The Wellcome Trust has published a short pamphlet to inform young students about evolution. I haven’t had a chance to look at it carefully yet, but it looks like an interesting combination of a fairly wordy presentation and lots of color and flash. You can download a pdf of Evolution: The Big Picture for yourself; would it be a useful tool to catch student’s eyes and get the basics across to them?
Out of 16 pages, 4 are dedicated to the conflict between science and religion. It doesn’t come right out and say that religion is bad, and it even makes the usual waffley about how some scientists accommodate religion in their lives, but their point-by-point comparisons of how religion and science generates ideas come down hard on religion, and they do pin the blame for the creationist antipathy to evolution on religion. It’s not exactly ferocious on the subject, but at the same time it would cause an uproar if it were distributed in US public schools, I’m afraid.
Just fyi, the Wellcome Trust is also asking for ideas for films about Darwin and evolution – something i’m currently working on. No news yet on what they plan on using these films for, but it all sounds good to me.
A couple of quick comments on the “framing” (duck, cover) used in this item.
The section title “Darwinism and Society” is not so good. This looks like (presumably unintentional) cover for the ID people and their rants about “Darwinists”.
The page 2 picture of the tall whatsits reaching the fruit and the short ones dying off bugs me a lot. It fits into the old “ladder of life” paradigm with the anthropocentric notion of “taller is better and ipso facto more fit”. I’d like to see a follow-up picture showing what happens to the tall ones when the high-up fruits die off and it becomes necessary for the whatsits to burrow through the ground to find tubers.
Other than that, it looks pretty good. Nice to see the subtle effort to introduce a third, fourth, etc. point of view to the phony dichotomy of Evolution versus Christian Creation.
thank you very nice topic thankks. :)
If anyone thinks pro-rational literature must be “nice” to be effective, they obviously haven’t seen the Chick tracts that some Christians distribute. Oy. Sometimes I wish we atheists would act more like Christians and say what we have to say, and not give a fuck what anyone thinks of us or our message. I mean, it’s not “nice” for Christians to say that we are going to burn in hell forever, but they sure don’t worry about whether or not we will be offended when they say that.
Check these out if you haven’t seen them before. This kind of crap is what we are up against.
http://www.chick.com/default.asp
There are plenty of places to pass out literature besides schools. We are talking about a “Parking Lot Challenge” at Skepchick and Bushwell’s (it was Kevin’s idea), where people will put flyers on cars in church parking lots. We are going to start developing a line of short anti-tracts that are 1 page that you can download and print. Anyone who’s interested in helping write or do art for them, should get in touch with one of us.
If you’re not so aggressive, you can leave them in the doctor’s office, at coffee shops, at the gym, at airports, you name it. Let’s start getting some information out there.
Will people be converted the first time they read an anti-tract? I bet not. But a seed will be planted in the back of their brain an in some people it will eventually germinate.
The same way Mooney and Nisbet are saying that we have to start using the types of framing tactics the right has been using for years (very successfully, I must say), we also should start looking at their tactics for disseminating information and try some of these different ways.
Anyone want to go door to door “anti-witnessing”? Or next time you are at the airport with a long layover, walk around and look for some lonely Christian that you can talk to about how freeing and peaceful it is to jettison the guilt of religous belief! Why should we be timid about sharing what makes our lives good and full? (Rhetorical question since I know PZ and most readers here are anything but timid.)
Sometimes I wish we atheists would act more like Christians and say what we have to say, and not give a fuck what anyone thinks of us or our message.
I think this would be a mistake. Behaving like assholes, screaming in people’s faces and distributing huge numbers of vile little histrionic pamphlets would destroy a decent part of what makes our side appealing. It also is, honestly, not true to what we are.
Certainly there’s no point in being shrinking violets about our point of view. But Jehovahs are the last people I’d look to take the lead from in my life.
Besides, I must admit I love Chick tracts, because they are so over the top and ridiculous. Like much of the sillier new age stuff, they unintentionally reveal so much about their side’s insecurities and limitations.
Well, in that case – let me print up a batch and send them over to the high school! With the Texas Lege in session, we’ve had to put up with the usual bullshit from the religious nutjobs (the latest is a proposed bible class “elective” in public high schools), so why not push back hard.
I also like the airport idea. I’m traveling next week, so maybe I’ll leave a few in the terminal at Austin-Bergstrom.
PZ: Thanks for bringing this to my attention. I’m going to order my free copy. From reading the PDF file, I don’t see this as that explosive IF the classroom teacher has already established the context of discussion with students and parents. I would not be afraid to share this resource, which is certainly not aimed at any particular belief, nor polemic after the fashion of a Chick tract.
Speaking of which, it is my considered opinion that parents are more likely to accept instruction which challenges their beliefs IF they are given a respectful ‘heads up’ in advance. You don’t have to give away the farm to do this; essentially, the instructor merely acknowledges that parents have a role in setting the terms of discussion in the home setting and encourages them to discuss these things with their student, etc. In my experience, this approach defuses almost all hostility. What gets the average parent’s panties in a knot is not that their child’s education might require exposure to other viewpoints, but the idea that teachers might be trying to pull a fast one and indoctrinate their kids on the sly.
Jimbo, I say it can’t hurt to rattle a few cages, at least here on the internet. In fact, we should all branch out a bit and visit these folks and let em know (politely, if you so choose) that God’s way is not the only way.
http://christianblogs.christianet.com/
writerdd: How could you mentioned the “Parking Lot Challenge” and not link to the post? ;) I think I should also drop a link there so people can come back to have a look at this for ideas.
I disagree with Scholar about the “if you so choose”…. there’s nothing that pisses me off more than Christian trolls coming and picking a fight on atheist blogs and forums. It’s just annoying to go to a place where I want to have meaningful discussions and be slathered with mud. If you want to have discussions on Christian forums, please do be polite and do not become an atheist troll. Try to engage in the discussions honestly and stay on topic. Ask sincere questions, and someone might actually listen to you.
One tip: Try to get people to answer you in their own words, not by quoting scripture or their pastor. Ask over and over again (I’ve used this tactic on my relatives and it can work), “But what do YOU think? I’d like to hear your personal opinion. I can read the Bible on my own. But right now I would like to talk with you.”
I think jimBOB is right that we don’t want to be assholes. It’s one thing to say what you think without shame or caring what people think about you, it’s quite another thing to be an idiot about it.
What I meant about copying Christian methods of spreading information, is that they have free printed materials available everywhere. And they have people everywhere that are willing to talk to you, even is some annoyingly knock at your door (as a matter of fact, I’d like the anti-tracts to give to the door knockers!)l….. I don’t think most Christians — at least not fundamentalists — will be hanging out in the science aisle of their local bookstore, nor will they be reading hundreds of pages about science and reason. If we can get short, pithy pieces of literature made up and have them available all over the place, then there’s a good chance that a few people will read them and have a change of heart…. eventually.
I personally don’t think we should produce anti-tracts that are ridiculous and angry like the Chick tracts. We can do a much better job, but they can still be fun and amusing, as well as informational.
Great discussion, by the way. Thanks, Kevin, for starting this whole idea even if you were sort of joking before I took you seriously!
And, PZ, sorry for addressing that last note to Kevin on your blog. I forgot where I was. Blush.
The Wellcome Trust’s director of public programmes was on the Guardian science podcast the other week, talking about their collection of scientific artefacts and memorabilia. They seem to be making something of a push on the publicising science front.
Writerdd, it looks like the Christians beat you to the punch…
The link I provided is not accepting comments that are not “holy”. So, my frustration mounts…they won’t even let polite atheist comments fly. Any suggestions?
‘The link I provided is not accepting comments that are not “holy”. So, my frustration mounts…they won’t even let polite atheist comments fly. Any suggestions?’
Um, get a life?
I don’t get it. Is the agenda to educate the Muslims first? Because the pamphlet is HEAVY on Muslim and then Buddhist and Sikhs. Christianity is barely mentioned. Jews aren’t even there (except a little picture at the bottom). Do they think that Christians are just a lost cause so they ignore them and concentrate on Muslims? Are they afraid that they’re piss of the Muslims so they’re catering to them? Are they sending that to a Muslim country? What? It’s really biased and I can’t figure out the agenda. Frankly, religion shouldn’t even be mentioned on a science/learning tool. It’s kowtowing, it’s embarrassing, it’s not on topic. This is just playing into their hands that they (religions) have any say or any power over scientific fact. A fact is a fact and I don’t give a damn what your pastor, priest, whatever thinks about it. We need to stop giving them so much power.
The Wellcome Institute is based in the UK. Apart from a few fundamentalists christians, such as Reg Vardy, a used car salesman who’s gone into the faith school trade most christians don’t see a conflict.
The dominant church is the Church of England- considered very moderate by most standards. (They’re having an issue with the allowing openly gay clergy, but most of the noise is being made by the African branches- not the Western one.)
The conflict between evolution and Islam is much less well publicised. Christianity is the dominant religion, so scientists are familiar with it and used to combating it. Fundamentalist Islam wasn’t much of an issue until people of my generation started blowing themselves up on buses, and the government started promoting faith schools left, right and centre.
I liked the Swiss Army beak. And you know, you just know, that there are at least 5 rabid anti-evolutionists out there who will fail to see the humor behind it and claim that no, really, evilutionism predicts that birds will eventually develop multitool beaks.
At which point we get to point and laugh.
note to readers…
notthedroids = troll
“Um, get a life?”
I thought the pamphlet was rather good. You might think i’m an idiot, but why can something like this not be shown to students in schools in the US? It’s about as tame as it can get…..if high school students aren’t even learning this much in schools here, it’s a shame (I moved to the States after high school, so I don’t know what exactly is taught in classes here).
I did like the fact that, in the religion section, they introduced “non-Abrahamic” (Buddhist or Sikh) view points. You could consider *all* religions kooky, but some seem more so than others. For example, it is perfectly acceptable for a Buddhist (or some Hindus) to be an athiest, and not believe in a god or a creator. It isn’t in some other faiths. So, the conflicts between say evolution and creation are much, much stronger in some faiths than in others (where there aren’t any conflicts at all).
Newsgroups don’t generally have moderators, and your ISP usually provides access as part of your monthly access fee. You can also go through google groups, or Yahoo groups. Yahoo groups are moderated, and may have open or reviewed posting.
But I don’t guess that I see the need to “evangelize” atheism. It is great to let people know that skeptical resources exist, and that they are always welcome to come and take a look and ask us how they can escape (attracting like a lightouse.)
My big deal about being an outfront, “meanie” atheist is to make sure that rights aren’t trampled and kittens aren’t hurt by religion. I don’t feel the urge to force someone be non-religious. Just don’t tread on me, or my atheist friends. Or my gay friends.
Ideally, it should be possible to teach science without even mentioning religion. We only have to mention religion because there is so much opposition to the teaching of science, or else a push to distort and corrupt it, and it comes from religious sources.
That social context means that we do have to address religion; and how this is best done is the major point of contention in the current round of fights over the f-word.
In a school, you cannot teach the sweeping view that religion is intrinsically anti-science. It’s a difficult position to take in any case, given that we do have such prominent scientists who are religious. For instance: the front page of this flyer gives special prominence to Theodosius Dobzhansy, who was an active Russian Orthodox Christian.
The flyer says:
This appears to suggest that those words by Dobzhansky were written in the context of the development of the modern synthesis. But in fact, the main issue Dobzhansky was actually focused upon in that essay was science and religion!
You can read Dobzhansky’s famous article of that title online: see Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution. The article was written for “The American Biology Teacher”; Dobzhansky was looking at the same pedagogical problems as we do today. He starts out with a Muslim Sheik who disbelieves that the Earth moves around the Sun.
The article contains some stirring words that Paul will endorse: for example.
But it concludes with expressions of Dobzhansky’s theistic evolution perspective:
Cheers – Chris — stirring the pot! :-)
That rather depends on the religious faith, doesn’t it.
Caledonian points out:
Of course; some people’s faith is certainly in total conflict with science.
Dobzhansky’s point is that that science is not in conflict with Christian faith generally; just with limited subsets of it. Others may disagree with him; and think science conflicts with religion generally. But Dobzhansky doesn’t think so.
Science is founded on reason and logic, which are incompatible with the Christian faith in particular and with religious faith in general.
So Dobzhansky was wrong.
Well, Caledonian; that’s one apparently common viewpoint.
You are, however, immediately in direct conflict with your previous comment, where you said it depends on the faith. Now, apparently, you don’t think it depends at all.
The premise that reason and logic are incompatible with Christian faith in all its many forms is dubious. Logic is a powerful tool for figuing out the implications of your starting assumptions; but it is insufficient of itself as a way of sorting out those starting assumptions.
Cheers — Chris
I will shock everyone by agreeing that Christianity can and has been logical, given its premises.
Where it falls apart is that the evidence contradicts many of its premises and shows that many of its derived conclusions do not work, and so it falls apart. This is why modern ratbag head-in-the-sand Christianity is so strongly anti-science.
I, in turn, will shock people who think I’m here as an apologist for religion, by agreeing with your comment.
Evidence does contradict many of the basic historical premises of Christian faith; with the result that modern academic theologians so often remove to a revised faith that has so little popular appeal to Christians who would prefer something with a stronger historical continuity. And this is why modern ratbag head-in-the-sand Christianity is so strongly anti-science, as you say.
The point is that the Christian religion is extremely diverse, and is not limited to ratbag head-in-the-sand forms; and I guess you agree with this as well?
The modern academic theologians DO still have their fans in the pews; the churches are not populated exclusively with those who stick to traditional and scientifically absurd beliefs.
In any case, it’s nice to have some agreement! Best wishes — Chris
Chris Ho-Stuart,
The point is that the Christian religion is extremely diverse,
Yes, its diversity runs the gamut from dumb through very dumb to extremely dumb.
The modern academic theologians DO still have their fans in the pews; the churches are not populated exclusively with those who stick to traditional and scientifically absurd beliefs.
The tiny number of people who have abandoned the traditional and scientifically absurd teachings of Christianity but who continue to call themselves Christians are guilty of false advertising. They would more properly be called atheists, perhaps in some cases deists, who like to adorn their disbelief with a bit of religious language and ritual for sentimental reasons.
Christianity is diverse, but a) it is uniformly wrong, and b) the majority is irrational and wrong. We may agree in principle, but I still sense some disagreement in quantity — I guarantee you that in every town in America, for every handful that struggle to reconcile science and religion and try to add some sophistication by abstraction to their beliefs, there are thousands who blithely accept the dogma and hold the crudest, most literal beliefs, and think that by reading the book of Genesis as history that they are being scholarly.
Browse a Christian bookstore sometime. You will not find anything in the slightest bit sophisticated. What you will find is lots of feel-good drivel, Golden Moments greeting cards, and statues of angels.
You may well be right about the handful who try to reconcile religion and science and add some sophistication, as opposed to thousands who blithely accept dogma.
But I doubt it. I suspect you underestimate the numbers of that handful.
Now of course, I don’t live in the USA. My immediate examples are in Australia. But I do engage with Christians regularly in on-line discussions, and there are a solid number of those who do try to deal with science and religion in a way that is constructive of both. Whether they succeed or not could be debated; in my view, some of them do. The numbers making the attempt is more than a handful.
I also browse Christian bookstores from time to time. My father is a Christian and a compulsive reader, who passed on the habit to me. He’s always checking out books, though these days he’s ordering them online more often than wandering into bookstores. But in any case, we both have the browsing habit. In any bookstore I tend to look at the science section, the religion section, the humour section, and the photography section. I have also been in a number of specifically Christian bookstores. Stores, like people, vary in quality. But I can find books by Crossan (eg: “The Historical Jsus”) Spong (eg: “Rescuing the Bible from Fundamentalism”) Polkinghorne (eg: “Belief in God in an Age of Science”) Borg (eg: ” The God We Never Knew”) Wright (eg: “The New Testament and the People of God”). Wright is an interesting case, a hugely influential modern theologian; influential in part because he is surprisingly traditional, and remarkable for his depth of scholarship. There are some interesting debates published where he goes head to head with more liberal theologians like Crossan or Borg.
Critics of Dawkins tend to blow these guys off as uninfluential, or as “abstract”, or as irrational because they are still Christians and believers in God. But these books are not obscure; they have wide readership. There are many people in the popular churches who have read them, and who appeal to them as examples. There is also strong criticism of them. Spong in particular, is reviled by many in the church; but in part because this does represent a major division within the church.
Cheers — Chris
Critics of Dawkins tend to blow these guys off as uninfluential, or as “abstract”, or as irrational because they are still Christians and believers in God. But these books are not obscure; they have wide readership.
Oh please. Ask the average Christian who wrote “Belief in God in an Age of Science” or what “The God We Never Knew” was about and you’d get a blank stare. You have a hugely exaggerated notion of both the number and influence of these intellectually-conceited pseudo-Christians who read the kind of books you listed. Dawkins isn’t talking about those people. They’re too few and too weak to bother with. Although, actually, as I said before, Polkinghorne is a more-or-less traditional Anglican, and lumping him together with post-modern radicals like Spong doesn’t make much sense.
Modurn Christainity is incoherant. Of that thare can be no questian. If the Lard was who his fallowers say he is, he would be omnabenevolent, omnuscient and omnapotent. Christinas even agree with this clam. But it is triviel to point oat that no omniscient gad can bee both omnyscient and omnipatent, or both omnesciont and omnibanavalent. Actually any too of those trates do not go tagether. So the hole fuckan thing falls apurt right qiuck. Not intarnally or exturnilly consistunt, nope nope.
Shrug. I’ve not done a head count, but I do think there are a significant number of people in the church reading such writers.
I visited a friend last week who was part of study group in the church reading a range of materials, and their most recent one was by Spong. There’s another more extreme church study group my uncle goes to that looks at such perspectives. It’s an interesting group of mostly very elderly folks who have a considerable depth to their thinking, and mostly share a deep dissatisfaction with conventional religion. The Christian discussion forum where I debate on matters of science and of religion has a sigificant number of contributors of this kind as well; and that’s a mostly American group.
I do think that many of these folks often need a fire lit under their ass to get up and engage their co-religionists with insane perspectives that are trivially refuted with basic science.
On numbers? I don’t know; but I think the very notion of “average christian” is pretty meaningless. There are a lot of creationists, and a lot who are not creationists. How can you single out an “average”?
I quite agree that the names I listed are hugely diverse; I don’t lump them teogether as if they present a single unified perspective. Indeed, I noted that some of them debate each other. I don’t agree with any of them myself. I just point out that they are examples of perspectives that DO reconcile the findings of science with their religious beliefs.
Cheers — Chris
Again, you seem to be talking about fake Christians. Phony Christians. Christians In Name Only. People who have a sentimental attachment to the trappings of Christianity, and can’t quite bring themselves to let go of it completely, but who don’t really believe its teachings. Dawkins isn’t talking to them or about them. He’s talking about real Christians, real religionists.
No; Dawkins is talking about belief in God. He’s not limiting himself to Christians, and he intends his argument to stand on its own merits as a refutation of God generally.
It’s pretty funny to see you repeating the old “true Christian” line more usually used by extreme evangelicals. Actually, not all that funy; there are some strong similarities.
But in any case, I mean people who are sincerely Christians, who are perfectly genuine in belief in God, belief in Jesus, and in acceptance of all the basic conclusions of conventional empirical science with respect to evolution, age of the Earth, and so on. They do, of course, reject many of the traditional beliefs of historical Christianity; but that’s not unusual for Christians. The idea of a single “true” Christianity held through history is ridiculous.
Christianity is diverse. Heck, we know that! One of the standard criticisms of Christianity is that there seems to be no clear standard by which you can identify which of the thousands of denominations has it right. If may be very convenient for you to single out some subset as “real Christianity” to use as a target, and just dismiss anyone else as a phony. It’s also intellectually lazy.
Cheers — Chris
Chris Ho-Stuart,
No; Dawkins is talking about belief in God. He’s not limiting himself to Christians,
I didn’t say Dawkins is limiting his argument to Christianity or Christians. He is limiting it to theism in something like its traditional sense. He’s not talking about philosophical deism or metaphorical theism, about Spinoza’s God or Einstein’s God.
But in any case, I mean people who are sincerely Christians, who are perfectly genuine in belief in God, belief in Jesus, and in acceptance of all the basic conclusions of conventional empirical science with respect to evolution, age of the Earth, and so on.
If they sincerely “believe in God” and “believe in Jesus” in something like the conventional Christian sense, then their beliefs are definitely what Dawkins is criticizing. Those beliefs are unjustified and most likely false for the reasons Dawkins describes. If, on the other hand, the God they believe in is something like the God of Spinoza or Tillich, then they are certainly not theists in anything like the traditional sense that Dawkins is attacking.
They do, of course, reject many of the traditional beliefs of historical Christianity;
Which specific beliefs do they reject? In what sense do they “believe in God” and “believe in Jesus?” You seem to want to have it both ways: They’re both traditional theists whose beliefs are within the purview of Dawkins’ critique, but they are also revisionist, heterodox “Christians” who believe in God only in some abstract philosopher’s sense. Which is it?
Christianity is diverse.
Well, yes. But merely noting that the stupidities and irrationalities of Christianity take many diverse forms is not a defense of any of them.
One of the standard criticisms of Christianity is that there seems to be no clear standard by which you can identify which of the thousands of denominations has it right. If may be very convenient for you to single out some subset as “real Christianity” to use as a target, and just dismiss anyone else as a phony. It’s also intellectually lazy.
It’s not “lazy” at all. If the word “Christianity” is to be meaningful, it has to stand for something identifiable. There must be some criteria by which one may distinguish Christians from non-Christians. So what are those criteria, in your opinion? Perhaps you believe that anyone who considers himself to be a Christian is a Christian. But in that case, the word is essentially meaningless. It is nothing more than a label, signifying nothing other than self-identification. Is that what you think Christainity is?
The polls described here indicate that the majority of American Christians believe in the literal truth of the Bible. A majority also believe in the reality of angels and the devil, and in the second coming go Jesus in the near future. About half believe evolution is certainly false and another 20% of all Americans are uncertain about it.
This suggests there’s a significant fraction of American Christians who have a more sophisticated and science-friendly belief system, but they’re definitely not the majority.
Brilliant, just brilliant. What a stunning refutation!
Isn’t it amazing that the person who constantly argues that we should overlook the simplistic arguments for religion and go to the complex ones is unable to cope with even slightly sophisticated arguments? Even the shift in topic from the content of faith to faith itself is too complex for him to follow.
JasonR,
You ask me a lot of interesting questions, and I am sure that my answers would be of interest; but I don’t intend to carry on a long debate in this blog.
My original comment (#21) was intended to point out the irony that Theodosius Dobzhansky is featured prominently in the front page of this flyer, for his famous and apt comment that nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution.
Theodosius Dobzhansky was a superlative scientist and one of the four horsemen of the “new synthesis”. He was also a theistic evolutionist, and in fact religion and science was the major topic in his “light of evolution” essay (linky).
As quick answers to your questions:
• (1) I agree that Dawkins is attempting a refutation of the theism of the names I suggest — and of Dobzhansky. I just don’t think it is as strong an argument as you do. I’ve briefly explained why. Others have refuted my response because there’s no evidence FOR a pre-existing God, which is true. But Dawkins is perfectly plain that he is not relying on lack-of-evidence, but proposes a positive argument against Gods; so that response misses the point. I’ve not spelt out my criticism in nearly enough detail here, I know. I’ll wait till I get my own blog for that.
•( 2) You ask what specific beliefs do (allegedly) more sophisticated believers reject. All sorts of things! It varies with the individual of course, but it’s not unusual to find rejection of inerrancy, virgin birth, physical resurrection, trinity, young earth, historical Adam, everlasting punishment, a second coming in history, almost any miracle you mention, historicity of stories in the OT, etc, etc. There are Christians who reject all these things; though they will still believe in a personal God, and in some form of special association between God and the person of Jesus.
• (3) What do I think is a Christian? The term refers to “Christ”, meaning Jesus; so at a minimum a “Christian” sees Jesus as something very special. I tend to go mostly with self-identification; though I do think someone calling themselves a Christian is kidding themselves if they don’t believe in God, or in a unique role for Jesus as revelation or intervention from God.
I’m sure none of that will satisfy you; and that you’d not be satisfied however long we discussed this. That’s normal, when people have different perspectives on things. So with respect, I’ll leave it at that. Sometime, if I ever get my own blog, you’ll be more than welcome to come and engage there at greater length.
Cheers — Chris
Just to go back a bit, I want to agree with writerdd specifically in terms of “What I meant about copying Christian methods of spreading information, is that they have free printed materials available everywhere” – although my preference is for simple availability, not even anything as (very mildly) aggressive (but pretty irritating, imo) as car-windshield fliers. There are impressive numbers of the Watchtower magazine floating about, for example, just sorta there – like writerdd says, “you can leave them in the doctor’s office, at coffee shops, at the gym, at airports.” And I’ll also agree with pithy, fun, amusing, and informational – not chick-like (which are often amusing, but quite unintentionally.)
Chris Ho-Stuart,
What do I think is a Christian? The term refers to “Christ”, meaning Jesus; so at a minimum a “Christian” sees Jesus as something very special. I tend to go mostly with self-identification;
Well, make up your mind. Is it merely self-identification, or is something more required? If someone self-identifies as a Christian but does not believe that Jesus is “something very special,” is he a real Christian or a fake one, in your opinion? And if you really think that to qualify as a Christian–a true, authentic, bona fide Christian–requires nothing more than self-identifying as a Christian, you have rendered the term worthless, an empty label signifying nothing about a person’s beliefs or behavior whatsoever, let alone about their religion.
though I do think someone calling themselves a Christian is kidding themselves if they don’t believe in God, or in a unique role for Jesus as revelation or intervention from God.
So let me see if I’ve got this right: It’s okay for you to establish some criteria for distinguishing Christians from non-Christians, for distinguishing true Christians from people who merely call themselves Christians, but if anyone else does this, they’re “intellectually lazy” and you liken them to “extreme evangelicals.” That’s called a “double standard.” Your arguments are getting worse and worse.
Chris Ho-Stuart,
I agree that Dawkins is attempting a refutation of the theism of the names I suggest — and of Dobzhansky. I just don’t think it is as strong an argument as you do. I’ve briefly explained why.
No you haven’t. You simply declared that Dawkins’ arguments do not apply to a God that is postulated to have always existed. You have offered no argument or explanation to justify this assertion.
writerdd: “Witnessing” requires being irrational, for the most part, as my world view is founded on evidence difficult to encompass in one short meeting. Hence, it would be counterproductive for me to do that sort of thing.
Keith, “Witnessing” is merely telling people your personal experience and how it changed and helped your life. How and why is this irrational? Your conclusion sounds counter productive to me. If we atheists are not willing to tell people how our nonbelieve has improved our lives, then we may as well crawl in a hole and stop complaining about what the religionists are doing. If we have nothing better to offer — and are unwilling to speak out about what we have to offer — we are impotent.
Expecting people to care about your subjective experiences is irrational.