another reason for the dislike of dawkins—he’s another outsider who doesn’t get that despite what opinion polls may say, 85% of americans are not fundies oppressing some cowering “atheist” minority.
In most parts of the U.S., would you say atheists feel free to express their opinions without fear of reprisal?
“I don’t see that those things necessarily have anything to do with religion.”
—Nuneb
Do these things have anything to do with religion in a general sense? Perhaps not.
But they have everything to do with the role of spiritual faith in certain religions.
And many religions demand that adherents profess unwavering, absolute belief in a metaphysical higher order, a super-reality that transcends, explains and contains the merely physical world we perceive with our senses (the objective world known to science). The nature of this metaphysical higher order is often said to be beyond the ken of mortal man.
P.S. Why put “atheist” in quotes, Nuneb?
philosphically speaking, imo people should be allowed to have a god they believe in — but my own beliefs are that the only “rights” people will ever actually have are social/legal, and those are really flimsy (ie, prone to someone else’s “philosophical right” to break them, or try to overthrough the govt). ultimately, I believe people have to be prepared to fight for what they want, because no god or law is going to make sure they get it
x-post
Some of it is a “is that it?” kind of reaction, like seeing the wizard of Oz come out from behind the curtain.
Oh that’s just crap.
how so?
It’s crap to assume that the existence of God is somehow more astonishing than the theory of evolution.
max otm (both posts)
candle guy I’m a dyed in the wool Zizek-quoting positive atheist, but I find the spontaneous invention of the world in 7 days by an omniscient omnitemporal superhuman being a HELL of a lot more astonishing than plain ol incredibly unlikely but clearly plausible evolution.
xpost
hmm, not sure what you mean there. When I have an “is this it?” reaction to Dawkins, it’s more a long the lines of, “oh, so it turns out that he can be just as much a zealout as a religious fundamentalist”. that’s disappointing, because after reading him, I came away with the notion that there really isn’t much one can say is definitely right or wrong in life, only what is likely to happen given what we know about the smallest parts of it.
x-post
xpost They’re equally unlikely, I’ll give you that much. But a reasonable theory about how we came to be engages my brain far more than “Poof! And so it was!”
Righto, its much more brain-engaging, but where astonishing=to fill with sudden wonder or amazement, the Creation story takes the cake for me.
I gotta admit that the 30 Days episode on atheism was more substantive (despite the constant angling for confrontation) that any of the Dawkins-centered stuff.
ugh... THAN
did anybody happen to read this?
I’m trying to get to the NYTRB bit on it, but I can’t get the thing to load.
Summary:
Why don’t us liberal atheist people like Dawkins-think? Hmmmm....
1) Because it’s douchy, cranky and gross. Like hearing grandpa rant about “all these negros on the teevee now.”
2) Because he’s a bullying, smarty-pants anti-intellectual who gets off on his own imaginary think-cred.
3) Because he’s trying to turn us mealy-mouthed wafflers into his own personal warrior attack squad (e.g., herding cats).
4) Because he’s so smug and angry—sucks the fun right outta the room.
5) Because our whole fucken philosophy is based on the right of dumb people to be wrong about whatever the fuck they want.
6) Because he isn’t saying anything interesting or new—he’s just being really loud and reductive about the same old shit.
7) Because, go! Don Quixote nerd, go! Whatever...
8) Because of dude’s total, catastrophic failure to see the forest for the trees.
9) Because yelling about how right you think you are is ALWAYS SUPER-BORING.
10) Because life is a lot more rad and amazing than that.
kingfish, I read part of it at a bookstore the other day and liked it. Well-written, engaging, and Stewart seems to know his philosophy pretty well; his take on Spinoza is interesting, too, certainly in comparison with Althusser’s reading (that being said, I don’t really know anything about Leibniz and have only read some Spinoza).
xpost
I’m sorry. You’ll forgive me, I hope. But did you just say that life is “rad”?
“...did you just say that life is ”rad“?
Yeah. I thought it kinda went with everything else.
8) Because of dude’s total, catastrophic failure to see the forest for the trees.
Sorry, but in how can the issue of belief in God be “the trees,” and if it is, WTF is the forest?
xpost It didn’t.
And truth be told, I think most everything is rad. Especially the world “rad.” You’d be surprised how rad life can be.
[insert picture of something rad here]
Human frailty is the forest. Belief in god is the tree.
oh, quit while you’re behind.
xpost
I refuse to stand down from radness.
At the Mountains of Radness would be a good title for a biography.
it seems like lrb/tls/nybooks/harpers types are jumping over htemselves to distance themselves from this & i still havent figured out why
I think a lot of “intellectuals” (the NYRB/Harper’s crowd) (myself included to some extent) are sort of irritated with the way Dawkins’s nu-atheism could have existed just as easily in the 18th century—not just because he doesn’t seem to have taken the last 300 years of theology into account but also in the RAH-RAH-RATIONALISM that ignores every continental philosopher since Nietzsche. I mean, this is why I find it hard to take him seriously, because 1) like really who gives a shit about the existence of God and 2) if you’re going to talk about belief and rationality you should probably mention just a lil’ bit about thinkers who spent a lot of the last century uh dismantling the rationalist project of the Enlightenment.
(n.b. that doesn’t really surprise me seeing as Dawkins is a) a scientist and b) British and therefore probably considers those cats “intellectual charlatans” or some such, but if you want to be taken seriously by the d00dz at the TLS, it would help to at least acknowledge [even if tangentially] Althusser or Derrida on “secularized theology” [or fuck really even Spinoza on the reading of Scripture], and Dawkins seems to be operating under the assumption that everyone in the known universe is or should be subscribing to the same rationalist/humanist/Enlightenment principles [w/r/t the knowability of things/teleology of human knowledge/universalism] as John Locke or Kant or whoever).
— max (mreadn...), December 28th, 2006.
Also like seriously the guy is a total asshole.
— max (mreadn...), December 28th, 2006.
otfm
I think there are a lot of “‘intellectuals’ (the NYRB/Harper’s crowd)” who have no use for most philosophy contra “rationalist/humanist/Enlightenment principles.” “a lot” meaning “more than 50%”.
at the very least
Human frailty is the forest. Belief in god is the tree.
— adam beales (adamrsbeale...), December 29th, 2006.
I see what you’re getting at, and admittedly, I AM one of those wafflers. I don’t really like Dawkins and I do think he’s kind of a douche. And I generally don’t like evolutionary/genetic determinism, or pure materialism of any kind, for that matter. In college I would often make the same sort of argument to my hardcore atheist friends that’s being made now against Dawkins. But I think there’s a danger of getting too lost in our own soft ideas about religion has comfort to frail humanity and forgetting its frequent role in extremely bad decision-making, martialing of troops, and quashing of dissent.
xpost—well change it to why I can’t take Dawkins particularly seriously.
forgetting its frequent role in extremely bad decision-making, martialing of troops, and quashing of dissent
isn’t this the same thing as saying Islam explains suicide bombers? i think it’s reductive at the very least. how often is “religion” just a name for or glaze upon social phenomena that would exist in similar form even in its absence?
Couldn’t you also describe social interaction, comfort to the mourning, and a whole host of other things under the umbrella of religion as “social phenomena that would exist in similar form even in (religion’s) absence?”
And am I not answering a question with a question?
Plus I do think suicide bombing requires some kind of very strong and exteriorily (is that a word) reinforced devotion to something — a cult-like authority if not a religion.
ok heres a big difference between religious assholes & secular assholes, imagine if g-dub or any other candidate referred to their own infallibility instead of the infallibility of their god who instructs them in every decision—theyd never get a single vote
non-religious assholes can still be convinced everything they do is perfect & justified, but its socially unacceptable unless you claim your perfect god is driving you
Plus I do think suicide bombing requires some kind of very strong and exteriorily (is that a word) reinforced devotion to something
I don’t
Ok, examples?
Ethan needs a condescending pat on the head, a Dr. Pepper, a kick on the ass to send him on his way, AND THAT’S IT. Anything else is a tower of folly.
Ok, examples?
most of them?
16:25 And it came to pass, when their hearts were merry, that they said, Call for Samson, that he may make us sport. And they called for Samson out of the prison house; and he made them sport: and they set him between the pillars.
16:26 And Samson said unto the lad that held him by the hand, Suffer me that I may feel the pillars whereupon the house standeth, that I may lean upon them.
16:27 Now the house was full of men and women; and all the lords of the Philistines were there; and there were upon the roof about three thousand men and women, that beheld while Samson made sport.
16:28 And Samson called unto the LORD, and said, O Lord GOD, remember me, I pray thee, and strengthen me, I pray thee, only this once, O God, that I may be at once avenged of the Philistines for my two eyes.
16:29 And Samson took hold of the two middle pillars upon which the house stood, and on which it was borne up, of the one with his right hand, and of the other with his left.
16:30 And Samson said, Let me die with the Philistines. And he bowed himself with all his might; and the house fell upon the lords, and upon all the people that were therein. So the dead which he slew at his death were more than they which he slew in his life.
Postmodernism, it seems to me, is suspicious of logical positivism and science. Dawkins is a logical positivist and a scientist.
this thread =
There are enough reasons I don’t like Dawkins that I can number them!
1. The idea that you should be able to laugh at other people’s beliefs if they’re “silly and obnoxious,” someone wrote upthread, when what you are actually doing is constructing a straw man of the most irrational extreme of those beliefs and then laughing at anybody who holds them.
2. The assumption that religion has done clearly more harm than good in the world, so it must be fought wherever it can be found. Okay, you can measure deaths in Crusades and suicide bombings, and you can measure the work of saints or religious charities, but you can’t measure the really important things that happen on a daily level, like religious people disowning their gay kids on the one hand or religious people becoming more forgiving and looking for more ways to do community service or fight poverty on the other. And how do you measure people’s feelings of peace? It’s not the kind of issue where you can line up pluses and minuses and come to a clear positive or negative answer, and it frustrates me when people say it is.
Also, this is connected to the point upthread about liberal Christians supporting fundamentalists by being part of the same overall institution—I totally disagree with this. For example, the work the UCC does in society is so utterly different from that of a fundamentalist denomination that I really don’t think their being a “Christian church” perpetuates oppression. I mean, they marry gay people! And vote Democratic, for the most part! And no, they don’t go marching over to the conservatives next door and tell them to shape up, but that’s because they can’t, the conservatives just don’t consider them “real Christians.”
And religion is not the biggest problem there is in the world. Church and state should be separated, gays should have rights, poverty and hunger should be fixed, science should be taught in schools, and human rights should be respected. I’m frustrated that a loud segment of Christians do not work for, and often work against, all of those things, but that doesn’t mean liberal activist Christians have to give up their entire religion to be better activists, especially given that religion can be the motivating factor.
3. The insistence that faith is stupid unless there is proof. What about the definition of faith as “hope in things unseen”? I love that because of the total uncertainty it expresses. A lot of religious people are well aware that they don’t know, and maybe they could even be wrong, but they decide to keep hoping and acting on that hope anyway. That’s risky, but not necessarily stupid.
4. As has been mentioned several times...bad theology. A lot of his objections were being addressed in early Christian theology, in the Muslim world, all over the place long before scholasticism.
5. I find it personally insulting, frankly. And I think I’m meant to. I’m not a stupid blind follower, I read a lot of theology and have a lot of doubts and have to choose to recommit myself pretty frequently. I think Genesis is metaphorical.
ok my problem is this, and this is assuming that the consensus view on dawkins and what he does has some grounding (i am planning to read the book, btw, and have seen enuf of his stuff to have the gist): look, if you want to convince people then you’re not going to do it by being nasty to them. on the other hand, if you feel you don’t need to convince ppl, that means you think you have some sort of upper-hand majority already in place waiting to be mobilized, or at least a sufficiently motivated/motivatable militant minority. i think i tend to doubt the presence of this in the u.s. at least at the moment.
1:2 Abraham begat Isaac; and Isaac begat Jacob; and Jacob begat Judas and his brethren; 1:3 And Judas begat Phares and Zara of Thamar; and Phares begat Esrom; and Esrom begat Aram; 1:4 And Aram begat Aminadab; and Aminadab begat Naasson; and Naasson begat Salmon; 1:5 And Salmon begat Booz of Rachab; and Booz begat Obed of Ruth; and Obed begat Jesse; 1:6 And Jesse begat David the king; and David the king begat Solomon of her that had been the wife of Urias; 1:7 And Solomon begat Roboam; and Roboam begat Abia; and Abia begat Asa; 1:8 And Asa begat Josaphat; and Josaphat begat Joram; and Joram begat Ozias; 1:9 And Ozias begat Joatham; and Joatham begat Achaz; and Achaz begat Ezekias; 1:10 And Ezekias begat Manasses; and Manasses begat Amon; and Amon begat Josias; 1:11 And Josias begat Jechonias and his brethren, about the time they were carried away to Babylon: 1:12 And after they were brought to Babylon, Jechonias begat Salathiel; and Salathiel begat Zorobabel; 1:13 And Zorobabel begat Abiud; and Abiud begat Eliakim; and Eliakim begat Azor; 1:14 And Azor begat Sadoc; and Sadoc begat Achim; and Achim begat Eliud; 1:15 And Calum begat Kate; and Kate begat Grout; and Grout begat Tuomas; and Tuomas begat Perpetua; and Perpetua begat Geir;
BTW, I was not, with the suicide bombing comment, dragging out the old saw about religion causing most of the evil in the world. That’s obviously not true.
look, if you want to convince people then you’re not going to do it by being nasty to them. on the other hand, if you feel you don’t need to convince ppl, that means you think you have some sort of upper-hand majority already in place waiting to be mobilized, or at least a sufficiently motivated/motivatable militant minority.
or maybe you’re just pissed off and have a platform from which to spleen-vent (by virtue of being an established writer). and maybe the timing and content of your venting is such that there are enough other people feeling similarly pissed off to buy your book.
i was thinking earlier and i realized that, in response to tombot’s question, i do actually know someone who has bought and read and liked [i]the god delusion[/i]. he’s an educated, mild-mannered guy who works for a newspaper and plays oddball rock’n’roll on weekends, and has lived his whole life in tennessee. he grew up in a fiercely religious family, whose beliefs he became alienated from, and he has lived since immersed in a culture in which most of the people he’s likely to meet every day believe that he deserves eternal damnation and torment for his failure to see things their way. we were talking about dawkins, and i said he was too polemical for me; my friend said he understood tat, but from his point of view, polemics were well justified.
which also brings up the canard about someone like dawkins being “just as” intolerant as the religious zealots. no. dawkins just thinks the people he disagrees with are idiots. he doesn’t think they deserve to have their flesh flayed by demons. that’s an actual difference.
and i think the reluctance on this thread to engage with the political/cultural realities that dawkins et al are reacting against — to want to talk instead about developments in egghead theology over the last few hundred years or whatever — is in a lot of ways a very condescending refusal to take seriously the beliefs of the people who dawkins is really attacking. dawkins, at least, doesn’t make that mistake.
which “political/cultural realities” are you referring to? what people is he attacking? and what are their beliefs, really?
oh come on.
no really
also, i’m not aware of his attacking a political order, but i wouldn’t know, necessarily
and i think the reluctance on this thread to engage with the political/cultural realities that dawkins et al are reacting against — to want to talk instead about developments in egghead theology over the last few hundred years or whatever — is in a lot of ways a very condescending refusal to take seriously the beliefs of the people who dawkins is really attacking. dawkins, at least, doesn’t make that mistake.
Yeah, because to “engage” with them (the way Dawkins does) is to sink to that level of inane extremist dogmatic ranting.
i don’t know, this all kind of reminds me of the old “would you rather make a point or make a difference” routine. i don’t see why you can’t have some people who make a point, and other people who make a difference. a lot of times, the first opens up some ground for the second. i’d rather have a best-seller list with dawkins, harris, o’reilly and coulter on it than one with just o’reilly and coulter. if you don’t see why that’s important, then one of us doesn’t understand politics.
Someone like Dawkins who prides himself having a knowledge of logical principles should really know exactly why statistical data (“85% of Americans believe the second coming will happen”?) is unreliable. Either he doesn’t know or, more likely, he’s fine with using dodgy data if it supports his view (I bet he’s heard of confirmation bias too). There was somehting in one of those articles about him pointing out that Christians are afraid of death even though they supposedly believe in an afterlife. Is this how he usually argues? If a bunch of christians walked up to him and stabbed themselves in the hearts with forks to prove they believed in an afterlife would Dawkins suddenly change his mind and accept they had a point? Probably not, and he’d be right not to. The conviction of someone’s belief in God has nothing to do with whether or not God exists, so why bring it up? It’s just pointscoring, he’s telling christians “Come on, you agree with me a little bit don’t you? Admit it”, as if the person who concedes first loses and the most stubborn person wins. Someone called him quixotic upthread but that seems a bit generous, Don Quixotes are caught up in the desire to be noble and heroic, Dawkins just wants to win.
if you don’t see why that’s important, then one of us doesn’t understand politics.
my political sense tells me that you empower people by paying attention to them. it also tells me that fundies have very little power all by their lonesome.
(which has something to do with why they’re fundies in the first place)
it also tells me that fundies have very little power all by their lonesome.
i think you need to go live in some other parts of the country. whatever fuels fundamentalism, it’s not (or not solely) lack of political or economic power. go to a sunday service in a southern suburban megachurch (or a northern or midwestern megachurch, for that matter, with a parking lot full of suvs, plastered with “my kid is an honor student” bumper stickers. the congregants are not poor, not uneducated, and certainly not unpowerful. they’re fueled by faith. you’re looking for sociological reasons to not take their ideas seriously, because you find the ideas unworthy of intellectual contemplation. the “new atheists” are at least taking the ideas seriously.
xpost tipsy—we can recognize the relative value of dawkins over coulter (or whoever) and/or the need for someone to “make a point,” but that doesn’t mean we have to like him, or think that he has anything of substance to say.
but who’s asking you to? i haven’t read his book, and i’m not likely to. but i’m not unhappy for something called the god delusion to get prominent shelf space in borders. my tennessee friend reminds me that there are a lot of places where just walking into a bookstore and seeing that provides a kind of moral support.
Ladies & gentleman, please welcome the meet THE NEW ATHEISTS !!!
i think you need to go live in some other parts of the country.
i don’t think i need to do so to understand this phenomenon
the congregants are not poor, not uneducated, and certainly not unpowerful.
i’m well aware that this describes many suburban megachurchgoers, a set that i don’t regard as the same as the set of fundies, even if they might overlap.
they’re fueled by faith.
at least in part, sure. also, a desire for community, something to do with the kids, childcare, entertainment, among other things.
you’re looking for sociological reasons to not take their ideas seriously, because you find the ideas unworthy of intellectual contemplation.
neither part of this is true.
but don’t forget your elders
i’m well aware that this describes many suburban megachurchgoers, a set that i don’t regard as the same as the set of fundies, even if they might overlap.
???
suburban churchgoers make up a HUGE contingent of american fundamentalism. you think they’re not “fundies” unless they’re missing teeth or something?
no, i think that megachurchgoers are not all fundamentalists.
i should point out that all this stuff about “sophisticated” theology rubs me the wrong way because if yr. writing about popular belief its not rilly there.
no, i think that megachurchgoers are not all fundamentalists.
That’s a slightly tricky use of the word “all.” I would venture a guess that over 95% of white megachurchers are fundamentalists (though some of the Pentecostals who clearly are fundamentalists might reject the label for fear of being confused with Baptists).
i think you’re way way off there
Agree with nuneb here. I think it’s way too easy for folks who don’t attend religious services in megachurches to pigeonhole those who do according to various cultural stereotypes. Those who do so reveal more about themselves than the churchgoers they attempt to describe.
That said, the rise of megachurches in America has paralleled the rise of religious fundamentalism. And many of the largest and most influential megachurches are explicitly fundamentalist. While it may be unfair to stick specious percentages to it, I think it’s very reasonable—responsible even—to point out that there is a clear connection between American megachurches and fundamentalist/evangelical Christianity.
Those who do so reveal more about themselves than the churchgoers they attempt to describe.
whooaaaa man
i think sterl has been very much otm here.
we’re arguing at cross-purposes, yes/no is what is IN the book any good (on some grounds or other) /// yes/no is the book being out there in the political world DOING good?
or:
“this book is dorm room ranty bullshit. dawkins should know better”
“gee, how does ralph reed’s cock taste?”
do these guys have sunday services?
I’m an atheist. My definition of ‘fundamentalist’ is someone who uses their God in a coercive way, eg. the invocation of Hell-as-destination for the heretical, which is a subset exclusively settled upon by believing humans (if I am beset by a belligerent fundamentalist, I point out that telling someone they’re going up or down is not, in line with their held beliefs, anything other than blasphemy because it is blasphemous to ‘speak for’ God).
Another definition of ‘fundamentalist’ could be someone who seeks control of the other’s physical self by asserting their spiritual beliefs, which the other person may not share, which matters not one jot to the fundamentalist believer. You can believe I’m going to Hell all you like if it makes you feel better, or that there is an afterlife, if that makes you feel better about the injustices you are recipient or witness to in life. I am very comfortable with the idea that as an organism/sentient being/whatever, THIS IS IT, I am responsible for my actions in life, and causing pain to others is no way to live.
Ordinary religious people simply believe in the existence of a higher power which by common agreement they’ve named God, and agree to share in common a certain amount of ceremony or ritualised behaviour to underscore this belief. I would be as foolish to call for this to be banned as a believer would be to resist some thoughtful interrogation on why they choose to believe in God, because from where I am standing, there is a choice.
Ultimately I have to say that humans invented divinity and not the reverse. We are differentiated from other animals because we tell stories and ask questions, among the first of which is ‘where do I come from?’ To a Christian I would say that Jesus is one of many people who committed themselves to the all-too-human trait, because we are social beings who need to express community, of ‘taking one for the team’. That seems to hold up to continued intellectual exploration.
Oh and BTW so what if Dawkins is an arsehole? ‘Does not work well with others’ only has bearing on sociability, not rightness or wrongness.
“gee, how does ralph reed’s cock taste?”
Minty.
we’re arguing at cross-purposes, yes/no is what is IN the book any good (on some grounds or other) /// yes/no is the book being out there in the political world DOING good?
true. i don’t have any opinion on the first question because i don’t have any real interest in reading dawkins or harris. (although i’m curious about dennett. no one’s read the dennett book?) my only point is that the second question is not dependent on the first. you can appreciate these things being out there w/out appreciating what’s actually in them.
you can also argue, on the second question, that they do more harm than good because they’re so polemical/divisive/etc. i just don’t happen to buy that, i think there’s political/cultural capital in having some firebombing atheists on the best-seller lists.
and also, whatever the percentage, a LOT of suburban megachurches are fundamentalist (or evangelical, as they prefer, because they know the word “fundamentalist” freaks people out). if there’s some idea that fundamentalism is mostly driven by backwoods baptists and trailer-park 700-clubbers, that’s completely wrong.
Surely “rightness and wrongness” don’t matter half as much as do plausibility, likeability, ability to convince others—I mean, how much does it actually matter whether God exists or not? I think that yes/no matters less than whether people believe God exists, or don’t believe God exists. And that itself matters less than what people do with their belief, or lack of belief, in God.
I dislike what I’ve heard of Dawkins’ position (on the radio and in articles and so on) because I dislike it when people say “i am right and you who do not believe the same as me are morons”, even if they believe the same thing as me. I don’t think you convince anyone that way; I think you make them resentful, and angry, and more likely to become hardline in their own position. It goes against the way I approach science, too—I think science is about hypotheses and making the best evaluation possible based on the evidence, and hard facts are an aim you strive towards, with ever-refined experimentation, but may never achieve. I think of definite, hard statements as irrational, based in blind belief; and fuzzier, qualified statements (mentioning the margin of error and so on) as closer to the truth. So to say “science has proven that god does not exist and anything else is unscientific” sounds to me like unreasoning faith, it doesn’t sound like science at all. If this is supposed to be some pitched battle between those accept science/who believe in this model of the universe/who are thinking rational people, and those who choose religion/have a literalist view of the bible/follow gut-instinct belief, then the moment ‘we’ decide to use ‘their’ tools, their methods of argument—their literalisms, their irrationalities—we’ve already lost.
(For the record, I call myself an agnostic; I don’t (can’t) believe in God. Sometimes, though, I wish I could, I think I’m missing something by not being capable of that kind of faith.)
^^^^=wins thread
(and i think my reasons for unease with Dawkins are the same as those of quite a few nyrb-type ‘REAL intellectuals not endorsing this kind of thing’—not only does he make us look bad, but he’s somehow fighting the wrong battle.)
ok wait can we plz distinguish what we mean here by fundamentalist vs normal/liberal christians or whatever? is this just biblical literalism & political effect?? atheism as an idealogy confronts the negative conequences of literal & intolerant religion, but also the equally untrue, if not equally harmful, beliefs in an afterlife, immortality, spiritual communication, magical benefits of prayer, etc. religion is defined by supernatural claims—otherwise its community and philosophy. the only reason we feel more comfortable dismissing young earth creationists who say man walked with dinosaurs 4000 years ago than we do those who believe in a distant creator or heaven or reincarnation is because the latter claims are structured to be difficult or impossible to disprove. but things like the existence of the afterlife are not under any kind of scientific dispute—the entire sum of our understanding points away from it, and only tradition & wishful thinking are in its favor. if the god of liberal christians can create the universe, why is a literal genesis so hard to swallow?? just because broad supernatural claims like an afterlife or god’s omnipotence arent as immediately unbelievable as noah on a boat with t.rexes doesnt mean they arent equally untrue and should be opposed regardless of political significance
also maria says she hates assumption that religion has an overall negative effect, and yeah its easy to counter that with things like mlk, abolitionism, charity, ‘a love supreme’, etc. and my reply is- who cares?? if we really are at the point of encouraging ‘useful myths’ for societal control we might as well be goebbels. would the the people who smile on the benevolent effects of religion feel the same if their government was constructing happy untruths to further goodwill towards men? is this only warranted when un-elected church leaders & theologians do it? if the department of health & human services issued alerts that people not volunteering at least one hour a week faced risks of getting, i dunno, aids, would this be ok in the service of a greater good?
or for liberal christians i guess you could substitute the govt lying about something not so threatening
Does untrue always mean harmful, even if only a little bit? (spiritually, perhaps?)
Setting aside the idea that religious belief could have a positive social effect—and I’m not really down with your “might as well be goebbels” elevation-to-worst-possible thing—what about a world in which religious belief had no social effect, positive or negative? in which it really was ‘not hurting anyone’. Would it still be bad because it Wasn’t True?
if someone gave money to the homeless on the street, at least partly in the belief that were he ever to become homeless other people would do the same for him, and you knew this belief of his to be wrong, would you stop him?
I don’t think you convince anyone that way; I think you make them resentful, and angry, and more likely to become hardline in their own position.
i think there’s a great confusion between being effective at “convincing” people of something and being effective at nudging the political/cultural debate. polemics are usually aimed at the latter, not the former. rush limbaugh is not effective at “convincing” people who disagree with him, but if you think he and his ilk haven’t been effective in shaping the political/cultural dialogue in america, you’ve not been paying attention. making a lot of noise can actually have some effect on the discourse. i understand not liking that fact, and maybe wrinkling yr nose at the noisemakers, but don’t dismiss them on the grounds that they don’t have any effect. they do. preaching to the choir is politically important — the choir needs to be preached to. especially when they’re constantly being bombarded with preaching from the other side (or sides). these books are selling because there are some people who want someone to stand up to the theistic bullies. and standing up to bullies can make some difference.
(also, in terms of effectiveness in “convincing” people, i’d like to know what kind of arguments or approaches anybody thinks would be effective in changing the beliefs of yr average evangelical christian. i don’t think there are any.)
nudging the political/cultural debate
from what?
oh come on.
(are you writing from finland or something?)
i’d like to know what kind of arguments or approaches anybody thinks would be effective in changing the beliefs of yr average evangelical christian. i don’t think there are any
I’ve read a few things about this, from Lakoff to the folks at Don Neiwert’s blog, that the way to go about it is not from a reasoned argument attacking them head on, but by talking to them about they care about, and going over the beliefs you share. Activate the empathic pathways, rather than the defensive ones, as it were. It will probably take a while, but eventually they can begin to shift, if ever so slowly.
It’s just kind of stupid and arrogant and non-sciencical.
People think atheism is scientifically sound and argue Occam’s Razor and burden of proof...
But, the fail to realize that, scientifically, the conclusion one is forced to make BY LOGIC is that every term is a thing-in-itself, unknown, though to some extent apprehensible by INTUITION. Logic is only the limits of intelligence. One can get no further than A = A.
What Dawkins primarily has a problem with is what little religion he has been exposed to and the idea of unfounded claims. Can’t blame him for that.
oh great, look who finally found the colonial fleet
Hey now, I found it long ago. Just thought I’d share some parting wisdom before 2007.
if someone gave money to the homeless on the street, at least partly in the belief that were he ever to become homeless other people would do the same for him, and you knew this belief of his to be wrong, would you stop him?
— cis boom bah (cispontin...)
do you understand the difference between expecting things that have happened before to happen to you and expecting things that have never happened and violate every understanding we have of the natural world
yes and no
do you understand the difference between expecting things that have happened before to happen to you and expecting things that have never happened and violate every understanding we have of the natural world
It doesn’t violate the most ancient understandings found in Vedanta, Buddhism, etc. which equate pristine awareness (or nothing) with God or “the Supreme Source” as it’s called in “atheist” Buddhism. It is also no different from Christianity which states that God is the light by which we see, yet we can never see His face. This is why Descartes found himself chasing his tail as the subject and object and so finally decided “I think therefore I am,” but if he had thought a little longer, he would have come to the same conclusion of the Buddha, “I think therefore I am not.” The problem is a basic misunderstanding of theology.