somebody explain whats actually wrong with nu media savvy militant atheism espoused by dawkins et al

* 09 December 2006
* From New Scientist Print Edition. Subscribe and get 4 free issues.

Many ironies are well highlighted in your coverage of the atheists' jamboree in La Jolla (18 November, p 8). I would like to add two more.

The first is that the scientific enterprise in the form we know it today, with journals, scientific societies, empiricism and specialised techniques, was started largely by people of deep religious faith in the 16th and 17th centuries. In the writings of Newton and Descartes, the very notion of scientific law was derived from the Christian idea of God's laws. Atheists might wish to reflect a bit more on the fact that their scientific disciplines wouldn't even exist without the impact of such ideas.

The second is that "a-theism" is defined by what it denies, rather than by what it explains. What is denied is very varied and in a constant state of flux, so atheism always allows others to set the agenda. For example, I am an atheist with reference to the god of thunder Thor, and equally with reference to the straw man that Richard Dawkins portrays as God.

From Benjamin Beccari

Creation science is nothing more than Christian belief dressed up as science. It is ironic, then, that a symposium entitled "Beyond belief" is atheistic belief dressed up as science.

What we as scientists need to guard against, and what many of these scientists have fallen prey to, is dogma. The dogmatic views put forward at this forum play into the hands of religious activists who preach that science is trying to destroy religion.

Throughout history it has been neither science nor religion that has caused the ills of the world, but those who spread their dogmatic view of either.

So what is the alternative to dogma? Here science does have a role, not in teaching people what to think, but how to think. Our morals, values and world view can be derived from religious belief, atheist or otherwise, so long as it is informed by scientific reason.

From Maya King

For scientists to declare unequivocally that God does not exist is to deny the possibility that, one day, technological advance may bring the capabilities to detect the presence of a spiritual being after all. If any kind of god were to exist, its presence would have to influence the Earth in a way that leaves some signature.

If that god - as religion suggests - regularly interacted with humans through answering prayers and giving guidance, then those effects should be both measurable and repeatable. How can scientists declare God does not exist without rigorous hypothesis testing?

From David Odell

Science forgets that it too is based on faith: in particular that the universe is an orderly place with rules; and that information received by our senses is true.

Do these scientists really believe the cosmos is a replacement for God? Atheists will look at the cosmos and realise, as my science teacher says, that our lives are so insignificant; a religious person will look to the cosmos and be awed by (God's) creation. This is not a way to defeat religion.

Many scientific discoveries only make people more awed by their God. Why do scientists want to get rid of religion, when religion has driven scientists for hundreds of years?

From issue 2581 of New Scientist magazine, 09 December 2006, page 24

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prayer#Experimental_evaluation_of_prayer

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=pubmed&dopt=Abstract&list_uids=11761499

dude doesn't know his philosophy, just hard sciences, and i feel like an educated theologist (not some strawman ted haggard idiot) could argue circles around him.

My main problem with all of this is that it's a waste of time. The problem is that we aren't teaching anybody the fundamentals of empirical reasoning until they've already decided to go into a scientific field, and sometimes not even then. You can go to church if you like and whatever, our greater societal issue is that we can't convince people how to not be complete fucking idiots on a day to day basis

the exception being the creation vs evolution debate, but i like to live in my fantasy world where biblical literalism is a tiny subset christianity.

with this statement, a new presidential candidate threw his hat into the ring today

Come on, this is ludicrous on its face - prayer actually changes the past?

"One study found" is a completely worthless phrase.

huh? who cares? the point is it's not secular or scientific to state a disbelief, atheism belongs in its own church as much as theism does, it's not a set of falsifiable theories and it pollutes the water to present it as such. running around making ted haggard get agitated is not actually helping people learn empirical reasoning.

this is very otm

you could also just listen to some fuckin Stooges amirite

the scientific method is better served by practice, not preaching

http://www.lrb.co.uk/v28/n20/eagl01_.html

(i haven't read it all yet, and i don't give TE a whole lot of respect altogether.)

it seems like lrb/tls/nybooks/harpers types are jumping over htemselves to distance themselves from this & i still havent figured out why

damn dude pay attention

Yeah, that's part of the thing. Militancy does nothing but further ossify both sides, so guys like Dawkins coming out like assholes only reinforces the corresponding assholes on the opposite side re: the bullshit dichotomy between God vs Science.

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/19775

what's the difference between that and the kind of atheism dawkins puts forward?

Maybe I'm just confused as to what's trying to be accomplished here. Maybe Dawkins and his flock are actually pursuing an escalation, maybe he's hoping he catches a bullet from a psycho one day and sets off another great religious war-down to posthumously vindicate himself

but they don't need to be engaged with. they're harmless in every conceivable way. they're not going to force yr kid to salute the bible or bow toward mecca. those people i have no problem with -- and it's arguably in alienating them that the hardcore dawkins types make their biggest mistake.

but anyway, i don't have any problem with the militant atheists. they're a predictable and healthy response to the militant theists. "moderate" "sensible" liberals like to deride the militant atheists because it makes them feel more comfortable with their place in culture-war politics. it reassures them that they're not "extremists" just because they don't like jerry falwell, because look, they think richard dawkins is intolerant too!

i don't feel any great compulsion to read any of these books, but i enjoy watching them slug it out on the best-seller lists with bill o'reilly and rick warren.

And hell, you even have one side that completely rejects debate and engagement out of hand as signs of mealy-mouthed weakness(whereas the other side can at least claim their stance coming from that tradition).

Part of it is that the louder figureheads of both sides command enough media attention to attack anyone coming out with actual sensible, normal positions(e.g. God & science tend to address completely different things) as facile capitulators and appeasers of the other side.

FUCKS sake ethan, let go

i articulated my response to that article badly. our views are actually far more alike than you seem to be able to accept. for a start, i loathe libertarianism, for seconds, i agree that dawkins is essentially correct about most of what he addresses, and thirdly i read that article when in a fragile state; my initial response was an unthinking knee-jerk. i retracted it even before you had a chance to call me a 'muslim-hater', which for someone who doesn't know me in the slightest is a fucking disgrace.

hurting's 'might as well be atheistic' version of christianity is nonetheless that of a far more interesting, tolerable faith than the hardcore dinosaur idiocy we see far too much of in these not-so enlightened times. and don't take me up on 'hardcore dinosaur idiocy'; it's not meant to be an argument, it's meant to be an outburst.

neither religious types nor scientists agree with this, that's the whole problem.

Look, Dawkins might be a useful counterpoint to Haggard or someone, but he doesn't present himself as such--he acts like he's entirely above those assholes when he's just as much an asshole as they are. It'd be nice if he admitted it. You can actually be nice about telling people that Adam and Eve never existed.

So, here's my 2 cents:

"when I referred to religion as science's "angrier, snottier, younger brother" I was alluding to the fact that the scientific method, Western rationalism, etc. owe their entire existence and system of thought to religion and religious institutions. In every scientific culture in the world, science grew out of religion. [...] When Dawkins argues that religion is the most harmful element in human society, in a way he is invalidating the very foundations of his entire system of thinking."

This implies that to deny something one has believed in the past automatically invalidates present thought (present thought is built on and dependent on past belief; therefore, the repudiation of past belief annihilates the architecture of present thought). Absurd! We can always repudiate the ostensibly "obsolete" thinking that allowed us to arrive at our present thought-state, and this doesn not necessarily compromise present thought in any way.

"In addition to this, as has again been alluded to upthread by other posters, Dawkins is apparently entirely unaware of the last few hundred years' deconstruction of scientific rationalism - from Spinoza to Derrida to Althusser to whoever. This model he has of an objective reality that can be described in language universal to everyone is a construct as equally ludicrous as a literal white-bearded God-father in the sky."

This has come up again and again, and I think it's misleading. It reflects the inflated opinion that 20th century philosophy has of itself. Math problems are solved in precisely the same way in every culture in the world today. Water level and air temperature are measured exactly the same way in California as in Ethiopia. The scientific significance of a particle test will be interpreted in the same manner by Muslim, Catholic and even Buddhist physicists. The models that science constructs of objective reality really ARE universal and omni-lingual. While different cultures may perceive, interpret and use those models in different ways, the models themselves have no cultural component whatsoever.

Individuals and groups who are unfamiliar with or hostile to the scientific method, on the other hand, exist in EVERY culture. And while it's true that every culture expresses its home-grown version of science-fear differently and with varying levels of popular/official support, the scientific method (as a universal system) is no more intrinsically alien to any one culture than another. No more so than tool-use or implied social contracts.

***

"I think this is where the basic problem comes in - Dawkins really doesn't understand language. The stance he assumes is essentially one where there is no room for metaphor, nuance, allegory, allusion, etc..."

Agree wholeheartedly with this. Dawkins is a proud, unapologetic (BIGOTED) scientific literalist. His super-reductive argument goes like this: "What's real is what we can physically demonstrate is real. Only idiots believe in stuff that isn't real. If you can't demonstrate proof of your beliefs on some tangible level, you are, therefore, an idiot."

The problem isn't that he relies on the universality of scientific models or even that he discounts the contributions of religion in the past, but that he stubbornly insists that pure scientific rationality simply MUST now be the ultimate arbiter of all meaning in human life. Which is just ludicrous on the surface, and almost entirely unsupported besides. As you and others point out, religion-like thought systems have probably benefitted humanity in fair proportion to their harm, and science (like all hermetic systems) cannot discount that which lies outside its purview.

what discussion of religion is there on country radio? or are you referring to the music? are you saying that contemporary country music is dominated by a christian fundamentalist perspective? do you listen to any of it? why did you mention country and not gospel?

no, i think i understand it very well.

you and everyone else going to bat for theological deconstructionists are the reason that everyone in the west/midwest thinks you're a bunch of 'real-person' hating fags (even though you're just being thoughtful or something)

i'm not 'going to bat' for anyone. i'm saying that if you think that a) most suburbanites who go to church every week in a big rec hall with a good av system instead of a small new england church with a big white steeple are 'fundamentalists', or that b) pat robertson has more influence on american culture than britney spears, you're a moron.

From a Socratic, argument-for-argument's-sake standpoint, I think yr picking good targets. But if you have a point (other than that people tend to express their class prejudices when talking about religion), I'd be curious to hear it.

yes. you can also be nice about telling them that jesus christ is the way and the truth and the life. but if you spend a lot of time surrounded by people who aren't nice about that at all -- like my friend in tennessee, e.g. -- then maybe you have an appetite for someone fighting fire with brimstone.

if you think that a) most suburbanites who go to church every week in a big rec hall with a good av system instead of a small new england church with a big white steeple are 'fundamentalists', or that b) pat robertson has more influence on american culture than britney spears, you're a moron.

i don't know about "most" suburban megachurches; there are megachurches of all persuasions, even unitarian. but a lot of them are evangelical, and they are the social and political core of american fundamentalism. and the point isn't whether britney spears is bigger than god. what i said is that fundamentalists have dominated american religious discourse for a generation. now there is some pushback, but the fact that people like dawkins -- or the few high-profile liberal christians like jim wallis -- seem novel just points up how one-sided the rhetoric has been.

if that's true, i think it's a sign of the secularization of the country

or i could just say,

oh come on.

I said you can not establish that religion has an overall positive OR negative effect, there are effects in both directions, so I wish that entire stupid argument would just go away. Also, there's a big difference between saying religion is inspiring for some people, as individuals, and encouraging it as a "useful myth for societal control". It's useful for me, but the vast majority of my friends, even the ones I know through community service and activism, are atheists, and I would never try to "improve" them through religion..

Also, if you have a concept of God that's not just him existing to fill in the holes science hasn't gotten to yet, and one that isn't scientifically provable or falsifiable, the "God clearly doesn't exist, stop believing lies" argument is not nearly a good enough argument for why any belief in God is bad and destructive. I really don't see what harm liberal Christians are doing by merely existing.

(xxxxpost)

...

So long, friends!

and

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

...

Lock thread.

Goodnight kids, and God bless. Best in the new year. Not sure I can honestly say I love you one and all, but if I did, I'm almost sure I would.

Right right, no disagreement from me about that - sorry I wasn't being too clear here, but the reason I brought up the historical religious roots of western science was more to invalidate Dawkins' claims about religion being the most harmful thing ever in human society (paraphrasing roughly here), not that science should cling to outmoded or invalidated beliefs. He can't have it both ways - the very thing he's decrying as holding humanity back basically established the theoretical and rhetorical framework he's using to make that accusation. Its like a child saying their parents are the worst thing ever and that they've never produced anything worthwhile in their lives. Its, y'know, snotty and arrogant and displays a lack of self-awareness.

so don't give "we owe science to religion," unless what you mean by it is "we should be thankful the priests didn't kill all the scientists."

I don't believe Dawkins is ignoring that history, he's simply concluding that the three centuries of discourse hasn't improved anything and enough is enough - it's itme to be militaristic. If you're deal-brokering with religion then it's a slippery slope to eventual contamination. It's a Steve Ditko Mr. A story starring Dawkins as one of the talking heads.

Of course Dawkins picks easy targets... Ted Haggard, creationists, etc. I don't see him going to an inner city AME, a Sanctuary Movement congregation, or anyplace where the local church is the only support network in town.

what did?

i meant that this makes it sound like science and religion were always distinct entities which were...ahhhh fugedduhboutit

the funny thing about all this is that most people posting to this proibably agree on most of the basic issues we're addressing. it's just a matter of whether you like dawkins' way of approaching this.

ha, maybe that's another reason he's annoying, he's more polarizing than enlightening.

of course not. they've been intertwined forever. but they represent different strands of the same instinct -- to understand the world and why and how it is -- and it's a fallacy to say science somehow arises from religion. they arise from similar questions but have gone in somewhat different and periodically conflicting directions. a lot of people don't have any great problem reconciling them. but as with any division, there are people and institutions that see gain in exploiting the differences.

what bothers some people about dawkins, i guess, is that he doesn't seem interested in reconciliation -- in coming back to the comfortable live-and-let-live position that a lot of people, religious and nonreligious, are happy to occupy, where we're all willing to let science happen (as long as it doesn't hurt anybody) and let religion happen (ditto). but he's defending the Secular Science wing, which has been under sort of sustained assault lately and is likely feeling kind of lonely and unloved, and it's expecting too much of the atheists maybe to also make some grand live-and-let-live gesture, because they're not convinced that the people they're up against are willing to do the same.

Not necessarily true. Some theological movements of the Middle Ages and Renaissance were about negotiating the "barriers" between religion and reason.

I'm not talking about their theoretical or philosophical similarities, I'm talking about the actual physical people and institutions that developed science and the scientific method as we know it today, and I cited specific examples. The roots of western science go back to Greco-Roman (and by extension Egyptians and others) folks - Plato, Aristotle, Pythagoras, etc. - and not only were all of these guys profoundly superstitious and inextricably bound up with the religious institutions of their day, it was religious institutions (namely the Catholic Church and Muslim theologians/scholars) that preserved that work and prepared it for its European revival centuries later. While Europe was busy being all filthy and ignorant in the Middle Ages, the Muslim theocracy was busy advancing and preserving the disciplines of medicine, astronomy, chemistry, math, etc. There were no non-religious-oriented scientific institutions pursuing these schools of thought in the West (or Islam, for that matter) - for the first few thousand years that science was developing, it was hand-in-hand and explicitly under the guidance of religion and religious institutions - priests with libraries, basically. This doesn't have anything to do with whether the two are of similar intent or different strands of the same instinct, the fact is they were pretty much inextricably intermarried until a bunch of European scientists got fed up with kowtowing to religious politics.

I mean essentially I agree with the more holistic worldview you describe - where all of these elements exist and develop together - but Dawkins' argument attempts to separate religion out of this matrix and blame it for society's ills, which is what I have a problem with. Its like when atheists get all excited about blaming religion as the source of all wars throughout history or some such bullshit, its just myopic and simplistic and innacurate.

Formerly known as "religion".

10 myths -- and 10 truths -- about atheism

for me, it's pretty simple: atheists getting "militant" on everybody's ass is spectacularly unhelpful. what dawkins and others are doing - and they really don't seem to realise the irony - is repositioning "atheism" as not just a lack of belief but as a belief system in itself: ie "i identify myself as a devout non-believer, and will angrily spout the following atheist dogma".

jesus christ bloody hell for god's sake ... er, look, fellow atheists. it's not difficult. we're meant to be the tolerant ones, remember?

"god": a theoretical concept invented by humans in a (pretty flawed) attempt to etc etc.

"the internet": an etc etc etc.

maybe you'd like it better in RUSSIA where THEY DON'T HAVE GOD

happy new year you theocrazies

i thought agnostics were the tolerant ones. the perceived dogmatism of atheists is what keeps some of us agnostic.

http://salon.com/books/int/2007/01/02/numbers/print.html

"Q: Now, one thing I find curious is your own position in this debate. Your book "The Creationists" is generally acknowledged to be the history of creationism. You've also been very upfront about your own lack of religious belief. Yet, as far as I can tell, you seem to be held in high regard both by creationists and by scientists, which -- I have to say -- is a neat trick. How have you managed this?

A: Unlike many people, I haven't gone out of my way to attack or ridicule critics of evolution. I know some of the people I've written about. They're good people. I know it's not because they're stupid that they are creationists. I'm talking about all my family, too, who are still creationists. So that easy explanation that so many anti-creationists use -- that they're just illiterate hillbillies -- doesn't have any appeal to me, although I'm quite happy to admit that there are some really stupid creationists. "

The Varieties of Scientific Experience: A Personal View of the Search for God (Hardcover)
by Carl Sagan

http://www.amazon.com/Varieties-Scientific-Experience-Personal-Search/dp/1594201072/sr=8-1/qid=1167767176/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/102-9541001-0413728?ie=UTF8&s=books