Brisbane academic, consultant and blogger Jo Jacobs writes:
The Root of All Evil
On the plane on the way home from Adelaide, I finally caught up with Richard Dawkins’s doco against religion of any kind, and I was struck by his outrageous and emotive language – his own thesis as fundamentally atheist as those religions he aims to critique.
The issue I have with his fundamentalist pro-science approach is that his antipathy to paranormal and possibilities – something he calls “constructive doubt” – is precisely the sort of attitude that can prevent conceptual analysis and philosophy, and could result in prejudice and separatism. I have no problem with his advocacy of evidential scientific instruction. I have a problem with his superior attitude, and his assumption of ignorance and belittling of those who do pursue a religious life.
He invokes Darwin as a source of modern “truth”. Yet Darwin’s own theories of natural selection are challenged by the findings even of pro-science anthropologist, Jared Diamond. Indeed, what Diamond argues in his work in Guns, Germs and Steel, is that Darwin’s theories are sensationally flawed, and that a series of opportunistic and convenience oriented aspects contribute to the development of human cultures.
But I am convinced that it is insufficient to argue that science and natural selection can entirely explain the collapse of societies and economies. It is indeed the case that cultural economics – often based on religion – have defined the strongest communities. There’s a reason why religion hasn’t died out. It is these communities that survive. If anything, it is religion that has provided the strength for some communities to survive. Explain it as divine intervention or anthropological community development, this has provided the basis for human survival.
I find the arrogance of some scientists absolutely disgusting, and Richard Dawkins is the most arrogant of them all. This series is worth watching to understand that atheism is as dangerous as religious fundamentalism. Moderation in all things is clearly the most peaceful and diplomatic course for a humanistic and tolerant future.
Perhaps you meant to say that athesitic Darwinism is as dangerous as religious fundamentalism. Atheism is simply the absence of belief in deities. Not all atheists are Darwinists. Just as not all theists are fundamentalists.
I think that’s right, skribe – I think what Jo is getting at is what one might describe as “fundamentalist atheism”.
I don’t understand how Diamond’s thesis makes Darwin’s theories flawed: certainly that is not Diamond’s own argument. The “opportunistic and convenience oriented aspects” merely form part of the variations in environment which act as the filter for natural selection, so they would seem rather to support Darwin’s theories than challenge them.
I haven’t read Diamond, tigtog, but I think this is right:
That would be Diamond’s Collapse, rather than his Guns, Germs and Steel, which is the particular work Joanne claimed revealed “sensational” Darwinian flaws.
I agree that natural selection on its own is unlikely to be the whole explanation for the waxing and waning of various societies, but as Darwin never claimed it would be (given that humans artificially modify their own environment in ways that other species do not), that observation does not constitute a sensational flaw in his theories.
Darwin’s conclusions were limited by the tools of his time, but the fundamentals of natural and sexual selection in the variation that leads to evolution are extremely well supported and far from flawed.
Sorry to have to shatter your belief system, Skribe, but contra “atheism is the absence of belief in deities’ atheism is the belief in the absence of deities
I think again perhaps some terminological imprecision is the problem, tigtog. I’m sure Joanne isn’t denying the point you make in your last paragraph, but denying that adaptations of the theory provide sufficient explanation for cultural change. The other point I think she’s making is that transposing what Darwin wrote to human society as if it were holy writ is an error more religious in nature and akin to fundamentalism than a scientific perspective.
Thanks Mark. I enjoyed this post.
It seems that Dawkins conveniently forgets the basics of scientific investigation himself by controlling his own agenda, and always calls the shots in his documentary, lining up the arguments to suit his cause, ultimately preaching his own ‘religion’, which is the ‘wonder’ of evolutionary science. I don’t mind the argument about science vs religion, but I can’t see the point of the bitterness and venom Dawkins spews out. It can’t be good for the soul!
I agree about Dawkins – I remember seeing him on what was an excellent doco on sbs a while back on ID and I thought he displayed as much self-certainty and narrow mindedness as ID advocates. It was a big own goal for science. I also tend to think that he goes wrong by setting up science as in effect an alternative religion. Scientific cosmology is not in competition with faith (well, faith that sees itself as not opposed to human discovery) and to erect it as a sort of source of meaning risks falling into the same mindset as scientists and others who believe in reason should be criticising.
I’m with Tigtog. Though I’ll first say that “opportunistic and convenience oriented aspects” means precisely nothing, which makes me quite leery of the rest of the passage. If Ms Jacobs means that there are a lot of different factors that are not purely environmental that have determined which groups have been successful in achieving rapid economic development, then Diamond does mention that (esp re China). The vast bulk of the book though is (almost too?) determinedly about environmental determinism. What’s more Darwinian – I use the term loosely, very loosely – than that? Then we have “it is insufficient to argue that science and natural selection can entirely explain the collapse of societies and economies” – but Darwin, who is clearly the object of Ms Jacob’s criticism, mentioned nothing about economies, while it was the focus of Diamond’s book, which she mentions approvingly. And didn’t Darwin actually suggest that religion might be a helpful thing for society, which is the most coherent thing Ms Jacobs says she’s trying to say?
Not that I’m against the point that any time you think you know everything about some subject then your eyes are closed to evidence that you’re wrong – though how this makes even radical atheists dangerous, as opposed to annoying or offensive, I’m not sure. And I don’t think atheists need necessarily be anti-religion. But good grief if this is the level of argument on the pro-religion anti-atheism side, I’m going to switch from neutral on religion to anti-religion.
And on the notion that it’s religious communities that survive – anyone want to take a bet that the number of atheists or agnostics today is considerably larger than it was 200 years ago? I know there are arguments that more religious types are likely to breed more and will therefore ‘win’ in ‘the end’, but from my admittedly rudimentary knowledge of the history of religion and culture, doesn’t look obvious to me (an increasingly lapsed Catholic).
Kim: terminological imprecision may well be the problem, so I will rein in the attack iguanas.
Such imprecision problems do lead to a plethora of straw-Darwins though, and the constant knocking over and flying chaff all over the place does tend to make the iguanas somewhat nervy.
Christine, you might find this old post by Mark on religion and science interesting:
http://larvatusprodeo.net/2006/01/02/intelligent-design-god-of-the-gaps/
And this really old one he wrote on dogmatic atheism:
http://www.clubtroppo.com.au/2004/11/01/dogmatic-atheism-or-the-return-of-the-religious/
Having read Diamond’s book on Guns, Germs and Steel, I’m pretty sure Jacobs has misinterpreted whatever it is she thought Diamond said. Diamond’s book is primarily about human culture and social organisation and how this was shaped in part by geography. I’m not sure how Darwin can be ’sensationally flawed’ as a result of Diamond’s findings. It’s like saying Einstein was ’sensationally flawed’ in organic chemistry.
Yes, fair enough, tigtog. I also don’t think Joanne’s argument is “pro-religion” in Christine’s terms – I think she’s pointing to social and historical facts about the greater part of the recorded history of humans.
“I find the arrogance of some scientists absolutely disgusting, and Richard Dawkins is the most arrogant of them all. This series is worth watching to understand that atheism is as dangerous as religious fundamentalism”
Now this statement is very questionable to say the least. Or rather, it is hyperbole. If Jacobs is putting up Dawkins as in effect the worst of the worst on the so-called ‘fundamentalist atheist’ side then what’s the record?
Dawkins and his fans have not flown planes into tall buildings.
Dawkins and his fans have not blown up nightclubs.
Dawkins and his fans have not blown up clinics.
Dawkins and his fans have not stoned anyone to death for dress violations.
I could go on.
Dawkins has done a lot of good with his genuinely interesting books. He is a contemporary TH Huxley. If he puts off some fundies, that’s not going to make much of a difference because they’re not reading his (or even Stepehen Jay Gould’s) books, no matter what.
Jason, I think you’re engaging in a bit of hyperbole yourself. I could describe Rafe’s mate Bill Hutt’s ideas as dangerous (and I think they are – if they ever got wide acceptance) without any implication that Rafe and any other Hutt fans that might be out there would go around committing atrocities. I think Jo’s last point is the key:
Thanks for the links to my previous posts, Kim. They reinforce what I take to be the thrust of Jo’s argument.
Kim, thanks for the pointers: the posts are nice, but I don’t think so relevant to this particular one, in that unlike this one they are actually well thought out and relatively precisely argued.
My pro-religion comment was based on a bit of reading between the lines, the general sense in the post that Dawkins has insulted the writer personally in some way, combined with “it is religion that has provided the strength for some communities to survive”. (Again, I’d like evidence for this. It’s certainly NOT in GGS or Collapse, and anyway I’m reluctant to grant Jared Diamond omniscience since I certainly don’t believe he’s a god. And I don’t think the argument that during most of history people believed in a god is a particularly good one, since it’s quite natural to want an explanation of what causes lightning/floods/rainbows/whatever and the argument that god did it is as good as any before science helped us figure out exactly what does cause it.)
But honestly whether pro-religion or anti-religion or whatever, I’m much more worried about the absolute lack of a decent argument here – I think Jason Soon pointed that out very nicely in relation to Darwin/Diamond, but the rest of the post seems equally without substance. The only bit that seems reasonable is that arrogant people who think they know everything are really bloody annoying – surely something we can all agree on.
Mark: the can’t we all just get along point is fine. But this post actually does the opposite – it specifically says atheism is as dangerous as religious fundamentalism. Not that fundamentalist atheism (undefined, mind you) is as dangerous as religious fundamentalism. Absolutely no evidence is given for this, other than that the author has hurt feelings. I don’t think Jason’s engaging in hyperbole. I think he’s being as kind to the post as possible. I can find enough atrocities committed not just by religious fundamentalists but in the name of religious fundamentalism. Can anyone provide any example of an atrocity committed not by atheists but by atheists in the name of their atheism? If not, then seriously this post doesn’t contribute to us all getting along, it does the exact opposite.
Dare I say preaching to the converted?
Dawkins has been well known for years as the spewer of hate-filled vitriole (and Dawkins is a true hater). His popular books are just full of petulant drama queen spits. A standard joke amongst some Christians – and great fodder for theatre sports when high drama queen is required.
And yeah Jason, Pol Pot, Mao, Stalin, Hitler were all God-fearing Christians too, just to name the better known ones amongst them.
(Y’all just reminded me I bought Diamond’s Gun Germs years ago and never got around to reading it. So for those of us who haven’t read it: do those who have read it think it is still worth reading ?)
Well, I’ll let Jo speak for herself, Christine.
I’ll defend Dawkins and atheism on the grounds that atheism is the very worst ideology…apart from all the others. Trad Dawinian evolution has been suplemented by Mendelian genetics and through works like ‘ Mutual Aid’ by Peter Kropotkin. It’s not ‘ Darwinian’ anymore.
See the consenus on evolution is about a third competition, a third altruism and a third random chance and Dawkins makes a bloody good case for it. Not perfect but perfectly good and much preferrable to religious babble-on imho.
Long live Richard Dawkins because if there was a god it would surely be necessary to destroy it. ( in an undogmatic way of course )
I note that you give no examples – aren’t you supposed to avoid bearing false witness? Christians snigger at Dawkins because they have no answer to his charges of hypocrisy. Dawkins is upset by the lies and fraud of the creationists, and the influence of fanatics in the world.
It doesn’t matter that Stalin, Mao et al were atheists – believers claim to be more moral that unbelievers – but if the best argument they can come up with is “well they did it too” then they have nothing.
Dawkins admits to having an extremely passionate perspective on evolution,etc, in his “The Blind Watchmaker”. There’s a little bit near the beginning (don’t have my copy with me) where he’s talking about an inability to take the opposing view (as in debating societies) on a subject he feels so strongly about.
For myself, atheism is dependent on faith. That is why I’m agnostic. Or as I like to tell people – I would be an atheist, but I don’t have the strength of my lack of convictions.
No, atheism is when you answer the question “Do you believe in god/gods/goddess?” with “no”.
It requires no faith, it is not an ideology, simply an honest appraisal of your own state of mind.
I don’t think you could call Dawkins fundamentalist. Dawkins is not so set in his ideas that if someone could prove to him that what he believes is false or not sensible, he would still cling to it. I believe he mentions this in regard to one of his early professors in the doco. While he may be seen as arrogant, belittling and fundamentalist, I think he is just sure of himself. It is easy to be sure of yourself when most of what you believe can be demonstrated experimentally.
This shouldn’t result in prejudice because people with an equally open mind should be happy to be shown the same things and should then (if they were rational) believe the same things. It is only when others do not want to believe easily demonstrated things, because they cannot have their current preconceptions challenged, that there is friction.
I don’t think Dawkins would mind so much if people still had religion, but did not use it as an excuse to disbelieve other things, eg Evolution*, Geology (case in point, the age of the earth) and Astronomy. I’m not saying science prevents stupidity, but that the more we understand the less we fear – which may lead to more stupidity, but it’s stupidity we can learn from and correct. Which is one of the best things about science: it does not have a set of beliefs that must be adhered to. I’m sure even the scientific method itself, if there could be shown a better way to rigourously discover knowledge, could be superceded.
Finally, I think Jared Diamond is misrepresented as a “pro-science anthropologist”. A quick search will tell you he’s actually a been a professor of Physiology, is now a Professor in Geology and has written papers in the field of Evolutionary Biology. I would guess that his and Dawkin’s scientific beliefs are 99.9% similar, and that the Evolutionary Sociology that you seem to be describing is, like the Evolutionary Psychology of Steven Pinker, on the forefront of scientific research today and should not be used to drive a wedge between two distinguished scientists.
*Why do people insist on calling this Darwinism? I thought only creationists did so they could argue against a 150 year old science instead of the many fields of Genetics, Biochemistry, Evolutionary Biology, Bioinformatics and even Evolutionary Computing.
A few things:
From Jason,
True but Gould was a never as strident a Dawkin’s. Almost the opposite. At times Dawkins rhetorically does not sound any different from your average christian fundamentalist. At other times he is remarkably clear and I do have to agree with him.
Like others I am not impressed that Jo though she could attack Dawkins via a straw-Darwin argument. If only the critics of Dawkins has spent time understanding modern evolutionary ideas. Which is touched upon by Professor Rat though I think Kropoktin is remembered, if at all, as more being a good example of how scientific thinking can be shaped by political and social ideals. A bit like how Spencerian notions of ’survival of the fittest’ and Victorian ideals of progress have had a lingering influence on evolutionary thought (one reason why altruism seems a puzzle to some).
Zarquon:
Well, I suppose that is literally true. However, it begs the next question, which would be along the lines of attempting to justify the position. If theists must ultimately resort to faith (”the miracle of faith” as some call it) to hold their view, then to me, atheists also sup from that cup.
Either way, people are holding as true a position that (at least so far) is not testable or doesn’t lend itself to being proven/disproven.
I just ‘fess up to having no idea, and thinking that no-one really can.
Good point will and one of my pet peeves. ‘Darwinism’ carries with it the notions that nothing has changed sinced the 1850s and Darwin is the only authority on evolution. Modern evolutionary ideas are far more advanced and exciting that the popular caricture of evolution expressed by ‘Darwinism.’
I’m fairly close to your position, spog, but tending towards the atheistic end of the spectrum. I will believe in a god when it becomes necessary to the explanation of the universe to posit one. So far, I have seen no compelling evidence of that need, so I take the default position.
However, I am not anti-religion. Other, better, minds than mine have taken different positions. Religious belief has underpinned great achievements in art, literature, music, architecture and philosophy. An understanding of the relevant belief systems enhances an appreciation of those works. However, for myself, it does not go further than this – religious belief is not necessary to morality or a sense of humility as to one’s place in the world. As Darwin said, “There is a certain grandeur in this view of life …” He’s right, and what science can tell us is big enough so that we can do without spirits and goblins.
I do. I think its a great book even if it probably does fall a little too heavily on the side of environmental determism. His more recent book Collapse is ok, but not nearly so good.
I’ll second all those who objected to the fact that Diamond thinks darwinism is sensationally flawed. Rather its heavily embedded in his own ideas.
Well, I suppose that is literally true. However, it begs the next question, which would be along the lines of attempting to justify the position. If theists must ultimately resort to faith (�the miracle of faith� as some call it) to hold their view, then to me, atheists also sup from that cup.
Either way, people are holding as true a position that (at least so far) is not testable or doesn’t lend itself to being proven/disproven.
I just ‘fess up to having no idea, and thinking that no-one really can.
There was a debate along similar lines at mine a few weeks ago. I think you’re conflating “atheism” with “strong atheism”: weak atheists, OTOH, hold that since there is no evidence that God exists, there is no reason to believe in God’s existence–and this is the kind of “atheism” that Skribe is referring to. (And I suspect, among atheists, it is the majority position.) Dawkins would, I think, fit into the category of the strong atheist.
It doesn’t matter that Stalin, Mao et al were atheists – believers claim to be more moral that unbelievers – but if the best argument they can come up with is “well they did it tooâ€? then they have nothing.
The “Hitler was an atheist too” routine (did you know he was a vegetarian, too? And he was German!!) is a genetic fallacy regularly flung at us atheists by certain of our betters. I wouldn’t take it to heart
Hitler as a vegetarian has long been the subject of debate, not that it really matters. Whether he was or not, it had nothing to do with what he did.
http://www.veg.ca/living/p-hitler.html
While I’m here, I’ll add that I think Jo Jacobs’ post is “sensationally flawed”:
1) What’s wrong with an antipathy to the paranormal? There are big bucks on offer if you can even do better than chance consistently. Or do you hold with the school of thought that grants the same credence to homeopathy (aka expensive water) and crystals as to scientific medicine?
2) As others here have suggested, post a cite for Jared Diamond’s despription of Darwin’s theories as “sensationally flawed”. I doubt you can. Darwin himself points to opportunism and convenience (and indeed what often looks like sheer caprice) as aspects of the modification of populations by natural selection. The extrapolation of natural selection principles to human cultures was not part of Darwin’s thesis, which concerned inherited characteristics.
3) “Religion has provided the strength for some communities to survive.” This whole paragraph is tendentious. Religion (as argued in Diamond’s Collapse) has also provided the catalyst for societies to disintegrate and vanish. Where is your evidence? Actually, where is your argument?
Jo Jacobs obviously hasn’t hung around enough scientists if she thinks Dawkins is the most arrogant “of them all…”.
If I may get arrogant myself for a moment, why should I treat her with anything other than patronising courtesy if she fails to grasp that “Darwinism”, as she calls it, was a theory about biology. Its adaptation into the social sciences has nothing to do with the overwhelming evidence for its basic correctness in the field of explaining how animals and plants evolve to cope with changing conditions.
I suspect that at the root of comments like Ms. Jacobs’ lies the belief, common among many theists, that without a deity or deities to cater to the whims of, life loses all purpose and meaning. I would disagree. Rather than having a purpose to our lives imposed on us, as an atheist I face the fascinating challenge of deciding for myself what purpose and meaning I choose to place on my existence.
A coupla things
1) It struck me when reading Jacob’s piece that she wasn’t really trying to provoke a fistfight between religion and science, or even a 3 cornered bout between religion. science and the ‘new age.’ So what was she doing? To me it read more like a postmodern attack on the ueber-assuredness and zeal of some scientists; a warning of what could occur if strong atheists (thanks Arthur) were able to achieve a monopoly on truth and wisdom; a partial explanation of why unscientific truths continue to exist and cause mayhem??
2) It strikes me that Evolutionary Biology, or even Darwinism was not, by a long shot, the strongest card for her to play in this game (even if Dawkins appears to be a half-reasonable target – this basaed only on collective LP wisdom.) I too would be fascinated to see this sensational flaw in Darwin’s logic.
Woah. Mark did warn me that this post was likely to elicit a robust debate but I didn’t think I’d be responding to 35 messages before lunch! However, I’m very pleased to be able to respond to your comments and thank you all for participating in this ongoing discussion – truly a wonderful example of the power of blogging.
I thought I’d respond by addressing some of the key points raised rather than addressing each post in turn – this seems to be a more efficient approach. And as I read it, there are about three main issues that have been raised in comments: the notion of atheism as a fundamentalist perspective, my use of Diamond’s work in Guns, Germs and Steel as a source to support my questioning of Dawkins’ extreme position, and the notion of opportunism as being an influencing factor in human community sustainability. I will therefore focus my response on these key issues.
Firstly, some commentators questioned my description of Dawkins as taking a fundamentalist atheist approach. I stand by that claim. The definition of an atheist is quite clear: it is not merely scepticism, but a conviction that there are no higher forces operating on, nor influencing human societies. Dawkins’s pettiness and derision of religious groups and their leaders displays an arrogance that is hardly admirable, but it also demonstrates a kind of fundamentalism: an approach that is as separatist and divisive as any form of religious fundamentalism. Dawkins is a militant scientific philosopher. He sets out to expose religious groups and their followers as ignorant and misguided. But in doing so, he oversimplifies the supremacy of science as a guiding philosophy, and he goes dangerously close to indicating that anyone who questions the predominance of current scientific theory as being the indomitable quest for truth is a heathen who needs conversion. For Dawkins (somewhat ironically), religion of any kind is heresy. That’s fundamentalism. It doesn’t require a belief in deities; it merely requires an extreme position.
Then some comments that questioned my use of Jared Diamond’s wok in Guns, Germs and Steel I take entirely on board some people believing I was referring to Diamond’s later work, Collapse (and in truth I probably was referring to Diamond’s full body of work, including Collapse in my original post), but it was in Guns, Germs and Steel that he poses a direct challenge to pure Darwinism as a primary factor in the survival and adaptation of human cultures. He argues that the introduction of specific instruments and geographical peculiarities (including prevalence of disease carrying wildlife) bear a much more significant influence on human culture development and sustainability than has previously been acknowledged. It is this thesis – that something other than pure natural selection – that I refer to as a pro-science source to argue that there are factors other than pure biology that can influence the sustainability of human cultures. The opportunism I refer to in my original post is taken directly from Diamond’s work: it is opportunism, he argues, that resulted in the dominance of some human cultures over others. Not natural selection, nor intellectual supremacy, opportunism is simply the capacity to exploit the environment for their natural advantage. Religion itself could be considered a form of opportunism. When a community needs an objective for collective effort, religion can focus that effort.
I suppose I’m suggesting that religion could well be regarded as a sustaining aspect of some societies as well as a destructive one. Indeed it is an over-simplification to say as Dawkins does, that religious fervour is mere theatre. Among religious communities there are proponents who would argue that their spiritualism is not merely a consciousness of connection to their people and their God(s), but a rationale for happiness and productivity within their community. But I use Diamond’s work, because I find it a much more exploratory and rational approach in understanding the role of evolution and natural selection than the rhetoric promoted by Dawkins.
I also refer to the arrogance of Dawkins in assuming that science alone can explain our place in the universe. Dawkins lauds science as being a “X of doubt” and cites an episode of one scientist congratulating another for proving him wrong, as being evidential of the supremacy and rationality of scientific thought. But this simply isn’t relaistic. The reality of the scientific community is that there is much robust debate about the supposed “truth” of many scientific laws, and rather than congratulating one another over new theories that challenge previously accepted positions, there is often a strong political response against new theory and there have been celebrated examples of scientists attempting to undermine each other for controversial propositions and claimed “evidence”. Dawkins is petty in his critique of religious groups and over-simplifying in his representation of the scientific community as occupying a moral high ground when compared with religious groups.
I suppose I should also declare my interests here: I am agnostic, and have no interest in promoting religious activism. And I have a family of scientists: my father was a bio-chemist, one uncle is an atmospheric physicist, and another is a medical doctor. My aunt is a research scientist in human fertility and my cousins are all working in science-related fields. I’m also advocating the BrisScience Public Lecture Series. So I am not speaking from a pro-religion, nor anti-science perspective. However I do regard Dawkins as a dangerously simplistic and fundamentalist commentator on the fallibility of religion and the supremacy of science. I think he falls victim to the very fundamentalism he seeks to suppress.
There’s no such thing as fundamentalist atheism because there is no atheistic ideology. It is simply an absence of belief. The advocates of darwinistic, humanistic, naturalistic and materialistic ideologies may be atheists but that isn’t a requirement.
Guns, Germs and Steel, if I remember it correctly, isn’t very concerned at all with Darwin or natural selection. It does deal tangentially with evolution, particularly in chapters that deal with viruses adapting to exploit herd mammals and plants becoming domesticated. The thrust of the story, though, is about how environment shaped the development of human cultures. Humans that had already evolved. We more-or-less stopped evolving well before Diamond’s narrative started (something to do with a lack of natural predators), so Darwin really doesn’t come into it.
Jo, how do you define ‘darwinism’? Another point is that even if survival and adaption of human cultures can be explained by other factors than ‘pure natural selection’ (and I agree with you here) it has no significance on the validity of Darwin. I’d say we are seeing a misapplication of Darwin’s ideas more than anything.
Jo Jacobs
Whenever I hear and/or read scientists going hammer and tongs trying to “prove” that there is no god, religion is bunk, etc. I just shake my head at their bone-headed naivety. What they do not seem to “get” is that religion serves a very powerful human need for transcendence. We want to transcend the here and now, the tangible, and the effable. We want to be transported from the hum-drum reality that is the limit of what science has to offer the human experience.
Further to what Shaun said: disease bearing wildlife and the adoption of tools and geographical issues are all part of natural selection, aren’t they? They all put pressures on populations which shape what happens to those populations. Just because tool use is something humans ‘take up’ themselves doesn’t mean that it isn’t to do with ’selection’.
Perhaps we disagree on what fundamentalism is. I thought it was the belief of infallibility and literal interpretation of sacred texts (eg Fundamentalist Christianity and Islam) and the belief in absolute authority.
I don’t think you can accuse scientists of that. They hold nothing infallible. They don’t dogmatically believe anything. They don’t believe that authority makes things right, correct or true.
What you seem to be saying is that to be a fundamentalist, “merely requires an extreme position”. I don’t think this is a good definition, because it doesn’t encompass the assuredness of their belief that other fundamentalists have. I think the key part to being fundamentalist is the belief in some things in spite of any conceiveable evidence to the contrary. I don’t think this is a fair thing to accuse Richard Dawkins of (Did you know that both Jared Diamond and Dawkins are on the editorial board of Skeptic Magazine?).
I’m sure if you could show him of them how a religious society (based on a religion that didn’t require him to suspend his critical mind) would be better than a secular one, he would be all the happier.
What Diamond was attacking in Guns, Germs & Steel was an argument mounted by racist historians and anthropologists that the success of Europeans in the last 500 years was due to some innate advantages and was therefore an example of natural selection. Darwin never said this. Diamond (correctly, I think) said that geographic, climatic and ecological (ie abundance of species amenable to agriculture) conditions favoured Europeans and that their success was due to exploitation of those advantages rather than any inherent superiority. He debunked social Darwinism which is a different kettle of fish altogether to scientific Darwinism (by which varieties of organisms become differentiated into species).
But will, is it fair to say that some scientist believe in the authority of sciense; that one scientific observation can only shown fallible by another scientific observation?
So read a book, have some chocolate, listen to some sublime music, swim, go to an art gallery, play sport, meditate, dance, walk among tall cypresses with a dog, sing, philosophise or watch a play.
Religion doesn’t have a monopoly on transcendence!
The appalling spelling and forgotten words in my last pot have convinced me that it’s time to go out and seek some extra-computer transcendence of my own.
will
Don’t tell me, tell the religionists. But why do YOU care?
We want to be transported from the hum-drum reality that is the limit of what science has to offer the human experience.
It’s sad people think this.
Look at these
http://images.google.com.au/images?svnum=10&hl=en&lr=&safe=off&q=earth+from+space
or
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/04/science/04dodo.html?ex=1309665600&en=e14a12fa4682f530&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss
just to pick to that happened to cross my path this morning. Real transcendance and wonder and awe, in my view, not just stories made up for the purpose of social control.
If you don’t get this, you ou are missing out in a big way on transcendance.
A friend has pointed me to a relevant Guardian article on this subject, that may more clearly articulate my concerns about Dawkins:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/religion/Story/0,2763,1474736,00.html
Thought it might be of further interest in this debate!
Amanda
What a truly bizarre thing to think. You are sad because of the way people seek transcendence? In fact, religious belief is one of the KEY traits of the happiest people. Why do you think people like Margo Kingston and Phillip Adams are so bitter?
That Dylan Evans article was annoying a year ago and it still is.
PZ Myers has it down:
http://pharyngula.org/index/weblog/comments/a_nonsensical_atheist/
As Dawkins has said, religion plays with knuckle dusters but expects to be treated with kid gloves in return.
I agree with Amanda. And the Guardian article meshes closely with my views above.
I agree with Amanda.
Believe what you want, LQ, just don’t use the word ‘we’
Seconding Amanda: I’m always kinda miffed that people think disbelief in the supernatural implies a ‘boring’, ‘humdrum’ vision of existance.
Have such people actually read some of the current Big bang theories?
What’s ‘humdrum’ about the Singularity?
Positrons? Black holes?
All the matter and the energy in the universe, yea, even time compressed into a single particle and then unleashed?
String theory?
Quantum mechanics?
You aren’t going to find anything as cool as that in the Bible. Just a load of ‘begats’.
But will, is it fair to say that some scientist believe in the authority of sciense; that one scientific observation can only shown fallible by another scientific observation?
I don’t follow. Are there other ways to falsify scientific claims?
Jason, chill man, I mean like the royal pronoun: ‘We’ y’know?
Well I guess it depends what the scientific claim is, Arthur. You can posit that there are forces or aspects pertaining to a particular situation (say, the historical collapse of a particular society) which cannot (at least for now) be scientifically proven yet which may in fact significantly alter the result. Im coming from a ’social science’ background when I say this, but it could be extended to other areas.
My gripe is not really with what science proves, but what it assumes is disproven or invalid and the conclusions drawn thereupon. That’s what makes some scientists effectively fundamentalist. There really is only one ‘text’, but it’s not a book so much as a set of (very well developed and defensible) rules.
The dude knows.
The dude knows.
No. The dude abides.
Who has ever argued for
Not Dawkins, and not Darwin. That’s a complete straw man.
Kate, tool use and other cultural changes in humans do form part of the environment within which our genes replicate, so they do exert selection pressure on humans — e.g. perhaps manual dexterity becomes selected for more strongly. But because culture is transmitted across the generations by example/teaching cultures change much faster than, and independently of our genes. So tool development is not caused by natural selection, while (say) brain size is.
Dawkins understands this, which is why he’s interested in the (speculative) idea of memes.
Guns, Germs and Steel was a fascinating book, but in no way anti-Darwinian.
You can posit that there are forces or aspects pertaining to a particular situation (say, the historical collapse of a particular society) which cannot (at least for now) be scientifically proven yet which may in fact significantly alter the result.
Could you be more specific?
My gripe is not really with what science proves, but what it assumes is disproven or invalid and the conclusions drawn thereupon. That’s what makes some scientists effectively fundamentalist. There really is only one ‘text’, but it’s not a book so much as a set of (very well developed and defensible) rules.
Hate to be pedantic here, but science isn’t about proving anything. Its truth-claims are based on the available evidence, and may be overturned by the discovery of new evidence.
This article seems apposite here.
Close, Leinad, ‘All the matter and the energy in the universe, yea, even time compressed into a single particle and then unleashed?’, Hebrews 11:3: ‘By faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that the things which are seen were not made of things which are visible.’ No begats there, just a created universe, whihc closely fits ‘big bang’ theory,and not even from a scientific document.
The problem with faith is that it doesn’t require physical evidence. Once a thing is evidenced scientiifically it no longer requires faith, since it is experienced and concrete. If Dawkins wants to challenge anything he needs to challenge the fact of faith itself, rather than the ‘evidence’ of a God or gods, based on the writings of those who represent God or gods. If an entity truly is God why would that God even be bothered with the unbelief of a finite, limited being such as Dawkins? Surely God would allow his own people, some of whom are able to operate at least at the equivalent intellectual level, deal with such an impudent, faithless person. God is only interested in faith, therefore Dawkins has to disprove or disqualify faith itself, rather than religion, or even the God or gods of that religion, but you can’t do this scientifically. The evidence is that faith does exist, and is prevelant amongst many cultures, and has indeed aided cultures in their conception, development, and in some cases destruction.
I get the impression Dawkins presented his doco rather like John Laws runs ‘talk-back’, where he allows people to comment, but has his hand firmly on the volume control, and always has the loudest microphone, so that, if the debate goes against his own arguement he can easily eliminate the ‘opposition’ by fading them out, and add a derogatory comment as they vanish into the background.
FaceLift, If religions stuck to holding personal beliefs, that might be OK, but they don’t. They make truth claims such as “humans didn’t evolve from apes”. They also use their faith to impose their ideas on mankind “You will go to Hell if you use a condom”, “It’s OK to kill heretics”, “Some races are born to be hewers of wood and drawers of water”, “God says we can have this land” and so on.
Faith is by definition unreason, and using unreason in claims about reality is asking for trouble.
Once they stop doing that I’ll stop objecting to religion.
If we don’t use an observation, what are we meant to use? We can’t disprove something based on a guess, or what we would like it to be! We can have competing mathematical models, that show different results, like String theory as opposed to the Standard model, but one does not prove or disprove the other. Scientists, especially mathematicians know that there are rules, authorities if you will, to what we can do with our models, such as Godel’s Incompleteness Theorems and Turing’s Halting Problem, but these are rules that emerge out of models that they use. If the model was different, then these would not necessarily apply.
I don’t understand what you are getting at. Science isn’t an authority, it has only the authority of our own observations. It is just a collection of guesses people make at explaining what they see. It does a good job of it and it is useful so we accept it.
Perhaps the problem you have is by calling these things scientific observation. There isn’t really any difference between the observation a scientist makes and the one you or I do. You don’t need a superpower, you don’t necessarily even need lab equipment. Back in the old days people timed things by singing songs. Science isn’t some unreachable thing that is out of bounds to most people.
So if we could just come up with a new idea that shows simply how evolution (for example) is wrong, and could do some experiments that show we don’t inherit traits from our parents, but rather solely from our environment (for arguments sake) and shows that the current method was all just a mistrake, then the scientific community would be pretty impressed. Sure, there would be a fair amount of kerfuffle (you don’t want to get rid of something that seemed to have worked for a while), but if it made sense, and people all over the world could do similar experiments, it would eventually be used. However, we use the results of evolution all the time in medicine and computing, and oodles of experiments have shown theory to be in accordance with observation.
Religion doesn’t provide us with that. Some tell us not to believe what we see, others accept what we see and also believe in things that contradict this. I suppose science has the problem that it morally believes is not right to think two opposite things at the same time. It doesn’t want to get rid of what it can see to be true, so it discards the other. Since what it sees is the same as everyone else can too, it doesn’t believe that other people should hold on to what is now shown to be false. Especially when they spread the falsehoods to others.
The evidence is that faith does exist,
Sorry . . . but what the hell does that mean??
No you can do it logically. The faiths of multiple religions are contradictory, they cannot all be true. They can, however, all be wrong.
So faith does nothing except grant people unwarranted certainty. After all, you don’t believe in sacrificing hecatombs to Zeus or Joseph Smith’s golden plates and angel Moroni, so why anyone should take faith as showing anything except that people will believe just about anything.
Well, Arthur, faith exists because people have faith. You can’t qualify that scientifically. They just believe, or want to believe in the existance of life beyond what they know aandd see and can scientifically demonstrate or prove. You may find tis strange, but that conclusion doesn’t nullify their need to believe in something beyond their understanding. You can call it what you will, superstition, faith, belief, and you can call it illogical, but you can’t dismiss it with mere reason or logic.
Zarquon,
Whether faiths are contradictory or not is irrelevant, since faith isn’t defined by what you believe in, but by the fact that you have the power or ability to believe in something. Dawkins attempts to dismiss faith by attempting to apply logic based on his own worldview and influences to discredit something he doesn’t believe in himself, and fails because another person’s worldview and influences aren’t based on what he believes. The attempts to project his own worldview and ‘faith’ (which is his belief systeem) on others in such a bumblingly heavyhanded way imitates the people he targets – the ones he claims to say, ‘if you don’t adopt my religion you’ll burn in hell’. He’ll be forever frustrated by this.
‘Unwarranted certainty’ is strong evidence of faith, and is quite a good descriptor. How do you account for the fact that it is very difficult to detach a person with faith from that faith, and often theyr’re willinmg to die for that faith?
Tom,
What makes you think that there is a rule about faith that says it has to be kept personal?
“God is only interested in faith …”
I think this makes God sound a little strange. Further, I wonder about a God who fills his scriptures with statements of fact and then leaves heaps of physical evidence to the contrary, only to damn you to hell when you start to believe the evidence. It’s like selling you a vacuum cleaner with a clause in the warranty that if you are dissatisfied and buy a competing brand, the manufacturer will send a hitman around to your house to torture you to death.
shame that isn’t true Bismark.
Perhaps you are stuck in the nineteenth century!
Yes, I did God a disservice, Bismark, in that I meant he’s not responsive to person’s unbelief, but is responsive to faith. Of course, he’s interested in all things.
Without wanting to start or have a desire to go into a debate about the merits of scripture, or contradictions you or others may find, I’ll just say that I’m mostly pinpointing the fact that there is part of the human makeup which yearns to believe in something/one beyond our comprehension. Some here can claim that they are detached from this phenomenon, but the majority of the world’s population does experience this desire for connection with the otherworldly. I believe science can exist alongside this. The attempt to ridicule people for being religious does scinece little credit, since people will still believe regardless.
I’ll go back to the point I made at the top of the thread. Faith may be “by definition unreason” but that doesn’t have to mean it’s a negation of reason. That’s why the Catholic Church and several Popes in the Twentieth Century have been happy to accept both a non-literal reading of the Bible and evolutionary theory. A lot of this debate misses the mark because it’s between two polarised positions, and I think that’s what Jo was getting at in the post.
For my part, I was only poking fun at those who believe that accepting evolution is a path to hell. I don’t think Facelift and BBEP hold those views. No offence fellas!
But even Dawkins doesn’t actually mock people simply for being religious – he has no especial interest in those who are merely churchgoers. He is incensed by attempts by certain zealots to attack science on the grounds of their religion simply because science does not support certain cherished dogmas. He is blunt and sarcastic about it, which may well be annoying, but I don’t see how it can be considered dangerous.
That there have been those who misunderstood and misused Darwin’s theories as part of eugenics propaganda is no more in doubt than that there exist those who misunderstand and misuse Darwin’s theories today as part of fundamentalist propaganda. No misuse of Darwin’s theories discredits the theories themselves scientifically, and most particularly any misuse of Darwin’s selection theories has no effect on the Modern Synthesis theory of evolution.
Yes, in respect of human origins in contrast to religious origin myths. He makes no claims for the truth of Darwin’s theories when misapplied outside the sphere of evolutionary biology.
Jo’s article seems to setting Dawkins up as some sort of eugenics-Darwin apologist when he makes no such social-darwinist arguments. Certainly Dawkins argues that humanity generally would be better off without religion, but that is a philosophical argument he makes entirely separate from his discussion of the science of human origins. Engage and rebut that philosophical argument for atheism as much as you wish, but leave Diamond, poor old Darwin and evolutionary biology as a whole out of it, please.
Well, Arthur, faith exists because people have faith. You can’t qualify that scientifically. They just believe, or want to believe in the existance of life beyond what they know aandd see and can scientifically demonstrate or prove. You may find tis strange, but that conclusion doesn’t nullify their need to believe in something beyond their understanding. You can call it what you will, superstition, faith, belief, and you can call it illogical, but you can’t dismiss it with mere reason or logic.
(Big Brother voice:) “FaceLift, you’re not being clear. And you’re running out of time.”
What am I supposing to be dismissing with my mere reason and logic? The fact that there are people who believe in God in spite of the lack of evidence? But I knew that already. I get it. There are people who believe in God and in the afterlife in spite of the lack of evidence that either actually exists. There. I said it. Happy?
Without wanting to start or have a desire to go into a debate about the merits of scripture, or contradictions you or others may find, I’ll just say that I’m mostly pinpointing the fact that there is part of the human makeup which yearns to believe in something/one beyond our comprehension. Some here can claim that they are detached from this phenomenon, but the majority of the world’s population does experience this desire for connection with the otherworldly.
Dawkins had a few things to say about this. (And I know I’ve linked to it before, FaceLift.)
In my opinion, we’re all weak atheists in the “state of nature” (as it were). But that’s just my opinion.
But you’re avoiding the problem. Faith is not “just having the power to believe” it is always faith in something. Dawkins is pointing out that sometimes the consequences of the ideas people have faith in are apalling.
Also people who are willing to die for their faith, like suicide bombers, are too often also willing to butcher small children along the way.
Possibly replacing the word “fundamentalist” with the word “fanatic” would clear up a little terminalogical confusion?
Fanaticism still requires an ideology. Atheism has none. The term fanatic is doubly inappropriate given that the root word is fanaticus, which means inspired by god. Don’t get sucked into thinking that Atheism is just another religion. It is not. Just as black is not a colour, but the absence of all colour.
That may be true in terms of conceptual definition, skribe, but as a sociological and historical phenomenon atheism is often closely linked to ideologies which define themselves against religion.
As I argued here:
http://www.clubtroppo.com.au/2004/11/01/dogmatic-atheism-or-the-return-of-the-religious/
An ideology may be required, but you don’t have to agree with it. It’s possible to be fanatically against something, and it’s in this way that it’s possible to be a fanatical atheist.
I agree, as again I’ve tried to show in the piece I just linked to.
Mark, being linked with something doesn’t make it that same as something. As I described above atheism is not the same as naturalism, materialsm, humanism or darwinism, even though there are atheistic elements within each of their memberships. Just as a Christian is not a Jew is not an Islamic, even though as a sociological and historical phenomenon they have closely linked ideologies. It is important to make that distinction. Even if it is just so you can assign blame correctly =).
There is no such rule, but if people kept their faith personal instead of trying to bring the nonsensical things it tells them into their relationship with the real world I would not object to religion.
You can’t have a discussion about evolution with someone whose faith tells them what the answer is, without evidence, just as you can’t discuss how women, gays or people of religion X should be treated with someone whose faith tells them that they should be shrouded, hanged or burned. They will never see an issue from any point of view but their own — or rather that of their ‘faith’.
So today’s Pope’s faith has changed to recognize that evolution is real, and that unbaptised babies don’t end up in limbo — isn’t ‘faith’ just an excuse to say “you must do what I tell you, and I don’t have to give you any reason”? Doesn’t the fluidity and multiplicity of faiths make the idea that anyone except the person who holds them should pay any attention ludicrous?
No, Tom, because the Pope isn’t making a judgement on faith but an acceptance of what’s discovered using human reason. It’s actually a dogmatic statement of the Catholic Church that reason and faith are compatible. This goes back to natural law philosophy, and neo-Aristotelian Thomism, but a modern way of looking at it (post the Enlightenment) is that faith and reason have different spheres. Contrary to those who claim that the Bible reveals cosmology to us, I think, as one of the previous posts of mine that’s been linked to elaborates, that it impoverishes religion if we see it as a collection of truth statements. I also see claims that science provides meaning (which is different from transcendence) as the flipside of this history.
Mark, I’ll certainly defer to your knowledge of Catholic theology, but when the Pope decides that Limbo doesn’t exist he isn’t discovering something using human reason, he’s making stuff up; when he tells people not to use contraception he isn’t using human reason, as you might be if you told someone they shouldn’t smoke. All he can say is “don’t because I’m telling you that God doesn’t want you to”.
To say that ‘faith and reason have different spheres’ leads to the danger that people might think that you mean ‘faith and science do the same thing, but in different spheres’. They might think ‘religion finds truth, but in a different sphere to science’ or ‘religion is useful, but in a different sphere to science’. The statement implies some undefined isomorphism between the two which doesn’t exist.
I see the thread has moved on quite a way, which is good becuase I’m afraid, Arthur and Will, that I don’t have any profound point or position. I was merely nibbling around the edges hoping to be informed by the response to my questions.
I think what i’m getting at concerns -in will’s terms what constitutes a valid observation or -in Arthur’s terms – what constitutes a new discovery which allows/forces us to alter our ‘truth claims.’ How would you guys set the limits? I’m more sceptical of the way some scientists interpret the ‘rules’ than of the validity of scientific logic.
This is exactly the assumption I am questioning. Im saying i don”t think we can come to scientific unanimity on a whole lot of important issues and that any attempt to do so is a political action. If Dawkins is simply attacking the hubris of religion that’s fine. If he is, as Joanne states, positing a scientific explanation to the collapsing of societies that ignores cultural economics (there’s one possible answer to your first question Arthur) then i start to wonder.
Arthur: There is no doubt that the dude abide… and thanks for the link.
Well, that danger might be there but it’s not my intention to argue those things.
On Limbo, Tom, I don’t think it’s relevant. It’s not a place but a spiritual state. Things have progressed beyond Dante – though a close reader of his poem would anyway question whether he’s really trying to describe physical features of the underworld. People prior to the Enlightenment didn’t tend to separate out description or observation and metaphor or analogy.
In any case, Limbo was never something that was an article of Catholic belief, but a theological hypothesis, and the “Pope abolishes Limbo” thing was pretty badly reported in the press.
I think, unfortunately, that the wondering should be in Joanne’s direction rather than Dawkins on that claim. I am utterly unaware of Dawkins making any sort of social-darwinian claims about a scientific explanation for the collapse of societies.
That claim seems to be some weird sort of conflation by Joanne about Dawkins’ claims for Darwin as “a source of modern truth” regarding human origins, with racist claims made by other people entirely about the reasons for Western cultural hegemony. Those racist claims by others were refuted by Diamond and had zip-zero-nada to do with Dawkins (and very little to do with Darwin either except misapplication of his work).
Zarquon,
That’s on the negative side, and more in the minority. I had in mind those who are persecuted for their faith, yet willing to die rather than deny, which is an extraordinary testimony to faith.
Well, my argument would be that suicide bombers are much more correctly characterised as dying for social and political pathologies than faith, but perhaps that’s a debate we don’t need to have on this thread.
I’ve lent my copy of Guns, Germs and Steel to someone, but thanks to the miracle of Amazon’s ’search inside this book’ it appears that ‘Darwin’ appears twice in the book:
So where exactly is it that “Diamond argues in his work in Guns, Germs and Steel, … that Darwin’s theories are sensationally flawed”?
Not that an evolutionary bioligist and the author of “The Third Chimpanzee” and “Why Sex is Fun” would be likely to argue that anyway!
Dawkins’ mode of aggressive atheism only becomes necessary in the face of aggressive, i.e., fundamentalist, religion. If there were no abortion clinic bombings, no assaults on the teaching of evolution, or no suicide bombings, there would not be a need for a Dawkins.
Dawkins, however, makes the further point that moderates must accept some of the blame of their extremist brethren because moderates do not speak out against them:
Here are some more of my favourite quotes:
Mick Farren
Mark Morford, Where are the Good Christians?
Anon
So I’m sorry, silkworm, in light of those quotes, why have people been asserting that Dawkins is not aggressive, one-sided and ideological?
The first one, for instance, has about as much moral and explanatory value as the rankest statements by Islamophobes. I’ve never read the guy. I’m surprised he’s so crude.
That’s the sort of comment I was getting at with my comment about his statements on the doco on ID. It’s a pretty bad look for his own cause in my view.
You’re right, Mark – Dawkins is not aggressive. He’s assertive.
Lordy, silkworm, if a religious person were to say the same things about science, you’d be hanging them from the rafters. How about “arrogant and offputting”?
So you’re suggesting that Dawkins should be hanged from the rafters for the things he says about religion? Now who’s being aggressive?
Oh, take a chill pill, silkworm. I’m suggesting nothing of the kind. I’m pointing to the lack of a measured and considered tone in his statements.
On Joanne’s rebuttal:
Tigtog and Tom Davies do an excellent job in showing that Joanne is simply wrong in saying Diamond contradicts Darwin and/or Dawkins. (For Saint: GGS is a good read. I think actually he’s overly ecological-deterministic. A rough eg is that agriculture arose in Fertile Crescent partly because of large grained grass species there, and its extension to Europe gave Europe the ability to access technology (and also germs) that would help them crush native Americans. Big problem is explaining what happened to China.)
Joanne’s argument that atheists are fundamentalists (still doesn’t say some) relies on the notion that atheists by definition think people who believe in God are wrong, and may even say so. I have a friend who is a Christian, and believes in God. When I was a Catholic, she regularly told me I was wrong and would be going to hell when I died (critical factor seemed to be deeds vs grace). I wouldn’t have called her fundamentalist, but by Joanne’s definition she is. I really object to the use of the word ‘dangerous’, which Joanne uses to describe Dawkins. Dawkins may not be a nice bloke, he may be rude and insulting, the very fact that he proclaims that he doesn’t believe in a god might suggest he thinks those who do are wrong and he may even say so loudly and forcefully. But this is not fundamentalist, let alone dangerous.
Bloody good read, this thread!
Thanks for the link to the Dawkins lecture, Arthur. In it, Dawkins deals with the “arrogant” tag:
Dawkins is aggressive, one-sided and ideological. Dawkins is arrogant in his philosophical statements about atheism. Dawkins is often an embarassing old uncle to more rhetorically restrained atheists.
That’s got nothing to do with the scientific accuracy of his statements about evolutionary biology and Darwin as a source of modern truth about human origins. It’s also got nothing to do with the validity of the logic underlying Dawkins’ ideology. It’s everything to do with his rhetorical style.
Dawkins takes distinct pains in his writing to separate his scientific apologetics against creationist/ID canards from his philosophical polemics touting the ideological superiority of atheism. Very few of his critics seem to bother to do the same. Joanne, objecting to his polemics, chose to attack his science: and in a way that seems to show a lack of understanding of the scientific work of all three Ds – Darwin, Dawkins and Diamond. That’s sloppy.
Also, Mark, only one of Silkworm’s three quotes was from Dawkins, and it was actually the least polemic of the
threefour.Silkworm, perhaps you should include the name of the person you’re quoting as part of the blockquote next time, by putting their name in brackets after the excerpted text, to make that more clear. e.g.
It is a rare pleasure to agree with Comrade Silkworm once in a while. Dawkins only gives as good as the other side, who, I maintain, do much more harm than any alleged ‘fundamentalist atheist’ ever had for the cause of *fundamentalism atheism* (therefore no rebuttals by invoking Stalin or Mao or that New Age occultist-failed artist-hippy Hitler are allowed)
That’s a bit of a damningly relativist argument, no? We’re not as bad as them. We’ve never done anything as bad as they’ve done. Doesn’t hold much weight when they, as you say, have intentionally killed innocent civilians time and time again.
Who’s killing who, michaelg?
The atheists have killed no one while religious fundamentalists actually do have blood on their hands.
Do the means justify the ends? Yes, when the means here are just verbal pyrotechnics versus actual killing through direct action or ignorance. Whether this is good tactics is a separate issue and I agree that Dawkins sometimes comes across as the embarassing cantankerous uncle but he makes up for it by being an excellent science writer.
I was agreeing with you Jason, that fundamental religion has buckets of blood on its hands.
That’s a much more convincing way to put it. As I said before, I’m not questioning the value or the difficulty of Dawkins (or science’s) task in responding to fundamentalist religion. I’m more sceptical about Silkworms first claim, one that your comparison seemed to somewhat belie.
Verbal pyrotechnics don’t always stay on the pages, or in the lecture theatre. I’m wondering whether, to some extent – and I’ll emphasise i’m not having a go at Science or even Dawkins, but the fanatical atheist (should he/she exist) – a complete belief in the authority of science and the scientific method (and accepting how de define science is an open question) has other consequences idnependent of religion; that the ueber evilness of fundie religion is real, but also a smokescreen in this argument. That you would position science relative to something so horrific, is what made me snarky
Atheism has killed millions!
No, theism has!
Vegetarians have the blood of millions on their hands!
Not as much as those fanatical pro-Newmanite anti-dispensationalist consubstantiationalists!
Can we quit using deathcounts as an ideological measuring stick?
But they started it first, sir!
I don’t care, Soon. When you give their bodycount ‘argument ‘anything more than the sarcastic sigh and rolled eyes it deserves you merely encourage such argumentum ad megadeath. Now write a three hundred word essay on the demerits of ideological dong-fights and have it on my desk by morning. Or go back to your real job. Whatever.
So the Jewish banker who amasses a fortune is being irrational as he plans his next excursion into wealth based on the promises to Abraham, and the Muslim artist is irrationally designing those wonderful mosaics, and the builders of ancient egypt were being irrational as they carved amazing hyroglyphs, and the works of Michaelangelo and his like were irrational expressions of their adoration, not to mention the incredible music dedicateed to God, awe-inspiring architecture, genius social systems, etc, etc.
Well, indeed, that would be most helpful, tigtog.
And what Leinad said. Jason, I can’t see how your opening gambit avoids that sort of (bankrupt) comparison. You could make a good argument that Christians and Jews killed in the Soviet Union were targetted precisely because of the atheistic aspect of Marxist ideology. Presumably you’d have to counter by saying “But Christians and Muslims killed more people”. It just doesn’t get you anywhere.
To the degree that Dawkins wants to argue (and I’m unsure because of silkworm’s lack of attribution) that religious faith leads to a predisposition to killing, I think it’s pretty clear that argument has no substance.
Below is the one actual quote from Dawkins that Silkworm provided. I don’t think it reads that he is claiming that religion leads to killing per se, merely that religion allows the extremists who do kill to hide behind the faith of more moderate believers, and that is dangerous.
The paragraph above does have a logical progression, although it appears to be heading towards the dreaded slippery slope fallacy, and I’d be interested to see if he manages to bypass that.
Well, yes, tigtog, that’s what I’m arguing against. I think it’s demonstrably false. People still find sufficient reason to kill each other in the absence of faith. And most such killing has nothing to do with faith, or only a tendentious connection.
And I’d repeat my point that this argument is in form and substance identical to Islamophobic “arguments”.
I agree this is where Dawkins’ philosophy becomes incoherent to me. Mass killings tend to be for political/territorial ambitions of some sort. Religion is used by leaders to “hook” an emotional reaction against the designated enemy, but is not itself the reason for killing.
It appears to be Dawkins’ thesis that somehow, in the absence of religion as an emotional motivator ripe for misuse by demagogues, the populace at large would be more skeptical of their leaders and see through the Emperor’s New Clothes regarding lies-towards-war etc. Wouldn’t it be nice? But …
I think the level of vitriol expressed between secular economists toward their opposites on the Wet-Dry divide should be enough to put paid to that fond hope. I could totally imagine a Dry-economy state geeing up its citzens to military action with inflammatory rhetoric against that wicked and dangerous Wet-economy nation across the river, and vice versa. There are many other ideological divides that can be exploited to motivate people to violence. Religion for killer-leaders is a useful tool, but not a necessary one.
I think you’re giving religious zealotry way too big a pass, Mark. Suicidal killing, in particular, often has a much bigger religious than purely political component (as to how you separate the religious from the political, I’ll let others unscramble than omelette). I’ll avoid any Muslim examples and point to Heaven’s Gate type cults. Whatever political aims they had are quite opaque (at least to me), but their violence was surely motivated by the prospect of gaining admission to their paradisaical fantasylands.
However, I note that you claim Dawkins’ position to be ‘demonstrably false’ and await that demonstration.
I think his essential point, and one I agree with, is that promises of eternal life etc made by religions are powerful motivators, and since religion by its nature discourages you from rational, evidence based decision making (aka “faith”) and relies on bypassing your bullshit detector for its very existence it is a dangerous mixture. If a believer is convinced that god wants something to happen, it becomes the believers duty to do it, even murder. Hell, if I believed in a supernatural being and creator and that He wanted me to kill you all — why on earth wouldn’t I do it? Endless paradise/approval of supremem being for me versus some of you? No contest. This applies equally to other ideologies, such as political ones but Dawkins’ main concern is religion so thats what he talks about.
” think the level of vitriol expressed between secular economists toward their opposites on the Wet-Dry divide should be enough to put paid to that fond hope”
Wrong, tigtog. Vitriol is as far as it goes. If you inject Marxism into it, it gets more heated but that’s because Marxism has an apolcalyptic edge to it.
Actual physical violence between economists is unheard of.
As Bismarck said, you are all giving religion a free pass.
The basic point is this. Who wants to lay down their lives for a falsifiable hypothesis? No one.
I’m not denying that faith plays some role in the decisions of suicide bombers and for radical sects. It seems that in a lot of these debates, the fact of multiple causality is entirely lost sight of. There always has to be one simple reductive explanation. People and society don’t work like that. Almost all human behaviour is complex, has an individual level and several social/structural influences affecting it. The trick – and it’s not impossible using social scientific techniques – is to assign relative weight to different causal factors.
But as to the more general argument, it’s easy to demonstrate its falsity.
Of all the people who believe strongly in a faith which preaches eternal life, a tiny minority commit self-destructive or potentially self-destructive acts of terrorist violence. Therefore there must be another causal factor operating.
It’s very simple.
Put it as a syllogism if you like:
All xs are taught to believe y.
Some xs do z.
Therefore all xs are prone to doing z.
And spot the fallacy.
FaceLift, Kim and I all believe in a faith which preaches eternal life. We’re not suicide bombers. I hazard a guess that we’re all non-violent people in our beliefs and practices.
I’ll confess that my remarks on the potential for warfare across the Wet-Dry divide were a tad tongue-in-cheek.
Still, the point remains that if religions based on supernatural revelation went the way of Ozymandias tomorrow, there would still be differences of purpose/principle etc that people would become “religious” about, and could then be manipulated into violence to support.
People will lay down their lives to protect their loved ones against what they are convinced is a credible threat. Religion is only the most traditional way to convince people that they are threatened.
Jason, perhaps tigtog’s example wasn’t the best.
Let me put it this way.
What drives genocide between different ethnic groups? There was no religious difference between Hutus and Tutsis that I’m aware of.
What causes countries to go to war? Look at the Austro-Prussian war for example – no religious factor – power politics. People were mobilised by ideologies of nationalism and martial glory that had bugger all to do with religion.
We could go on endlessly.
Now perhaps you could argue that these are also species of irrationality. But it doesn’t give you any ground for believing that if religion exited the picture, rationality would suddenly flourish. There’s always going to be irrational grounds for the mobilisation of hatred as long as human beings are human.
There seems to be an assumption that people of faith ignore the rational. Faith and rational thought are totally compatible, and essential. Belief in the unseen doesn’t negate the need to negotiate the daily challenges of the visible world, or stop us from contributing towards an improved society. For many people religion is a steadier during times of intense interaction with the mundane or challenging processes of life.
The argument that we need angry activist atheists because there are mad militant fundamentalists is extremely weak. In fact the counterpoint to militant activism is pacifism, as Ghandi demonstrated. Dawkins is just an angry, bitter, frustrated man who blindly thinks he knows more about the things which iritate him most than his temperament can handle, that’s all. He should appear frequently on ‘Grumpy Old Men’. He’s a classic, and the program would add a humourous side to his angst!
Mark: “…Well, yes, tigtog, that’s what I’m arguing against. I think it’s demonstrably false. People still find sufficient reason to kill each other in the absence of faith. And most such killing has nothing to do with faith, or only a tendentious connection.
4:04 pm
And I’d repeat my point that this argument is in form and substance identical to Islamophobic “argumentsâ€?…”
OUTRAGED BYSTANDER: You just shot an unarmed man!
CLINT EASTWOOD: Well, he shoulda armed himself.
– “Unforgiven”
Mark, your point may be true or false in some next world; but when a huge number of people throughout the planet tell me that it is their Allah-given right to attack, murder or enslave me because of who I am and what I believe; and when those same people demonstrate over fourteen centuries’ worth of history of making good on that promise, forgive me if I take them at their word, and take the matter under advisement. And if I do, sorry, I don’t think that makes me ‘Islamophobic.’ Except in the quite literal, and quite rational, sense of the word.
You’ll have to explain that — faith means believing in something without any evidence. Rational thought means using evidence to decide if something is true. As an example, most Christians presumably have faith in the power of prayer to help people who are prayed for, but rational investigation has failed to find any effect. Faith and rational thought are irreconcilably at odds.
It does if it closes your mind towards your fellow men and fills you with prejudice. And that’s what faith is — prejudice, ideas and opinions you receive from your God without any filtering of them by your own mind.
Religion as social work. Why not get a hobby, a dog, see a counsellor or take some other route which doesn’t have the negative side effects of religion? Or at least admit to yourself that religion isn’t real, just something enjoyable you do with your mind and your co-religionists, like being a Star Trek enthusiast?
No, Tom, you see you base my faith on your concept of faith and it falls down flat beecause you’re faithless, and don’t understand faith at all.
My faith in a God who is unseen doesn’t prevent me from functioning as a rational thinker, even if it is at a lower intellectual level to most on this thread. On a mundane note, I don’t need faith to prepare a meal or eat it. I don’t need faith to cross the road. I don’t need faith to drive (although you may need faith to be a passenger in my car). Common sense, local knowledge or experience will get me there. I don’t need faith to use this keyboard (although a little more discipline might help with the spelling and grammar). I don’t need faith for most things I do. I need faith because faith connects me to God.
You place religious people at the airy fairy floaty end of thought, when in fact some of the great thinkers and writers have been people who beleived deeply in a religious experience. Great artists and writers need a power of rational thought to produce their works, but they also need volumes of inspiration to visualise and produce originality, whihc often involves some kind of religious exprtession or impression.
I can have a dog, a hobby and watch Star Trek and still have faith. I don’t need a counsellor. I’m actually happy about my life most of the time. You assume religion is a negative experience because you have negative thoughts towards it, and must never have experienced the exstacy of a supernatural encounter, or even plain old simple joy.
Faith and rationality are incompatible when applied to the same thing by the same person. It is quite possible for a person to be rational about some things and take other things completely on faith.
Thus it is possible to negotiate the everyday life by way of rational thought, but to leave questions of the ineffable up to faith. It doesn’t mean that I personally find this sensible, but it appears to be the way a great many people get by.
The question that I ask is – is it dangerous (or unwise, shall we say) to veer too far in either direction, or is it only fanatical faith that causes a problem?
“My faith in a God who is unseen doesn’t prevent me from functioning as a rational thinker,”
Spot the category mistake.
For god’s sake facelift, get an afterlife why don’t you?
Thanks Nabakov, but I’ve already got a pretty good one lined up. How’s yours?
Now that’s an incredibly smug assumption.
FaceLift, that’s a commercial-in-confidence arrangement.
Leinad, ‘Whoseover calls on the name of the Lord SHALL be saved!” There’s a difference between smugness and the confidence of what we’re talking about – faith!
i plan to live forever, no need for an afterlife
“There’s a difference between smugness and the confidence of what we’re talking about – faith!”
But you can’t actually define this difference can you? We’ll just to have to take it on faith won’t we?
Anyway I’m achieving bush transcedentalism right now thanks to sipping on the superb cognac I bought in memory of Syd Barrett while listening to one of the slinkiest things ever produced by human civilisation – Johnny Dankworth’s theme for “Get Carter”.
It’s all so beautifully messy in such a human way.
Yeah, I can. Smug is when you say you believe something but you don’t back it up with your actions or lifestyle. Faith is when you believe something and do your best to live it.
If I can’t define faith well enough for you, bright one, it isn’t because it’s not definable, merely because I don’t have the words, that’s all!
Smug could be when you think, and worse still declare, someone’s a fool, when they’re actually on to something!
Damn, I was really hoping that someone would be able to pass on gossip about a dustup between economists, whether because of their economic beliefs or not. Ah well. On the faith rationality thing: surely everyone is rational? At least that’s what I heard in EC101. I thought I could just believe what my profs told me and now you’re telling me it’s not true? My faith in economists has been destroyed!
Seriously, even the hardest core atheist would I think accept the argument that any religious person can think rationally. They must however think (a) many religious people don’t think rationally about their religion (for goodness sake, Scientologists!); and (b)if they have thought rationally about their religion, they have come to a false conclusion. But anyone who believes in a god must surely think exactly the same things about an atheist’s atheism, else they couldn’t believe in a god.
There’s some discussion of ‘good religion’ vs ‘bad religion’ at Panda’s Thumb and Pharyngula at the moment, from a pro-science, generally atheistic perspective (of course, Pharyngula’s probably Fundamentally Atheist(TM)). Not quite the topic, but germane.
“Smug could be when you think, and worse still declare, someone’s a fool, when they’re actually on to something!”
It’s after midnight and I’m whacked on superb cognac but in the morning you comment above will still be there.
Incidentally how come all the best music around now is no longer backed by the Church anymore? One thing I will always thank organised religion for is keeping the Bachs in tea, toast and acess to state of the art organ technology. Not to mention Hildegard von Bingen and the Carmina Burana dudes rocking the dining hall.
But as that great witty and worldly clergyman Sydney Smith said, “music is the only cheap and unpunished rapture upon earth.” So how come the sonic rapture has drained out of your belief system lately Faceman? Care to name a good overtly santicified toon lately?
I will now play for m’self The Church’s “Under The Milky Way Tonight” and then Stevie Wonder’s “Superstition”, two transcendental works of art created without taking any direct orders from a Supreme Being’s earthly representives.
Though I bet she’s asked ‘em to organise signed copies of the rare 12′ vinyl versions.
Nabakov, maybe you’re right about the dearth of God-inspired music these days. But have you forgotten about *my* work? No shortage of musicians doing their thing on my behalf lately. Michael Bublé has been particularly good, I’m sure you’ll agree, and you can’t argue with the Black Eyed Peas’ dedication to the eternal victory of evil. “My Humps”… oh my.
Now then, to smugness. What Nabakov and I have is a one-time-only contract, Facelift, not to be repeated or the actual conditions disclosed.*
You see the thing that gives me the special ability to buy and sell the *special* way I do is the unbeatable power of monopoly; there are lots of Gods, baby, but everyone believes in the same DevilCorp Pty. Ltd. You can keep your faith based outside mortal language or articulation, I’ve got in-house legal departments in Barbados, Kiev and Macau for that kind of stuff. They do metaphysical unarticulated ‘feelings’ of spirituality too, don’t worry.
I’d be asking, if I were you, how your ‘insurance’ company can afford such a high claimed payout rate. Perhaps your policy lacks coverage in some important areas?
*Contractual obligation enforcement is also covered by the aforementioned non-disclosure agreement. We have ways of stopping you talking…
Does this follow, Mark?
Of all the men involved in heterosexual relationships, a tiny minority engage in violence against their partners. Therefore, we do not need TV campaigns against gender-based violence.
Of all the people who imbibe more than 4 standard drinks in a session and then drive home, only a tiny minority become involved in horrific car accidents. Therefore, we do not need drink-driving laws.
The fact is, while a tiny proportion of religious zealots engage in violence, a larger number sympathise or approve to a certain extent (for example, 15% of Muslims in Indonesia and up to 57% in Jordan approve of suicide bombings against civilians, according to fairly recent survey). Political factors obviously have an enormous influence on these numbers, but it would be interesting to see a poll of atheists or adherents of less martyrdom-oriented religions in these regions as a control. I have an idea that the results would be instructive.
Dawkins is not calling for the banning of religions, or even television campaigns against them. He says, quite reasonably, that certain types of zealous faith are as dangerous if mishandled as a bloke with a skinful of bourbon and the keys to a Ford F250, and a crowd of excited yahoos urging him to stage his own remake of The Cannonball Run. To continue the analogy, the huge majority of drinkers do not behave like this, but the number of teetotallers who would do the same is roughly zero.
I dunno, Nabrovski, there seems to be a band or two in every church, musicians training up and tuning up, and they’re all cutting their own albums, so there’s no dirth of music, maybe the individual genius hs diminished, or Sony’s blandness misses music that counts, but Bach’s only come round once in a generation or two, so who can tell?
Your problem, Devil Drink, is that your dissolving power is totally limited to this earth, and to the time left before the end. An eternally condemned specttor stuck in the temporal with finite beings. No future in that! The policy payment ends with death of the testator. Then what?