I might as well recommend this excellent rebuttal to Weiss and Nisbet. Weiss wrote an op-ed which was basically a baseless argument that these uppity New Atheists should sit down and shut up because Charles Darwin “knew there is plenty of room for God at the top”. It’s a stupid argument on many levels, and not just because we are none of us worshippers of Darwinian infallibility…but also because it misrepresents Darwin’s ideas about religion.
Weiss and Nisbet are trying to use Darwin as a positive example to contrast with their presumed negative example of the New Atheists. If they did this with regard to the public expression and aggressive style of the New Atheists, especially in their intolerance of all religions, they would have a good argument. Darwin and most atheists today are much more circumspect than the New Atheists and not so intolerant of all religions and religious philosophies. But instead, they criticized the New Atheists with the actual philosophical atheistic beliefs themselves, and here their argument fails, since Darwin was no different in this regard than Dawkins, Hitchens, Dennett, et al. By the end of his life, Darwin was a total agnostic, nontheist, and–concerning the Christian God–antitheist. When Darwin wrote, “The safest conclusion seems to be that the whole subject [the existence of an ineffable god] is beyond the scope of man’s intellect,” he was correct about generic gods in general, and I don’t think the New Atheists would disagree. Both they and Darwin would be nontheistic about generic gods. “Every man,” Darwin wrote, “must judge for himself, between conflicting vague probabilities.” For the most part this is obvious, and Darwin had judged for himself and chosen agnosticism and atheism–nontheism for god and antitheism for the Christian God (whose existence he thought had been disproved by the problem of evil).
Darwin knew that not only the fundamentalist god, but also Paley’s utilitarian god, was destroyed by evolution. The philosopher’s god was not, and he hung onto that one for a while.
The trouble for framers, though, is that there is no way to demonstrate god’s existence from either a courtroom’s or from a scientific perspective. Only “revelation,” non-observable miraculous manifestations, or “personal experiences” which do not substantially differ from other brain foibles can be “relied upon” to give us a god.
That doesn’t make god so much contrary to science, but to the philosophy of science. So sure, you can have god and such scientifically unacceptable “evidences,” even though you may be a scientist. But you’ve had to willfully divorce yourself from the only means that you know are reliable for stating any “existential” facts.
Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/6mb592
The more these guys make these idiotic, unfounded arguments, the more I end up being pushed from being a highly skeptical agnostic into being an outright atheist.
Sigh. Whatever Darwin thought about the matter of religion has always seemed irrelevant to me. He was in a different time, and knew much less of the natural world than we do today. He had some ideas that has led people to atheism. Just like Newton, whose theory eventually led to the Big bang, etc. And Newton was a devout man, but what difference does that make? It’s like we expect these luminaries to be right on all the major points. Why?
Excellent essay; I’ve admired Steve Schafersman’s work for a long time. And of course I’m going to pick a bone. He writes:
I think most of the so-called New Atheists have bent over backwards to point out that yes, yes, yes they know that there are moderate and liberal versions of religion that are much more reasonable, humanistic, secular, and science-friendly, and no, not all religions are equally wrong and toxic. Heck, some of those “non-supernaturalistic religions and personal quasi-religious philosophies” are really just humanism or some other secular life philosophy with additional artwork and poetry.
But the New Atheists do make the point that, as reasonable as these religions are, it’s more or less by accident. It is very hard to draw the line at “just a little bit of magic,” and justify it in one remote area, but not in any other. It is even harder to draw a line at all once you have endorsed the view that it is very, very important and beautiful to have faith and a believing attitude. Faith is the most important thing you can have — but just in one small area.
The belief in belief itself is what underlies and defends all those pseudosciences and “extremist” religions the liberal theists shake their heads over. But there is nothing in the attitude and approach of “faith” which would influence anyone to be a practical atheist scientifically and ethically — only till you get to a tiny area which would make no observable difference if it were true or false. A faith that is so important is likely to flow out of that area.
I never understood how the problem of evil could convince people there was no god. All it would mean was that the god was an asshole. Granted, that would mean the Bible (or pick you holy book) was full of lies about the nature of God. But why would an asshole have a problem with lying?
No, the Bible pretty much describes God as an arsehole.
Could you just for once abuse Nisbet and his fellow-travellers instead of crapping wholesale on a rhetorical technique that doesn’t actually carry any moral weight or specify that anyone has to have any particular views on anything? Considering how often you’re attempting to reframe things yourself (hullo, shifting the discourse = framing, whether you like it or not), it comes off as slightly hypocritical. Framing doesn’t demand anything; much the same way as formal logic doesn’t care whether the premises you put into it are composed of sentences that make sense in English or are “All grvbbles are mfplzyk.”
I’d kind of expect more from someone who’s got their shoulder to the frame of the Overton Window and is pushing like hell. :) Or maybe (shorter Interrobang): Abuse me some more, baby! But do it right this time! :)
I feel sorry for you. God Bless you. May he have mercy on your soul when your time comes.
@5
That’s partly because belief in God is about wish-fulfilment. The possibility that a god exists, and he’s an asshole does not give them any fuzzy feeling in their hearts, doesn’t promise everlasting life, and therefore there is no hook for ‘faith’ to latch on to.
Fatboy, I think that if you read the bible, it’ll be pretty clear that Yahweh was an asshole. But the ancients, (such as the Mesopotamians), didn’t expect their gods to have morals substantially different to those of men.
Or rather, atheism is beyond the scope of Weiss’s and Nisbet’s intellect.
Yeah, much of the earlier parts of the Bible use the word “faith” not about the existence of Yahweh, but about trusting his motives, being his friend, not thinking that he’s a raving jerk.
If you’re so stuck on to Darwin (judging by your previous post against the contrarian who was saying to ditch Darwin) why is it that none of Darwin’s letters from Wallace survive? The guy was a aristocrat procrastinating cheater. See his two-faced letter about whether Wallace should be published. “Oh here’s this thing he wants published but don’t because then my life’s work would be shit.”
c.f. Song of the Dodo.
Steve Schafersman wrote:
I guess I need to update my definition of religion. If you take both the deity and the supernatural out of “religion” I don’t think the result would meet the definition of religion that I am familiar with. Is there some fairly recent trend to redefine or expand the definition of religion?
Regarding Nisbet, I am getting tired of hearing the same crap criticisms against the so called “New Atheism.” Can’t he come up with something different? I thought he was a scholar, or was it a professional? He just does not come off as very bright.
I guess I should have been more precise in my wording about the Bible being full of lies, and made it clear I was referring to the parts that most people actually read or hear preached to them, the parts about God being love and forgiveness, mostly from the New Testament. I agree that if you read the entire Bible, Yahweh isn’t such a nice character, but most people don’t actually read the entire Bible. When I get into discussion with Christians and mention any of the less honorable actions of Yahweh (sending the bears to kill 42 kids), most of them don’t know those stories.
I can see Cafeeine’s wish fulfillment aspect. I guess I looked at it a bit differently when I began questioning Christianity, focusing more on evidence of existence rather than how nice of a character Yahweh might be.
Fatboy @5:
I never understood how the problem of evil could convince people there was no god.
Notice that the problem of evil made Darwin anti-theistic in the “Christian God”. Not that it made him an atheist.
The problem of evil is a big deal if you believe in an all-loving, all-knowing, all-powerful, all-good, monotheistic God. It isn’t such a big deal if you remove any one of those attributes. Since those attributes describe the Christian God, the problem of evil is sufficient to kill belief in that God.
Note that if Christianity were more of a dualist religion – where God and Satan have equal or nearly equal power – then you can also reconcile the problem of evil with the Christian God. And that’s what many fundamentalists do as a practical matter, which reconciles the problem without having to give up the Christian God (though you are then committing a fairly egregious heresy as far as Christianity is concerned – one that would have gotten them slaughtered in previous centuries. Chalk one up for freedom of religion!)
Because Nisbet has, for good or for ill, defined “framing science” to be his own particular brand of lie-back-and-think-of-England. The de facto definition of “framing” in the science-communication biz has been fatally contaminated by his use (or abuse) of words. Some people somewhere else use “framing” to mean something different. So the fuck what?
OFF TOPIC – But what happened to the tangled bank and the carnival of the elitist bastards? I miss them so much.
Interrobang @7
“Could you just for once abuse Nisbet and his fellow-travellers instead of crapping wholesale on a rhetorical technique”
I agree. Nisbet’s flaw isn’t that he is advocating framing. It is that he is so godawful BAD at it, that he doesn’t understand it himself, and that he insists that everyone do it his way.
Dismissing the intentional use of framing in science advocacy simply because Nisbet it it’s public face, is bad for science advocacy.
Again with the labels. “New Atheists”? How does a consistent stance and the mounting of scientific evidence and avenues of argument amount to something necessarily “new”? The term implies that there’s something different about “new” atheists as opposed to (assumed) “old” or “classical” ones. The only difference I see is the “new” ones are less likely to put up with religious wankery.
@ Sastra #4: It is very hard to draw the line at “just a little bit of magic,” and justify it in one remote area, but not in any other. It is even harder to draw a line at all once you have endorsed the view that it is very, very important and beautiful to have faith and a believing attitude.
Indeed, one could say that it’s as difficult as getting “only a little bit pregnant”. Faith colors the whole outview of a person, as pregnancy changes the whole body.
spook@13,
There is room for criticism of Darwin’s behaviour, but it comes nowhere near cheating. If Darwin had been a “cheater”, it would have been very easy for him to destroy Wallace’s letter without replying to it, or mentioning it to anyone else, and rush out a brief publication to establish his priority, wouldn’t it? If Wallace later protested, who would people have believed: the already well-respected, well-connected and much-published scientist and “gentleman” (not aristocrat, do try to get at least something right), or the little-known and little-published jobbing collector?
At least they capitalize “new atheists” in the same way they capitalize “god”. You’ve got to give them credit for that…or do you? That capital “G” implies a level of respect I find inappropriate, and I refuse to use it!
“New Atheists” are obviously pushing at the comfort zone of these guys.
It doesn’t matter what religist leader or commentator is talking. In their feeble minds the problem is the atheists, not what we are saying. Attack atheists and the message goes away. Sorry dudes but the message keeps coming through loud and clear.
How long before they pass laws to have us burned at the stake? I see the new UN laws on “intolerance” as just the first moves to silence and imprison us.
Fatboy @ # 15 …the parts about God being love and forgiveness, mostly from the New Testament.
The way the NT ends is really nasty:
Revelation 22:
13 I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last.
14 Blessed are they that do his commandments, that they may have right to the tree of life, and may enter in through the gates into the city.
15 For without are dogs, and sorcerers, and whoremongers, and murderers, and idolaters, and whosoever loveth and maketh a lie.
16 I Jesus have sent mine angel to testify unto you these things in the churches. I am the root and the offspring of David, and the bright and morning star.
17 And the Spirit and the bride say, Come. And let him that heareth say, Come. And let him that is athirst come. And whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely.
18 For I testify unto every man that heareth the words of the prophecy of this book, If any man shall add unto these things, God shall add unto him the plagues that are written in this book:
19 And if any man shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part out of the book of life, and out of the holy city, and from the things which are written in this book.
20 He which testifieth these things saith, Surely I come quickly. Amen. Even so, come, Lord Jesus.
21 The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all. Amen.
Apart from it being mostly gibberish, the intelligible bits are nasty in a spiteful way, trying to scare the gullible into believing the whole crock of shit, or else!
Well, No True New Atheist would… oh dear, I’ve crapped my pants and they’re full of nisbet.
Nah. It implies that the job description is most commonly used as if it were a proper name (instead of Yahwe). I can’t see a problem with that.
I’ve been an atheist since I was about 10; it was just rather obvious, once I thought about it. And, while on one level it doesn’t matter what Darwin believed about god, I am glad he would have agreed with me had he had the chance to know my views.
Still, I am somewhat sad over my atheism in that it does seem so meaningless; almost cruel, really, that I would have the ability to inquire about such things (fate, evil, morals, etc.) but no way to know about them. Of course, perhaps some dinosaurs had the same thoughts; perhaps my dog does as well.
OTOH, considering how many religious morals I violate daily, it’s probably a good thing in the long run for me that there is no god.
Much nicer than my response. IIRC, it invoked the north end of a south-bound horse.
OT –
N.Y. Times:
Justices Rule Sect Cannot Force Placing of Monument
WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court ruled unanimously on Wednesday, in one of the most closely watched free speech decisions in years, that a tiny religious sect could not force a Utah city to let it erect a monument to its faith in a public park.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/26/washington/26scotus.html
I must take issue with this canard in the Steven Schafersman article.
No, Matt Nisbet has proved that he is an **incompetent** on framing of issues and words. While he may be a self-absorbed, self-aggrandizing and self-proclaimed “expert” on framing, he has time and time again demonstrated that he has no actual insight or skill at the same.
18 For I testify unto every man that heareth the words of the prophecy of this book, If any man shall add unto these things, God shall add unto him the plagues that are written in this book:
19 And if any man shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part out of the book of life, and out of the holy city, and from the things which are written in this book.
I love that bit. It’s just such perfect evidence of all the tinkering that was going on with these “scriptures” in the first centuries of Christianity.
Don’t forget that Nisbet endorsed the “kill Darwin” essay… so now it’s “kill Darwin but exhume his corpse a week later and appeal to its moral authority”?
Richard Harris @25:
The bible is a porno novel? I never knew.
“atheist literalists” made me giggle out loud.
:)
***
Please explain what you mean, Mr. Troll, because I’m not following you. Sartre and Sagan – deal with it.
?
?
I recall from seeing the TV production of “Brideshead Revisited” a scene where a pretty irreligious suitor of a Catholic lady has agreed to convert to Catholicism, and is being given lessons by a priest. He is asked by the priest to describe the nature of God. “You tell me, Monsignor,” he answers, “it’s your religion, not mine!”
I find articles like this tedious and pretty useless. The analysis of strong and weak atheism, plus agnosticism, always leaves me feeling left out, and, I imagine, Richard Dawkins and a lot of scientists might agree. “..evidence for or against the existence of a god is not available or sufficient” — sufficient for what? As a biological scientist, I see no point to “agnosticism” about the existence of a non-evolved intelligence, when I know already that all human knowledge is fallible and at best only expressible as probabilities. Human knowledge (and all knowledge in biological systems) doesn’t exist except in the context of the purpose for which it is intended to be used. And we know of no other kind of knowledge.
For the purpose of living my own life, I find natural explanations quite sufficient. For the purpose of further exploration of the phenomena of life and intelligence, I find naturalism to have been the most fruitful approach in the past, and so the best bet for guiding future inquiry. There is probably no god, and intelligence will most likely be best understood as, like life, a product of “bottom-up” evolution, not as a “top-down” imposition from a realm about which we know and can know nothing, but about which we are very well adapted to deceiving ourselves.
So I don’t care about whether Darwin was an atheist or agnostic, and I don’t care about the “problem of evil,” and I don’t care about “logical” proofs or disproofs of the Monsignor’s fantacies about his god.
@Bjørn Østman: But we don’t expect our ‘luminaries’ to be right on major points, well not when it comes to personal belief anyway. However, the other side has this thing about argument from authority and think that if they ‘prove’ or can claim that the beliefs of our ‘luminaries’ are different to ours it either invalidates our position or is justification enough to tell us to STFU. Such as here, Nisbet tries to say that because Darwin wasn’t an atheist we ‘New Atheists’ should just shut up because obviously Darwin is our ‘pope’ and he knows the mind of our ‘pope’. In fact, all Nisbet has done, again, is display his incompetence at even the simple things, such as actually reading Darwin’s own writings. Well, either incompetence or a total lack of integrity in misrepresenting Darwin so as to enable him to try to attack the ‘New Atheists’, again.
NewEnglandBob, The bible is a porno novel? I never knew.
Nah, it’s more into sadism, what with all the stoning & smiting & drowning & deaths by bear attack.
I’m the same atheist I was 40 years ago, so how old is “New Atheism”?
It appears to me that Weiss and Nisbet are whining that us “New Atheists” aren’t keeping in the closet, not tugging our forelocks at Pat Robertson and Rick Warren, and not making goddists uncomfortable. Weiss and Nisbet may want to play Uncle Tom-style atheists and not rock the boat. But there are some of us who disagree. If I make some goddist feel challenged, that’s his or her problem, not mine.
spook@13,
Darwin gave much credit to the work of others. That is one of the things that I respect about him. The christian could learn from him, if they gave credit to all the other god-ideas that they stole their story from, I might have a slight bit of respect for the christian as well but, even then christianity is still a mass of lies.
Sigh. Whatever Darwin thought about the matter of religion has always seemed irrelevant to me.
I’m glad someone else feels the way I do. Darwin was an excellent biologist, but he wasn’t an expert in theology, philosophy, or psychology. His particular views on religion are no more insightful than anyone else’s, no matter which side you are on. His religious views don’t affect the scientific work he did; it stands on its own merit. I don’t care about his religious views any more than I care about his views on astronomy, geology, parenting, family, or anything else.
Oh you know, Song of Solomon, Belshazzar’s feast, Salome, sundry orgies, penile modifications, group sex (concubines) and rapes. And Onan, let’s not forget the exhibitionist with the overdeveloped right arm.
By the end of his life, Darwin was a total agnostic, nontheist, and–concerning the Christian God–antitheist.
Hey, waitafarginminute, I thought Darwin recanted on his deathbed!
#43, you should read the Holy Bible about Onan – who, when told to screw his brother’s widow, spilled his seed on the ground – and ever after, good Christians have been mixing coitus interruptus up with masturbation. Oh, and Onan was smote dead for failing to add to the Race of Israel. Bit illogical, but what do you expect.
But I digress. Darwin found the problem of evil problematic because he had been brought up on Paley’s idea of a Beneficent Creator doing everything for the good of mankind…. and came up against Creations that appeared malevolent and nasty, showing that the Creator couldn’t even act with common decency. If he’d been brought up to believe in a deity who was a vicious trickster it wouldn’t have come as so much of a shock. The problem of evil was a big deal in the theology of the time.
All things dull and ugly, All creatures short and squat;
All things rude and nasty, The Lord God made the lot…..
Each nasty little hornet, Each beastly little squid…… oops
No, no, no, Onan wasn’t a wanker. His sin was getting off at Redfern. He was supposed to get his dead brother’s wife up the duff and he deliberately pulled out.
(You can google the Australianisms. Consider it educating PZ.)
Cath:
I doubt Onan simply pulled out at the last possible second and let fly, so to speak, without a few additional strokes and caresses from Rosie Palm or her sister Jackie.
Oh and I forgot to mention Lot knockin’ up his daughters (vice is nice but incest is best) and a drunken nekkid Noah.
Sounds like Japanese porn.
Darwin was an excellent biologist, but he wasn’t an expert in theology, philosophy, or psychology
Actually, Darwin did get a degree in theology in preparation for his projected career as an Anglican priest. Maybe he wasn’t an expert in theology as such (he devoted much of his time and energy as a student to geology and naturalism), but he probably knew more than the average person.
Darwin was an excellent biologist, but he wasn’t an expert in theology, philosophy, or psychology. – catgirl
His Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals shows that he was an excellent psychologist – his observations of his children being an important part of his research.
Actually, Darwin did not get a degree in theology – he got an ordinary BA, which at that time was a necessary qualification before vocational training for his projected career as an Anglican priest. Which he never did. However, the BA required studies on set theological and philosophical texts, amongst others.
I wish Matt Nisbett would come out of his theist closet and pick a religion to follow.
Besides, I don’t need another scold in my life. I have a mom, thanks. At least I know she a) means well and b) loves me. Nisbett doesn’t, on either count. And I wouldn’t want love from the likes of him. Ick. Gives me the creeps. I’d bet he’s the kind of boyfriend who’s a megalomaniacal control freak, constantly nagging and criticizing and demanding constant ego strokes and adoration.
Ugh. If I wanted to spend my life that way, I’d be a theist!
I always find these threads enlightening and intellectually stimulating. In my readings of Eastern and Western religious philosophy I find that the true teachings of these “spiritual” teachers were,generally speaking, secular and humanistic in nature (the good samaritan, casting the first stone, the stubborn monk carrying the woman across the river). Really just different iterations of the golden rule. (Of course there is Revelations but I think Paul just got some bad, or very very good, acid. The problem is always in the deification of the teacher, usually carried out by the first generation students, who become invested in power, glory, holiness by association. An example:
Life of Brian, scene 17;
ShoeFollower:…”He has given us…His shoe.
Arthur:The shoe is a sign. Let us follow.
Spike:What?
Arthur:Let us like Him, hold up one shoe and let the other be upon our foot, for this is his sign, and all who follow Him shall do likewise.
Eddie:Yes.
ShoeFollower:No, no, no. The shoe is…
Youth:No.
ShoeFollower:…A sign that we must gather shoes in abundance.
Girl: Cast off…
Spike: Aye. What?
Girl: …the shoes! Follow the gourd!
Shoefollower: No! Let us gather shoes together.
Frank: Yes!
ShoeFollower: Let me!
Elsie: Oh,get off!
Youth: No,no! It is a sign that, like Him, we must not think of the things of the body but of the face and head!
Etc. etc.
Of course there is Revelations but I think Paul just got some bad, or very very good, acid.
SIWOTI!
It’s The Revelation of St. John (note no ‘s’) and it was written some forty to sixty years after Paul’s death. You can’t characterize this stuff as “secular and humanistic in nature” and then just discount books or passages that aren’t.
As for your other two Christian examples, yes, there’s a simple, straightforward reading of the Parable of the Good Samaritan, but the early church fathers were having none of it. They made of it an elaborate allegory of the Fall of Man and the coming of the Christ to redeem sin. And “let he who is without sin cast the first stone” is a later interpolation into John, likely the incorporation of a previous copyist’s marginal note into the text.
There’s really nothing “secular” or “humanist” about the New Testament. The books in it are theological constructs, through and through, aimed at specific groups of people in late antiquity, and it’s more or less an accident that they contain even the barest hint of an acceptable modern morality. Finally, we don’t have any “true teachings” of Jesus anyway. Just what the various authors of NT books thought they should or would have been. It’s “students, who become invested in power, glory, holiness by association” all the way down.
Shorter Revelation 22:
By hook or by crook, I’ll be last in this book.
Ner Nerny Ner Ner!
Where is our 21st century Robert Ingersall? Only this time he dosen’t go from hall to hall giving speaches and debating, but on TV. Isn’t this is what cable is for? Some small indie station willing to be brave and not fear being burnt to the ground with lots of insurance. We need to find him or her to give good intelligence to the sheeple. Maybe a few of them will even wake up.
@Richard Harris: Some scholars understand those curses to be directed against scribes who were tempted to amend or change the texts while making copies. Many books from the ancient world have similar curses but Revelations had a few built-in that could be easily recycled.
Well, New Atheism isn’t named for you, obviously, but for those young revolutionary firebrands like Hitchens, Dawkins and Dennett. No one like that was around in Carl Sagan’s time, let me tell you.
Oh Nisbet. Still gunning for that Templeton Prize, no doubt.
And CJO@#54 ripostes for the win! Touche!
#24
The idea is that we’re supposed to be intimidated and start professing so we can be accepted in the community
No way, that’s happening. Committing to one religion might alienate members of other religions and you can’t go alienating religious people.