Alain de Botton is right about one thing

At the end of this video, he suggests that both sides will be out to shoot him. Yes, they will…well, I’m wielding a great heavy two-handed sword, but I’ll accept the general equivalence in intent of pointy sharp nasty weaponry and projectile-flinging guns. In this TED presentation, he advocates just adapting religion to atheism, something he calls Atheism 2.0, but which is actually just Religion 0.0 again.

This is not what the New Atheism is about. It’s the antithesis of what we’re after. We’ve had a few thousand years of the godly shuffle: here’s a temple to Zeus, he’s out so we swap in Jupiter; he’s not exciting, let’s try Isis; now Mithras; Jehovah; Jesus; Mohammed; back to Catholicism; on to Protestantism; oh, you’re atheists, eh, here’s a fine altar, hardly been used, we’ll just rededicate it to your god Athe then. New gods same as the old gods, right?

Wrong. It’s that the whole structure of religious thought is wrong, that we’ve been spending these few thousand years digging the same old pit, deeper and deeper, maybe putting a little more gilt on the shovel and roofing it over with ever fancier architecture, but now we’re saying maybe it’s time to climb out of the hole and do something different. I don’t want a new label, I want whole new modes of thought.

de Botton wants to pick and choose from religion and keep the good parts for atheism, which is a nice idea, but he seems to be totally lacking in sense and discrimination in what the virtues of religion are. And then, unfortunately for him, he picks a few examples of something he thinks religion got right, and one of them is education. Fuck me.

He suggests looking at how churches teach the ‘facts’ of their faith, and is quite enthusiastic about the importance of repetition. Repeat things five times, he says, and then you’ll master it; he just suggests replacing God and Jesus with Shakespeare and Jane Austen. Has de Botton ever been anywhere near a classroom?

Let me give an example from my teaching; I’m familiar with what he proposes. For instance, I teach genetics, and one of the big concepts there is linkage and mapping. I’ve stood up and lectured on Sturtevant’s original mapping experiments; I’ve given the class the numbers from his observations, and had them do the calculations themselves; I’ve then had students come up to the whiteboard and show everyone how it is done; and then I’ve gone through it again on the board, step by step. The students nod and smile, they understand, give ’em these numbers and they can trot through the calculations without hesitation.

Then on the test I give them the same problem, but I change the names of the alleles, swap in a zebrafish for a fruit fly, and half the class is totally stumped. “But you didn’t teach us how to do that problem,” they whine.

Repetition doesn’t work. It’s great for memorizing dogma, but it’s awful for mastering concepts. Students don’t understand, they just learn to robotically reiterate.

What I do is very different. I give them the Sturtevant data and we work through that problem, sure, but then we try other angles. Here’s data on the recombination frequency between pairs of loci; assemble them into a map. Here’s a triple-point cross, and the phenotypes of the flies we get back; calculate a map. Here’s a problem; work it out in groups. Here’s a problem; teach your partner how to solve it. Here’s a map; work backwards and predict the frequencies of phenotypes of a cross. You invent a problem, give it to me, and let’s see if I can get the right answer. Here’s how the problem is solved in flies, and fish, and nematodes, and humans, and tissue culture. Here’s how we do it with molecular biology techniques rather than genetics. What if the traits are all sex-linked? What if this locus interacts epistatically with that other locus? What if the two alleles at this locus are codominant?

The whole purpose of what we do in the science classroom is to get the students to understand that you can’t master the concept by rote memorization. You have to understand how someone came up with the idea in the first place, and you have to appreciate how understanding the concept gives you the mental toolkit to grasp novel instances of related phenomena. I could just show them a fly gene map and tell them to memorize it, I suppose, and teach them this idea that genes have locations on the chromosome, and leave it at that, but then they haven’t really learned anything deep, and haven’t learned how to integrate new observations into the concept. They’re also going to be totally unprepared for going off to grad school, reading McClintock’s papers, and learning that sometimes genes don’t have fixed locations on the chromosome.

So you can imagine how appalled I was listening to de Botton tell us that one thing society could benefit from adapting from religion is their approach to education. That’s simply insane. If you want to improve people’s understanding, we should model learning more on those secular, progressive, well-honed methods you find in good college classrooms, not church. Church is where you go to learn how to hammer dogma into people’s heads.

That is not what the New Atheism wants. Apparently, it’s what Atheism 2.0 wants, though.

His approach to art is about as horrifying — “religions…have no trouble telling us what art is about, art is about two things in all the major faiths; firstly, it’s trying to remind you of what there is to love, and secondly it’s trying to remind you of what there is to fear and hate…it’s propaganda”. To de Botton, that is a virtue. He suggests that museums ought to adopt the approaches of the churches, and organize their art by themes and tell everyone exactly what it all means. Jebus. Can you imagine a van Gogh hanging on the wall, with a little checklist next to it telling you what it is supposed to mean, and everyone dutifully reading the museum’s imperative and making sure they’ve got exactly the right interpretation? Some excited little girl makes the mistake of looking at the painting not the placard and telling her mother, “Look at the light and color shining through the confusion!” and the guard has to tap his stick on the wall and tell her, “No, it says CONFORM and OBEY or suffer. Can’t you read?”

Worst TED talk ever — well, it’s competitive with that horrible drivel from Elaine Morgan, anyway. de Botton is one of those superficial atheists who hasn’t quite thought things through and has such a blinkered optimistic perspective on religion that he thinks faith provides what reason does not.

A little comparative religion would do Ken Ham a world of good

This isn’t the first time I’ve seen a Christian give a series of stupid “proofs” that his religion is the One True Faith, but it never fails to surprise me. They’re always so blindly oblivious, and they always say exactly the same things. So here’s Ken Ham, answering a child’s question, “How Do We Know Other Religions Aren’t True?”, in one crazily breathless paragraph.

No religion other than Christianity has a book like the Bible that tells us about the origin of everything, and who we are, where we came from [The Analects, the Bhagavad Gita, the Koran, the Talmud, the Tao-te-ching, the Upanishads, and the Vedas are all books that lay down a code of ethics, make assumptions or explanations about the nature of the universe, and in many (but not all) cases explain the origins of everything. This is pretty much what holy books do], what our problem is (sin), and what the solution to our sin problem is[Other religions have different systems of ethics; each one is unique. The question isn’t which one is different, because they all are, but which one is true]. No other religion has a Savior who is alive (He rose from the dead)[Dead gods that rise again are dime-a-dozen; it’s a common theme in seasonal/agricultural deities]. All other religions require people to do something to work out their future—only Christianity has the solution that we can’t save ourselves, only God can do it[Again, that some interpretations of Christianity have this weirdly psychopathic and nihilistic delusion does not make them true, only different]. So how can we know if other religions aren’t true? Well, if they don’t agree with the Bible they are not true![Circularity!] There are two main tests I want you to use though. First of all, any religion that claims to be true MUST believe that Jesus is God![More exclamation marks does not make it truer!] Remember, Jesus Himself told us that He and the Father are one. Many religions talk about God a lot . . . but if they don’t believe in Jesus and that He is God, and they don’t believe that Jesus’ death on the cross and His Resurrection results in our sin being forgiven if we will receive it, then it is not the truth![OK, this is just silly. Saying over and over again that your religion is true because your religion says it is true does not make it true. They all say that.] The other test is to find out if they believe that salvation is given to those who trust in Jesus. There is nothing you can do to save yourself. We could never do enough good works to get us to heaven, but Jesus did it when He died for us![This villainous attitude that living life in a virtuous and worthy way is futile is one of the reasons I despise Christianity, but that’s irrelevant, too. Restating the dogma of your faith is not a way to argue for its truth] Jesus Christ is the way, the truth, and the life.[Yeah? Prove it.]

You know, I have this crazy idea that if you’re going to say that something is objectively true, you ought to have some source of evidence external to the something; otherwise it’s just hamster-wheel logic. Internal consistency would also be nice (Christianity doesn’t even have that), and some kind of empirical way of validating truth claims is kind of essential. The wackos at Answers in Genesis even have some vague understanding that those are good ideas, since that’s the whole raison d’etre of creationism, is to contrive the appearance of having evidence for their beliefs. If that weren’t the case, they could just declare Noah’s Flood a miracle, an event and its associated consequences that were conjured together by an omnipotent being, free of our restrictions of cause and effect and evidence and even contrary to reason, and not fuss over their fallacious rationalizations.

But this whole business of responding to evidence for the truth of claim X by simply repeating claim X endlessly…it’s stupid. Maybe it works as a kind of brute-force psychological hammer when abusing the mind of an 8-year-old, but as an example of rational thought, it falls flat.

I get email

In a previous “I get email” post, I mocked this bizarre list of 50 “proofs” that god exists: they were all nonsense and non sequiturs and bizarre falsehoods. The author actually dragged out the Lady Hope story as evidence for a god! Take a look and you’ll see how genuinely stupid the list was.

But there’s a stalkerish element to all this, too. Ever since, the author periodically writes me these weird pleading/sneering emails. She was very upset that I called her out on her raving foolishness, and has to remind me of that every once in a while. It’s rather stupid, since I’d basically forgotten the post — it was almost four years ago — but she can’t let it die and has to stir it up now and then.

So here we go again, to oblige the bizarrely obsessed Debra Rufini, here is one of her latest emails. I’ve posted it below the fold as a screen capture because there was no way I was going to try and imbed all those silly smilies.

[Read more…]

Ben Stein is such a goon

Oh, Ben Stein. How I love to laugh at you. You really are a great comedian.

His latest stunt: Kyocera was negotiating with him to hire him as a professional pitchman for their products, when they learned that his reputation wasn’t exactly suggestive of intelligence and technology — quite the opposite, actually. He’s a global warming denialist and professional buffoon.

So they retracted their offer.

Ben Stein’s response was to sue them. It wasn’t for violation of contract, though — he hadn’t been contracted yet. Ben Stein is suing a Japanese company for violating his Constitutionally mandated freedom of religion.

Also, according to Stein, he has a right to the $300,000 under the Constitution, which guarantees him freedom of religion. See, Stein believes that global warming isn’t real because "God, and not man, control[s] the weather." When Kyocera declined to pay Stein $300,000 to represent the corporation in part because it doesn’t want to be associated with that belief, it violated Stein’s constitutional right to $300,000. He also accuses Kyocera of violating his "freedom of speech" and "political freedom." Stein has no political freedom, because Kyocera robbed him of the freedom when it refused to pay him $300,000.

You can read the whole complaint, if you can stomach the self-serving fluff at the beginning (yes, Ben Stein is still bragging about his bit part in a movie 26 years ago). He really does make the argument that “BEN STEIN’s questioning of whether man makes the weather or God makes the weather is a matter of his religious belief.”

The man is a total loon with a Republican sense of entitlement.

Female genital mutilation has medical benefits?

There is a very good question which I’m pleased to see that an expert Islamic cleric has finally seen fit to answer. Why mutilate female genitals at all? What purpose does it have? I confess to uncharitably assuming that it was all about controlling women’s sexual activity, but I was unfair. They have perfectly good reasons for chopping and hacking at little girls crotches with jagged sharp instruments.

Female circumcision has not been prescribed for no reason, rather there is wisdom behind it and it brings many benefits.

Mentioning some of these benefits, Dr. Haamid al-Ghawaabi says:

The secretions of the labia minora accumulate in uncircumcised women and turn rancid, so they develop an unpleasant odour which may lead to infections of the vagina or urethra. I have seen many cases of sickness caused by the lack of circumcision.

Circumcision reduces excessive sensitivity of the clitoris which may cause it to increase in size to 3 centimeters when aroused, which is very annoying to the husband, especially at the time of intercourse.

Another benefit of circumcision is that it prevents stimulation of the clitoris which makes it grow large in such a manner that it causes pain.

Circumcision prevents spasms of the clitoris which are a kind of inflammation.

Man, that’s all so true. Don’t you just hate it when you’re having intercourse with a woman, and she starts getting aroused? I suppose snipping off the clitoris is one way of dealing with it (the ladies really do cool down fast when you start waving a knife around), but I’ve found it more humane to keep a bucket of cold water next to the bed. As a bonus, a good cold water splashing also flushes out the strange and repulsive slippery dampness that so unpleasantly oozes out of their vaginas.

Although, come to think of it, the guy giving all that advice probably doesn’t have to worry too much about aroused women.

Of course the dog won

A while back, the Way of the Master (Ray Comfort and Kirk Cameron) came out with a board game, Intelligent Design vs. Evolution. I imagine the Discovery Institute cringes in pain every time those two clowns associate themselves with their brand, which is good; but you know it has to be an awful, horrible, brain-damaging game, which is bad. I thought about picking up a copy just for the kitsch value, but just couldn’t bring myself to pay them money for it (and now it seems to have vanished from their online store).

But Chad bought it and played it against his dog (his wife was too smart to join in). Surprise! It’s as bad as I expected!

It looks boring, too. It’s an old-school board game where you march around the board by throwing dice, landing on squares that make you answer questions on cards in order to win brain tokens. Here’s a sample question, to give you a sense of what you’ll learn.

True or False? The Bible doesn’t speak of a literal place called Hell. It is merely symbolic of the grave.

ANSWER: False (see Luke 16:19-31). Your eternal salvation may depend on your understanding of this truth. If you answered incorrectly, give two brains to the opposing team.

It’s really a test of your knowledge of fundagelical interpretations of the Bible. Now I’m even happier I never wasted any money on it.

(Also on Sb)

Bishop labels file-sharing religion a ‘sham’

The Swedish government has formally recognized the Church of Kopimism, which considers information holy and uses copying as their sacrament. It’s rather silly, if you ask me, and I’d rather just get away from the nonsense of religion altogether, but it does have one virtue: it has inspired at least one crazy Christian to rage.

But Bishop Peter Ingham, head of the Catholic Diocese of Wollongong, said the move cheapens the value of ‘real’ religious organisations and labelled the group a ‘sham’.

"There should be some measuring stick against what you call religion," Bishop Ingham told ninemsn. "In my mind, if religion has nothing to do with God — or what people perceive to be God — then it’s a sham.

"It cheapens the currency of religion in general because [now] anything can be defined as a religion."

Right. I hear that there are some people who worship a dead man who they claim was a god! I hear that there are some people who think their god manifests as a cracker, so they eat him! I hear that there are some people who think that if you don’t dunk a baby’s head in a tub of water, it won’t go to heaven if it dies! Boy, there sure are a lot of silly beliefs out there that cheapen religion.

And that takes some doing. Religion is bottom-of-the-barrel garbage as it is.

And then he says this:

“It looks like it’s just a way of getting around the law of piracy and copyright. How could a religion promote illegal activity?”

Wait…isn’t it a tenet of the Christian faith that early in their history, they were intensely persecuted by the Romans? That the martyrs refused to obey the laws of the land and thus were executed? And wasn’t Jesus himself executed for his rabble-rousing disobedience? How self-unaware are these guys?

Does he consider the current events in Nigeria to be an example of a religion promoting a legal activity?

Targets

So a frat boy in Kappa Sigma at USC wrote this long letter to his brothers explaining how to treat women. I won’t quote much of it; if you bother to read it yourself, you’ll wonder about this guy’s sanity. But I thought this bit was interesting.

I will refer to females as “targets”. They aren’t actual people like us men. Consequently, giving them a certain name or distinction is pointless.

How about mother, sister, wife, daughter? Perhaps even that is too impersonal; how about Darlene, Caryn, Tomi, Lisa, Mary, Skatje?

How about friend?

Oh, I was being facetious. People who refer to women as targets don’t have friends.

(via that guy whose name I’ve just learned is pronounced “tee-bow”)

Real Spiritual Exercises for Atheists

Several years ago, I had a very strange dinner with Paul Nelson, who tried to convince me that my materialist view of biology was totally wrong and was missing all the important stuff. To do that, he performed a little demonstration for me. He flexed his arm at me.

“Look at that,” he said, “My mind is doing that.” He didn’t give me a nice spooky “woOOOoooo”, but he should have — it would have been perfectly appropriate. I don’t think he was on drugs, either.

But I’ve seen this phenomenon many times. Take some woo-inclined individual, put their brain to work on some incompletely understood process, and it’s pretty much guaranteed that they’ll come back to you utterly convinced that mundane physical events are ultimately confirming evidence for whatever metaphysical nonsense is poisonously wafting about in their heads. And now we have a wonderful example of this kind of sloppy stupid bullshit right here on freethoughtblogs.

I have no idea why Daniel Fincke is indulging this Eric Steinhart character, but he’s had a number of guest posts lately that are raving mad rationalizations for ‘spirituality’, whatever the hell that is. Here’s an example.

Spiritual exercises typically involve mental preparation for performance through visualization or emotional preparation for performance through arousal regulation. Visualization involves working with mental imagery while arousal regulation involves conscious control of physiological and emotional arousal (it involves neocortical control of the limbic system and autonomic nervous system).

Of course these are real phenomena. Like Paul Nelson bending his arm, you can consciously control many aspects of your mental state (but not all; ask anyone in the throes of depression — you can’t just will yourself out of everything), and there are behaviors and ways of thinking that you can do to shift the way your brain is working.

But that paragraph above is a perfect example of bullshitting to justify crap. Notice the scientific justification of “neocortical control of the limbic system and autonomic nervous system” — sure, that’s the core of your brain that is involved in arousal, and we know that from scientific experiments and observations. But look what he does: he calls these spiritual exercises.

They are not. They are physiological exercises. They do not manipulate “spirit”, they change the physical state of the brain. But these glib pseudoscientific quacks just love to borrow the language of science and slap the label of “spiritual” or “Wiccan” or “transcendental meditation” or “Buddhist” onto them. It’s intellectual theft, plain and simple: it’s woo-meisters doing their damnedest to appropriate natural phenomena to their cause. It’s the same thing as when Pat Robertson ascribes a natural disaster to the wrath of a divine being — he’s pointing to reality and claiming it for the kingdom of irrational supernaturalism.

I can do the same thing. Next time you encounter one of these kooks, I want you to stop and contemplate what they are doing. I want you to fan the rage, that is, channel your inner being to stimulate your amygdala. Feel the anger grow. Concentrate on your arm; make it rise. Flex the elbow (Amazing! How are you doing that?) and then…reach out and slap ’em upside the head.

If they complain, just tell them you were practicing your Myersian spiritual exercises. I think I’m going to have to start a whole school teaching these skills, so I can get paid for it.