There have been a lot of cases like this that have gotten a lot of discussion. Roy Moore's Ten Commandments, for example. Also Walmart's "Happy Holidays" signs, etc. Each case has its own characteristics, such as the legality of Moore's case, and the apparent conflict between taking advantage of Christmas to boost sales without acknowledging Christmas itself.
In this news article there are two different signs in question, and I have different reactions to each of them. But what they have in common, I think, is that they are an attempt to point out to the general public that atheists are here, and that our opinions are just as valid as the the rest of society. We're tired of being kicked around and we'd like to be able to take our place in society. I think it's hard to do that without sending an anti-religious message. But it's worth trying.
Posted by dkw (Member # 3264) on :
That sign would have done a much better job of it had it stuck to the first half of its text and left the last bit off.
Also, "If there can be a Nativity scene saying that we are all going to hell if we don't bow down to Jesus, we should be at the table to share our views" is a ridiculous statement. A nativity scene says no such thing.
Posted by Christine (Member # 8594) on :
I never know what to think about these things.
On the one hand, I think the sign on the courthouse should have stopped after "let reason prevail." The rest didn't add anything and was necessarily provocative. I've never been comfortable with nativities on public squares and while I don't think it necessarily suggests anyone is going to hell, I can understand why some people would feel that it does as a lot of Christians preach that you will go to hell if you don't accept Jesus as your lord and savior. (Pretty much word for word.)
As for the ads on the bus -- there's a bit of a knee-jerk there because traditionally atheists haven't advertised, but why shouldn't they? I see advertisements for Christian churches and organizations all the time. They're on the news, the radios, the buses, the billboards, etc. If it's important enough to someone to spread the idea that there might not be a God, then in a free country, who are we to silence them?
Posted by romanylass (Member # 6306) on :
I agree with their right to state their views but I also agree with the person who said they were shooting themselves in the foot. The longer the sign went in, the more inflammatory it got.
Posted by dkw (Member # 3264) on :
Christine, the idea that "some Christians teach x, therefore every Christian display says x" is exactly the logic I'm calling ridiculous.
I don't have mixed feelings about nativity scenes on public property -- I don't think they belong there, period. But the statment I quoted doesn't speak well of the reasoning abilities of a group who claim to want to "let reason prevail."
Posted by SenojRetep (Member # 8614) on :
I don't mind the nativity on public land; I also don't mind the atheists' sign on public land. I think public land should be open to displays (at least temporary ones) by members of the public with as little interference from the local authorities as possible.
I would prefer the atheists showed a bit more decorum and respect toward their fellow community members. Similarly, if there were some celebration that were important to the humanists' group for which they used the public area, I would hope Christians could show restraint and respect.
Honestly, what's wrong with saying, "I'm glad you're happy. I may not agree with your beliefs, but enjoy your celebration." If you can't say something nice... Which is exactly why Barker felt the need to justify himself by mischaracterizing (ridiculously; I agree with dkw) the nativity as hate speech.
There was a recent article in Slate about the Summum Supreme Court case in which a particularly strange religious group used the 10 Commandments ruling to emplace a monument on public land to their religious beliefs. I find that example more interesting (as a boundary case) than this one.
Posted by Glenn Arnold (Member # 3192) on :
Yeah, I'm not real happy with the message in the first sign. I'm happier with the second sign, but it still has a negative message. If it just said "Just be good for goodness sake" it would be more positive, but it wouldn't really serve the purpose it's intended to. It's hard because atheism is non-belief. How do you come up with a message that validates that position without being offensive?
quote:Christine, the idea that "some Christians teach x, therefore every Christian display says x" is exactly the logic I'm calling ridiculous.
Of course. Then again, *those* Christians often claim to speak for all Christians,so it's easy to conflate the two. I'm sure most Christians are embarrassed to be associated with those kinds of things. Likewise, I'm pretty embarrassed by the behavior of quite a few atheists. The problem with this case is that I feel sympathy for the message they are trying to send, and also an understanding for how difficult it is to come up with a saying that conveys the right meaning without being offensive.
BTW, I've seen some pretty offensive nativity scene displays, both anti-Semitic and anti-atheist, but you're right, it's not the nativity scene by itself that is offensive. It's the other stuff that is included with it. In some cases (as with Roy Moore) it's not the display that's offensive, so much as the means that he employed to put the it where it didn't belong.
Posted by Christine (Member # 8594) on :
quote:Originally posted by dkw: Christine, the idea that "some Christians teach x, therefore every Christian display says x" is exactly the logic I'm calling ridiculous.
My husband said the same thing and I don't disagree...I'm just saying I can kind of see why they'd be upset. There is a vocal minority of Christians who claim to speak for the rest.
As for the nativity, I'm not sure if none should be allowed or if all should. Certainly, it is not all right that only one religious viewpoint should be allowed. I lean towards none, if only for simplicity's sake. Posted by Raymond Arnold (Member # 11712) on :
I think the sign-placers were perfectly in the right, but agree that atheists in general need to work on positive messages (most atheist statements are "negative" in the sense that all they point to is the absence of something)
Let Reason Prevail isn't bad. My preference is "One Nation, Indivisible," which is a genuinely positive statement that also reminds people what the Pledge of Allegiance used to say. (Although that only works for American atheists)
Posted by The Rabbit (Member # 671) on :
quote: I think, is that they are an attempt to point out to the general public that atheists are here, and that our opinions are just as valid as the the rest of society. We're tired of being kicked around and we'd like to be able to take our place in society. I think it's hard to do that without sending an anti-religious message. But it's worth trying.
If atheists are actually trying to send the message that they should be accepted by society, they are doing it in completely the wrong way. Telling other people that the things they hold sacred are just silly, childish myths -- isn't a good way to seek acceptance.
Rather than trying to mimic the most offensive hell and damnation religious style which they already know turns more people off than it converts, maybe they could try mimicking the Mormon-Ads.
quote:At this time of the WINTER SOLSTICE may reason prevail.
-- A message brought to you by the Freedom from Religion Foundation
quote:Be good for goodness sake.
-- A message from your local Atheist Society
The few strident atheists out there who find it necessary to attack, ridicule and insult the religious at every opportunity are at least half the reason that atheists aren't well accepted by many communities. They are to the reserved polite atheists what Fred Phelps is to the sensible Christian.
Posted by Christine (Member # 8594) on :
Those are good suggestions, Rabbit.
Aside from negativity, another big problem atheists have is lack of community. Since there is no United Atheist Church, they have no support structure and may feel like outsiders when so many others congregate weekly.
Posted by AvidReader (Member # 6007) on :
I'm still surprised atheists don't have philosophy clubs. Since their idea of morality is based on personal vs communal rights, I'd think there would be plenty of gray areas to debate. It would also be a good way to reach out to folks who don't really believe in anything but won't bother to carefully consider what they do believe to be moral behavior.
Posted by Raymond Arnold (Member # 11712) on :
There are philosophy clubs that happen to include large numbers of atheists. I think most of us tend to just join clubs that already exist.
Posted by theamazeeaz (Member # 6970) on :
As an atheist from a Catholic family, I have little problem with Christmas displays. I don't like it when what a couple of people's thoughts speak for an entire, non-united philosophy. The whole point of Christmas was to make pagans forget about other holidays that happened around the Solstice and is a celebration of events that are about as factual as Santa. I like pretty lights and displays. When the sun sets so dang early, I want to be delighted with the night. Better to emphasize the religious side than the materialistic. Has anyone seen those Target ads where the Christmas pageant is all about getting cheap gifts at Target? Now THAT is offensive.
Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :
quote:Then again, *those* Christians often claim to speak for all Christians,so it's easy to conflate the two.
See, it's really not 'easy' to conflate the two, in the sense that it should be understandable. Personally I think we should all know better than to think any small group out of huger whole can speak for that entire group, and lay praise or criticism on them because of it.
Posted by Glenn Arnold (Member # 3192) on :
quote:See, it's really not 'easy' to conflate the two
Conflate does not mean to mistake one for the other. It's easy to make a statement about a particular brand of Christian without specifying which brand. Thus that brand becomes conflated with all Christians, which may not have been the original purpose. Especially in a street corner interview, where it's hard to be sure you've added all the correct disclaimers and specifiers.
quote:They are to the reserved polite atheists what Fred Phelps is to the sensible Christian.
I think Fred Phelps is at least one order of magnitude more offensive than any atheist I've ever heard of. But the point is taken.
quote:I'm still surprised atheists don't have philosophy clubs.
There are quite a few. Then there are secular humanist organizations. Atheists even have churches. Still, most atheists have a hard time finding enough motivation to dedicate as much of our lives to working with other atheists as do religious churchgoers.
Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :
More than atheists who have suggested locking up all theists in reeducation camps?
Posted by Glenn Arnold (Member # 3192) on :
Rivka, if you're referring to my comment about Fred Phelps, you'd be hard pressed to find any atheists that fly around the country protesting at funerals of military men who died in the line of duty because the military favors religion.
Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :
You'll excuse me if if think proto-Hitlers are worse than protesters, however vile the protesters are.
Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :
(Yeah, yeah, Godwin. )
Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
Talk is cheap. Posted by Javert (Member # 3076) on :
quote:Originally posted by rivka: More than atheists who have suggested locking up all theists in reeducation camps?
Did I miss this reference earlier in the thread, or is this something everyone should know?
Posted by Mucus (Member # 9735) on :
quote:Originally posted by The Rabbit: The few strident atheists ... They are to the reserved polite atheists what Fred Phelps is to the sensible Christian.
It depends on who you're thinking about. Or in other words, giving specific examples, atheists that are often derided as "strident" such as Dawkins or PZ Myers are quite well accepted by polite atheists. In fact, a common theme at gatherings, for example when Dawkin's book came out was that many atheists didn't necessarily disagree with what he was saying, just how they were saying it.
This is different from people like Phelps. In his case I presume many Christians actually disagree with both what Phelps is saying and how they're saying. (Or maybe not?)
Posted by Raymond Arnold (Member # 11712) on :
It does not surprise me that somewhere out there some atheist(s) has suggesting any number of ridiculous things. But there's also a difference between ranting on the internet and organizing an actual protest of Fred Roger's funeral because he was too tolerant.
Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :
quote:Originally posted by Javert:
quote:Originally posted by rivka: More than atheists who have suggested locking up all theists in reeducation camps?
Did I miss this reference earlier in the thread, or is this something everyone should know?
Look up one post before yours.
Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :
quote:Conflate does not mean to mistake one for the other. It's easy to make a statement about a particular brand of Christian without specifying which brand. Thus that brand becomes conflated with all Christians, which may not have been the original purpose. Especially in a street corner interview, where it's hard to be sure you've added all the correct disclaimers and specifiers.
While it doesn't mean it, that's true, it certainly seems to be what so often happens in practice. In this case, from atheists speaking about Christians (the notion that a Nativity scene is a threat of violence, well, that's just stupid and only remotely accurate from the most virulently fundamentalist of Christians), and in many more cases from Christians speaking about atheists.
Posted by ketchupqueen (Member # 6877) on :
quote:Originally posted by Christine: Those are good suggestions, Rabbit.
Aside from negativity, another big problem atheists have is lack of community. Since there is no United Atheist Church, they have no support structure and may feel like outsiders when so many others congregate weekly.
Our local Atheists United sponsors a couple of miles on the highway (and keeps it cleaner than some of the corporate sponsors do), sponsor charitable endeavors and other good works, have monthly meetings for fellowship, and sponsor speakers and other activities for the group.
Posted by AvidReader (Member # 6007) on :
See, that's good PR. Do people in your area seem to notice, kq? Does it seem to be impacting people's opinions of atheists?
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
quote:In fact, a common theme at gatherings, for example when Dawkin's book came out was that many atheists didn't necessarily disagree with what he was saying, just how they were saying it.
I have yet to be presented with something Dawkins has said that isn't eminently reasonable. I see no reason whatsoever to defend him; he hasn't said anything that requires defending. The guy's ridiculously polite -- and yet he still gets pilloried.
PZ Myers, of course, enjoys being mildly insulting. So I won't defend him, either -- but for a different reason. Posted by The Rabbit (Member # 671) on :
I hope they aren't doing it just for PR.
In my experience, people have negative views about atheists for exactly the same reasons they have negative views of Christians.
When people I know express negative views about Christians, they are usually referring to the few strident Christians who are arrogant, rude, dismissive of those who disagree with them and trying to suppress the expression of opposing views in public. If you point out counter examples of good Christians, they quickly admit they don't mean "those Christians", it just that they have come to see rational humanitarian Christians, like Jimmy Carter for example, as the exception rather than the rule. I find that very unfortunate.
I think that the same thing is true for atheists. People who have negative opinions of Atheists are generally reacting to the few strident, arrogant, rude atheists who sometimes would like to suppress the free expression of opposing views. I suspect that most people who hold negative views of Atheists, upon discovering that someone they know and respect was an Atheist, would be more likely to see them as an exception to the rule than to alter their biases. I find that unfortunate as well.
We shouldn't let our opinions of any group be based on the behavior of the most obnoxious members of that group. Unfortunately, when we are talking about personal philosophies and belief systems, we often only recognize those people who are very outspoken and obnoxious, other rarely draw public attention to their beliefs.
Posted by Raymond Arnold (Member # 11712) on :
quote:I have yet to be presented with something Dawkins has said that isn't eminently reasonable. I see no reason whatsoever to defend him; he hasn't said anything that requires defending. The guy's ridiculously polite -- and yet he still gets pilloried
Having watched the documentary where he tries to teach evolution to creationist schoolchildren, I'd have to disagree. He speaks softly and uses good manners. But in that polite voice of his, he makes it clear to the kids that he has no respect for their beliefs. Even if he doesn't spell it out, the message is clear.
Now, I happen to agree with him that their many of their beliefs are hogwash. But talking to them that way puts them on the defensive. When people don't respect your beliefs, you are unlikely to respect theirs.
Comparing him to Fred Phelps is ridiculous. But there's still plenty to criticize about his approach.
Posted by Mucus (Member # 9735) on :
quote:Originally posted by The Rabbit: When people I know express negative views about Christians, they are usually referring to the few strident Christians who are arrogant, rude, dismissive of those who disagree with them and trying to suppress the expression of opposing views in public.
You mean like the Pope or the Archbishop of Canterbury? But without being glib, it seems to me that much criticism of Christians is precisely targeted at the leaders of Christians, the masses of Christians AND the extreme Christians. You're attempting to make a false equivalence here.
For example, the biggest concrete criticisms of Christians lately are of the Christians that pushed for the removal of gay marriage rights in California. Is that really a "few strident Christians"?
quote:I think that the same thing is true for atheists. People who have negative opinions of Atheists are generally reacting to the few strident, arrogant, rude atheists who sometimes would like to suppress the free expression of opposing views...
Again, which few specific atheists are you referring to?
Posted by Tatiana (Member # 6776) on :
I used to be an atheist and while it's true that religious intolerance of any sort is pernicious and ugly, I think atheists (and I'm speaking of my former self here) have the added difficulty that according to their worldview, anyone who believes in religion is deluded, or unable to think rationally, or insane, or childlike, or just unbelievably ignorant. They think religious people are simply uncritically accepting of any idea they hear, or else they think religious people are deluded into a wish-fulfillment fantasy.
As a Christian, I can fully understand why atheists feel as they do. They've seen no objective, verifiable, shared evidence of the existence of God, therefore they don't believe in God. It makes complete sense to me.
But atheists don't have anything in their worldview that would let them understand religious people. They lack the awareness that 99% of life experience isn't objective, verifiable, and shared. It's subjective, personal, and unrepeatable. If you allow those subjective personal unrepeatable observations to inform your view of the world, then some sort of religious or mystical worldview seems inevitably to follow.
It's kind of like how we engineers used to linearize everything that happened in the world. Nonlinear things were messy and unpleasant to deal with, so we made the simplifying assumption that over the range of interest, every phenomenon was actually linear, or close enough so as not to matter. It gave us a framework in which we could do a lot of stuff, build a lot of machines that worked most of the time. It was incredibly useful. But then when Chaos theory came along we sort of opened our eyes and realized that 99+% of the world is actually nonlinear, and if you take that into account a lot more behavior of even fairly simple systems was understandable.
Going from atheism to religion was like going from a system in which I assumed every phenomenon was linear for simplicity's sake to one in which I recognized that the world is a whole lot messier than that.
Religion, then, can be a much more mature and saner worldview than atheism which can be a sort of childlike sticking to the rules at all costs and refusing to see anything that doesn't fit them. I'm generalizing about things that are a lot more complicated than this, but you get the picture.
So religious people can often understand atheism and see where atheists are coming from, I think, more so than atheists can understand religion. I think that's one reason why atheists can get the reputation for intolerance. Because according to their worldview we ARE insane, whereas according to our worldview atheists are just at a different stage of their journey.
Posted by Mucus (Member # 9735) on :
"I used to be an atheist"? Nice.
But seriously, the basic argument is flawed starting with "atheists don't have anything in their worldview that would let them understand religious people." Especially in a place like the US, the proportion of formerly religious atheists is bound to be just as high or much higher than the proportion of formerly atheist theists.
Posted by katharina (Member # 827) on :
quote:"I used to be an atheist"? Nice.
Why is that bad? I honestly don't understand what's wrong with that.
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
quote:Having watched the documentary where he tries to teach evolution to creationist schoolchildren, I'd have to disagree. He speaks softly and uses good manners. But in that polite voice of his, he makes it clear to the kids that he has no respect for their beliefs.
Part of Dawkins' point is that the default respect we're expected to show towards people's religious beliefs would be, for any other proposition of similar likelihood, a ridiculous request. The entire thesis of The God Delusion is that religious beliefs do not deserve any more respect than any other mistaken belief.
Dawkins' position is that children who have been indoctrinated into religious culture have been harmfully brainwashed. He regrets that this has happened to them and would like to see the damage repaired. Asking him to speak as if their religious beliefs had validity is like asking a doctor to speak about a patient's lung cancer as if it were a family member.
Posted by Jhai (Member # 5633) on :
quote:Originally posted by katharina:
quote:"I used to be an atheist"? Nice.
Why is that bad? I honestly don't understand what's wrong with that.
I think it's more that there's that along with gems like
quote:Religion, then, can be a much more mature and saner worldview than atheism which can be a sort of childlike sticking to the rules at all costs and refusing to see anything that doesn't fit them.
and
quote:I think atheists (and I'm speaking of my former self here) have the added difficulty that according to their worldview, anyone who believes in religion is deluded, or unable to think rationally, or insane, or childlike, or just unbelievably ignorant. They think religious people are simply uncritically accepting of any idea they hear, or else they think religious people are deluded into a wish-fulfillment fantasy.
It's not other atheists' fault that Tatiana was childlike and ignorant as an atheist, and her generalizations about how atheists think are rude and incorrect. The cherry on top comes from when she uses her status as a "former atheist" to add evidence to her supposed argument regarding what atheists are like.
Posted by katharina (Member # 827) on :
I can understand you saying that her experience is not applicable to all, but you can't dismiss her experience altogether.
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
I think Anne Kate's point was a little less insulting than that. She's saying that the atheist worldview -- that experiences which are not rational should be considered invalid -- inherently dismisses the validity of religious experience, whereas the religious worldview -- in which irrationality is an end goal -- merely looks at atheists as people who are still clinging foolishly to rationality. It is, as she says, the difference between thinking of someone as insane and thinking of them as a naive child.
Posted by katharina (Member # 827) on :
I can understand you saying that her experience is not applicable to all, but you can't dismiss her experience altogether.
Why did you put quotes around "former atheist"? Do you not believe when she says that she was and now she isn't?
---
I understood her as saying that atheists cling to the illusion of rationality without understanding that as human beings, they are just as prone to their own subjective experiences but have told themselves they are immune to the effects of not having an omniscient point of view.
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
Ah. That would be insulting. In my version, she's not being a jerk. Posted by Scott R (Member # 567) on :
Jhai, Tatiana's not saying she was childlike and ignorant as an atheist; she's saying that atheists think believers are child-like and ignorant.
Which is certainly an opinion I've seen expressed by a number of atheists here and elsewhere on the Web.
Posted by katharina (Member # 827) on :
How is it insulting to say that everyone's world view is subjective and filtered rather than omniscient, despite aspirations?
Posted by Jhai (Member # 5633) on :
I'm not dismissing her experience (nor am I claiming in any way that she's not a former atheist), but I do think she has no right to generalize about the outlook or beliefs of atheists, given the vast diversity of atheistic people out there. To take an example, Richard Dawkins and the Dali Lama are both atheists by at least some definitions of the word. Do you really want to try to generalize about the worldview of these two guys? Let alone the rest of the atheists throughout the Western and non-Western world? My husband is an atheistic Hindu - I guarantee you he is not coming at that belief from the same world-view as atheistic analytical philosopher me.
Posted by katharina (Member # 827) on :
That's fair, but I don't think what you said above was conveyed by the scare quotes used before.
Posted by Jhai (Member # 5633) on :
Scott, I think
quote:...atheism which can be a sort of childlike sticking to the rules at all costs and refusing to see anything that doesn't fit them.
clearly shows that she believes the atheistic mindset to be one that is childlike. Also note that directly before that quote she says that
quote:Religion, then, can be a much more mature and saner worldview than atheism
.
And then she goes on to say that atheists believe that a person who believes in religion
quote:is deluded, or unable to think rationally, or insane, or childlike, or just unbelievably ignorant.
So, not only are we childlike, and subscribe to a worldview that is less mature and sane than religion can be, but we also think poorly on people who believe in religion. Which is a little silly, since you can be religious and still not believe in a god, as the numerous atheistic Hindus and Buddhists demonstrate.
Posted by Carousel (Member # 11874) on :
Here's what I don't understand. Most christians that I have met have the core belief that they need to "spread the gospel". Now I don't agree with those that take it too far and intrude where they are obviously not wanted, but I do believe that they have the right to follow that tenant to a point. I also believe that once someone has indicated their disinterest, then the christians have to back off. It is this lack of retreat (so to speak) that offends most people. Also the method of presentation, but that is actually beside the point. Once someone says no, then you should go.
Now on the other hand, I have never met an atheist who have defined his or her "core belief" that they should do what is essentially spreading their own gospel. I'm all for rational, intelligent discussions about belief and non-belief, but why does it seem so much like the other side of the same coin? Atheists seem to be recruiting just as the christians. Not that this is a bad thing, but don't try to say that's not what is going on, which is what I hear quite a bit.
Then there is the request for respect and tolerance of beliefs. Don't ask for what you aren't willing to give. If you believe there is a god...great! If you believe there is no god...great! Everyone has the right to believe what they want to. And everyone has the right to try to spread their beliefs, until they are requested not to. At that point, go away.
Posted by Jhai (Member # 5633) on :
Everyone has the right to believe what they want. They don't, however, have the right to automatic respect for those beliefs. If you believe that the sun sets in the east, and hold onto that belief in the face of all evidence to the contrary, I'm going to mock you, and actively work against you spreading your brand of truth, and I'm not going to feel bad doing it.
The reason why Dawkins and other "militant atheists" are pushing back against religion is because they think that religious belief is actively hurting society in large portions of the world. I don't disagree with them on that point, either.
Posted by Carousel (Member # 11874) on :
quote:I'm going to mock you,
Why? This is what is wrong with people. Your first action is an offense.
quote:and actively work against you spreading your brand of truth, and I'm not going to feel bad doing it.
Exactly! I have no problem with this however. This should be your action with out the mockery. How do you expect to convince anyone when your first action is to mock.
Posted by Scott R (Member # 567) on :
I'm okay with everything but the mocking. I'm not sure why that needs to be a part of the agenda.
Can you explain why you think it is?
Posted by Mucus (Member # 9735) on :
quote:Originally posted by Jhai:
quote:Originally posted by katharina:
quote:"I used to be an atheist"? Nice.
Why is that bad? I honestly don't understand what's wrong with that.
I think it's more that there's that along with gems like ...
What Jhai said, plus I'd add the fact that the line is wonderfully cliched. So cliched that the first reference I find to it is a comparison *to* that line rather than *about* it.
quote:Notice, by the way, the distinction from another favourite genre: "I used to be an atheist, but . . ." That is one of the oldest tricks in the book, practised by, among many others, C S Lewis, Alister McGrath and Francis Collins. It is designed to gain street cred before the writer starts on about Jesus, and it is amazing how often it works. Look out for it, and be forewarned.
To be fair to Tatiana, she was an atheist when I started posting here. She was just using a different screen name at the time.
Posted by katharina (Member # 827) on :
Are you then saying that it isn't true? She, in fact, was not actually an atheist? Or that she still is one now?
If you are going to dismiss someone's statements about themselves, there needs to be a better reason that that someone else has said it before.
I also find that dismissal to be fully as rude as a Christian saying to someone who had prayed and not received an answer, "You didn't pray hard enough."
Posted by The Pixiest (Member # 1863) on :
I used to be a christian. Eventually, I realized that no matter how much I wished for it to be true, it was all just a big lie. Something to comfort us in our hour of need, and no more.
However, everyone, both christian and atheist, need to be left alone to believe what they believe. There needs to be no snarking back and forth, just mutual respect and mutual respect for each others rights.
Civility goes out the window when one side starts attacking the other's civil rights and when we fight, we both lose.
And Christmas is an American holiday these days. Not only a christian one. I know Atheists, Jews and Hindudes that all celebrate it. With a tree.
Posted by Raymond Arnold (Member # 11712) on :
quote:Part of Dawkins' point is that the default respect we're expected to show towards people's religious beliefs would be, for any other proposition of similar likelihood, a ridiculous request.
Frankly, it doesn't matter. When you make it clear you have no respect for someone's most fundamental belief system, they will tune you out, and whatever it is you're trying to accomplish will fail.
I do agree with him that many elements of religion are damaging and need to be countered. I also acknowledge that being direct and confrontational is necessary sometimes to get people's attention. But in the case of the schoolkids, he already had their attention, and I think using some kind of Socratic method to get the kids to realize for themselves that their belief system was flawed would have been more effective.
I also think that combining arguments in favor of evolution with arguments against God is counterproductive. Many people are willing to accept evolution when it's not presented as something that challenges their entire belief system. I also think in the long term, widespread acceptance of evolution will lead to an overall decline in religious tendencies.
Posted by Mucus (Member # 9735) on :
quote:Originally posted by Carousel: ... Atheists seem to be recruiting just as the christians. Not that this is a bad thing, but don't try to say that's not what is going on, which is what I hear quite a bit.
Hmmm, get back to me when there is an atheist equivalent of Jesuits or Mormon missionaries. Not that I think we should really be competing on those grounds, but we have an are quite out-gunned.
Posted by katharina (Member # 827) on :
Pixiest, I have read what you just said many, many times in the Hatrackverse. It is said here constantly. It is curious to me that saying the converse is so decried.
Posted by Mucus (Member # 9735) on :
quote:Originally posted by katharina: Are you then saying that it isn't true? She, in fact, was not actually an atheist? Or that she still is one now? ...
Did I say it wasn't true? A cliche can be true, it doesn't make it any less a cliche.
quote:Originally posted by katharina: Pixiest, I have read what you just said many, many times in the Hatrackverse. It is said here constantly. It is curious to me that saying the converse is so decried.
They aren't actually converses. The converse of "former atheist" is theist. The converse of "former Christian" is non-Christian.
In other words, as Jhai noted, there are many kinds of atheists with a much larger variety of types than Christian. Arguably, one would have a slightly better sampling of Christians by taking one Christian compared to one atheist out of all atheists (not much better, granted). At least all Christians have a common belief system, in the generalities, if not the specifics. Atheists only have one common belief "attribute."
Posted by katharina (Member # 827) on :
So your complaint is that her personal truth has been said before and therefore should be dismissed? Or were you just interrupting a discussion to be incredibly rude about the style of another poster's personal story?
Posted by Carousel (Member # 11874) on :
quote:Hmmm, get back to me when there is an atheist equivalent of Jesuits or Mormon missionaries. Not that I think we should really be competing on those grounds, but we have an are quite out-gunned.
I didn't say that atheists were recruiting just as much, or in the same manner, as christians. Just that they are recruiting. Take that sign in the article. If they were not attempting to recuit, then why include the second portion? The more vocal people are in fact attempting to win converts. I'm just saying call it what it is.
Again, there is nothing wrong with this. That is their right, just as it is a christian's right.
Posted by Jhai (Member # 5633) on :
quote:Originally posted by Scott R: I'm okay with everything but the mocking. I'm not sure why that needs to be a part of the agenda.
Can you explain why you think it is?
Mockery doesn't have to be part of the agenda, but if you get into an intellectual argument with me, and have an idiotic belief (such as the sun sets in the east), I won't go out of my way to avoid pointing out that your belief is idiotic. If you want to count that as mocking (some do, some don't), then, well, *shrug*. Maybe it's a philosophy major thing - we tear into each other all the time.
For the record, I've never mocked anyone for religious belief alone. I was harsh with someone who tried to make an argument against the "ought implies can" axiom of ethics for religious reasons (it was a point in a larger argument). She was a senior philosophy major, and really should have known better.
Also for the record, I have no doubt that this style of argumentation may not be the best for convincing particular people that they are wrong. Luckily, that's not always my goal.
---- Wow, kat - so simply pointing out that someone is cliched is "incredibly rude", but what she said regarding atheists is all cool?
Posted by katharina (Member # 827) on :
If people would post their explanations of their dismissive actions (quoting and then saying "Nice", scare quotes) instead of just the dismissive actions, the discussion could continue instead of being a case study.
Posted by Jhai (Member # 5633) on :
You know, quotation marks can legitimately be used in sentences in ways other than as negative "scare quotes."
Hey, look, I just did it!
Edit: just to be clear, the term "scare quotes" can be used to refer to any quoting that is not a direct quote. But that usage is not necessarily negative, and so there's really no point in pointing them out unless you have reason to suspect that they're being used in a negative manner. Personally, I haven't used them in a negative manner in this thread, and I rarely do, period. source Posted by katharina (Member # 827) on :
No, you didn't, actually.
Do you not understand what it means to put those in quotes out of context like that?
From the other part of that page:
quote:Scare quotes is a general term for quotation marks used for purposes other than to identify a direct quotation. For example, authors might use quotation marks to highlight special terminology, to distance the writer from the material being reported, to indicate that it is someone else's terminology, or to bring attention to a word or phrase as questionable or at least atypical in some way.
Scare quotes are often intended to provoke a negative association for the word or phrase enclosed in the quotes, or at least a suspicion about the appropriateness or full truth that might be presumed if the quotes were omitted.
So what, exactly, were the quotes intended to convey? Were you quoting a complex term exactly and wanted to make it clear that you were using it the way she was? Considering it came in close association with an avowal to mock theists, the negative connotation looks a lot more likely than a neutral one. There is no positive connotation available to it.
Posted by Jhai (Member # 5633) on :
Edit: I see you edited while I was writing this post. But I think it stands.
So you continue to believe that I meant to bring a negative association to the terms, despite me clearly saying I did not, and pointing to the source that says that my usage is appropriate? How lovely of you.
Nice that you didn't quote the actual part I referenced, too.
quote:Enclosing a word or phrase in quotes can also convey a neutral attitude on the part of the writer, while distancing the writer from the terminology in question. The quotes are used to call attention to a neologism, special terminology (jargon), or a slang usage, or to indicate words or phrases that are descriptive but unusual, colloquial, folksy, startling, humorous, or metaphoric. They may indicate special terminology that should be identified for accuracy's sake as someone else's, for example if a term (particularly a controversial term) pre-dates the writer or represents the views of someone else.[1] A special case of this use of quotes is in the use–mention distinction.
To be even more particular, when I used quotation marks around Tatiana 's "former atheist" just to denote that that was her wording & terminology, not mine.
Posted by katharina (Member # 827) on :
That is what confuses me. Do you not actually consider her to be a former atheist? What is it about the term that you do not agree with or think it shouldn't be applied to her? Is it an offensive term to you? Why?
Posted by Jhai (Member # 5633) on :
I'm sorry you're confused. Next time, ask for clarification rather than accusing others. And then, when they give you that clarification, try believing them.
Edit: also, it's polite to note when you've edited a post, even if you get it in before the board lists it.
Posted by katharina (Member # 827) on :
Where is the clarification? You said you want to distance yourself from the term, but you haven't said why. I'm curious about why anne kate calling herself a former atheist is something you can't believe or support.
You said later that she doesn't speak for ALL atheists, which makes sense, but it doesn't clarify why you wanted to point that you do not believe her that she was AN atheist.
Posted by Mucus (Member # 9735) on :
quote:Originally posted by Carousel: I didn't say that atheists were recruiting just as much, or in the same manner, as christians.
Sorry, I misread your "recruiting just as the christians" typo. Of course, I made a typo in my last post, so we're even
quote: Take that sign in the article. If they were not attempting to recuit, then why include the second portion?
I understand your confusion and I sympathise, but I don't think they were attempting to recruit. I think they were intentionally being extreme to push boundaries.
The idea is that even polite expressions of atheism are not accepted in their community. So by making a more brutal expression of atheism, comparable to how they feel expressions of Christianity are, they're trying to make moderate atheism acceptable by comparison.
I don't think it will necessarily work in that situation, BTW.
But the idea is not new. Dawkin's Scarlet Letter campaign is similar, the idea is not to recruit but to foster a climate in which moderate atheists feel comfortable to come "out of the closet" since Dawkins is acting as a vocal lightning rod saying what others cannot/don't feel comfortable saying.
Posted by Jhai (Member # 5633) on :
I clarified that I was using the quotation marks in my original post to denote the fact that that was her terminology, not mine. If she believes she's a former atheist, I have no particular reason to doubt her. But I've found that in a dialogue about religious identity labels matter quite a bit, so I wanted to make clear that this was her own labeling not mine. I've been called (or otherwise associated with) a number of labels and positions that I wasn't because others' weren't careful to note my particular terminology, and I have no desire to commit the same offense.
In response to your edit (guess I'll just reload several times before posting when you're in the conversation, and read over previous entries with a comb): Dude, kat, quotes can be used for reasons other than showing doubt that the terminology is correct. I'm sorry that you've never come across this particular punctuation usage, but it's still legitimate.
Posted by katharina (Member # 827) on :
My question is: Why isn't it your terminology? Would you call her something different?
Posted by Achilles (Member # 7741) on :
quote:Originally posted by The Pixiest: I know Atheists, Jews and Hindudes that all celebrate it. With a tree.
It might be worth mentioning that the tree was adopted by Christianity, but that is probably not it's origin.
Also, Christmas was chosen to be on the date that it is to offset pagan solstice celebrations.
I choose to celebrate Yule, to mark the return of the Sun. Posted by The Pixiest (Member # 1863) on :
Achilles: I think it's more about family and presents for the kids than anything else. That's what makes Christmas special. It doesn't matter what we're celebrating, just the joy of togetherness and seeing a child's face when they rip open a present to find just what they wanted.
Posted by Jhai (Member # 5633) on :
quote:Originally posted by katharina: My question is: Why isn't it your terminology? Would you call her something different?
I would call her whatever she wants to be called. I note that it's not my terminology to make clear that I'm not labeling her but rather calling her by a label she has already used herself.
Do you not see how that might be an important thing to do in a conversation about religion and beliefs?
Posted by Raymond Arnold (Member # 11712) on :
Katharina:
The issue is that, with some frequency (whether this applies in Tatiana's case), Christians who claim to have once been an atheist have a somewhat different take on what atheist means. In particular, it is often associated with being "angry at God," which is not something most atheists feel (it's actually a kind of paradoxical concept, since you can't really be angry at someone you don't believe exists).
There's also people like Lee Strobel, author of the Case for Christ, who begin by claiming they were once an atheist but as they tell the story of their path towards Christianity, clearly could not possibly have been an atheist in any typical use of the word. (Strobel claims to have been an atheist AND a reputable journalist... who then proceeds to interview ONLY people supporting the Christian viewpoint, accepts all of their claims at face value, and doesn't make any effort to fact check with opposing or even neutral sources.)
Now, Strobel may have been an atheist in some sense of the word, but doesn't seem to have been the sort of atheist I nor any of my colleagues would relate to.
Jhai's response to Tatiana may have been somewhat knee-jerky and perhaps inappropriate, but the "I used to be an atheist" line shows up often enough in questionable circumstances that it's worth extra scrutiny.
Posted by katharina (Member # 827) on :
quote:Now, Strobel may have been an atheist in some sense of the word, but doesn't seem to have been the sort of atheist I nor any of my colleagues would relate to.
This is the kind of thing that makes me wonder why atheists think they are immune to the kinds of things members of organized religion are prone to. Someone wasn't a real atheist? Like there is a platonic ideal? Or like being one is a badge of something and so other atheists can vote you out if they don't like how you handle the title?
quote:Strobel claims to have been an atheist AND a reputable journalist... who then proceeds to interview ONLY people supporting the Christian viewpoint, accepts all of their claims at face value, and doesn't make any effort to fact check with opposing or even neutral sources.
I suspect we can both think of lauded atheistic "journalists"* who use the same tactics.
* I'm using the quotes because I don't think creating creating and knocking down straw men actually counts as journalism, so those who do it are not actually journalists but instead are entertainers of a particular sort.
Posted by Achilles (Member # 7741) on :
quote:Originally posted by The Pixiest: Achilles: I think it's more about family and presents for the kids than anything else. That's what makes Christmas special. It doesn't matter what we're celebrating, just the joy of togetherness and seeing a child's face when they rip open a present to find just what they wanted.
Well said. Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
quote:Someone wasn't a real atheist? Like there is a platonic ideal?
I think we can agree that the one defining attribute of atheism is as follows: you do not believe in gods. By this definition, Strobel doesn't apply; he speaks of his time as an "atheist" in terms of the anger he consciously felt towards God. I don't know about you, but I'm rarely persistently angry towards individuals who don't exist. More importantly, he frequently speaks nowadays about how he entered adulthood thinking there was no God -- which he used as a justification to engage in immoral behavior -- and then one day did some research into Creationism, at which point a light switch flipped in his mind and he was convinced that God existed. (Bear in mind, BTW, that he never actually researched evolution; he says he was convinced by Creation "science," and concluded from there that there must be a Creator.)
quote:I suspect we can both think of lauded atheistic "journalists"* who use the same tactics.
I can't actually think of many atheist "journalists" who write about their atheism by making reference to their days as a believer. I can think of some homosexuals who do this, but not atheists -- at least not off the top of my head.
[ December 08, 2008, 01:57 PM: Message edited by: TomDavidson ]
Posted by Raymond Arnold (Member # 11712) on :
Re: Katherina
I realize there is a certain audacity in saying "Well, clearly, that person isn't a REAL atheist." I tried to be careful in the way I phrased my argument. I know that making any kind of definitive statement on someone else's identity is pretty arrogant.
quote:I suspect we can both think of lauded atheistic "journalists"* who use the same tactics.
Oh definitely. There are people on every side of every argument who use those tactics. But the point here is not Strobel used biased "journalism." The point is that he claims to have done so even when he would have been predisposed to be biased in the opposite direction or at least neutral.
It's possible he really was an atheist, and just happened to be easily swayed by arguments that were flimsy at best. But considering that his "journalism" does consist mostly of creating and knocking down straw men, I'm not inclined to take him at his word.
Posted by katharina (Member # 827) on :
Tom: I was referring to interviewing only those who would support a particular viewpoint, not to what they claimed to be before.
RA: That's what bothers me about the distancing and using quotes. It certainly looks like casting doubt on someone's self-avowed identity.
Posted by Shigosei (Member # 3831) on :
I'm going to agree with many here that the atheists should have been affirming their own beliefs or philosophy rather than denying the beliefs of others. "Be good for goodness sake" is an excellent one. If they wanted to make a definitive statement of non-belief, why not go with Carl Sagan's "The cosmos is all that is, ever was, or ever will be"?
I wonder if next year there will be even more groups trying to put up displays. Maybe a Prior of the Ori will show up to demand that the city have the Book of Origin on display (or else he'll file a lawsuit and release a plague).
Posted by Javert (Member # 3076) on :
quote:Originally posted by Shigosei: I wonder if next year there will be even more groups trying to put up displays. Maybe a Prior of the Ori will show up to demand that the city have the Book of Origin on display (or else he'll file a lawsuit and release a plague).
Well, those are the options. Opening it up for everyone, or for no one. The government has clearly shown that it refuses to be neutral on religion. And so it must be equal.
Posted by Raymond Arnold (Member # 11712) on :
quote:RA: That's what bothers me about the distancing and using quotes. It certainly looks like casting doubt on someone's self-avowed identity.
The original remark that started this was definitely a snarky quip that wasn't exactly a paragon of healthy debate. But the sentiment behind it (being suspicious of those who claim to have been atheists) is justifiable, at least insofar as asking someone to clarify why they were an atheist and why they changed their mind.
Posted by Mucus (Member # 9735) on :
quote:Originally posted by Shigosei: ... I wonder if next year there will be even more groups trying to put up displays. Maybe a Prior of the Ori will show up to demand that the city have the Book of Origin on display (or else he'll file a lawsuit and release a plague).
It always amused me how the Stargate series tiptoes around the "modern" religions. I mean, from the POV of someone in the show, once you have Egyptian, Norse, Chinese, and Greek gods all being aliens, it seems a logical step to assume that the Christian or Muslim gods and prophets probably would be too.
From that POV, it would only make sense to have a Furling or something show up as Christ. (Arguably, the old testament god is already the archetype for the Goa'uld anyways)
Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
quote:Originally posted by Scott R: I'm okay with everything but the mocking. I'm not sure why that needs to be a part of the agenda.
Can you explain why you think it is?
What looks like mockery to you is actually accurate description. If a belief is silly, then to describe it accurately is, indeed, to mock it. And such description is a powerful tool to keep silly beliefs from taking hold in young minds. It's true that such tactics rarely work on adults, who've had time to build up a store of rationalisations and excuses, but that can't be helped; very little else works on such people either. Sometimes you just have to triage.
Posted by MattP (Member # 10495) on :
quote:It always amused me how the Stargate series tiptoes around the "modern" religions. I mean, from the POV of someone in the show, once you have Egyptian, Norse, Chinese, and Greek gods all being aliens, it seems a logical step to assume that the Christian or Muslim gods and prophets probably would be too.
They did have a Goa'uld that claimed to be Satan.
Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :
And it is quite clear that Origin is meant to mock Christianity.
Posted by BlackBlade (Member # 8376) on :
I think mockery has long been a part of spirited debate at least in Western civilization. But it seems that mockery of a person, or even an idea has generally been frowned upon. Mockery seems to be something that at best must be used sparingly, and at worst should be recognized as the sole provenance of the even tempered.
No offense intended to KOM, but in the case of mockery he would have to be positively lovey dovey in his treatment of organized religion for a few months if not years before I would take mockery from him seriously.
The only thing I think you can safely mock is the implication of an idea; Not the person, not the idea itself.
On rare occasion when it seem that your opposition is truly seeking to commit evil, I think mockery can be invoked. But even then mockery is not necessarily wise to use as a tool. Mockery is a great way to get an angry crowd to turn away its' wrath from the innocent and point it justly at one's self.
Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
quote:No offense intended to KOM, but in the case of mockery he would have to be positively lovey dovey in his treatment of organized religion for a few months if not years before I would take mockery from him seriously.
I advise you to read that post again. You are already defending your beliefs with every bit of rationalisation power the human mind can command, which is large. As far as I'm concerned, therefore, you're triaged. You're not the intended target of accurate descriptions of religion.
Posted by Mucus (Member # 9735) on :
MattP and Rivka: Both valid points, but both also good illustrations of what I'm talking about. Both examples hide behind plausible deniability. Sokar was not just Satan, but also claimed to be many other personifications of death, IIRC. Indeed, the name is Egyptian. As for Ori, it seems clear that while they are intended as an allegorical mockery of Christianity, it is not clear that the Ori literally inspire Christianity directly.
i.e. Both examples lack the visceral punch when Aphophis or Thor (initially) literally show up and declare themselves as such.
Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :
quote:Originally posted by Mucus: Sokar was not just Satan, but also claimed to be many other personifications of death, IIRC.
Not when he first showed up, IIRC. ("Demons")
Posted by Mucus (Member # 9735) on :
Are you sure? I thought it was more general than that.
But anyways, it doesn't detract from the main point. In fact, if you're right, it merely makes the omission more obvious.
Posted by dkw (Member # 3264) on :
quote:Originally posted by TomDavidson: I think we can agree that the one defining attribute of atheism is as follows: you do not believe in gods. By this definition, Strobel doesn't apply; he speaks of his time as an "atheist" in terms of the anger he consciously felt towards God. I don't know about you, but I'm rarely persistently angry towards individuals who don't exist.
Well, so many atheists seem to use the "The Biblical God is such a jerk/meanie/bully" argument, it's easy to conflate them.
Posted by Eaquae Legit (Member # 3063) on :
quote:Originally posted by King of Men:
quote:Originally posted by Scott R: I'm okay with everything but the mocking. I'm not sure why that needs to be a part of the agenda.
Can you explain why you think it is?
What looks like mockery to you is actually accurate description. If a belief is silly, then to describe it accurately is, indeed, to mock it. And such description is a powerful tool to keep silly beliefs from taking hold in young minds. It's true that such tactics rarely work on adults, who've had time to build up a store of rationalisations and excuses, but that can't be helped; very little else works on such people either. Sometimes you just have to triage.
"Incorrect" would be a factual and accurate description. "Silly" is a subjective word.
Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
quote:Originally posted by dkw:
quote:Originally posted by TomDavidson: I think we can agree that the one defining attribute of atheism is as follows: you do not believe in gods. By this definition, Strobel doesn't apply; he speaks of his time as an "atheist" in terms of the anger he consciously felt towards God. I don't know about you, but I'm rarely persistently angry towards individuals who don't exist.
Well, so many atheists seem to use the "The Biblical God is such a jerk/meanie/bully" argument, it's easy to conflate them.
Sauron is not a nice person. I would certainly look askance at anyone who decided they wanted to worship Sauron, or treat him as a role model. But to be actively angry at Sauron for being so nasty would be rather silly.
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
quote:Well, so many atheists seem to use the "The Biblical God is such a jerk/meanie/bully" argument, it's easy to conflate them.
That's only the first half of that argument, in fairness. Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
quote:Originally posted by Eaquae Legit: [QUOTE]"Incorrect" would be a factual and accurate description. "Silly" is a subjective word.
I consider a belief silly if an accurate description of the belief will trigger incredulity or confusion in a neutral listener; "Wait, they believe what?" This can easily be formalised if you want to bother. Example: To believe that the surface temperature of the Sun is 1000 degrees Kelvin is incorrect. To believe that it is 100 Kelvin is silly. Another example: I had dinner the other day with some friends, one of whom is a Catholic. The conversation touched on the Rapture, a belief with which the Catholic was not familiar. When it was described to her, her literal, exact words were "That's the stupidest thing I ever heard." Since this comes from a woman who presumably believes in transubstantiation and people walking on water, I'm inclined to consider this evidence of the objective silliness of the Rapture doctrine.
Posted by Glenn Arnold (Member # 3192) on :
quote:You'll excuse me if if think proto-Hitlers are worse than protesters, however vile the protesters are.
Like Phelps, Hitler was a protester who was able to convince others to act on his behalf. Phelps has already achieved this, and his ambitions are at least as grand as Hitler's. Raymond already beat me to the punch with regard to action versus words.
Posted by BlackBlade (Member # 8376) on :
quote:Originally posted by King of Men:
quote:No offense intended to KOM, but in the case of mockery he would have to be positively lovey dovey in his treatment of organized religion for a few months if not years before I would take mockery from him seriously.
I advise you to read that post again. You are already defending your beliefs with every bit of rationalisation power the human mind can command, which is large. As far as I'm concerned, therefore, you're triaged. You're not the intended target of accurate descriptions of religion.
So I am beyond all hope of reform, even mocking would not sway me from my determined course of foolery? Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
Apparently.
Posted by MightyCow (Member # 9253) on :
quote:Originally posted by King of Men: Apparently.
Unlike KoM, I believe that all religious people have the potential to see the error of their ways and convert to the One True Non-Faith.
Posted by Tatiana (Member # 6776) on :
Katie, thanks for the defense but really I prefer to speak for myself.
My earlier post was intended as a possible explanation for why atheists seem to come off so much more intolerant than religious people in many discussions like this. I'm sorry if I hit some hot buttons.
As for my bona fides as a former atheist, I assure you they're impeccable. =) I was a rationalist with a scientific worldview, like my heroes Richard Feynman, Isaac Asimov, Richard Dawkins, Freeman Dyson, Douglas Hofstadter, Carl Sagan, etc. etc. They're all still my heroes, in fact, and I'm still a materialist rationalist with a scientific worldview, even. I've just expanded my view to encompass that overwhelming majority of observations that don't happen to be repeatable, shared, and objective. There's just a huge amount of experience in life that's personal, subjective, and not repeatable. When you begin to notice and learn from these observations, as well as the other sort, then your worldview can become expanded in new and fruitful directions.
I made an analogy of this to engineering, and how we go about linearizing nonlinear systems, to simplify things. The power of science is just this, by narrowing our focus to what is repeatable, shared, and objective, we simplify things a great deal so that we can make much more sense out of them. Science is incredibly powerful as a way of looking at the world. It's transformed human life hugely for the better. But it does so at the cost of negating, or rather overlooking, or dismissing, 99+% of all observations, nearly all our experience of being alive.
Nobody engaged me on any of this, which I thought of as the most interesting and substantive part of my post. It's too bad. The one thing I would want to go back and ask my former atheist self, had I the chance, is how could I possibly have believed such a large number of extremely intelligent people were deluded, brainwashed, ignorant, or simply believed what their parents taught them unquestioningly? Look into history at who was religious and who was not. There's no preponderance of intelligence on one side or the other. No matter who you are or what you believe, lots and lots of people way smarter than you have believed the opposite way. So that tells me that we should have a lot more respect for each other's worldviews than we usually seem to have.
So to close, let me state categorically that I have many friends of all different religions as well as no religion at all, and I have an overwhelming amount of respect for all their worldviews which I see have arisen from their unique experiences. We're all at different points of our journeys, which are all different sorts of journeys to begin with, and I feel greatly humbled in the face of all that I can never understand about other people's lives. So that was my point, that nobody should be dismissed or ridiculed for their unique viewpoint. Unfortunately, it seems some people thought I was ridiculing them for theirs, or trying to say that my former views were just like theirs are now. Quite the contrary!
Posted by Tatiana (Member # 6776) on :
I thought of another analogy which may (or may not) be fruitful. It's as though we're arguing over which is really true, Euclidean or non-Euclidean geometry, with the one side ridiculing the other, and both casting aspersions on each other's sanity.
Posted by stacey (Member # 3661) on :
quote:The power of science is just this, by narrowing our focus to what is repeatable, shared, and objective, we simplify things a great deal so that we can make much more sense out of them.
In my opinion, religion not science is a way of "simplifying things a great deal so that we can make much more sense out of them". Religion gives people an easy answer to things (e.g. "God did it/made it/told us to") rather than letting people discover (again - this is just my opinion) the real reasons as to why, what, when, where, how things came about etc.
Posted by MightyCow (Member # 9253) on :
Tatiana: I don't think science ignores or dismisses 99%+ of all our observations, it just cautions us that our first impression may not be accurate, and we should double check to confirm.
I don't think that's a negative. My observation is that my car is working perfectly now, but if I never check my oil, my observation will quickly become 100% wrong. My current observation isn't valueless, but it doesn't have a very high level of confidence.
I think that makes a valuable analogy to science. Religion is a series of first impressions, which we insist on keeping, because we cannot accurately verify them. We may feel very strongly about them, but we cannot have a high degree of confidence, because we have no way of repeating many of the experiences upon which we must rely to build our beliefs.
Posted by Tatiana (Member # 6776) on :
Ah, Mighty Cow and stacey, that's where we disagree.
Do you agree, though, that science is only concerned with observations that are repeatable, shared, and objective?
Posted by Raymond Arnold (Member # 11712) on :
quote:Originally posted by MightyCow: [QB] Tatiana: I don't think science ignores or dismisses 99%+ of all our observations, it just cautions us that our first impression may not be accurate, and we should double check to confirm.
I don't think that's a negative. My observation is that my car is working perfectly now, but if I never check my oil, my observation will quickly become 100% wrong. My current observation isn't valueless, but it doesn't have a very high level of confidence.
I think you're kinda missing Tatiana's point (assuming I'm getting it correctly. Tat, let me know if I'm misconstruing you again). Whether your car is working is a science question. "Should I marry this woman I love even though my family will resent me for it" is not.
I think the 99% figure is exaggerated quite a bit. I'd put it closer to 50/50, although I'm sure it varies from person to person depending on how they approach life. I also think the two sides are not necessarily divided: in the marriage question above, even though the experience isn't repeatable for you, you still can see how other people have dealt with the same situation. And in the age of the internet, you could concievably have access to hundreds of "trial results."
Posted by katharina (Member # 827) on :
quote:Religion is a series of first impressions, which we insist on keeping, because we cannot accurately verify them.
This is not true. This is one of those myths people tell themselves so they don't have to explain other people's actions.
My religious adherence is supported by a continual series of experiences that have occurred over years and continue to occur. Everything else fades, but this has not.
Posted by Paul Goldner (Member # 1910) on :
"My religious adherence is supported by a continual series of experiences that have occurred over years and continue to occur."
The portion of this that falls under Mighty Cow's statement is "Accurately verify."
Analogy: For hundreds if not thousands of years, people thought the natural state of an object was to be at rest. This belief was continuously supported by experiential evidence of millions of people, as in our every day lives, objects tend to come to rest. It took a rigorous approach to understanding why objects move to realize that the natural state of an object is whatever its already doing. Even 400 years after this knowledge has been gained, most kids come into their introductory physics class believing that objects tend to come to rest on their own. And, if they don't have a good physics teacher, within a year or two, most go back to believing that... because it is supported by daily evidence. The problem is, that evidence isn't rigorously examined.
Posted by katharina (Member # 827) on :
As charming as your patronizing condescension and skepticism concerning my intelligence and own experiences is, I am in a better position to judge which of my experiences are real and which are not.
If your position is that nothing can be verified as real, that there is nothing that can be truly known, and there is no experience that is reliable, then you have expanded your argument from just religion.
If you limit your skepticism to religious experiences, then you are wrong.
Posted by Paul Goldner (Member # 1910) on :
"As charming as your patronizing condescension and skepticism concerning my intelligence and own experiences is, I am in a better position to judge which of my experiences are real and which are not."
Umm... I'm not sure that what I posted was "patronizing," or "condescending." But if you'd like to take it as a personal attack, thats fine. It doesn't make me wrong, though.
Because the thing is, I didn't say that what you experienced isn't real. I'm certain you've had real experiences that you interpret as being evidence of god. The point is, though, that experiential evidence isn't evidence for any particular conclusion, until we try to rigorously examine the evidence, and falsify any conclusions we draw from that experiential evidence.
Posted by Tresopax (Member # 1063) on :
quote:Analogy: For hundreds if not thousands of years, people thought the natural state of an object was to be at rest. This belief was continuously supported by experiential evidence of millions of people, as in our every day lives, objects tend to come to rest. It took a rigorous approach to understanding why objects move to realize that the natural state of an object is whatever its already doing. Even 400 years after this knowledge has been gained, most kids come into their introductory physics class believing that objects tend to come to rest on their own. And, if they don't have a good physics teacher, within a year or two, most go back to believing that... because it is supported by daily evidence. The problem is, that evidence isn't rigorously examined.
I don't think you are drawing the right conclusion for this example. It is safe to say that over thousands of years, at least somebody must've rigorously examined the evidence regarding the natural state of objects. In fact, many many people did. So, the problem was not a lack of rigorous examination of the evidence. The real problem is that no matter how rigorously you examine evidence, there is always the possibility that the evidence will still lead you to the wrong conclusion - particularly if you hold some false assumptions that shape the way you rigorously examine the evidence. In the case of the kids, they could rigorously examine the evidence all day long and they'd still come to the conclusion that objects come to rest - in order to come to a different conclusion, they'd need to be taught to hold different assumptions about the universe.
Posted by Paul Goldner (Member # 1910) on :
Yes, we can expand. Testing assumptions is at least as important as testing evidence. Which only strengthens the argument I was making.
Posted by katharina (Member # 827) on :
quote:Because the thing is, I didn't say that what you experienced isn't real. I'm certain you've had real experiences that you interpret as being evidence of god. The point is, though, that experiential evidence isn't evidence for any particular conclusion, until we try to rigorously examine the evidence, and falsify any conclusions we draw from that experiential evidence.
My point was that religious devotion is not dependent on childhood experiences or just on first impressions and then people refuse to be talked out of them. They are often the result of continued experiences and do not rely on shaky memories.
Posted by Jhai (Member # 5633) on :
quote:Originally posted by Tatiana: My earlier post was intended as a possible explanation for why atheists seem to come off so much more intolerant than religious people in many discussions like this. I'm sorry if I hit some hot buttons.
Do you believe that atheists are more intolerant than religious folk (which is what your previous post said), or only that they "come off" as more intolerant? One could be a personal observation & then personal explanation, the other is impossible for you to know, and rude of you to hypothesize without some data to back you up.
quote:I've just expanded my view to encompass that overwhelming majority of observations that don't happen to be repeatable, shared, and objective. There's just a huge amount of experience in life that's personal, subjective, and not repeatable. When you begin to notice and learn from these observations, as well as the other sort, then your worldview can become expanded in new and fruitful directions.
If you believe that scientists or rationalists don't know of or think about things that are not open to understanding via the scientific method, then you don't know many (decent) scientists or rationalists.
quote:Science is incredibly powerful as a way of looking at the world. It's transformed human life hugely for the better. But it does so at the cost of negating, or rather overlooking, or dismissing, 99+% of all observations, nearly all our experience of being alive.
Again, any scientist who would claim that anything that can't be studied by the scientific method should be negated, overlooked, or dismissed, is a bad scientist. It would, for instance, be very difficult to be a good scientist who didn't use mathematics. Math isn't part of the scientific method, but it is used by science, and celebrated there.
quote:The one thing I would want to go back and ask my former atheist self, had I the chance, is how could I possibly have believed such a large number of extremely intelligent people were deluded, brainwashed, ignorant, or simply believed what their parents taught them unquestioningly? Look into history at who was religious and who was not. There's no preponderance of intelligence on one side or the other. No matter who you are or what you believe, lots and lots of people way smarter than you have believed the opposite way. So that tells me that we should have a lot more respect for each other's worldviews than we usually seem to have.
The Greek philosophers have my utmost respect as extremely intelligent people who thought deeply on a wide variety of subjects. That doesn't mean I'm going to trust their opinion on medicine. Someone can be intelligent and extremely wrong on any number of things. Asking why intelligent people of days of yore don't think the same way you do is silly and unproductive. The only problem arises when you have intelligent people who have been given the same evidence and arguments disagree. I have run into very, very few intelligent people (maybe two?) who, faced with the same arguments and evidence as I have at my disposal, still argue that the Judeo-Christian God exists.
Posted by twinky (Member # 693) on :
quote:Originally posted by katharina: I am in a better position to judge which of my experiences are real and which are not.
While this is likely true of you and [insert other forum poster], it may not be true in the general case. It's entirely possible that our own internal context is to a large extent a fiction constructed by our brains to fill the gaps in our perception. IIRC, an example is colour detection in peripheral vision. Your eyes don't actually see colour in your peripheral vision -- your brain makes it up.
"My point was that religious devotion is not dependent on childhood experiences or just on first impressions and then people refuse to be talked out of them. They are often the result of continued experiences and do not rely on shaky memories. "
I agree. My mother is a rabbi who grew up in an atheist home, nominally christian. Each of her brothers are involved in radically different christian churches.
My point is that experiential evidence isn't a good indicator of reality.
Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :
But twink, that way lies The Matrix.
Posted by katharina (Member # 827) on :
Paul: Then we are having separate conversations. I was objecting to the contention that religious devotion is dependent on first impressions and childhood experiences.
quote:While this is likely true of you and [insert other forum poster], it may not be true in the general case.
The cases where it is not true is minuscule compared to the cases where it is true. What are the characteristics you identify of people who are more poorly equipped than an outside person to judge their own experiences? Who is it that you have so little regard for that you don't believe them when they tell what they have experienced in their lives? Who are these masses of people that don't realize that what they think they are feeling is actually something else, and a complete separate person knows better than them about it?
Posted by Mucus (Member # 9735) on :
quote:Originally posted by Raymond Arnold: ... I think the 99% figure is exaggerated quite a bit. I'd put it closer to 50/50, although I'm sure it varies from person to person depending on how they approach life.
The figure is flawed for more reasons than just that. It completely ignores those of us who don't have to "negat[e], or rather overlooking, or dismissing" the majority of our observations, regardless of being an atheist or not.
In other words, I don't have to ignore *any* experiences to avoid being religious. In fact, it is my experiences as a whole that lead me to be an atheist in the first place.
Posted by Mucus (Member # 9735) on :
quote:Originally posted by katharina: ... Who is it that you have so little regard for that you don't believe them when they tell what they have experienced in their lives? Who are these masses of people that don't realize that what they think they are feeling is actually something else, and a complete separate person knows better than them about it?
Maybe he's a cop
But seriously, its actually a fairly commonly known fact that eye-witnesses can be notoriously unreliable, contradictory, and fill-in the gaps with what they think the questioner wants to hear.
Thats why we have legal procedures like line-ups and why forensic evidence is often more reliable than eye-witnesses. The separate person that knows better may not even be a person, it might just be a thing with a record of some sort.
Posted by Paul Goldner (Member # 1910) on :
"Paul: Then we are having separate conversations. I was objecting to the contention that religious devotion is dependent on first impressions and childhood experiences"
To me, you seem to be saying that your religious adherence is based upon your personal experiences that have occured over a long period of time.
My contention is that personal experiences aren't good (or even decent) indicators of what is real. Furthermore, that conclusions drawn from personal experience go untested (or the assumptions that connect the experience to the conclusion). As such, they constitute "first impressions."
Posted by katharina (Member # 827) on :
Sure, in the sense that ALL of life consists of "first impressions." But then you're not just questioning religious experiences, you're questioning all experiences, everything we encounter in life. That's fine, but it's kind of a separate discussion.
Posted by Paul Goldner (Member # 1910) on :
"Sure, in the sense that ALL of life consists of "first impressions.""
Mostly, yeah. But not all. When we test assumptions and observations with the possibility falsifying those assumptions and observations, then we're no longer dealing with first impressions. Its the untested stuff that is a first impression... most of us don't test most of what we believe, so most "stuff" is first impression.
Posted by katharina (Member # 827) on :
You're saying that every experience we undergo and draw knowledge from, save religious ones, are then tested and verified with outside sources? This does not accurately describe human behavior, including your own.
Posted by Jhai (Member # 5633) on :
No, he's saying that most "but not all" experiences are first impressions. Clearly.
Did you read his response?
Posted by katharina (Member # 827) on :
It also assumes a great deal that is mistaken about how adults relate to their religion and their religious devotion. This isn't to say that all adults have a mature set of expectations and relationships, but I notice that there is an assumption that religious adults are all stuck in the same level of maturity religious-wise as the people speaking were when they left their own. That's understandable, but it isn't comprehensive and displays a lack of understanding of how people really do pursue a religious existence.
Posted by Paul Goldner (Member # 1910) on :
So what are my mistaken assumptions?
"You're saying that every experience we undergo and draw knowledge from, save religious ones, are then tested and verified with outside sources? This does not accurately describe human behavior, including your own. "
What jhai said.
Posted by MattP (Member # 10495) on :
quote:The one thing I would want to go back and ask my former atheist self, had I the chance, is how could I possibly have believed such a large number of extremely intelligent people were deluded, brainwashed, ignorant, or simply believed what their parents taught them unquestioningly? Look into history at who was religious and who was not.
Remarkably brilliant people are just as susceptable to being wrong in areas where they have no expertise as anyone else. My father is a talented lawyer but he hasn't got a clue about how transistors work, nevermind logic gates, integrated circuits, photolithography...
If Einstein had said something remarkably stupid about weather patterns, we wouldn't say "Hmm, maybe there's something to that.". We'd say "Well that's not really his area of expertise." If there was any doubt about the stupidity about his comment, we could consult experts on climatology who could articulate why what he said was or was not correct.
Regardless, theists and atheists alike continue to try to claim Einstein for their side as if his brilliance in physics somehow bleeds over into a field for which he claimed no expertise and for which there is no objective measure of expertise.
Posted by katharina (Member # 827) on :
That impressions are untested, for one.
Posted by Paul Goldner (Member # 1910) on :
"That impressions are untested, for one. "
So, what test have you performed that would falsify your religious adherence? And have you attempted to falsify any assumptions you make during your falsification test?
Posted by Jhai (Member # 5633) on :
I think this falls under "accurately verify" again.
(Note for kat: these scare quotes are not used in a negative manner.)
Posted by Christine (Member # 8594) on :
quote:Originally posted by Tatiana: I made an analogy of this to engineering, and how we go about linearizing nonlinear systems, to simplify things. The power of science is just this, by narrowing our focus to what is repeatable, shared, and objective, we simplify things a great deal so that we can make much more sense out of them. Science is incredibly powerful as a way of looking at the world. It's transformed human life hugely for the better. But it does so at the cost of negating, or rather overlooking, or dismissing, 99+% of all observations, nearly all our experience of being alive.
It sounds to me like you're suggesting that most of what we experience or observe is irrational.
I find that I'm somewhat amused by the random statistics being thrown around...50%, 99.4%, 21.435%...
Setting random numbers aside for a moment: What kinds of things are scientists ignoring?
Posted by twinky (Member # 693) on :
I wrote a massive post, but it somehow got eaten in between copying and pasting. Posted by Corwin (Member # 5705) on :
What did you write it in? I wish there was a "auto save draft" function in notepad. Or in IE or Firefox.
Posted by twinky (Member # 693) on :
I wrote it in the reply window, but then I copied it so I could paste it into Word. I closed by browser and did some other stuff (not copying or pasting) between the copy and paste, and when I went to paste my text was gone.
Oh well. Long story short: rivka, I don't see how the Matrix lies that way. The Matrix is essentially Descartes' arch-deceiver; the internal zombie doesn't need an external deceiver.
I don't currently believe in the internal zombie, but I do think it's an open question that will probably be answered in my lifetime.
Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
quote:Originally posted by katharina: The cases where it is not true is minuscule compared to the cases where it is true. What are the characteristics you identify of people who are more poorly equipped than an outside person to judge their own experiences? Who is it that you have so little regard for that you don't believe them when they tell what they have experienced in their lives? Who are these masses of people that don't realize that what they think they are feeling is actually something else, and a complete separate person knows better than them about it?
It is really amazing how many people have deep, intense personal experiences which just happen to validate the religion their parents taught them. When you take five people who all have, so far as we can tell, the same experience, yet they take it as support for five different and contradictory theories, and those theories are clearly extremely culturally contingent, then you're going to have to throw out their own explanations.
Posted by katharina (Member # 827) on :
King of Men, I am not going to dignify such a trashy and deliberately obtuse post with a thoughtful response.
Posted by scifibum (Member # 7625) on :
It's not a deliberately obtuse post, IMO.
Here's the question:
quote:Who are these masses of people that don't realize that what they think they are feeling is actually something else, and a complete separate person knows better than them about it?
The answer, from a religious point of view, is "religious people who believe things that contradict my own religious beliefs." AFAICT, this conclusion is inescapable. They can't all be right, therefore there have to be masses who are wrong.
Why an atheist or agnostic should be any less ready to conclude that there are masses of people who are wrong about the implications of their personal experiences, I can't imagine.
Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
quote:Originally posted by katharina: King of Men, I am not going to dignify such a trashy and deliberately obtuse post with a thoughtful response.
Of course not; nobody expects any such thing from you.
Posted by swbarnes2 (Member # 10225) on :
quote:Originally posted by Tresopax: The real problem is that no matter how rigorously you examine evidence, there is always the possibility that the evidence will still lead you to the wrong conclusion - particularly if you hold some false assumptions that shape the way you rigorously examine the evidence.
That's why part of the definition of being rigorous is to test your hypothesis in such a way that it can be falsified. Confirmatory evidence alone is not a very good proof. If the ancients were't doing the kind of tests that would have falsified their hypothesis, then they weren't being rigorous.
It's not like Galileo or Newton had access to high-technology methods that primative people didn't. If they'd done the same tests, they'd have found the same thing.
quote:In the case of the kids, they could rigorously examine the evidence all day long and they'd still come to the conclusion that objects come to rest - in order to come to a different conclusion, they'd need to be taught to hold different assumptions about the universe.
All you need to do is see that balls moving across a surface will slow down more or less depending on the friction betwen them, and then you realize that their stopping isn't because of their fundamental nature, but because of the friction. It's not that an icy surface is retarding the ball from reaching its rest state, it's that the surface doesn't impede the natural motion of the moving ball as much as other surfaces. I'm sure that there were plenty of people who knew that once something big gets moving on a slippery surface, it doesn't want to stop, it takes a lot of effort to stop it! But those weren't the people pondering Aristotle.
Posted by katharina (Member # 827) on :
KoM: That you have fooled yourself into believing that only those who think as you do think is a grand and tragic failure of yours of your own making.
Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
Just going where the evidence leads me. My 'you' was rather specific; if English had retained its full set of pronouns, it would have been a 'thee'.
Posted by Christine (Member # 8594) on :
quote:Originally posted by King of Men:
quote:Originally posted by katharina: The cases where it is not true is minuscule compared to the cases where it is true. What are the characteristics you identify of people who are more poorly equipped than an outside person to judge their own experiences? Who is it that you have so little regard for that you don't believe them when they tell what they have experienced in their lives? Who are these masses of people that don't realize that what they think they are feeling is actually something else, and a complete separate person knows better than them about it?
It is really amazing how many people have deep, intense personal experiences which just happen to validate the religion their parents taught them. When you take five people who all have, so far as we can tell, the same experience, yet they take it as support for five different and contradictory theories, and those theories are clearly extremely culturally contingent, then you're going to have to throw out their own explanations.
I'm not sure why this has warranted such hostility. It's a fair observation.
One woman loses her husband to a long fight with cancer and realizes that God only gave her what she could handle and surrounded her with friends and family to bless her and so she has come through the experience stronger and more devoted to Him.
Another women loses her husband to a long fight with cancer and realizes that there is no God for if God existed he would not put such a flaw in his design. She decides the outpouring of support is fake and insincere and secludes herself, popping up only on internet forums where she declares her true faith -- atheism.
I've heard both of these before. Powerful personal experiences that support their belief in X.
I'm not saying that they're wrong. Actually, in my personal religious philosophy, they can both be right at the exact same time. But I acknowledge that I'm weird and a the moment, I'm just enjoying this back and forth between the idea that there is a God or that there is no God. And this seems to be a fair point.
Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
You missed two points of my observation: First, in your second case, the woman is not validating the faith she already happened to have. Second, I was actually referring more to spiritual experiences, "feeling the nearness of God", such as many people report as a cause of their conversion or an effect of prayer or meditation.
Posted by twinky (Member # 693) on :
quote:Originally posted by Christine: Actually, in my personal religious philosophy, they can both be right at the exact same time. But I acknowledge that I'm weird and a the moment, I'm just enjoying this back and forth between the idea that there is a God or that there is no God.
I've always thought it would be kind of funny if what happens to you when you die is what you believe will happen. Christians go to Heaven or Hell, Buddhists get reincarnated, atheists get oblivion, etc.
Posted by MattP (Member # 10495) on :
I have a friend who, while his sick daughter received a LDS priesthood blessing, felt a powerful confirmation by the Spirit that she would be healed. She died shortly after.
I have had LDS friends describe the quasi-physical experiences which, for them, confirm the veracity of their religion. I've heard non-LDS friends describe the same sort of feeling not only as confirmation of their own beliefs, but as a confirmation that their belief of the falseness of the LDS church was correct.
I've felt things very similar to what others describe as spiritual experiences, but I can see no reason to believes these feelings were somehow supernatural in origin.
I think these are more of the type of scenarios that KoM is talking about.
Posted by Mucus (Member # 9735) on :
quote:Originally posted by twinky: I've always thought it would be kind of funny if what happens to you when you die is what you believe will happen. Christians go to Heaven or Hell, Buddhists get reincarnated, atheists get oblivion, etc.
There was a funny Lucasarts game called Afterlife which was a Sim-type game based on this principle. It was rather amusing at the time.
Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
Precisely. And to spin a bit further on your example of the Spirit telling someone that their daughter would be healed, if your friend went on to reason that "Well, clearly she is not sick in Heaven, so she was healed", that is the sort of rationalisation I'm referring to.
Posted by twinky (Member # 693) on :
I remember when that game came out! I never played it, though.
Posted by MattP (Member # 10495) on :
quote:Originally posted by King of Men: Precisely. And to spin a bit further on your example of the Spirit telling someone that their daughter would be healed, if your friend went on to reason that "Well, clearly she is not sick in Heaven, so she was healed", that is the sort of rationalisation I'm referring to.
Well sure. It can ultimately mean whatever it needs to mean to be consistent with the extent belief system, though in my friend's case it was clear to him that it meant that she would be physically healed during her mortal existence and, rather pragmatically, he just decided that spiritual experiences as he'd come to recognize them weren't a reliable way to obtain knowledge.
Posted by Christine (Member # 8594) on :
quote:Originally posted by King of Men: You missed two points of my observation: First, in your second case, the woman is not validating the faith she already happened to have. Second, I was actually referring more to spiritual experiences, "feeling the nearness of God", such as many people report as a cause of their conversion or an effect of prayer or meditation.
This is far more difficult to describe in words or example.
Also, if this is what everyone is talking about (and I'm not sure if everyone is on the same page as discussions like this can get bogged down in semantics), then I'm afraid my answer to this:
quote:Originally posted by katharina: What are the characteristics you identify of people who are more poorly equipped than an outside person to judge their own experiences? Who is it that you have so little regard for that you don't believe them when they tell what they have experienced in their lives? Who are these masses of people that don't realize that what they think they are feeling is actually something else, and a complete separate person knows better than them about it?
is: Humans.
A more interesting question than the ones posed here is: What outside observer is so psychic that they can determine which experiences really do support a certain conclusion and which amount to wishful thinking?
Given that I acknowledge myself to be a humble human, on the same footing as those who may or may not be deluded, I try only to make judgment calls when there is some clear and present danger involved, such as when people are sure God is talking to them and telling them to kill people.
Posted by Christine (Member # 8594) on :
quote:Originally posted by twinky:
quote:Originally posted by Christine: Actually, in my personal religious philosophy, they can both be right at the exact same time. But I acknowledge that I'm weird and a the moment, I'm just enjoying this back and forth between the idea that there is a God or that there is no God.
I've always thought it would be kind of funny if what happens to you when you die is what you believe will happen. Christians go to Heaven or Hell, Buddhists get reincarnated, atheists get oblivion, etc.
Piers Anthony's Incarnations of Immortality Series suggests this. Not a bad series, either...some are better than others.
Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
quote:Originally posted by MattP:
quote:Originally posted by King of Men: Precisely. And to spin a bit further on your example of the Spirit telling someone that their daughter would be healed, if your friend went on to reason that "Well, clearly she is not sick in Heaven, so she was healed", that is the sort of rationalisation I'm referring to.
Well sure. It can ultimately mean whatever it needs to mean to be consistent with the extent belief system, though in my friend's case it was clear to him that it meant that she would be physically healed during her mortal existence and, rather pragmatically, he just decided that spiritual experiences as he'd come to recognize them weren't a reliable way to obtain knowledge.
Good for him. It seems to me that to the extent that his faith was based on such experience, he ought then to drop it, or at an absolute minimum have a really major crisis of faith - Halt, Melt, and Catch Fire, as the joke goes. Did he?
quote:A more interesting question than the ones posed here is: What outside observer is so psychic that they can determine which experiences really do support a certain conclusion and which amount to wishful thinking?
Well, that's just my point: It ought not to take a psychic. If you need a mind-reader, then that data point is just plain unreliable and doesn't support anything. Throw it out and find something that produces an effect demonstrable without recourse to internal states of the brain. You don't have to believe in electrons, but when someone flips a light switch, then there is light.
Posted by MattP (Member # 10495) on :
quote:What outside observer is so psychic that they can determine which experiences really do support a certain conclusion and which amount to wishful thinking?
My problems are not with the nature of their experience, but with the conclusions drawn.
Suppose I pray for confirmation of a religious proposition and in response I feel a tingling sensation, a warmth throughout my body, a profound sense of peace, or hear a disembodied voice saying "it's true". These have all been described to me by different people as genuine spiritual confirmations.
Even if I personally experience any of this, I do not see how it follows then that:
* There was an external causality for these experiences. * That the external causality is a sentient entity * That the sentient entity is a god * That the god is "the" God * That God is good * That any other doctrine of the particular religion on behalf of which I'm praying is correct.
(not a complete list)
Posted by MattP (Member # 10495) on :
quote:Good for him. It seems to me that to the extent that his faith was based on such experience, he ought then to drop it, or at an absolute minimum have a really major crisis of faith - Halt, Melt, and Catch Fire, as the joke goes. Did he?
It wasn't really a crisis of faith as people tend to describe it. There was no deep soul searching and emotional turmoil. He just decided that things didn't work the way he had previous thought they worked and walked away from the church.
Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
That was well done, then.
Posted by Mucus (Member # 9735) on :
quote:Originally posted by twinky: I remember when that game came out! I never played it, though.
It was fun, although it would be terribly dated now.
The amusing part was the way the game mechanics worked out. In Hell, you would do the reverse of everything you would in a normal SimCity, try to encourage traffic and build houses near the equivalent of power plants. Plus you had limited power to send down prophets to Earth, making it more lusty to improve your rate of new citizens or making it more evil to add more citizens to Hell (which was decidedly more interesting).
Each of the buildings (rewards or punishments) had a nice description, written by the people at Lucasarts during a good era, so many were filled with great puns and pictures.
Posted by natural_mystic (Member # 11760) on :
quote:Originally posted by Tatiana: I thought of another analogy which may (or may not) be fruitful. It's as though we're arguing over which is really true, Euclidean or non-Euclidean geometry, with the one side ridiculing the other, and both casting aspersions on each other's sanity.
I don't think this analogy would serve your purpose. The difference between Euclidean and non-Euclidean geometries is the choice of an axiom i.e. in the latter case the parallel postulate is REPLACED with another axiom. On the other hand, theists import axioms such as existence of a god, legitimacy of the bible etc., an atheist simply removes such axioms from their world view.
A couple of notes: 1)Some atheists probably do assume there is no god (as against concluding there is no god). My experience is that most atheists do not do this. 2)I'm assuming your talking about abstract geometries; in specific cases there is a right answer. For example, if, say, you are calculating travel distances between say Sydney and New York, Euclidean geometry would not be very helpful.
Posted by MightyCow (Member # 9253) on :
Personal experiences which only confirm things we already want to believe are not necessarily an accurate judge of truth in the world.
If I run race after race against slower people, and win every time, I may have loads of personal experiences which bring me to the conclusion that I'm the fastest man alive, but until I've won the Olympic gold, they constitute a poor sample to come to such an extreme conclusion.
Nobody can tell me that those life experiences aren't real, or that they didn't effect me deeply, or that they didn't give me a real and honest feeling of being super fast, or that I'm lying to myself, or deluding myself. I actually won all those races. I actually felt really fast compared to all those people. All my experiences tell me that I'm the fastest man in the world.
That belief is also completely wrong. I'm taking a set of perfectly good experiences, and I'm coming to a conclusion which has no basis in reality. This could be due to any number of reasons, my lack of experience, my desire for it to be true, the slow people in my circle of friends, the support my group gives me to believe as I do, whatever, it doesn't matter.
The fact remains that while those experiences are true, and the conclusion makes a certain amount of sense within the framework I have set up, in the final analysis, my conclusion is still completely wrong.
This is what I mean when I talk about religious experiences falling into a similar category which lacks the rigor of the scientific method. It's especially telling when several different people describe the same experiences, and attribute them to different, mutually exclusive causes. The cannot logically all be correct, yet they all insist that they are.
That's not knowledge. That's simply wishing to confirm ones own world view, and refusing to accept contradictory evidence or conclusions.
Posted by Sean Monahan (Member # 9334) on :
This whole discussion reminds me of the OSC short "Closing the Timelid". Is anyone familiar with it?
Posted by Destineer (Member # 821) on :
quote:This whole discussion reminds me of the OSC short "Closing the Timelid". Is anyone familiar with it?
Nope.
MattP's friend does sound like a remarkably sensible guy.
Posted by Sean Monahan (Member # 9334) on :
quote:Originally posted by Destineer:
quote:This whole discussion reminds me of the OSC short "Closing the Timelid". Is anyone familiar with it?
Nope.
In it, a man driving a truck along a dark icy road sees repeated visions of people throwing themselves in front of his truck and killing themselves. In fact, they are not just visions, they are physical people, but when he gets out to check each time, they are not there.
In fact they are people from the future, at a party, transporting themselves back in time to experience a weird sort of time-travel-death-orgasmic ecstasy. It's a future tech that just allows people to get off sexually. But they don't particularly care what they are psychologically doing to this person from the past.
The man, however, comes to the conclusion that these visions are angels, and he is receiving a message from God saying that, since he allowed his child to die, he must kill himself. So he does. He purposely drives his truck over a cliff.
Posted by scifibum (Member # 7625) on :
I just had a fantastic idea for a science fiction story. Thanks, Sean, for bringing the sci-fi angle in.
(It's entirely possible my idea has been done, and also possible that I can't do anything with it, but until I know I'm going to keep it under my hat. )
Posted by Tatiana (Member # 6776) on :
quote:For me, religion is much more about a community of people than about belief. It's fine literature and music. As far as I can tell, people who belong to my church don't necessarily believe anything. Certainly we don't talk about that much. I suppose I'm a better Jew than I am a Christian. Jewish religion is much more a matter of community than it is of belief, and I think that's true of us Christians to a great extent, too.
So in effect, Dyson doesn't believe in God but wants to be nice to religious people and copy some of their habits.
Sounds fine to me.
Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
I disagree; this is just more of that automatic respect for a particular class of false beliefs that is so poisonous to real discussion. If you believe that something is untrue, and yet you find that millions of people are not only believing it true but basing their decisions on it, then you ought to speak up.
Posted by Tresopax (Member # 1063) on :
quote:The fact remains that while those experiences are true, and the conclusion makes a certain amount of sense within the framework I have set up, in the final analysis, my conclusion is still completely wrong.
This is what I mean when I talk about religious experiences falling into a similar category which lacks the rigor of the scientific method.
Except that science does the exact same thing. In the same way that you might have thought you were the fastest man in the world until you found someone truly fast to run against, scientists accepted Newtonian physics until it found exceptions where it did not work. It is common for scientists to accept one model based on current evidence, only to change the model when further evidence comes in.
quote:That's not knowledge. That's simply wishing to confirm ones own world view, and refusing to accept contradictory evidence or conclusions.
Nothing in your "fastest man" example involved wishing to confirm your own world view or refusing to accept contradictory evidence. It was only an example of drawing a wrong conclusion based on incomplete evidence. Now, if you got beat by somebody in a race and STILL thought you were the fastest man in the world, that'd be different - but I wouldn't consider it analogous to religion.
Neither science nor religion typically refuse to accept contradictory evidence - both take contradictory evidence and typically try to explain it within the framework of the model they are using, altering the model accordingly.
Posted by twinky (Member # 693) on :
quote:Originally posted by Tresopax: In the same way that you might have thought you were the fastest man in the world until you found someone truly fast to run against, scientists accepted Newtonian physics until it found exceptions where it did not work.
Note that Newtonian physics are still used in an overwhelming majority of contexts -- building bridges, engines, even rockets. Newtonian physics literally got us to the Moon.
Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :
Alice?
Posted by twinky (Member # 693) on :
Huh?
Posted by Corwin (Member # 5705) on :
And I thought only I didn't know what she was talking about. Posted by Threads (Member # 10863) on :
quote:Originally posted by Tresopax: Neither science nor religion typically refuse to accept contradictory evidence - both take contradictory evidence and typically try to explain it within the framework of the model they are using, altering the model accordingly.
Why are the standard Christian or Islamic models of the universe so vastly different than the scientific models? Both postulate an omniscient, omnipotent, and omnibenevolent being that actively interferes in our day-to-day lives. This is a major point of conflict with science.
EDIT: It feels odd to refer to just "science". The conflict is with scientific reasoning, not an establishment.
Posted by MattP (Member # 10495) on :
quote:Huh?
Before your time. Before mine too, for that matter. Posted by Paul Goldner (Member # 1910) on :
Apparently, my assumptions were not wrong.
Posted by Tresopax (Member # 1063) on :
quote:Note that Newtonian physics are still used in an overwhelming majority of contexts -- building bridges, engines, even rockets. Newtonian physics literally got us to the Moon.
Yes you are right. Similarly, one may still be fast enough to win an overwhelming majority of races even if one is wrong about being the fastest person in the world.
Posted by Destineer (Member # 821) on :
KoM,
quote:If you believe that something is untrue, and yet you find that millions of people are not only believing it true but basing their decisions on it, then you ought to speak up.
I don't think this is a matter of principle, it's just a practical question about how best to educate people. I suspect you'll catch more flies with honey, especially if you're talking to intelligent people who don't like to be insulted.
Posted by Mucus (Member # 9735) on :
That last post kinda reminds me of this exchange: link
Now KoM is obviously not an educator, but to bring it back to the first page, the question is not whether Dawkins is actually wrong, but whether atheists should sugar-coat their disagreement in order to persuade more effectively or whether they should just "put the truth out there."
Posted by MightyCow (Member # 9253) on :
quote:Originally posted by Tresopax: Nothing in your "fastest man" example involved wishing to confirm your own world view or refusing to accept contradictory evidence... Now, if you got beat by somebody in a race and STILL thought you were the fastest man in the world, that'd be different - but I wouldn't consider it analogous to religion.
You're correct. I should have elaborated on my fastest man analogy more, as it is incomplete. The point I was trying to make though, is that a rational person can only continue to believe that I am the fastest man in the world (when it's pretty obvious that I'm not) by severely limiting the scope of available data, or by sticking with the original assumption, and forcing all contradictory evidence to fit that world view.
Why haven't I run in the Olympics? The Olympics would just be showing off - I know I'm fastest. Why don't we compare my times to those of top athletes and see how they match up? I only run non-standard race times, because they're a better judge of True Speed.
It's possible for me to convince myself, and my devout followers, that I'm the fastest man based on a small amount of relatively insignificant evidence. I simply must be willing to refuse actual evidence, or construct my worldview such that things only count when they prove my assumptions.
In fact, I defy any of you to prove that I'm NOT the fastest man in the world. You cannot prove it to my satisfaction, or to the satisfaction of my followers. How could you disprove that I'm the fastest, when it's obvious that I AM.
Posted by natural_mystic (Member # 11760) on :
quote:Originally posted by MightyCow:
In fact, I defy any of you to prove that I'm NOT the fastest man in the world. You cannot prove it to my satisfaction, or to the satisfaction of my followers. How could you disprove that I'm the fastest, when it's obvious that I AM.
Ok: 1.I am the fastest man in the world. 2.I am not you. =>you are not the fastest man in the world. QED
Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :
quote:Originally posted by MattP:
quote:Huh?
Before your time. Before mine too, for that matter.
In fact, I defy any of you to prove that I'm NOT the fastest man in the world. You cannot prove it to my satisfaction, or to the satisfaction of my followers.
Ok: 1.I am the fastest man in the world. 2.I am not you. =>you are not the fastest man in the world. QED
You're actually very slow, and you're being deceived by Fastius, the invisible spirit of fastness who is jealous of my standing as the Fastest Man in the World, and uses his invisible powers to trick other people into such false beliefs.
Besides, I have raced my wife and won (obviously, since I'm the fastest) and you have never raced my wife and won, so you cannot be faster than me.
Posted by Raymond Arnold (Member # 11712) on :
quote:Originally posted by Mucus: That last post kinda reminds me of this exchange: link
Now KoM is obviously not an educator, but to bring it back to the first page, the question is not whether Dawkins is actually wrong, but whether atheists should sugar-coat their disagreement in order to persuade more effectively or whether they should just "put the truth out there."
How long ago was that? And did Dawkins have anything like a "real" response that wasn't just a joke?
Posted by Mucus (Member # 9735) on :
Well, that was from a conference in 2006. I think there was a related follow-up in a column or some such. I'll try to take a look.
Posted by Zamphyr (Member # 6213) on :
There is no timer on my quicktime plugin, but the relevant section is roughly slightly less than a quarter of the way through, a viewer asks if he's considered a more 'intelligently designed' approach, that merely stating the truth is not enough and that he should find different ways to appeal to people.
Since its a bit hard to get to the right spot, I'll paraphrase. Dawkins basically responds that he's getting that response during his tour, that maybe he should try more emotion and be more comforting. He states that while he sees that there is room for that approach, it is not his strength which is logic and reason. He says that there is plenty of room for people to try the other approach.
Unfortunately, thats before the conference (I don't know if you found anything especially relevant there), but thats probably more like the type of response he would have given, given more time.
Posted by Destineer (Member # 821) on :
quote:Dawkins basically responds that he's getting that response during his tour, that maybe he should try more emotion and be more comforting. He states that while he sees that there is room for that approach, it is not his strength which is logic and reason. He says that there is plenty of room for people to try the other approach.
I agree with this.
Dawkins's "firm/uncompromising" method of questioning religion works well for Dawkins himself, because he's well-spoken, polite and has a pleasant accent.
Dawkins's method does not work well for any online forum participant I've ever met. People should not flatter themselves into thinking that what works for a super-genius will work for them.
Posted by The Rabbit (Member # 671) on :
quote:Dawkins's "firm/uncompromising" method of questioning religion works well for Dawkins himself, because he's well-spoken, polite and has a pleasant accent.
Does it work well for him? How many religious individuals has he converted to atheism. My observation is that Dawkins' method works well because he is preaching to the choir. He may sway a few people who have already found reasons to doubt their religious faith but most believers and even many agnostics find his arrogance intolerable even though he may be well spoken.
Posted by kmbboots (Member # 8576) on :
quote:Originally posted by King of Men: You missed two points of my observation: First, in your second case, the woman is not validating the faith she already happened to have. Second, I was actually referring more to spiritual experiences, "feeling the nearness of God", such as many people report as a cause of their conversion or an effect of prayer or meditation.
You are overlooking the fact that many people have faith that is not at all based on "feeling" anything and that was not taught to them by their parents.
Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
No, I'm denying this 'fact'.
Posted by The Rabbit (Member # 671) on :
quote:Originally posted by King of Men: No, I'm denying this 'fact'.
Just throw out all the data points that don't fit the theory. Classic bad science.
Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
There is such a thing as statistical significance. Would you like to submit some evidence that the group kmb refers to is large? While you're at it, you might check if they have any better evidence for their beliefs. If many people believe X for bad reason Y, it is not an argument in favour of Y to say that other people believe due to bad reason Z.
Posted by natural_mystic (Member # 11760) on :
quote:Originally posted by The Rabbit:
quote:Dawkins's "firm/uncompromising" method of questioning religion works well for Dawkins himself, because he's well-spoken, polite and has a pleasant accent.
Does it work well for him? How many religious individuals has he converted to atheism. My observation is that Dawkins' method works well because he is preaching to the choir. He may sway a few people who have already found reasons to doubt their religious faith but most believers and even many agnostics find his arrogance intolerable even though he may be well spoken.
I find that people tend to criticize the messenger when they don't like the message. There are plenty of atheists out there writing books; do the people who find Dawkins arrogant find any of these more palatable?
Posted by The Rabbit (Member # 671) on :
quote:Originally posted by King of Men: There is such a thing as statistical significance. Would you like to submit some evidence that the group kmb refers to is large? While you're at it, you might check if they have any better evidence for their beliefs. If many people believe X for bad reason Y, it is not an argument in favour of Y to say that other people believe due to bad reason Z.
So now you are back to overlooking the fact rather than denying its existence.
Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
All right. Suppose, say, 10% of religious people are not following their parents' religion, and have not had any sort of spiritual experience. What significance would you like to ascribe to this?
Posted by The Rabbit (Member # 671) on :
You misunderstand me KoM. I'm not trying to debate you or persuade you. I've seen more than enough evidence here at hatrack to be fully convinced that such a conversation would be pointless. I'm just mocking you for using bad scientific method and fallacious reasoning while evangelizing the virtues of reason and science.
[ December 12, 2008, 08:06 PM: Message edited by: The Rabbit ]
Posted by Raymond Arnold (Member # 11712) on :
I'm genuinely curious what reason people have for believing in any particular religion if they HAVEN'T had a religious experience and were not taught it by their parents.
Posted by The Rabbit (Member # 671) on :
quote:Originally posted by Raymond Arnold: I'm genuinely curious what reason people have for believing in any particular religion if they HAVEN'T had a religious experience and were not taught it by their parents.
There are many types of religious experiences and not all of them are accurately described as "feeling the nearness of god".
Posted by The Rabbit (Member # 671) on :
quote:Originally posted by natural_mystic: I find that people tend to criticize the messenger when they don't like the message. There are plenty of atheists out there writing books; do the people who find Dawkins arrogant find any of these more palatable?
Off hand, I'd point to Carl Sagan and Douglas Adams both of whose writings were reasonably popular with many religious people. That's a hard question to answer since atheist treatises aren't usually the preferred reading choice of anyone with religious leanings (or even without religious leanings) and certainly not a favorite genre of mine.
Most of the atheist philosophy I've read has been very academic and while I find most of these authors much less offensive than Dawkins, they aren't exactly light reading and are unlikely to ever hit the back shelves of Barnes and Nobles let alone the best seller lists.
Posted by Mucus (Member # 9735) on :
quote:Originally posted by The Rabbit: Does it work well for him? How many religious individuals has he converted to atheism.
Well, its not like one can simply do a census and find out. However, there is a rather long section on his website called "Convert's Corner" which has letters from people that want to express their thanks for converting and to give mutual support to one another. The usual caveats about web surveys apply.
quote: My observation is that Dawkins' method works well because he is preaching to the choir. He may sway a few people who have already found reasons to doubt their religious faith but most believers and even many agnostics find his arrogance intolerable even though he may be well spoken.
There is a kernel of truth to this. Indeed, his targeting of in-the-closet atheists and doubting believers is explicitly Dawkin's aim as often expressed in interviews and as part of an organised campaign. In other words, he's often expressed the idea that he has no illusions that anyone can convince the really indoctrinated believers, but that his main focus is to convince enough atheists that are silent about their true beliefs to stand up and mutually support each other.
Perhaps he just has a different opinion than you about how many people do in fact doubt their faith anyways. Posted by Glenn Arnold (Member # 3192) on :
quote:Off hand, I'd point to Carl Sagan and Douglas Adams both of whose writings were reasonably popular with many religious people. That's a hard question to answer since atheist treatises aren't usually the preferred reading choice of anyone with religious leanings (or even without religious leanings) and certainly not a favorite genre of mine.
The difference between Dawkins and both Sagan and Adams (and Vonnegut and Asimov and Clarke, etc...) is that Dawkins is making a case for atheism, rather than being an author who just happens to be an atheist.
I've noted many times that there does not appear to be a bridge of tolerance between theism and atheism in the same way that different denominations have established tolerance using interfaith or ecumenical councils. I wish there were one, and continue to look for avenues that might help bring such a thing into existence.
Years ago I used to participate actively in the alt.atheism newsgroup, and I noticed that most of the threads were originated by theists, who entered the group with a variety of motives. In cases where the theist appeared to be genuinely interested in understanding the atheist mind, I noticed a particular mechanism:
The theist would ask: "Why don't you believe in God?" To which the atheist would give their answer.
Then the theist would reply something along the lines of "how dare you attack my religious belief?"
Other atheists in the group generally assumed that the theist had set this up as a trap, but I often continued the conversation with the theist, and came to my own conclusion that the question had been asked in earnest. It occurred to me that the answer to the question: "Why don't you believe in God?" must be given as a series of statements that detail the logical process the atheist followed to reach their particular conclusion. Which is to say, the atheist responded with an argument in the classical sense. The theist of course took the argument in a less that classical sense, and felt that they had been attacked.
I also noticed that the more academic sounding the atheist's answer was, the worse the response from the theist. When couched in emotional language, the theist was generally more sympathetic. Dawkins' arguments are explicitly academic, and in response to the suggestion that he should be more warm and fuzzy, his response is that this simply isn't his strength. So it's no surprise to me that his style offends so many theists.
Posted by Mucus (Member # 9735) on :
The Douglas Adams choice is an interesting one since as you note, his Hitchhiker's or Dirk Gently books aren't actually atheist writings so much as they are books that are written by an atheist and are particularly atheist friendly. The book that does note some of his explicitly atheist writings is "The Salmon of Doubt" which is a grab-bag of essays, stories, and a bit of a Dirk Gently book.
quote:AMERICAN ATHEISTS: How long have you been a nonbeliever, and what brought you to that realization?
DNA: Well, it’s a rather corny story. As a teenager I was a committed Christian. It was in my background. I used to work for the school chapel in fact. Then one day when I was about eighteen I was walking down the street when I heard a street evangelist and, dutifully, stopped to listen. As I listened it began to be borne in on me that he was talking complete nonsense, and that I had better have a bit of a think about it.
I’ve put that a bit glibly. When I say I realized he was talking nonsense, what I mean is this. In the years I’d spent learning History, Physics, Latin, Math, I’d learnt (the hard way) something about standards of argument, standards of proof, standards of logic, etc. In fact we had just been learning how to spot the different types of logical fallacy, and it suddenly became apparent to me that these standards simply didn’t seem to apply in religious matters. In religious education we were asked to listen respectfully to arguments which, if they had been put forward in support of a view of, say, why the Corn Laws came to be abolished when they were, would have been laughed at as silly and childish and - in terms of logic and proof -just plain wrong. Why was this?
Well, in history, even though the understanding of events, of cause and effect, is a matter of interpretation, and even though interpretation is in many ways a matter of opinion, nevertheless those opinions and interpretations are honed to within an inch of their lives in the withering crossfire of argument and counterargument, and those that are still standing are then subjected to a whole new round of challenges of fact and logic from the next generation of historians - and so on. All opinions are not equal. Some are a very great more robust, sophisticated and well supported in logic and argument than others.
So, I was already familiar with and (I’m afraid) accepting of, the view that you couldn’t apply the logic of physics to religion, that they were dealing with different types of ‘truth’. (I now think this is baloney, but to continue...) What astonished me, however, was the realization that the arguments in favor of religious ideas were so feeble and silly next to the robust arguments of something as interpretative and opinionated as history. In fact they were embarrassingly childish. They were never subject to the kind of outright challenge which was the normal stock in trade of any other area of intellectual endeavor whatsoever. Why not? Because they wouldn’t stand up to it. So I became an Agnostic. And I thought and thought and thought. But I just did not have enough to go on, so I didn’t really come to any resolution. I was extremely doubtful about the idea of god, but I just didn’t know enough about anything to have a good working model of any other explanation for, well, life, the universe and everything to put in its place. But I kept at it, and I kept reading and I kept thinking. Sometime around my early thirties I stumbled upon evolutionary biology, particularly in the form of Richard Dawkins’s books The Selfish Gene and then The Blind Watchmaker and suddenly (on, I think the second reading of The Selfish Gene) it all fell into place. It was a concept of such stunning simplicity, but it gave rise, naturally, to all of the infinite and baffling complexity of life. The awe it inspired in me made the awe that people talk about in respect of religious experience seem, frankly, silly beside it. I'd take the awe of understanding over the awe of ignorance any day.
So Douglas Adams would be one specific example of an agnostic that was significantly aided in his choice to become an atheist by Dawkins.
I guess its in the eye of the beholder as to whether his writings on atheism in specific are more or less acceptable than Dawkins' writings.
Posted by Threads (Member # 10863) on :
quote:Originally posted by The Rabbit: Most of the atheist philosophy I've read has been very academic and while I find most of these authors much less offensive than Dawkins, they aren't exactly light reading and are unlikely to ever hit the back shelves of Barnes and Nobles let alone the best seller lists.
Would you mind giving a small summary of what you find offensive about Dawkins' writing? I've been trying to reevaluate how I approach religious discussions in general because its clear that there is a disconnect between how atheists perceive certain comments and how theists perceive certain comments. In relation to Dawkins, I'm wondering if its his attitude that you find objectionable (perhaps he comes across as aggressive?) or more some of the things he says. He does say some things that are pretty offensive (ex: faith-as-a-virus analogy that pops up now and then) and while they do detract from his argument, its surprising to me that he gets classified as offensive and arrogant when most of arguments are good and written in an easy-to-understand manner (though clearly that's not how everyone perceives them). But impressions are impressions and if he is viewed as offensive and arrogant then I would like to know why so I can improve my discussions.
Posted by natural_mystic (Member # 11760) on :
quote:Originally posted by The Rabbit:
quote:Originally posted by natural_mystic: I find that people tend to criticize the messenger when they don't like the message. There are plenty of atheists out there writing books; do the people who find Dawkins arrogant find any of these more palatable?
Off hand, I'd point to Carl Sagan and Douglas Adams both of whose writings were reasonably popular with many religious people. That's a hard question to answer since atheist treatises aren't usually the preferred reading choice of anyone with religious leanings (or even without religious leanings) and certainly not a favorite genre of mine.
Most of the atheist philosophy I've read has been very academic and while I find most of these authors much less offensive than Dawkins, they aren't exactly light reading and are unlikely to ever hit the back shelves of Barnes and Nobles let alone the best seller lists.
Can you give examples of this atheist philosophy? I ask only because I think some academic philosophy that could be classified as atheist is very narrow i.e. they work from a very specific set of assumptions. The end result of this is that even when their purpose is to augment a classical argument against god, it does not read as if they are telling theists "you're wrong." Which is essentially what Dawkins does. And it's pretty presumptuous to pass judgment on someone's deeply held personal beliefs - this presumption can easily be viewed as arrogance.
Incidentally, another atheist writer that I have seen in Borders is Sam Harris; if Dawkins is thought of as arrogant, then Harris must be regarded as orders of magnitude more so.
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