I am so tired of the fatalist atheists. Julian Baggini is a perfect example: on the one hand he is incapable of seeing the progress atheism has made in the last decade, declaring us at an “impasse”, and on the other, he announces that he, as a philosopher, is going to come up with the productive, powerful Answer. I’m not interested. We’re long past the point where long-winded rationalizations by gooey apologists are at all useful. We must be aggressive and loud and keep the momentum going.
Ophelia takes him on in detail, I just have to mention a few things.
I do not blame the quagmire on the intransigence of any of the three sides in the debate – believers, atheists and agnostics – but on all of them. Broadly speaking, the problem is that the religious mainstream establishment maintains a Janus-faced commitment to both medieval doctrines and public pronouncements about inclusivity and moderation; agnostics and more liberal believers promote an intellectualised version of religion, which both reduces faith to a thin gruel and fails to reflect the reality of faith on the ground; while the new atheists are spiritually tone-deaf, fixated on the superstitious side of religion to the exclusion of its more interesting and valuable aspects.
LIKE WHAT? I guarantee you that every single “valuable aspect” he could mention (which he doesn’t) don’t need religion and are fully achievable by secular institutions…except the lies and promises of magic afterlives. Just for once I’d like these guys to lay it on the line and tell me what, exactly, humanity can’t accomplish without religion.
And then there’s this:
As a querulous member of the atheist camp, one of my aims is to end up with a richer, more constructive vision for what should follow the “new atheism”, which may well have been needed, but does not appear capable of taking us much further. To use another military analogy, the new atheism seems designed for effective invasion, but not long-term occupation.
I’ve often heard this assertion that we have to come up with something positive to replace the religion we eradicate. That would be nice, but it’s not essential: when a doctor purges a person of parasites, they’re not going to moan and fret about what they’re going to replace the worms with — getting rid of them is sufficient benefit.
Even that analogy is flawed, however. We’re getting rid of ignorance. We don’t need to replace it with a different kind of ignorance. It’s enough to learn the truth about reality.
I just got back from Cincinnati, right next door to Answers in Genesis and the Creation “Museum”. I do not feel at all charitable to religion, and my mood was not lifted by the latest insanity from Ken Ham. This is not the Omphalos argument — it’s worse.
As I have spoken at conferences over the years, people have often come up to me and said:
“When I am talking to someone who believes in an old earth, one of the things I say to them, as a young-earth creationist, is that God didn’t make Adam a baby—He made him an adult. And when He created the universe, He created it fully functional, with the appearance of age—even though it wasn’t old.”
My response often shocks these speakers: “By saying the universe looks old, you are trusting that dating methods can give us an apparent old age for the universe—but they can’t.”
Let me explain. When people say the universe has “apparent age,” usually they are assuming, for whatever reason, that the universe “looks old.” I have often found that, unconsciously, such people have already accepted that the fallible dating methods of scientists can give great ages for the earth. So if they believe what the Scripture says about a young universe, they have to explain away this apparent great age.
Ham is denying all of science and all of the evidence. The science does say the universe is very, very old, there’s no getting around it. Ham’s argument is a simple claim that all of science is completely wrong.
Why does he do this? Religion. I have no reason to believe it provides a positive benefit, nor do I need to replace it with some pretentious philosophy. These clowns are wrong.
I’m also not at an impasse. We’re going to crush them.
Seems like a good goal to me.
It seems to me that when people speak of replacing religion for people, it isn’t really the belief system that needs to be replaced, but the social aspect, a community. I think we have a lot of churchgoers who don’t really buy into the invisible man in the sky thing, but can’t give up their friends, contacts in that church.
(Warning: anecdata) I know lots of Catholics (I was once one) who still go to church but are nominal atheists. It’s become a social thing. How to replace that is a challenge for we godless people.
I suggest bowling. When we bowled together more, we were a great nation…
PZ Whatever you are doing keep doing it. Whatever you are eating keep eating it. You are definitely on a role. You having been knocking them out of the ballpark. Great stuff.
Off to see what Ophelia had to say.
You know I believe that not all philosophers are puffed up egos who spend their time in a form of intellectual masturbation. Like all masturbation, it might feel good to the one doing it, but it’s kind of embarrassing to anyone who has to watch them and it really doesn’t accomplish anything.
I do believe they aren’t all like that. I admit that my belief has limited evidence to back it up, but there is evidence.
Really.
He doesn’t do it *because* of religion. You can be “religious” but a less nutty brand of religious. If he wasn’t religious, he might be a Truther, or a Birther, or the guy with the crazy hair who studies ancient aliens. If you say he does it because of religion, that almost makes it not his fault. I say it IS his fault.
How odd, we as a society gets assaulted by the superstitious nonsense of the IDiots, and we as the godless focus on these superstitious morons. Why would we focus on much else?
Regardless of the fact that they’ve lost momentum on the legal and political fronts, they’re still a menace to science all across a host of schools where it is unlikely that anyone will sue over the presentation of apologetics as science. I believe that they are losing somewhat, in fact, but that’s as it should be, we ought to push them down as far as possible, so we don’t just end up with them trying to get it sanctioned as “science” yet again in a decade or so.
In fact there are studies that suggest that a lot of young people leave religion due to its being anti-science. Why would anyone want anything else?
Glen Davidson
My response will be even more shocking : it’s not only dating methods (even if those are remarkably consistent and accurate) that inform us about the age of the universe, but the very laws of physics – such as the speed of light. Let’s hear how those are wrong again.
What a clueless pompous dingleberry. I would have laughed at his ignorance at 8 years old.
Stage 1 of the plan to crush religion : teach science properly to children.
Omphalos. Needless to say, such a god would be a monster.
He makes the 6,000 year old earth look like it is part of a 13.7 billion year old universe. Then hides himself completely. And then sends everyone to hell to be tortured for eternity for not believing he exists. And they don’t believe he exists because he is actively trying to fool them.
It’s a silly argument. Why would the gods bother to make a young universe look ancient? Why do they even care if we believe they exist or not?
It’s also untestable. It isn’t science.
Omphalos has other problems. It is a variant of Last Thursdayism.
If the gods can create a 6,000 year old universe that looks like it is 13.7 billion years old, they can create a new universe every Thursday. That looks like it is 13.7 billion years old.
Enjoy your life, it ends in 4 days. Next week is giant squids swimming in methane seas universe. Last week was walking, talking snakes universe week. The snake in Eden was just a carryover.
I thought it is simply about replacing fiction with fact.
#8 raven
So the snake was sort of a hitchhiker, sneaking a ride from one universe to the next? No mention in the bible about the value of towels, so it clearly isn’t a very reliable Guide to life, the universe, or anything. The snake must have had a better reference text.
No, no. He’s not arguing for omphalos. Quite the contrary: he’s saying the earth looks exactly as old as it is, 6,000 years old.
He’s insane.
I think there is one issue relating to the non-destructive elements of religion that is all but ignored by the new atheists, namely the belief in a non-supernatural (read natural) God of the sort espoused by Einstein, Spinoza and many, many other scientists, empiricists and science-minded lay people. These believers think that the conception of God adds something to their understanding of the universe, even if, at its core, the concept is mainly metaphorical or poetic. There are several different concepts of God which are perfectly compatible with the naturalistic world view.
It seems to me that the real “enemy” to the rational thinker is supernaturalism or even faulty/poorly maintained/poorly constructed belief generating mechanisms. You’re not gonna find any non-realists on God or naturalistic pantheists flying planes into buildings, trying to teach your children fairy tales as science, or insisting on the divine authority of scripture. Yet even Einstein, one of the best minds man has ever produced, found his understanding of the universe incomplete without some concept of God.
So long as there are believers in the supernatural the naturalism/supernaturalism debate may take precedence over the debate over whether room should be made within the naturalistic world-view for the explanatory frame-work of a natural conception of God, but this will have to be addressed. And it is my belief that without the need to defend against God’s supernatural implications many self-styled atheists may find that the addition of a natural God does add something valuable to their world view, even if that value is mainly in God’s symbolism, metaphor or poetry.
I wouldn’t say Ham believes science to be wrong, rather Ham believes that science is inadequate as an account of the material world because his deity is capable of acting outside nature and causality. The distinction is useful insofar as it further demarcates the territory between people who presume the indifferent univerese we see and experience is, in and of itself, a wonder worthy of building a life in, and those who think a cosmic mass murderer improves the scenery.
So what? Sorry Einstein, I’m not just going to take your word for it.
Einstein specifically responding to questions about his personal beliefs:
Who cares, anyway? Just another argument from authority.
This is just another way of saying God’s unreality.
One may as well say that Holden Caulfield adds something valuable to a great many scientists’ worldview. Or Luke Skywalker. That’s fine, if it adds something to your worldview, but let’s be clear that this is metaphor. Fiction, not reality.
AmVik,
The point is that there is nothing to take his word for. In this conception God’s “existence” is not a hypothesis or a truth claim, it is more like an analogy meant to elucidate the subtleties of the universe or to strike home a salient feature of the universe.
Your response is like saying to Schroedinger “I’m not just gonna take your word that you put this so-called “cat” into some box…” You’ve completely missed the point of the thought experiment.
Sally Strange,
In one conception, yes, hence the phrase “non-realists on God”, but the line between real and unreal when speaking of abstract explanatory concepts (which can be fictional characters like Luke Skywalker, but are not always) is a little blurry.
It’s highly likely that Ken Ham is well aware of the actual age of the Earth and the Universe. His brand of creationism is good business. It brings in a lot of money. So I think it’s pretty safe to say that the more outlandish his claims are against the Science, the better off he and his group will be. It’ll make his museum that much more attractive to the krazies he panders to.
Also, it wouldn’t surprise me the least bit if Ken Ham himself was actually an atheist. Well, a dishonest atheist but an atheist nonetheless. What you have with the religious is largely a pool of very gullible people. So it’s probably pretty easy to sell them alot of hocus pocus as long as it comes from a very old book.
I guess I did miss your point. The concept of god is just an analogy for something that actually exists? “God” can mean many different things to many different people. Wouldn’t that make a terribly ineffective analogy? Or am I still missing the point?
I suspect we’re at an impasse and reiterating old arguments because these arguments have never been honestly addressed by believers. Any impasse is due only to believer’s stubborn refusal abandon untenable and impossible ideas. Sick of hearing them? Then provide a good answer to them. This should be easy if what is said is true, but is very difficult with things that are not.
I think if you strip “God” of all its supernatural implications it sharpens the analogy a bit. It may be a weakness that I find the concept so helpful. But I’m certainly far from the only Naturalist with a concept of God.
Baggini’s diatribe not only seems facile but also internally inconsistent. he criticizes the religious mainstream for clinging to medieval doctrines and then criticizes the New atheists for focusing on the superstitious aspects of religions and ignoring the other “interesting and valuable” parts of religion, which he earlier criticized the agnostics for creating.
So everyone is addressing the issues that everyone else created and he’s complaining that people are talking about these things. Everyone else is wrong and talking about it is now worthless. Thanks, Julian! It’s all clear now.
Seriously, I can’t tell what this guy’s position is beyond, “You all shut up!”
Great post as ever, sir. The tastiest of vitriol! I’m into it.
I’m thinking lately of “what, exactly, humanity can’t accomplish without religion.” One thing religion has that we aren’t up to par on (but we surely can be) is community. We don’t have the temples and whatnot, or the reassuring voice at the pulpit.
We don’t need the lies and money hustling associated with religious churches, but some other aspects would be nice. I’ve thought about it off an on for years – some kind of freethinker’s temple.
Sure I’m going to be called a fuckwit for that. Anybody think it’s a good idea, or has come up with something similar themselves? Do tell.
–
No, not blurry at all. People say, “God is the entire universe and everything in it.”
Well, then why do you need God? The entire universe exists. God, as most people understand the meaning of the word, does not. What precisely are you explaining? What’s abstract about the existence of the universe anyway?
Same for “God is love,” or, “God is my sense of wonder.”
Both of those things exist in reality. If God is a metaphor for the existence of human emotions, then you run into the same problem. Human emotions exist. God does not. What is being elucidated by insisting on using something that does not exist to symbolize or represent something that does exist?
As AmVik points out, it’s terribly ineffective as an analogy.
——-
@ Great American Satan
Yes in fact it has been proposed, pretty recently on this site. People were actually mostly very supportive of it. I’m sure if you browse the archives you’ll quickly find it. I don’t feel like searching for you.
That said, I personally find this tactic of preemptively defusing criticism by anticipating it to be cowardly in the extreme. If you have an idea then stand by it and defend it with data and reasoning. If someone calls you a fuckwit for it, explain why they’re wrong, and call them a fuckwit right back if you want to. Why would you even bring it up unless you’re feeling unsure of yourself in the first place?
If you strip the word “god” of its supernatural implication then it becomes meaningless. It’s like stripping the word “yellow” of all its implications about light spectra.
It’s so obvious, even you are compelled to admit it. Don’t worry, admitting that you have a problem is the first step to dealing with it. There is help for you.
*sigh*
Popularity =/= correctness
Your thinking is sloppy. That’s your biggest weakness.
popularity is not evidence of truth, but it is evidence of utility.
Yup. The Center for Inquiry.
CFI-Los Angeles hosts lectures, every other Sunday, on science, the history of religion and of freethought, and other topics of interest to humanist/atheist folk (yesterday’s was by neuroscientist David J. Linden, talking about his book The Compass of Pleasure).
They’ve got a skeptic’s book club, a Cafe Inquiry (our version of the Cafe Scientifique), there’s talk of starting a skeptic’s film club, and they host the Independent Investigations Group, which investigates paranormal claims and also serves as a de facto social club. They’ve done food drives.
There’s a real sense of community at CFI-LA. There are other CFI branches around the country (and around the world)–can’t speak of those first hand but I know they offer some similar events and groups.
popularity is not evidence of truth, but it
is>/strike> [could be] evidence of utility.Not only does this need to be tempered as it was written, but even tempered, there are relative measures of utility, and it is hardy always the case that the solution offering the best utility is in the end the most popular. History supports me on this, most completely.
so, in short.
fail.
speaking of fail.. failtag again.
popularity is not evidence of truth, but it
is[could be] evidence of utility.Obviously I disagree, but I’m curious as to what sloppy, haphazard path you took to arrive at this harebrained conclusion. Care to expound further?
Unless, of course, you come from the “If I assert it, it must be true” school of thought. In which case, no use talking to you really.
Homeopathic remedies are quite popular. Therefore their utility is ____________.
Fill in the blank, nikkane.
But utility of what exactly?
It may very well be that ‘God’ somehow enriches some people’s understanding of the universe, but in what way exactly? Does he help them form this or that theory? Does he help them meaningly resolve conflit between different seemingly conflicting explanations? What utility do gods serve in science, philosophy or anywhere really?
I understand that some people find religion helps them cope with the stresses of life but that ‘God’ is almost the opposite of the one you’ve been advocating. The gods most people draw comfort from are the ones they believe (wrongly) will answer prayers or is working to keep them well and the greater good of humanity.
Better yet, and I apologize if this is to personal a question, how does ‘God’ enrich your understanding of the universe?
“When I am talking to someone who believes in an old earth, one of the things I say to them, as a young-earth creationist, is that God didn’t make Adam a baby—He made him an adult. And when He created the universe, He created it fully functional, with the appearance of age—even though it wasn’t old.”
What Mr. Ham says in the above quote is fine, if utterly nonsensical and useless. He appears to accept that the universe looks old, and simply asserts, without any evidential claims, that it actually is young.
If he wants to say that he understands everyone else agrees that the sky is usually a shade of blue, but that he knows it is really forest green with mauve stripes, he is fine. He hasn’t made any claim to having evidence, or denied the understanding provided by the available evidence for the color blue.
Then he goes on to ruin his presentation of his delusion in the rest of what PZ quoted. That is a real shame, it is usually a good sign when the delusional grasp that no one else is seeing what they see. Unfortunately Mr. Ham has not come that far yet.
Utility of homeopathy; in a country with horrendous health insurance problems, a stressed out medical system, and millions of people too poor to get proper medicine, taking placebos makes them feel better. Elsewhere? Dunno. Illusion of control, perhaps?
Utility of religion:
Exorcisms? Homicide-suicide bombings? Jihads, fatwah’s and crusades? Holding “national days of prayer” intended to make the rain fall in Texas & elsewhere? Cult mass sucides? Parents (eg. Jehovah Witlesses) preferring to let their own kids die instead of getting them proper medical treatment because God’s Will be done? Justifying homophobia and misogny?
Yeah, Humanity may find it hard, even impossible, to do all those things without religion – thankfully! ;-)
PS. Forgot to add :
“Praying away teh ghey!” ;-)
can’t do that w/o religion either. Oh well, no loss.
I’ve decided I hate Friedrich Nietzsche.
He didn’t kill God hard enough.
he might have used a silver bullet, but apparently you also need to chop off the head and burn the corpse besides.
God is a fucking undead zombie.
You can’t kill it enough.
So… religion and homeopathy are useful for similar things.
#2, “on a role?” Did I miss an in-joke or meme, here?
#12 Arguing the semantics of “god” toward the idea of natural, metaphorical entities is an unwinnable task. If you temporarily succeed, all the baggage and room for confusion attached to the phrase will remain. It is simpler and more honest to instead declare: “no gods.”
Oh, I’ll say one thing for religions: They created wonderful celebrations. Let’s just get rid of the superstitious nonsense, include more cultures and celebrate more.
More extra-special traditional dishes, more occasions to come together with friends and family.
Oh, btw: Researchers of the Humboldt-University have recently demonstrated that religion itself doiesn’t make people happier than non-believers. The connection only holds in countries where religion carries prestige and privilege.
The more secular a country becomes, the more vanishes that connection.
Linky in German, I’m sorry
When your opponent is offering a draw, you know you are in a winning position.
When your opponent is offering a draw, you know you are in a winning position.
Oops. Forgot PZ’s quote (for context.)
I love the smell of atheists bashing each other in the morning!
PZ Myers saying “We will Crush You.” LOL!
Reminds me of the old newsreels in History class of the Fat Little Atheist Commie Nikita Kruschev crying “We Will Bury You.”
His system self destructed too.
Bring it on!
PZ, you say
Marx thought that the collapse of capitalism would be enough to usher in his idea of communist utopia. Capitalism effectively collapsed in the 1930s. We replaced it with… more capitalism.
If you create a vacuum it is not right to fail to anticipate what will rush into that vacuum once it collapses.
Fixed again?
——
Hmm, they lost the intellectual battle a long time ago; but in any case, I don’t think religionists are offering a draw. They’re frauds to the core, I’m afraid. It’s a sort of bait-and-switch. I’ve got nothing against charitable efforts or building up a sense of community (except when they only serve in-group members), but that’s not what religion is selling. It advertises itself as such, since that draws people in and keeps them there; but the believers aren’t the customers, so to speak. They are a resource religious institutions use to maintain their positions in society. But this “resource” is thinking, feeling human beings, so they have to be somewhat satisfied so the institution can utilize them effectively.
Indeed, if religion were all about things like charity or community-building, they wouldn’t waste much time praying or listening to old men lecture them about nonsense. Instead, that sort of bullshit is central to religion. And like a crooked drug dealer, the good stuff is there only in enough quantity to get you hooked and keep coming back.
And boil their babies, & roast their priests.
I heard some of Radio 4’s “Start the Week” in the car this morning. Richard Dawkins, Lisa Randall, & the UK chief rabbi Jonathan Sacks. The latter sure got roasted (in the worst sense) by those two.
Morrison:
Politely determining who gets to crush the mind-poison called ignorance in the name of religion, you mean. ;)
<snicker>
—
frosty840:
I reject the obvious joke about vacuity since it’d be wasted on you, so merely note my mild bemusement that you have apparently not yet grasped neither naturalism, science, empiricism and rationalism is hardly a vacuum.
As John Morales noted, what vacuum?
In fewer words, we should anticipate what will happen. Thanks for the tip. That’s deep. Poor commie bastards never thought of that one.
I think what analogists are getting at is that religious concepts have some experiential utility, not that they has any scientific or empirical explanatory power. This is part of the reason that some Catholics, for example, will cling to the ritual and poetic aspects of their religion, in spite of being, for all intents and purposes, just as dismissive of a literal belief in the dogmas of their church as atheists. George Santayana is an example of this kind of thinking, an avowed hater of supernaturalism and superstition, he still found value in the ritual and poetic aspects of Catholicism.
Poetic or analogical views of the universe, and ritual, have a real effect on people’s emotional lives, on what they feel about things, and how it shapes their day-to-day experiences of the world and the people in it, and they are unwilling to give this up because they feel a purely fact-based view of things fails to provide them with a framework for cultivating their phenomenological, subjective experiences. ‘Religion’ in this case just functions as a psychological and cognitive framework within which they can live their lives. I don’t think this is a big problem, or even a bad thing at all, except where they provide cover for their literalist cousins.
Having said that, it would be a vast improvement if fathiests would argue for a secularised, neurologically-informed version of this sort of thing, rather than making the mistake privileging religion, with all its fallacious claims, and egregious moral failings, as an exclusive, or even good, source for a poetry of lived experience. There are alternatives, even from the ancient world, like Epicureanism.
Also heard it in the car; arrived at destination before the programme finished, and had to sit and listen to the rest before getting out :-) Dawkins and Randall were both on good form (and thanks for the inadvertent reminder to email daughterspawn the link to listen to it on catchup). Of course (as was pointed out on the programme) if all religionists were like Sacks one wouldn’t have so much of a problem with them. They’d still be wrong, of course, but one wouldn’t have so much of a problem with them …
Blot:
Perhaps mythopoeia may be a necessary psychic crutch for some, and if the religious stuck to that, everything would be hunky-dory, and gnu atheism would no longer be pertinent).
(They don’t, it ain’t, and it is)
I agree actually, the rituals are quite nice. However, I’ve also been to a great many lovely rituals which were completely made-up. Mostly pagan, but whatever. If they can make up beautiful rituals so can we.
Some day in the future people will be able to aesthetically appreciate the poetry and the beauty of the rituals, but at the moment, those things are just smokescreens for the real deal: religious people who really think that god is a kind father in the sky and they will live happily ever after in heaven with him and Gramma and Skippy and Jane.
You mythopoetic devotees need to accept that these bozos own the label “god” right now. I honestly have no idea how you’d ever really take it back, that is, try to shift the definition (moving the Overton window, yes, cursed be Glenn Beck forever) in the culture and in the language, you’d have to convince people that you have a better definition of god than they do. And you obviously don’t. You don’t have the faintest clue what you mean by it yourself. You can only define god in terms of things that exist. So god is just a gloss, a term of art, referring to your personal sense of aesthetic revelation, in the end. Lovely, but hardly useful. And highly confusing when there are many, many people who are using the same word to sincerely refer to a hallucination they have of an angry, hateful, mass-murdering, petty, supernatural man-child ruler of the universe.
Absolutely. A charitable reading of what Baggini and his ilk are getting at is that there is some benefit to be had to choosing to organize one’s mental and emotional life around a poetic conception of reality, and that religion has long been a significant source of such poetry and ritual. That’s fair enough, so long as those who chose to do so keep in mind that without a pluralist secular society which encourages debate, and has genuine respect for scientific knowledge, that choice will soon no longer be made by them, but by priests and others who seek to manipulate belief to gain power.
Unfortunately, and probably inevitably, that respect for secular pluralism is exactly what is at risk, and exactly why the Gnus are necessary.
I wouldn’t dispute that. However, since it does affect how people behave, it cannot be assumed to be neutral or good, and thus it’s open to criticism just like anything else. If someone doesn’t literally believe the salvation mythos of their flavor of Christianity, yet gets some emotional benefit out of thinking in terms of divine justice coming via a scapegoat in the form of a human sacrifice, they’re still very deranged, confused or ignorant. Thus, they might do deranged, confused or ignorant things. Indeed, according to you, nothing substantial changes about their emotions or motivations, except with regard to some trivial facts about events in the distant past, which separate from any emotional component aren’t likely to motivate one to act a certain way. So, all else being equal, why wouldn’t a “metaphorical” belief be every bit as dangerous as a “literalist” one?
This is merely an assumption. How do they know it fails to provide them with such a framework? Did they even try? If so, they may have failed at using a rational framework and ought not assume the failure is in rationalism. What I don’t see is any indication that they’ve tried, and even that if they had, that it cannot happen in a rational framework. In fact, the claim that it can or cannot happen is an empirical one, not a matter of opinion or subjectivity.
Can atheists not live their lives? Perhaps you mean live their lives the way they’re accustomed to living them, filled with delusion and confusion.
Can atheists not live their lives? Perhaps you mean live their lives the way they’re accustomed to living them, filled with delusion and confusion.
Sure they can, I manage fine without any conception of God or whatever. But I am not everyone, and I don’t expect everyone to want to organise their emotional lives in the same way I do, or that the way I choose is the only reasonable way to live a happy, and socially harmless existence.
We are talking about beliefs which are demonstrably not socially harmless. Adjust accordingly.
There are parts of Europe that seem to have pretty much ditched religion as a meaningful concept. I am not aware the disappearance of religion is those places has left gaping holes in people’s lives.
If the Scandinavians can cope, why the fuck does Baggini think the rest of us cannot ?
Sally, that was more or less the implication I intended.
I find it much easier to see the beauty in religion when it’s removed from ritual. Paintings in an art gallery, sung masses in a concert hall, myths retold in a graphic novel.
“Ham’s argument is a simple claim that all of science is completely wrong.
Why does he do this?
Religion” MONEY! Ham has raised quite the cash cow in his utter nonsense, and as long as people refuse to see it for what it really is Ham,Comfort and all of the Charlatans out there will continue to make their fortunes from deceit.Look, I’m not saying everyone needs to think and feel just like me either. That’s not what we’re talking about. First, people don’t choose their beliefs, so it’s not like we can assume they’ve chosen what’s “best” for them. We also have no reason to assume any old belief, metaphorical or not, is or can be emotionally or socially beneficial to people. Some are just plain wrong, not in the sense that they’re literal beliefs and factually incorrect, but because they motivate people to do harmful things to one another. This is exactly what the “metaphorical” believers have left intact: the emotional stuff that really moves you to act a certain way.
The whole “live and let live” attitude is nice, and I agree with it for the most part; but that doesn’t mean we ought to treat them with kid gloves. The only way we’re going to stop that is by taking off the blinders and recognizing that it’s not just those evil fundamentalists over there in Bumfuck, AR, causing all the religious nuttery in the world. The educated, Enlightened apologists spew out the same garbage, they just make a more elaborate show of it. On top of that, they’re generally more aware that on some level what they’re saying is garbage, yet continue to say it. Exactly how that makes their actions better I’ve never been able to figure out.
To try to stay within PZ’s metaphor, parasites can provide benefits, such as blunting of allergic reaction and auto-immune disease. We have other therapies to treat these issues, but we should ensure that the patient knows about the possible side effects of parasite removal and the standard treatements to deal with it. Failure to provide options for patients will otherwise result in a portion of them trying to control their new symptoms by self-medicating, possible including swallowing new parasites.
It’s a clunky metaphor, but those who are seeking comfort, community, or an organization that provides charitable services will seek those things (as examples). Of course atheists can do these things, and I’m thrilled to see groups like Foundation Beyond Belief, and secular campus groups, and secular camps. These things ARE important to our cause.
Again, within the medical metaphor – you may well have several teams working on a patient. The parasite removal team may well be separate from the team that provides counselling and determines appropriate follow-up care. I don’t think everyone needs to be on both teams, or that someone who is only part of the removal team is “wrong.” But it’s not wrong to state that follow-up is important – and PZ’s promotion of freethought groups, secular charities, and fostering of a community here suggests that he thinks these are important as well.
I don’t think this is a bad analogy, there is a nugget of truth here. I’m not so sure we need to deliberately construct replacement institutions and stuff, but it is true that the New Atheism’s ethos of direct and confrontational engagement with religion would probably not be a particularly useful or effective strategy in a hypothetical “occupation” scenario, after religion’s influence has significantly waned. In that scenario, direct engagement could serve only to gather more attention for a waning religion. Perhaps at some point it will be better to let God belief go quietly into the night, rather than explicitly state all the things that are wrong with it.
But it seems obvious to me that we’re still firmly in the “invasion” phase, and probably rather early at that. We’ve stormed the beaches, and that’s about it. Religion and superstition are still tremendously dominant forces. So it seems to me the New Atheism strategy is still clearly one of the (many!) appropriate approaches right now.
@46 Morrison: I’ll just point out that, within a single comment, you first denigrated open debate within the atheist community, then tried to draw an analogy between the atheist movement and the Soviet Union. Pooping out inconsistent rhetorical turds is a poor substitute for thought.
You know, just when I think people like Ken Ham have have gotten to the most insane thing they could possibly say, they come out with something even more nuts. As far as I can see, Ham’s article can be summarized like this:
God created the universe looking ‘mature’, so all evidence and science showing the great age of the universe is wrong, but God didn’t lie, because it was Satan who caused the Original Sin, and therefore his fault that everything ages, thus fooling us into believing that the universe is older than it is (even though the signs of aging that lead us to believe this must, purely by chance, have copied the details that God put into the universe to make it ‘mature’). Therefore, I can have my cake and eat it, because this means that God can create an old-looking universe without having lied to all of humanity, because that part is Satan’s fault.
Julian Baggini frustrates me. For some reason he decided to form his opinion on “New Atheism” without reading the books by the gnu atheist authors — books which I think would have provided him with the depth and scope and nuance which he claims the gnu atheists lack. If you read only Baggini’s writings on atheism, science, and religion, you’d probably conclude that oh yes, he’s one of the gnu atheists. You have to read his anti-gnu screeds to discover that oh, no he’s not. Or, rather, he thinks he isn’t.
He doesn’t really say anything about the value of religion which the gnus haven’t said themselves, somewhere, somehow, some way. We just keep harping on the parts that aren’t true because those parts are supposed to be the parts that matter to the religious. And Baggini harps on that same issue too. It makes me suspect that at some early point he may have done a quick mental calculation on whether it would be more to his benefit, media-wise, to identify with gnu atheism, or to speak out against it — and went with a gut reaction. Which would be a shame, because for the most part I like Julian Baggini.
nikkane #12 wrote:
And it seems to me that one of the “enemies” to the rational thinker is a lack of clarity. Religious thought rests on sloppy equivocations and category errors – people sliding between concepts with superficial similarities and drawing inferences of deep underlying connections.
Michael S. at #42 has it exactly right. If we try to take the word “God” and naturalize it …”all the baggage and room for confusion attached to the phrase will remain.” And will bite us in the butt.
I used to argue for the point you’re trying to make: let’s rehabilitate sacred language and make it our own. I came to reject this strategy not because I wasn’t being practical and realistic about people, but because I became more so.
I don’t understand the concern about atheists not having the same social network as theists do. Until recently, it has been difficult for atheists to even find each other due to the social pressure to stay in the closet. How many stories have we seen where community leaders shit their pants over a billboard or bus sign that simply declares that atheists exist?
Despite these pressures, though, the social networks are forming, but it’s slow going. Surely atheists, of all people, don’t expect miracles.
Stage 1 of the plan to crush religion : teach science properly to children.
Which is why the theitards so fiercely fight having it taught properly.
Like Brother Yam, I used to be Catholic. I’m sure some of the people who went to my largish church were true believers, and some enjoyed the social aspects, but frankly, it seemed like most people were strangers who showed up for Sunday services and left as fast as they could when it was done (and, in many cases, before it was done). I wonder how many were like my parents, who went to church out of a sense of obligation, but would have rather slept in after spending Saturday night with their friends.
When you see people at an atheist conference of meet-up, you know they are all there because they want to be.
If you give a person evidence that will seriously put his personal beliefs in question that person comes back and says that god simply made evidence to deceive people who are so crass as to think. How can you win against such ignorance?
Alternative community-building forms will evolve rapidly to fill any available niche left by shrinking religion. A shorter answer would just be: “facebook”
I have just checked.
It seems the percentage of people in the UK who regularly attend church is just over 6%. I think it is reasonable to assume that in order to benefit from any feeling of community one gets by being a member of a congregation then regular attendance is required.
Yet I see no sign in the UK of a lack of community.
Today’s “Start the Week with Andrew Marr” on BBC Radio 4 was Prof Richard Dawkins, Prof Lisa Randall and Lord Jonathan Sacks (The UK Chief Rabbi) in conversation about Science and Religion. It can be downloaded from iTunes.
I’ll invite everyone to make two guesses before they listen to the programme:
1) Who talked the most unutterable waffly horseshit of all the guests?
2) Who was the least sympathetic to the religious claims of all the guests?
Enjoy!
Louis
P.S. Answers are: 1) Shock Horror it was The Chief Rabbi*, 2) IMO it was Prof Lisa Randall. Richard Dawkins gets a bum rap. He’s incredibly nice.
* I maintain to this day that rabbi is the plural of rabbits. It makes more sense. This man is in charge of some bunnies. Nice bloke, talked rot.
This weekend, at least two separate groups from Pharyngula (perhaps three, I wasn’t sure) met each other and had wonderfully fun weekends filled with fun, food, and rational thought.
That’s community enough for me. We didn’t have to go to a church or some building, just a hotel off I-84 in New York and a big field filled with sheep and wool-hawkers.
There is something here, PZ–I remember a very GOOD feeling in church growing up–it is the recognition that we are gathered to focus on WHat is the Right Way to Behave, to do the right thing, for the side of the good in this life, the value of that and the value of community and our obligation as part of it. You are probably right that this can occur In secular arenas but without the same feel of a common history and tradition.. I really am not sure. maybe it is our lot to figure this out –how to CHANNEL the great energy of gnu atheists — if this were nothing, folks would stop talking about it. I’Ll work on it. Thanks for all you do.
“If you strip the word “god” of its supernatural implication then it becomes meaningless.”
Supernatural is null right out of the box.
What the fuck is even meant by “us” being at an “impasse”? What exactly is on the other side of this impasse, pray tell?
No, it’s a challenge for them. If we spoon-feed them a solution we’re just contributing to the problem.
And then they turned right around and told us that we shouldn’t drink or smoke or dance or kiss or fuck or laugh or play cards or…
Religion may have invented the celebrations, but they’re only fun if you leave your religion by the door.
I don’t see how this is the case. We are social animals that crave community. If all that compels significant numbers of people to attend churches is a need for solidarity and a sense of belonging to a community, then it makes sense to at least attempt to offer some sort of alternative.
In theory it would be nice if people could, through their own solitary application of reasoning and self-education, pull themselves away from religious institutions, but to expect that of everyone is just to deny human psychology. It’s in our(atheists) interest to build secular social institutions, that can become part of the fabric of society, and make the churches and temples redundant. Although, I don’t really have any idea what form those institutions would take, places of learning, libraries, museums, and so on seem a good place to start.
It makes sense for us to help them empower themselves to come up with their own alternatives.
I realize there are people who prefer to be led around like sheep, but I have no desire to try to be the benevolent shepherd who steers them in a better direction. It demeans us both.
I hadn’t considered using the structure of a church as a model for substitute institutions. I wasn’t proposing that we make an atheist church, crown Dawkins as Pope, and recruit GnuPriests to convert and shepard the soon-to-be-faithless.
There are other ways of going about setting up institutions, and there are plenty of examples around, like the place we are talking right now.
I wasn’t clear with my sheep analogy. I meant that for us to create these institutions and lead the churchgoing atheists to them would be leading them around like sheep. I would prefer to educate them about the institutions that already exist and suggest they seek some out if they are so inclined.
@ #85
Those so educated may surprise you pleasantly by becoming a source of the as-yet ill-defined institutions you hint at.
I think what analogists are getting at is that religious concepts have some experiential utility, not that they has any scientific or empirical explanatory power. This is part of the reason that some Catholics, for example, will cling to the ritual and poetic aspects of their religion, in spite of being, for all intents and purposes, just as dismissive of a literal belief in the dogmas of their church as atheists.
this sounds more like addiction than an argument for utility.
Morphine is addictive, and can be abused and misused, but it’s also an extremely useful substance for reducing suffering. It doesn’t follow that because a number of people harm themselves and others through their addiction to morphine, that we should refuse to use it ever.
I think this is pretty much the point. Yes, religion is horribly harmful, addictive, corrosive to society, abusive, manipulative and so on. However, that doesn’t imply that all poetic or analogical frameworks for looking at the world are going to necessarily produce negative results for either the flourishing of the people that hold to them, or for society at large.
After all, we might consider any sort of value system, including the one that tells us that science is a thing worth pursuing, that knowledge is a good for its own sake, that education is better than ignorance, to also be an arbitrary framework. But it’s useful, and it helps us order our lives in ways that help us, as rationalists. Now, if a person wants to organize their personal subjective experience according to some other set of rituals and poetic conceptualisations and analogies, that seems fine to me, and maybe even something good, a way to order one’s life in a reflective and considered manner. I might choose to devote myself to Teaism(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Book_of_Tea) or Epicureanism, or whatever, with no particular reason, other than that it helps me order my subjective experiences, and helps me get along in the world. The same can be said for catholicism, one can be an aesthetic catholic. Or one can tell oneself a story about how the greatest good is to be a committed parent, and friend and put those you know before all others, or a ardent campaigner for universal social justice and progress. No particular reason why, other than it gives a reason to get out of bed.
This is not relativism, it’s just how we choose to organize our way of looking at things. Scientific facts certainly shape how we act within those frameworks, and it can tell us which are actually useful to our flourishing, but it wont tell us what those values are in the first place.
Problem with accomodationists and fatheists is that they see that this is of value, and see that religion has it, and so decide that religion itself is something worth defending or respecting. Which is a non-sequitur.
Stand up Comedy. Once a week, or month, serve cocktails at the local levels. Winners move up to the next levels, finally to State, Regional, and then National Championships, televised in Prime Time.
Atheist Comedy Championships and Imbibery.
I’ll start you off with a one liner from Philosorapter: If when you die you become like god….
Is it because you don’t exist?
Or, If atheism is a religion
Is bald a hair color?
Sure. But you do realize that we should only use morphine in exceptional cases, when something has gone horribly wrong, right?
Because any regular morphine use has a significant potential to lead to addiction and abuse.
So if you want to apply religion solely to a few exceptional cases, say for people with significant mental impairments, under strict psychological supervision, I might be doubtful that that really is the best way to handle these situations, but I can accept at least the possibility. But it’s certainly dangerous for more average people.
Bollocks. The use of morphine in a clinical setting is not exceptional.
Morphine is used to control pain as the result of trauma, or post-operatively. Good pain control is an important part of treatment, and not only because it relives suffering.
The clinical setting itself is exceptional.
Yup. Control of serious pain. Counts as “horribly wrong” for me (and was in fact exactly what I was thinking about).
And it does happen under close supervision. Or at least it should.
Morphine isn’t something that gets used regularly by a large percentage of the population, the way religion is.
I’ll expand on PZ @ 11: Not only is Ham saying straight out that all the scientific evidence pointing to an old universe and an old earth, he is demanding that 1) everyone accept his assertion as the absolute truth, and 2) that everyone who does not so accept his assertion be treated as a heretic.
In any civilized society Ham would be undergoing psychiatric treatment at Government expense.
As for Baggini: I hate to dogpile on a fellow for merely doing his duty as a blithering idiot, but really. The Impasse we’re at, Baggini, is that religious zealots will not ever believer other than they do, short of a major epiphany. Say, the mental equivalent of being struck by lightning, or hit over the head with a slice of lemon wrapped around a gold brick.
oh crud. how’d I do that. : My post @94 should read :”Not only is Ham saying straight out that all the scientific evidence pointing to an old universe and an old earth within it is wrong, he is demanding that. . .” etc.