to worries that his tone was offputting and would actually make atheists look bad, I think the net effect has been positive.
I also agree with the notion that its not religion as a construct that’s hindering us, it’s irrationality calling itself religion and getting away with it. I grew up religious (liberally so) and my dad’s worked in interfaith contexts all his life - doing really good work for the poor, hungry, and sick worldwide. Religion ins’t that bad if its talking about hope and human dignity and equality and sacrifice for good… it’s when it starts making specious claims about the world and unjust demands and “ethics” based on its own personal (and most often ridiculous) science.
Science and religion aren’t the same. They can co-mingle and exist together, but one of them has got to give a little… and its got to be religion, cause science has standards, not just stories.
Check out Dawkin’s on Point of Inquiry (http://www.pointofinquiry.org/), a podcast on which he often speaks.
Great point, and it applies more generally, it is the same mechanism that makes John McCain, say, suddenly a moderate. Two cheers then to Noam Chomsky, Ralph Nader and friends…
Sean, with your last point (about the rhetorical victory), I agree 100%. However, now that the victory has been achieved, I think it’s time for more thoughtful atheists to take the microphone. That’s the only way we can have a lasting impact on society, beyond pissing Christians off and fueling their irrational persecution complex. I only wish I knew of some who had Dawkins’ verbal skill.
Dawkins is very good at expressing his point of view. I find his manner somewhat irritating, but that is perhaps just me.
However, I don’t really understand why people with particular religious beliefs (including atheism) would want to express them without being asked, or to convert people to their way of thinking. I have never really understoood missionary zeal of any sort. Religious beliefs (including the belief that all religious beliefs are wrong) seem to me to better situated on the inside. Like intestines, in that regard.
To be clear, I don’t care if people want to spread their Truth, I just don’t understand why they’d want to. Most of the time, I am not sure that it makes a great deal of difference if they do or not, either.
I also don’t understand the brotherhood of ‘team atheist’ in the Great Mission To Convert The Deluded. It seems to me that people delude themselves because they prefer it that way. They’ll find something else to delude themselves about and I don’t see any particular reason to assume that the next delusion will be any less ‘harmful’* than the last one.
*I say ‘harmful’ because I assume that the reason for all the zeal is based on the (entirely defensible) belief that religious beliefs, on average, do more harm than good.
Chris, Dawkins’ verbal skill is to a very large extent what you object to above, namely his ability to simplify complex issues to sound bites that get broadcast by CNN. Sure, you can be all thoughtful and try to do justice to the complexity of nuances. But that means you just won’t make an impact with the general public.
And to all the people who accuse Dawkins of oversimplifying and making unwarranted generalisations I would say: Read his latest book! (Because you obviously haven’t.) In The God Delusion he makes a convincing argument why the above criticism does not apply to his thinking.
That’s the issue, really: On TV you should use sound bites if you want to be effective. In a book you command a longer span of time, and you can effectively address the complexity of the issue.
“However, now that the victory has been achieved,”
A blog comment recently pointed out that there’s nothing new about the New Atheism. Voltaire, Democritus, the Carvaka — atheism is older than Christianity, but the battle’s continued. And polite, deferential, atheism was the US norm for the past few decades; where did it get us?
“I have never really understoood missionary zeal of any sort. ”
Then you don’t understand the beliefs. Missionary Christians genuinely believe they’re saving souls from ETERNAL TORMENT. It’s the same impulse that drives Medicine Sans Frontiers, but where beliefs cause suffering instead of intestinal worms. While missionary atheists see religious people attacking evolution, stem cell research, birth control, gay rights, women’s rights, and abortion rights, and thus need to counterattack. “Live and let live” doesn’t work when the other side won’t *let* you live, which it won’t because *it* believes its saving you from Hell. Or saving the souls of little unborn babies.
The media attention being given recently to articulate atheists (pick your term: free-thinkers, proponents of philosophical naturalism, rationalists, brights (ugh), etc.)–like Dawkins, Sam Harris, William Dennett (sp?)–prompted me to create a specific list of links relevant to the topic on both my personal blogand Religious Right Watch.
And it just keeps going. One night this week there was a segment on a CNN show called, I think, “Out of the Box,” that was a story about the discrimination faced by a particular family in the U.S. because they happened to be atheists. Discriminating against someone for being an atheist….To me, it makes as much since as discriminating against someone for being left-handed (or for preferring same-sex sex, or for having skin that’s darker than the average in the county, or for having narrow shoulders or small feet….)
“3. Christianity is a human tradition (or bundle of them) and asking whether they are true or false is a category mistake - like asking whether wearing trousers or wearing kilts is true or false.”
Bull. Christian traditions make clear claims about historical fact in a way which wearing kilts doesn’t. There was or was not a man called Jesus 2000 years ago who was at the root of Christianity. If he existed, he was or was not crucified. If he was, he did or did not get up again three days later. If he was crucified, there was or was not an eclipse and earthquake at the time. If he existed, he was or was not born in Bethlehem. When you die, you will or will not experience an afterlife. The Pope in 2007 is considering the sainthood of recently dead people, and whether or not miracles actually occurred in association with them. Etc.
There is no category mistake here; these are statements with well-defined, if not well-determinable, truth values, as quite a lot of religious people will tell you.
And as Dawkins wrote in The God Delusion, Non-Overlapping Magisteria would completely crumble if science ever found evidence *supporting* Christian claims. “Your methods of evidence don’t apply to us” is a defense against the absence of evidence.
Damien, well put. Indeed, I think one of the reasons Christianity both attracts and repels people (as a religion) is because it makes far more specific historical claims than, say, Taoism or Buddhism. Buddhism isn’t really undercut by whether or not Gautama lived. But if they unearth a skeleton in the cave which is supposed to have been Jesus’s tomb, and it dates to the time of his death…then Christianity is pretty much toast.
[...] Dawkins and the noble atheist cause: I don’t have any particularly strong feelings about this either way. I’m more interested in why people care enough to get into it than what they do when they’re in it. Sean Carrol, for my money, is a better atheist missionary than Dawkins, any day, in large part because he doesn’t come across like a smug self-adoring egomaniac. [...]
“I have never really understoood missionary zeal of any sort. â€
Regardless of whether or not you meant to imply that all missionary zeal is the same (and you may not have been implying such), I think it may be useful to nonetheless point out that differences exist, of course. The zeal of a Richard Dawkins or of what I call a “placard-carrying” atheist (more than a metaphorically “card-carrying” type but not a public spokesman whose atheism is a large part of his or her persona or profession) is based on evidence, at least of a sort, and not theology.
Those who proselytize (such as many evangelical Christians) or at least approve of proselytizing (such as evangelical Christians, by definition), cite the pending eternal damnation of the souls of the un-converted (or in the case of some Muslims, the impurity or evil of non-believers) as the reason for their missionary zeal (or in rare instances even homicidal zeal). Their reasoning, albeit ultimately circular, is sound within the scope of their worldview that does not give physical evidence and scientific research as much weight when defining ultimate reality.)
Those who have missionary zeal, as it were, for countering such a worldview (i.e., a worldview in which religious faith trumps what the scientific process usually recognizes as evidence), cite studies or (less convincingly, I think) cite moments in world history to bolster their argument that religious-based thinking on balance does humanity and the individual more harm than good.
The zeal of either type of person–one the religious and the other the philosophical materialist–might be considered distasteful by some. Perhaps by most. Yet, if no one ever had such zeal, some (many?) things most of us now deplore, such as slavery or even smoking, might be with us still. Improvements in things such as human rights and public health have in many instances throughout history not have not occurred without zealous advocates and activists.
Based on the above argument, I believe one should be more inclined to genuinely thank Dawkins than not to do so.
I know that the zealous religious missionaries believe that they are saving souls (including their own) but I don’t see where it fits with freedom of choice (also essential for salvation). It’s hardly a ‘we’ll show you what we believe, if you want to listen, then you decide’ approach that many people take. However, what I really meant to indicate is that I can’t find, in me, the enthusiasm for proselytizing about anything where, really, free choice is the thing. That would include spreading religious salvation or atheism, which are both only worth a damn if chosen freely; the biggest difference between the zealous missionaries (atheist or religious) and door-to-door vacuum cleaner salesmen is the claimed longevity of the product.
On the other hand, missionaries who see their role as just explaining why they believe what they believe, that’s all cool. They are just engaging in a version of my favourite past-time, the pub conversation. Before I moved somewhere 3 miles from the nearest pub where the pubs don’t smell right because they banned smoking in them. Praise Gore for his internerd, I say.
I also don’t understand the brotherhood of ‘team atheist’ in the Great Mission To Convert The Deluded.
I see two motivations. First, we want everyone to be happy, and their beliefs which are ‘comforting’ are also sources of guilt, shame, hatred, violence, etc. If they would move to more ‘rational’ beliefs, maybe they would be happier.
The second motivation is self-defense. There are people who try to use the power of government (enforced at gunpoint) to make you behave in accordance with religious beliefs that they cannot convince you to adopt willingly. We need government and other social and cultural leaders to acknowledge that ‘doubt’ about religious claims is legitimate, in order to preserve freedom.
“I can’t find, in me, the enthusiasm for proselytizing about anything where, really, free choice is the thing.”
Okay. That makes sense. I can’t really find such enthusiasm in me, either. But I wonder if human societies would be better or worse if everyone lacked the zeal to proselytize about anything, and was phlegmatic with respect to proselytizing. (I suppose the phlegmatic answer to that would be, “Societies would be neither better nor worse. Probably.”)
these are statements with well-defined, if not well-determinable, truth values
But it would be foolish to think that these would be sufficient to establish the truth or falsity of the religion. As foolish as thinking some statement in Genesis establishes the falsity of science. Extrapolation of one’s finite knowledge to the infinite becomes arrogant when one stopping looking at the the unknown and one closes one’s eyes to possibility.
Sean said:
“… the spectrum of “acceptable opinion” … can be shifted by vigorous advocacy of positions on one extreme. And that’s just what Dawkins has done. …”.
Joseph Goebbles said:
“If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. …”.
Perhaps Spinoza-Pantheists (see the web entry for pantheism in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy), one example being Einstein, might not be happy with Dawkins/Goebbels extremism.
Tony Smith
ronan #36: I think that if you set yourself the task of making people happy by stripping away their ‘false beliefs’, you are at best doomed to disappointment.
I can understand the self-defense motive, certainly in the case of Americans. It doesn’t apply to Dawkins, I don’t think, because he lives in a country where even most religious people aren’t that religious. However, I personally think that the self-defense is best achieved by individual examples of atheists being decent people, rather than trying to convince religious people to become atheists. I think that for various reasons, not least my aforementioned lack of enthusiasm for proselytizing. I also think that trying to effectively grab people from another ‘flock’ is exactly the sort of thing that tends to create conflicts; some may thing that is no bad thing, but I myself am not sure that now is the time to pick that fight.
At the government level, it seems to me that atheism, as a religious belief itself (in the sense that it’s a belief about the identity of God, to wit, there isn’t one), should be protected as any other religious belief is. Obviously, in this country, it’s not working quite like that because of politics. Changing that is, itself, a political effort. Good luck!
Tony, you just compared Richard Dawkins to Joseph Goebbels? Seriously?
[...] 14 Feb 2007 Atheist link of the Day Posted by fungrim under Atheism Here. Very good. Thank you Mr Carrol. [...]
[...] For writing this very engaging post on why you are not Richard Dawkins. (or not rich like Richard Dawkins?) Arrogant or not, as a matter of fact Dawkins and company have done a great service to the cause of atheism: they have significantly shifted the Overton Window. That’s the notion, borrowed from public-policy debates, of the spectrum of “acceptable opinion†on an issue. [...]
I have never understood the position that atheism is a scientific stance. Isn’t claiming to prove a negative the essence of logical fallacy? It seems to me that - in the absence of gnosis - agnosticism is the only scientifically valid position. Please remember that Occam’s Razor is not a valid basis for rigorous proof.
AFAIK, Buddhism (certain subsets thereof) is the only religion that claims to be able to produce, repeatably, “religious” or spiritual experiences by following a certain set of stringently defined steps, i.e. an experiment. But even in this case, the results are internal and subjective - enlightenment as opposed to miracles - and so not subject to peer review of the sort that we generally require.
Either:
1) repeatable, incontrivertible miracles have occured, perhaps proving God’s existence; or
2) God and religion are neither proven nor disproven, allowing one to either choose religion or atheism based on preference, or agnosticism based on logical rigor; or
3) someone has come up with a way to prove the nonexistence of God, in which case atheism is proven correct.
I think we’re still at #2.
I haven’t read Dawkin’s latest rant^H^H^H^Hbook, but if he has performed an experiment by which he has rigorously proven that all forms of religious experience are invalid, it has somehow escaped the attention of his media tempest.
It seems to me that atheists in general are as guilty of jumping to logically invalid conclusions that suit one’s personality or pre-established worldviews as any adherent of the milder, more temperate forms of religion. I’m sure some will take offense to that, though none is intended.
ooh, a timely link:
http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/02/14/healthscience/snsagan.php
“Carl Sagan, posthumously, rejoins debate on faith vs. science”
I read Dawkin’s `Blind Watchmaker’ and was very impressed by his arguments. The arguments I think were clear and rational, if only you open your mind. Calling him arrogant is just an ad hominem response…
adam, we had Tony Blair start faith-based schooling in the UK, and the BBC has reported that some of them teach creationism. Another faith-based school used books in which Jews were compared to monkeys and Christians to pigs. So even here there is a need for people to continue to bring light into the darkness.
Refs:creationism in schoolreligious intolerance
tyler, atheism does not assert faith that God does not exist. It holds that the evidence for a god is extremely thin, and such a being is therefore extremely unlikely. Just like Russell’s teapot.
One day I will grow tired of repeating these arguments over and over again. One day…
Those who are taking exception to Dawkins on the grounds that God cannot be disproved by science might be interested to know that he himself acknowlegdes that. He simply points out that toothfairies cannot be disproved, either. Maybe they should read his book before attacking his presumed premise. It was thought-provoking even for this life-long atheist.
PK, I myself taught at a church school in the UK and science there was taught exactly as you would expect, the same way as at the non-church schools at which I taught. Publically funded schools (like the one at which I taught) are bound by national curriculum and other legislation. If they aren’t publically, I don’t think that there’s anything that the government can do in mild cases, and in more extreme cases that you spoke about there may, in fact, be hate speech legislation.
The creationism at Emmanuel was taught in RE; there’s no problem with that, it’s a religious belief. It would be a problem if it was taught in science, but it isn’t. State-funded religious schools won’t go away in the UK because of the deal that was made between the Churches and the government, where the government took over a large part of the financing and the running of those schools.
The Islamic school is a different issue, because it’s private. If that’s the sort of problem, though, Dawkins is hardly the answer. It’s not an atheism vs religion issue, it’s a legal and moral issue, and that’s a game that atheists and believers can play.
Additionally, we can’t make a statement about probability of God’s existence based on evidence. We can just say that there’s no evidence for God’s existence and we could presumably rule out certain ‘models for God’, although not the ‘omnipotent, omniscient God’ model because that guy can do whatever he likes and we won’t know any better unless He wants us to. Occam’s razor can be applied, of course, but that’s just a rule about economy of effort. The question of God’s existence, it seems to me, isn’t a scientific question unless the believers choose to phrase it as one (and, no surprise, if they do that, they’ll lose the argument every time).
Toothfaries can’t be disproved, indeed, nate. We wouldn’t even make the effort.
Ugh, I hate the “you can’t prove a negative” nonsense. Yet another reason why people should take logic starting from an early age.
Chris says,
They’re outlined in recent books by Ken Miller, Francis Collins, and Simon Conway Morris (and others). All three scientists make the effort to rationalize a scientific way of thinking with their personal religious beliefs. It takes them an entire book and they still don’t do a very good job.
Some of the things they have trouble with are: does God answer prayers?; do miracles exist?; does life have a purpose?; is morality derived from the Christian God?; does God intervene in the natural world? Science is based on rationality and religion is based on superstition and many religious scientists feel this conflict.
One of the the biggest stumbling block for them seems to be miracles. Miracles, by definition, are not compatible with science. It’s very hard to be a scientist and believe in miracles because once you start believing that natural laws can be violated at the whim of a supernatural being then it’s difficult to know where to stop.
Have you read any of those books? How about other Christian apologists? I’m surprised you aren’t aware of the extensive literature on this subject. Did you really think there was no problem so nobody had to worry about it? Did you think that all conflicts between reason and religion had been resolved by St. Augustine in 420 AD?
Walt asked “… Tony, you just compared Richard Dawkins to Joseph Goebbels? Seriously? …”.
First, sorry that I misspelled “Goebbels” in my comment 39.
That said:
No, I did not compare the individual Richard Dawkins (or his belief system) to the individual Joseph Goebbels (or his belief system).
I did compare:
Dawkins’s propaganda technique, as described by Sean as “… vigorous advocacy of positions on one extreme” in order to “shift… the spectrum of “acceptable opinion—;
with
Goebbels’s propaganda technique, described by Goebbels himself as “… tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it …”.
It seems to me that the two propaganda techniques have a lot in common,
and
both seem to me to be undesirable because they attack those in the middle ground,
such as (with respect to Dawkins’s subject matter)
people like Chris who say (comment 19) that they are “… skeptical about the existence of any reason to believe that the reconciliation of science and religion … is all that difficult …”.
Tony Smith
I quoted in comment 53 a statement by Chris (in comment 19) saying that Chris is “… skeptical about the existence of any reason to believe that the reconciliation of science and religion … is all that difficult …â€.
Larry (in comment 52) attacked that statement by Chris, by saying
“… in recent books by Ken Miller, Francis Collins, and Simon Conway Morris (and others). All three scientists make the effort to rationalize a scientific way of thinking with their personal religious beliefs. It takes them an entire book and they still don’t do a very good job. …”.
In my opinion, one scientist who did a very good job in “mak[ing] the effort to rationalize a scientific way of thinking with … personal religious beliefs” was Albert Einstein,
who wrote in the New York Times Magazine on November 9, 1930 pp 1-4:
“… there is a third stage of religious experience … I shall call it cosmic religious feeling.
It is very difficult to elucidate this feeling to anyone who is entirely without it … The individual feels the futility of human desires and aims and the sublimity and marvelous order which reveal themselves both in nature and in the world of thought. Individual existence impresses him as a sort of prison and he wants to experience the universe as a single significant whole.
The beginnings of cosmic religious feeling already appear at an early stage of development, e.g., in many of the Psalms of David and in some of the Prophets. Buddhism … contains a much stronger element of this. The religious geniuses of all ages have been distinguished by this kind of religious feeling, which knows no dogma and no God conceived in man’s image; so that there can be no church whose central teachings are based on it. … Looked at in this light, men like Democritus, Francis of Assisi, and Spinoza are closely akin to one another. …
In my view, it is the most important function of art and science to awaken this feeling and keep it alive in those who are receptive to it. … I maintain that the cosmic religious feeling is the strongest and noblest motive for scientific research.
Only those who realize the immense efforts and, above all, the devotion without which pioneer work in theoretical science cannot be achieved are able to grasp the strength of the emotion out of which alone such work, remote as it is from the immediate realities of life, can issue.
What a deep conviction of the rationality of the universe and what a yearning to understand … Kepler and Newton must have had to enable them to spend years of solitary labor in disentangling the principles of celestial mechanics!
Those whose acquaintance with scientific research is derived chiefly from its practical results easily develop a completely false notion of the mentality of the men who, surrounded by a skeptical world, have shown the way to kindred spirits scattered wide through the world and through the centuries. …
It is cosmic religious feeling that gives a man such strength. …”.
Tony Smith
The circle-jerk technique of mutual reinforcement is a rather weak way to advance any position; however, it is a kind of intellectual honesty to recognize that groundless assertions can only gain validation through expressing them as a social force that compels unthinking acceptance — when one’s own ideas are devoid of truth value, at least one can gain the gratification of brute power.
Darn, I am such a lazy bum. I was going to use Overton Window for my review of God Delusion that I never found time to write (I finished reading it months ago). Now I’ll just be copying you….have to find a different angle now.
“But it would be foolish to think that these would be sufficient to establish the truth or falsity of the religion. As foolish as thinking some statement in Genesis establishes the falsity of science.”
Statements in Genesis don’t establish the falsity of science because science has supporting evidence and Genesis doesn’t. But you think it’s foolish to think that the existence or resurrection of Jesus is irrelevant to the truthiness of Christianity? The core tenet of the religion is that God gave his only Son as a sacrifice (through crucifiction and resurrection) to redeem the sins of humanity, saving those *who believe in Christ* from eternal torment in Hell. Most Christians would say it matters a whole lot if Christ never rose, or never even existed.
“I can understand the self-defense motive, certainly in the case of Americans. It doesn’t apply to Dawkins, I don’t think, because he lives in a country where even most religious people aren’t that religious.”
Leaving aside Blair’s support for faith-based schools and the creationism in them, Dawkins lives in a world dominated by the United States, currently led by a President who has said God speaks to him. Dawkins also lives in a world where religious opinions weigh in on stem cell research, abortion rights, and gay rights. Not to mention religious-driven terrorism. I think he’s got a lot of stake in this, as do we all.
“However, I personally think that the self-defense is best achieved by individual examples of atheists being decent people, rather than trying to convince religious people to become atheists.”
This contradicts the experience of a lot of actual formerly-religious atheists, many of whom escaped religion through reading the critical writings of past atheists. Not all: some are guided by their own knowledge of conflicts between their religion and science, or their religion and other religions, or by disgust with the behavior of their leaders. But many others have had some help.
“I have never understood the position that atheism is a scientific stance. Isn’t claiming to prove a negative the essence of logical fallacy? It seems to me that - in the absence of gnosis - agnosticism is the only scientifically valid position.”
Dawkins addresses this in his book, as have many many atheists before him. Atheist and agnostic are not exclusive labels: one can be agnostic for philosophical purposes but atheist in any practical sense. Dawkins takes the usual argument into more detail than usual, though, pointing out that lack of certainty between two possibilities does not imply equiprobability. We cannot prove the non-existence of invisible intangible faeries at the bottom of the garden but see no reason to worry that they have any noticeable probability. The aether wasn’t disproved, but made irrelevant. And we can reason about whether the evidence of the universe is more likely in the atheist model or the (specific religious) model.
What he didn’t say, but might have, is that God’s existence is held to a higher standard than anything else. People demand mathematical levels of certain proof of his non-existence, when such levels don’t exist anywhere outside of mathematics. That doesn’t stop us from making decisions about whether it is *reasonable* to believe that person X committed crime Y, or whether Zeus will strikes us with lightning for skimping on his sacrifices, or whether Jesus was born through Mary’s hymen and was later crucified by a Pontius Pilate being cowed by a Jewish mob, and then resurrected. Or from invoking scientific — not mathematical — proof. Science doesn’t deal in certainties, it deals in probabilities. Is Judeo-Christianity probable? No.
Well put fh (#5)!
Another reasoin for atheist “preaching”: a lot of ex-Catholics have called their upbringing abusive. Not sexually abusive with some priest diddling them, but the emotional abuse of the guilt and the fear of hell. It doesn’t take saintly amounts of altruism to want to fight that and limit the suffering inflicted on others.
Larry, I’m not sure you actually addressed my points. In answer to your first question, no, I haven’t read Miller’s book. Nor will I. I’m not all that interested in scientists writing religious apologetics. I have, however, read plenty of religious apologetics from the last 17 centuries. If you haven’t done so, you might be surprised to learn that miracles have in fact been seen by many as the solution to the challenges of scientism, metaphysical naturalism, and strict empiricism. This has been especially true since the beginning of the Enlightenment. One would have to accept philosophical ( i.e., metaphysical) naturalism (which, if you’ve been following the Intelligent Design debates over the last few years, you know is not necessary for the practice of sciece) in order to believe that miracles are incompatible with science. Of course, if a Christian accepts philosophical naturalism, he or she is probably a gnostic or pantheist, and it’s a short hop and a skip from there to positivism and the atheism that comes with it. I don’t think I know any Christian gnostics, though, and I have a sneaking suspicion that Miller and the others you mention aren’t gnostics either. If one doesn’t accept philosophical naturalism, then natural laws can apply to the entire natural world, with God outside of it and capable of affecting it without having to adhere to those laws. Obviously, the philosophical issues are a bit more complex than that, but this should do for now.
So I’ll ask again, what reasons are there for seeing science and religion as incompatible?
“So I’ll ask again, what reasons are there for seeing science and religion as incompatible?”
Because the domain of science is anything that affects measureable properties of the universe, and no religion (in practice) is willing to concede it such authority?
Non-overlapping magisteria is bullshit.
Chris:
I think you may be moving your goal posts here. Initially you asked why scientists would have problems reconciling science and religion. Larry answered that. Now you seem to be asking why non-scientist apologetics would have such troubles, by excluding scientists apologetics writings as a non-concern.
John Wilkins calls this bounded rationality and contrasts that with a coherent total view. The difficulty being when religious rational meets the fair insistence that (scientific) facts are important.
This also bears on your fourth point in that comment. Religion and it’s metaphysics was partly conceived to explain facts. It no longer works, not even fully inside its own bounded rationality, so it seems unfair to pretend it hasn’t failed here or that it shouldn’t have been able to be a basis for technology.
Why do YOU refer to ‘god’ as Him
Sorry what i meant is if YOU Don’t believe in the existance of X
how can you put a label on X e.g. gender, color, race , wherever
there are cracks in your foundation!!!
Henry Chivasa:
It’s a convention. Every atheist knows that one can’t apply physical properties to a general deity that doesn’t exist.
These aren’t ‘cracks’ in his ‘foundation’. And even if they were, you’ve hardly shown how this leads to a self-inconsistency in his view.
However, if in particular the discussion is about the traditional western God, then it becomes relevant. The bible refers to God as ‘Him’.
What next? Spell-checking as a method for debate?
Dear Sean:
I have posted a rebuttal to your argument for the worth of Richard Dawkins. Please find the following link to Richard Dawkins’ Ideological Dark Energy.
“No religion (in practice) is willing to concede such authority”
In Christianity at least (I don’t know the theology and apologetics of any other religion very well), there’s a long tradition of treating science as, in fact, the study of God’s first and primary revelation: Nature. The issue isn’t concession at all, then. Read, for examples (he cites a few), Galileo’s letter to the Grand Duchess. Now, you won’t find any non-pantheist/mystic religion that’s willing to argue that anything restricted to cataloging and correlating the measurable properties of the universe can serve as the ultimate arbiter of truth, or that there aren’t entities beyond the measurable, but that’s another issue, and isn’t a barrier to being a scientist and religious.
So my question still stands. What are the barriers?
Torbjörn Larsson,
A couple things. First, Larry’s the one who envoked apologetics post-Augustine, so I wasn’t moving anything. And really, if the question is, what are the barriers to being a religious scientist, apologetics are valid. The issue is theological and philosophical, and that makes scientists the third or fourth in line, opinion-wise.
Next, as to Wilkins’ use of the phrase “bounded rationality,” it’s not his. It’s Simons’, and it doesn’t apply to world views, it applies to people. And that’s all people, including you, Wilkins, and me. I believe what Wilkins may be trying to get at by misusing the phrase slightly is that rational people who are religious are rational only in their non-religious beliefs, or that those beliefs necessarily involve some degree of irrationality. In fact, the part of my original post that you quoted came from my response to just this assertion. So my reply still stands: there are rational arguments for religion, so it’s not irrational. Of course, there are always unspoken and unargued assumptions, and people have reasons for accepting religion that go beyond reason, but again, that’s true of any individual and any world-view, yours and mine included. Furthermore, while I’ve seen it argued many time that most believers aren’t aware of the rational arguments for religion in theology and apologetics, and that is in fact true (though it doesn’t, necessarily, make the beliefs themselves irrational), the equivalent is true for most atheists. They either don’t know or don’t understand reasons for not believing, and they certainly aren’t aware of the arguments against or philosophical issues associated with their atheism. So if the ignorance of the volk makes religion irrational, then atheism is in the same boat (as, again, is virtually any world view/philosophy).
Damien #57:
Blair’s faith-based schooling stuff is just following the parents and they are sending their kids, often enough, to faith schools because they are often the best schools. There can be all sorts of different reasons for that (it varies from school to school) but if the fight is directed at stopping the faith-based schooling, it’ll be lost, because parents tend to be pretty single-minded about getting their kids into the best school they can. The fight would be better directed at improving the other schools, which is something on which nearly everyone would agree in any case. Blair’s initiative is clearly shallow, because the reason for the relatively common local superiority of the faith school is really very varied; many of them, in fact, aren’t terribly religious at all and, in particular, many of the teachers aren’t religious. I wasn’t even asked when I interviewed, just whether I foresaw any difficulties in teaching in a church school (and this was a school that took its religion relatively seriously and also, by some way, the best school I ever had any connection with or of which I knew). The Science department, the biggest in the school, was a mix of believers, lapsed catholics who probably still had some underlying belief, and atheists and it was great. But, as normal, I digress.
Dawkins may live in a world dominated by the US, but I don’t see that explains his evangelical zeal. Sure, I can believe that former believers came to atheism by reading atheists’ writings, and also that they felt less bothered by it because, as Sean wrote, atheists are at least seen in a slightly more positive light than was formerly the case (unlike back, say, in the early 1800s in the US where the Federalists’ accusation that Jefferson was a racist was a really serious one)(and, hmmm, quite possibly true). The matter of how ‘in your face’ you get about atheism is the issue, I think; so far as I am concerned, Dawkins has crossed the line, so that he is now more like an intelligent and erudite version of the crazy religious guy that used to rant near the bus-stop outside Camberwell McDonalds back in the day than a considered defender and explainer of atheist beliefs. I’d rather read Sean on atheism, say, than Dawkins, by a country mile.
Perhaps I’m misunderstanding, but some here seem to be postulating (perhaps for sake of argument) a God who exists “outside” of nature and whose existence is undetectible by any scientific measurement. Such a God, I take it, no longer creates or destroys anything, answers no prayers, performs no miracles, and divinely inspires no scriptures - otherwise it would be detectable.
What then is the practical difference between this god’s existence and non-existence?
I would imagine that it comes down, as most religious beliefs do, to what, if anything, happens after you die.
Although an omnipotent and omniscient God can clearly do whatever He wants and not be detected. That’s the benefit of being omnipotent and omniscient.
Blair’s faith-based schooling stuff is just following the parents and they are sending their kids, often enough, to faith schools because they are often the best schools.
I have heard that some of these “faith schools” are teaching Young Earth Creationism, which would make it very difficult for me to accept that they are better than other schools.
If an omnipotent and omniscent God desires to remain anonymus, I am more in accordance with its divine will than those who argue for its existence.
As for what happens after we die, scientific evidence strongly supports the theory that consciousness is a brain function. Brain damage can cause loss of memory, loss of the ability to reason, and even changes in personality. The evidence supports the conclusion that when the brain dies, consciousness ends.
Tony: There is _no_ evidence that Dawkins does anything other than 100% believe in what he says. Sean’s point about the Overton Window is that people who are more moderate than Dawkins are always telling him to shut up, while at the same time they don’t tell people who are more religious than they are to shut up. If successful, this will have the inevitable effect of silencing atheists. If your goal is to silence atheists, then that’s A-OK. If your goal is to open the debate to different points of view, well then the very first step is to open the debate to different points of view, not tell holders of select points of view to shut up. Sean’s point, I think, is that it’s time for us to stop telling Dawkins to shut up.
Hah. Telling Dawkins to shut up is a waste of time in any case. For good or ill, he believes in what he’s doing and he won’t stop just because some people want him to.
#74 JimV: that is exactly the scientific position. We aren’t talking about people that hold to the scientific position, though. For that matter, the scientific position is that we’re just a bunch of atoms interacting, and yet many of us like to see meaning in our existence beyond that. If you take Churchland-style eliminative materialism as an example, that’s a brutal, unbeatable argument unless you adopt different (less minimal) assumptions to those that he does. But then, you’re in the same sort of game as religious folks and not being terribly scientific either. Personally, I don’t think that matters but then, I don’t care what people believe.
Damien (and others), thanks for the thoughtful response.
“Atheist and agnostic are not exclusive labels: one can be agnostic for philosophical purposes but atheist in any practical sense.”
OK, I can see that as a valid and consistent position. And your point about differing standards for claims of differing likelihoods is also a good one.
However:
“Science doesn’t deal in certainties, it deals in probabilities. Is Judeo-Christianity probable? No.”
Well, I’m with you there; this is the essence of Flying Spaghetti Monsterism.
But Judeo-Christianity != religion != spirituality
Refuting Christianity from a logical perspective is like shooting fish in a barrel. I am more interested in a wider discussion about religion in general, or the validity of spiritual experience. To make logical points against Christianity and present them as arguments against religion or spirituality is not a fair argument.
I say this as a quite thoroughly non-religious person, by the way.
But you think it’s foolish to think that the existence or resurrection of Jesus is irrelevant to the truthiness of Christianity?
Not irrelevant, but inconsequential. We have four records of gospels which are not in full agreement with each other. This has not falsified Christianity. History is a human record of human shortcomings subject to human failings. Expecting the final ultimate truth from anything is foolish, as from science as religion. They are both human endeavors. Materialists can see no further than what is before them. Let them raise their eyes.
“the equivalent is true for most atheists. They either don’t know or don’t understand reasons for not believing, and they certainly aren’t aware of the arguments against or philosophical issues associated with their atheism.”
I’m not at all sure that’s true; the situation isn’t symmetrical, at least in the US, where many atheists have had to come to it on their own, vs. being raised in atheism and taking it for granted like many believers. Atheists who had to break away from a religion are going to at least have their own reasons fro not believing, and be aware of counterarguments from their family and pastors.
Lord:
“We have four records of gospels which are not in full agreement with each other. This has not falsified Christianity.”
Not according to lots of atheists who became that way by reading the Bible.
“Materialists can see no further than what is before them. Let them raise their eyes.”
Yeah? To what?
tyler:
“Refuting Christianity from a logical perspective is like shooting fish in a barrel.”
This is interesting to stick next to Lord’s comment.
As for Dawkins: refuting Christianity may be like shooting fish in a barrel, but there are still a whole lot of fish, and some of them have teeth. As for broader religion and spirituality: in his book he defines his target as the God hypothesis: there exists a superhuman, supernatural intelligence who deliberately designed and created the universe and everything in it, including us. Buddhism and Confucianism he regards as beyond this scope. Ditto for Einstein’s cosmic religious feeling, which Dawkins regards as basic awe of nature, while presenting evidence that Einstein was decidedly not a theist, not a subscriber to the God Hypothesis (especially with the Personal God variation), and the theists of the time knew that and resented him for it.
Lots of religions would still come under his guns; the basic arguments for atheism — argument from evil, argument from diversity of religions, argument from lack of evidence — are older than Christianity, though just as good against it. As for spirituality… you’d have to define it, first. As far as I can tell it divides up into emotional variants (awe) which can be discussed as such, and supernatural variants (*spirit*) which come under the same scientific scrutiny as any other supernatural claim.
Damien:
“This is interesting to stick next to Lord’s comment.”
He calls himself Lord? Isn’t that…uh…bad? If you’re a Christian I mean? How surreal.
Your description of Dawkin’s target definition is the first thing I have read that makes me want to read the book. Very interesting, and more moderate than I expected. I’m curious, does he address Deism? In a modern context Deism would essentially be the claim that God set the constants of physics, set off the big bang and then stepped aside…
(talk about an unprovable claim! I’m just interested in his/your thoughts)
Placing Buddhism outside the argument is interesting, and when I think about it more, actually dispells my interest in the book, though not in the larger subject. The Man In The White Beard is of no interest to me, and in fact is a bit of a straw man.
Certainly Einstein was no theist. Anyone who has read his works knows that.
Excellent point. you don’t have to agree with all of the substance or tone of Dawkins, Harris, Dennett, etc. to be grateful for the impact on the debate and the space it opens for non-traditional views.
Yes, he mentions deism a few times, in the context of Einstein (theist? deist? pantheist?) and the US Founding Fathers. He notes that in times of stronger faith deists were attacked as being indistinguishable from atheists; nowadays they’re grouped with the other side, as at least believing in *something*. (Cf. Dennett’s “belief in belief”.) That’s about it for explicit mentions, but his chapter on God probably not existing is based largely on what he calls the Ultimate Boeing 747 argument: whatever improbability or complexity you invoke God to explain, God itself is even more improbable and complex, and explains nothing. Or in Dennett’s words, God is the ultimate skyhook, and scientists look for cranes. So that basically targets the deist god along with all other Creators; the Christian god, having more details, is subject to more specific counterevidence.
But there’s actually more to the chapter than that. If you want to know if you should read the book, I recommend that you go actually look at the book. I’ve been wanting to review the book for my LJ, but have been daunted by the sheer density of it. Not that it was hard to read, far from it, but I’m not sure what to pick out to describe the book fairly without going on at length.
He mentions the Man in the White Beard, and that readers would call that a straw man; the imagery might be, but the idea of a personal god who saves you from traffic accidents and gives you victory in sports is not a straw man. People believe that. Lots of them. And they’re the ones he’s trying to talk to.
Buddhism he doesn’t talk about, partly because he’s not sure if it even is a religion in the same sense as what he’s attacking, and also because he doesn’t know as much about it; the main target is the Christianity and cousins he lives with and is affected by and which dominates half the globe. I’d say that’s it’s pretty tricky to talk about “Buddhism” anyway; lots of Westerners talk about it as some atheistic religion, and that might be true if you go to Gautama’s original agnosticism, or to the lack of a Creator, but Buddhism as practiced by Buddhist populations is chock full of the supernatural. Just look at their art. Boddhisattvas and demons all over.