Tuesday, September 11, 2007 | Reason : Science of Religion | print version

The Atheists Interviews

by Evolutionary Middleman

Reposted from:
http://evolutionarymiddleman.blogspot.com/2007/09/atheists-interviews.html

I've made a commitment to do interviews here with adults who have recently declared to be atheist. Several people have kindly offered their time to be questioned on various aspects of their skeptical thinking on religion and other issues. I've specifically asked for folks who have become rational free thinkers just within the past couple of years. Some of the people I will be talking to have had certain levels of doubt for many years, but would not have described themselves as atheists until more recently. The first interview will appear here sometime this week and then I'm going to try to do a new one every week or two in the coming months.

Hopefully, this can be enlightening for all of us – long time atheists, new ones and people who are willing to question their faith. But I particularly wanted to do this for the "old timers". I've been an atheist for 35 years and can barely remember the thought process that led me away from my religious upbringing. I know why I think the way I do now – it's second nature. But what were the factors that got me thinking about it in the first place? How difficult was it to tell friends and family that I no longer believed in any god? How did it impact my life back then? I don't really remember. Those who were raised in secular homes have an even greater obstacle to understanding, in that they have no point of reference whatsoever when dealing with people of faith.

It is easy to get frustrated when dealing with acquaintances who are stuck in the faith modality. We tend to think that you can never change a persons mind. And, in a sense, you can not. They have to alter their own consciousness, and they virtually never do it based on a debate about religion. You can make the best arguments ever made, and see little or no effect on their thinking. And yet, we know that people do indeed change from faith to free thought. Most current atheists were not brought up as complete secularists.

My argument is that you can almost never change a persons thinking, but you can be a part of the change. You might never see the actual transition, yet these realignments are happening all the time. I would postulate that people hear and digest many arguments, sometimes over years or even decades, and one day realize that they don't believe in god. Someone you debated with 20 years ago and you gave up on as having a shred of rationality may have just this year finally freed themselves of mysticism. You wouldn't even realize that you had made a small impact on that person, decades ago.

I will strive to shed some light on these matters, to encourage those who might tend to give up on others, and to demonstrate which paths are the best to follow while trying to lead others to a natural view of the world we live in. Hopefully, we can learn from these new atheists.

FIRST INTERVIEW: Mike Burns of Fox Valley Thinker
Click here:
http://evolutionarymiddleman.blogspot.com/2007/09/atheists-interviews-mike-burns-of-fox.html

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1. Comment #69470 by baal on September 11, 2007 at 11:32 am

An excellent project - good luck with it! I'm going to read the first interview now...

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2. Comment #69475 by Northern Bright on September 11, 2007 at 11:54 am

I liked this very much:

Just as bald is not a hair color, atheism simply means that gods don't factor into the person's worldview.

but thought he'd mistaken RD's position here:

Even Dawkins acknowledges that he is agnostic on the existence of God.

Dawkins certainly acknowledges that certainty on the question of the existence of a god is impossible, but goes on to say that this DOESN'T mean he's agnostic: the balance of probabilities is such that there is "almost certainly no God".

I agree, though: it's a worthwhile project. Though I'd like to see it developed a little further, to explore what differences their loss of faith has made to the ex-believers: whether they miss anything about their former faith, how they now deal with things they would previously have prayed about, how their loss of faith has affected their view of the meaning of their life, their peace of mind, their decision-making processes etc.

Other Comments by Northern Bright

3. Comment #69477 by Mr DArcy on September 11, 2007 at 12:00 pm

Unfortunately I'm not new, but I am an atheist. Good luck in seeing if these rookies can give us some information we don't already know.

My guess is that many of them got "uncomfortable" with their mental straight jackets and were tempted by natural human curiosity to find look outside the boundaries.

Other Comments by Mr DArcy

4. Comment #69484 by Flagellant on September 11, 2007 at 12:45 pm

The solution is: 'Think long term.' You won't get people to dump their religious baggage easily. And there are ways in which you may unwittingly – and I'm being very general for the moment - make it harder for them to do so. This is where we have to think strategically. We have to remember that changing your mind can be a complex process and that there are ways to help and ways to hinder. A clever, cutting remark may make you feel good, but it will, in all probability, push an antagonist further into their (reactional) delusion. And that's before we consider the effect on the truly open-minded kibitzer…

Evolutionarymiddleman is spot on with the perception that he '… would postulate that people hear and digest many arguments, sometimes over years or even decades, and one day realize that they don't believe in god.' So, please have a care what you say – it may be completely counterproductive now. And good luck with the project, e m m.

Religion - an activity for consenting adults in private.

[Edited for spelling.]

Other Comments by Flagellant

5. Comment #69487 by zarcus on September 11, 2007 at 12:58 pm

will strive to shed some light on these matters, to encourage those who might tend to give up on others, and to demonstrate which paths are the best to follow while trying to lead others to a natural view of the world we live in. Hopefully, we can learn from these new atheists.

I fully support this project. I have no doubt lessons will be gained. Thanks for doing it!

.

Other Comments by zarcus

6. Comment #69490 by USA_Limey on September 11, 2007 at 1:23 pm

This interests me in a number of ways but mainly because I was never raised religiously and as far back as I can remember have never 'believed'. The question this has always made me ask myself is this: if I could re-run my life but be raised with a religion would I have walked away from it?

Of course my ego would like to have me think that yes, even if I had been indoctrinated as a child with a particular faith my intelligence would eventually have led me away from it. But then sometimes I wonder... would it have? I have listened to many interviews, (mostly on this very website), with people obviously smarter than me who profess faith. This is a paradox I still find difficult to come to terms with. It leaves me with the uneasy feeling that if I had been raised with a religious belief it would not have been as easy as I would like to think to walk away from.

Atheism to me seems so obvious, such a logical default position... and yet, and yet. Well I hope you see my difficulty. The experiment that is my life can only be run once and I can't go back and change the parameters to see if things would turn out differently or stay much the same as far as my current views on religion are concerned. Hence, I am very interested to hear from those who were raised with faith and once believed but have now given it up. In some ways it is an experience I wish I could have gone through because those people at least now know they had the strength of character and intelligence to overcome their earlier delusions.

I am left with the knowledge that I will never know for sure, not for sure, that I could have been that strong. On the other hand... I am damn glad I never had to go through any of that crap as kid!

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7. Comment #69492 by Barbara on September 11, 2007 at 1:26 pm

Good article and the interview was well done. I look forward to future interviews. I agree with Northern Bright about Dawkins' alleged agnosticism.

Other Comments by Barbara

8. Comment #69498 by FVThinker on September 11, 2007 at 1:42 pm

Barbara and NorthernBright,
Mike Burns here (the subject of the interview). I heard the words [paraphrased] "technically, it can be said that I am agnostic in regard to God" directly from the esteemed Prof. Dawkins lips during an interview.

Both he and I hold fundamentally identical positions on this matter. In any practical sense, we are both unabashed atheists. Only on a very technical level are we agnostic; but only in the way that I am agnostic on my belief that water is made up of two parts hydrogen and one part oxygen. I do not really doubt that water is H2O because of the existing evidence . . . but you never know!! :-)

I hope that makes sense.

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9. Comment #69499 by Spinoza on September 11, 2007 at 1:49 pm

FVThinker is right.

It's the Bertrand Russell position.

We are, ALL OF US, "teapot agnostics".

No serious philosopher/scientist, or person who truly understands modern symbolic logic, can affirm Atheism as an empistemologically (perfectly) CERTAIN position.

Anyone who SAYS they can, and do do this, is simply confused... That isn't what they are doing.

There is a separation between atheism as a rejection of theism, and agnosticism as a philosophical position.

Both Russell and Dawkins are "philosophical agnostics", while simultaneously Atheist.

And I am as well. :)

... I know the above will confuse at least some of you... and I may get emotional responses saying "HEY SPINOZA FUCK YOU I AM AN ATHEIST AND I AM 100% CERTAIN THERE IS NO GOD!"

To respond a priori:

Yeah, I know, me too, but that is merely to misunderstand the point being made. :)

Other Comments by Spinoza

10. Comment #69512 by Bertybob on September 11, 2007 at 2:36 pm

Spinoza...

I don't think we are all "Teapot Agnostics". I was one, then I read TGD and now am proud to be a "weak Atheist". Not 100% certain, but leaning very heavily to "that God dude don't exist".

I cannot disprove God, but probability (and available evidence) pushes his likelihood well in the direction of not existing.

A "teapot agnostic", puts the probability of existence or non-existence in equal measure.

They can neither prove nor disprove the teapot floating in space so they must be "agnostic" as to it's existence. Same goes for the FSM and little pink unicorn, santa and anything else you wish to add in that vein.

I don't think the majority of visitors to this site can be classed as "teapot agnostics".

Regards,

Rob.

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11. Comment #69513 by Spinoza on September 11, 2007 at 2:39 pm

I knew people weren't going to understand what I said.

I've been an atheist my whole life. I have myriads of arguments for it..

But as a philosopher I MUST be agnostic of necessity. It's a function of logic.

I can rule out conceptions of a God which fall prey to contradictions (a la the problem of evil)...

But philosophical agnosticism is a general point... it says that we don't rule out possibles a priori.

We can however, discern impossibles, and rule them out.

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12. Comment #69517 by zarcus on September 11, 2007 at 3:07 pm

David Eller in an essay published in American Atheist made what I think is an excellent argument for Agnosticism as the basis for Atheism.

http://www.americanatheist.org/win03-04/T1/eller.html

I think Richard D's arguments about Agnosticism and Atheism in TGD were quite silly and needlessly confused. He didn't explain why Huxley coined the term Agnostic correctly either.

.

Other Comments by zarcus

13. Comment #69518 by Goldy on September 11, 2007 at 3:11 pm

I question the teapot part of agnosticism - I'm a coffee drinker... ;-)

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14. Comment #69519 by Corylus on September 11, 2007 at 3:18 pm

What a nice clear interview :)

OT. I wonder whether Flagellant's Avatar is going to change to Anita Roddick soon?

Seems to be a deceased theme going on there...

Other Comments by Corylus

15. Comment #69521 by BMMcArdle on September 11, 2007 at 3:21 pm

I can certainly say that I am not certain.

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16. Comment #69526 by Crazymalc on September 11, 2007 at 3:46 pm

Re: The Agnostism
I agree, that we can't be 100% certain that there is no God, just like we can't be 100% sure that there is no invisible teapot.

This makes us all tecnically agnostic towards both God and the teapot.

Someone on this site, said the following - which I think sums it up nicely:

I'm 99% sure that there is no God. I'm 100% sure that he/she/it is not worth worshipping.

Other Comments by Crazymalc

17. Comment #69530 by Flagellant on September 11, 2007 at 4:14 pm

Hmmm, Corylus (14), d'you know, I never thought of that...

Veritably, god is grott, merdeiful.

Other Comments by Flagellant

18. Comment #69533 by Duff on September 11, 2007 at 4:22 pm

Never under estimate the power of suggesting that religious people are not the brightest of the bright. That is what started me thinking I might be on the wrong side of the argument. As a Mormon missionary, i distinctly remember a very smart young person saying my beliefs were ridiculous. Such a simple statement, but it had an effect that caused me to begin a long process that has ended with a complete rejection of all supernatural beliefs.
Never under estimate the power of a simple comment of ridicule.

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19. Comment #69539 by Mr C on September 11, 2007 at 4:38 pm

I am one of those who have unconsciously been an atheist for many years. Whenever people mentioned their god it smacked of being infantile, but it took RD's God Delusion for me to realise that I am a fully-signed up atheist. I think the word and its ingrained societal negative connotations meant that I couldn't ever bring myself to recognize it as applying to me.

It's just that in my recent zeal for atheism and the debates that I've since been involved in, I find it so hard not to be ridiculing towards others' beliefs. This is even more so when I tell them of strange practices in religions other than theirs and they respond as I do to theirs. In any case, my scorn for all things religious means that I find it very hard to even engage with a believer in the hope of getting them to at least question some of their fundamental assumptions.

As we secularists expect not to be preached at by the religious, does that mean we secularists should not attempt conversions of the religious?

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20. Comment #69542 by monoape on September 11, 2007 at 4:40 pm

I'll be eagerly awaiting these interviews as it may help an upcoming project I hope to start. Meanwhile I'd be interested if anyone can add to the the thread I've started at http://www.richarddawkins.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=24077

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21. Comment #69550 by HappyPrimate on September 11, 2007 at 5:12 pm

Being raised in a religion that tells you from craddle on that you will be tempted by the devil to betray your religious beliefs, it is hard to stand up one day and say I don't believe any of it. Like Julia Sweeney, I declared to myself my disbelief and then went back to religion and finally left for good about 30 years ago. I cannot say it was easy and my family has just recently been informed of my non-theist position to their horror. I've lost friends as well. However, I know I will now never go back into fantasy land and love reality and if people around me aren't happy about it, sorry. I've found new friends and am loving this website. It helps to know you are not alone. There are sane people in the universe. I look forward to reading all of the interviews and hope each person will feel welcome to share how and why they came into the light of reason.

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22. Comment #69603 by Happy Hominid on September 11, 2007 at 8:57 pm

Hi, you all know me here as "Happy Hominid", and at my blog I am "The Evolutionary Middleman".

I want to thank everyone for the kind remarks and support for the project. It's very heartening that what I wanted to do - get us long-time atheists thinking about the trials of new free thinkers - seems to be having just that effect. I believe if we understand what they have gone through and how they came to the default position of atheism (or tea-pot agnosticism if you prefer), we are automatically preparing ourselves for how to approach those who have not yet made the leap of reason.

Also, thanks for the constructive criticism. I particularly thank Northern Bright for -

"Though I'd like to see it developed a little further, to explore what differences their loss of faith has made to the ex-believers: whether they miss anything about their former faith, how they now deal with things they would previously have prayed about, how their loss of faith has affected their view of the meaning of their life, their peace of mind, their decision-making processes etc."

Great advice that helps clarify my thinking. Hopefully you'll be happy with the results!
What happened in this interview is that I went with my basic set of questions, in the hope that it would lead-in to exactly that sort of follow-up. As you can see from the interview, FVThinker is highly articulate and made some sensational points. Long, but great. Because they were long (and there was no way I was going to edit out what I considered to be important thoughts) I had to cut it off at that point. I don't want to do 10,000 words and Mike and I certainly would have had no problem doing that! I have a feeling some people won't give such in-depth answers and this will provide me with good opportunities to explore exactly those points you mentioned. Thanks again.

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23. Comment #69617 by Northern Bright on September 12, 2007 at 12:13 am

I hope that makes sense.

Hi FVThinker, yes, it makes perfect sense! I've heard or read (can't remember which) RD saying "technically, it can be said that I am agnostic in regard to God" too, but he made it clear that it was only in the sense that a number of people (yourself included, now!)have emphasised here: absolute 100% certainty is not possible, but that doesn't mean it's not possible to decide which side of the fence it makes more sense to jump down onto.

To me there's a parallel with the Scottish court system. the jury has 3 options for its verdict: guilty, not guilty and not proven. If they opted for "not proven" every time they weren't physically present when the alleged crime took place and therefore couldn't be 100% certain of what happened, there wouldn't be much point prosecuting suspected criminals in the first place.

Even in a case carrying a life sentence, the jury only has to find the defendant guilty "beyond reasonable doubt". Certainty is a suspect commodity, it seems to me, but being aware of that and being willing to hold a retrial if more evidence becomes available later doesn't mean we can't make a reasoned judgment now, based on the evidence already to hand.

Welcome to a life of free thought, by the way - I've found that everything's a lot more interesting and exciting when you start with the questions and grope towards the answers, rather than starting with the answer and then desperately trying to work out how to phrase the question so as to be compatible with it!

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24. Comment #69618 by Northern Bright on September 12, 2007 at 12:24 am

23. Comment #69603 by Happy Hominid on September 11, 2007 at 8:57 pm
Thanks for that, Happy Hominid, and thanks, too, for taking the initiative on this project - I'm sure it's a very worthwhile and useful thing to do.

Glad you like the idea of trying to draw out the additional information from your interviewees too. To me it seems important because many Christians I know seem less concerned about the truth of their Christian belief, than about whether they'd feel able to get through life without the hope that it was true. In other words, they are afraid that life would be meaningless without God, or they find the thought of just dying at the end of it too horrendous to contemplate, or they don't trust their ability to get through life's ups and downs without the strength that they feel to derive from their faith.

I have been thinking recently that atheism might well seem a far less drastic and therefore scary option if we could find a way of showing that life CAN be meaningful and enjoyable and fulfulled without a belief in God (and eternal life, too, of course), and that you DON'T have to be some kind of superhero (or cold, uncaring robot) to make it through without God to hold your hand.

Other Comments by Northern Bright

25. Comment #69624 by hungarianelephant on September 12, 2007 at 1:17 am

Picking up on Northern Bright's last comment, it seems that death-anxiety is still most people's main reason for hanging onto religion. It doesn't feature much in the pro-religion articles and comments we see here, and the disconnection between that and the thinking of the people they - or some of them - claim to speak for is often glaring. I'd be interested to see how much it features in new atheists' thinking. And that of posters here if you feel like it.

Happy Hominid - good luck with the project.

FVThinker - part of your interview reminded me of Dougal Maguire's question to the bishop in Father Ted: "So you know how, ages ago, it was a sin to eat meat on a Friday, and now it isn't? What happened to all the people who ate meat on Fridays back then? Are they in hell now or what?"

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26. Comment #69650 by pewkatchoo on September 12, 2007 at 3:16 am

Excellent idea. Although I have only been a declared atheist for a few months, I suppose I have always been one in my heart.

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27. Comment #69658 by Caeruleum on September 12, 2007 at 4:52 am

I liked this article. There is a lot of sense in the things he says. It was fifty years ago that I became an atheist, much to the annoyance of my mother. Like EM I can't remember exactly how the effect came about but I believe it happened as a result of reading a lot of science fiction! This was the vintage stuff such as Arthur C. Clark, Eric Frank Russell etc. I think these authors conjured up strange new worlds and societies that put the strange stories of the bible into perspective; i.e. they became 'just stories'. The other effect I suppose was that they simply made you think which is always helpful in challenging preconceived ideas. A study of how people change their minds about religion (in both directions) is an excellent idea.

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28. Comment #69668 by pewkatchoo on September 12, 2007 at 5:30 am

I had a discussion recently with a faith head. I cannot remember the whole of the discussion, but at one point he said to me 'So you think you know things better than the bible?'. I replied that I blooming hope so, in that I have more than 2 centuries of accumulated knowledge to back me up. He just didn't get it that the bible could not be an authority on anything in the modern world given that it was written by a bunch of ignorant desert nomads and their proxies.

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29. Comment #69680 by FVThinker on September 12, 2007 at 7:18 am

hungarianelephant said: What happened to all the people who ate meat on Fridays back then? Are they in hell now or what?"

I can pretty confidently say thay they are not in hell!! :-)

Other Comments by FVThinker

30. Comment #69683 by bouwe on September 12, 2007 at 7:25 am

Flagellant, you make a very valid point (4. Comment #69484) concerning how complex a process it is for the religious mindset to change.

A clever, cutting remark may make you feel good, but it will, in all probability, push an antagonist further into their (reactional) delusion.

This is undoubtedly true in many cases, but then further down the thread we find Duff (18. Comment #69533) who relates his personal experience in losing his belief and tells us:

Never under estimate the power of suggesting that religious people are not the brightest of the bright. That is what started me thinking I might be on the wrong side of the argument. As a Mormon missionary, i distinctly remember a very smart young person saying my beliefs were ridiculous. Such a simple statement, but it had an effect that caused me to begin a long process that has ended with a complete rejection of all supernatural beliefs.

Never under estimate the power of a simple comment of ridicule.

So I guess it all depends on who you're talking to. One would have to make an educated guess on which tact to take based on the type of person you might be speaking with.

If you are talking with a group of believers and there is one taking the lead and being particularly forthright (ahem...the most delusional one, the opinion-maker of the group), then I think one is best served to go with the latter strategy suggested by Duff. You make the opinion-maker look like the complete and utter duff (sorry Duff -- no offence, you chose the name!) that he is and then that might put the seed of doubt into minds of the quieter, more thoughtful ones in the group. As for the head-duffer, he's probably hardcore fundy and it will just make him (let's face it: it is usually a him in the leadership roles in a religious group) even more determined in his intransigence -- you were never going to convince him anyway.

And besides, their opinions are usually transparently stupid and ridiculous anyway. Better to stick to the truth and call a spade a spade (or a shovel, if need be).

Having said that, I am still mindful of the first point so, as said, it is a matter of judgment.

Mind you, when it comes to talking with fundies, if one does come across a case where judgment compels one to go gently, gently, it is a matter of delicate skill to try to avoid making that fundy look stupid. I have found that it is often impossible because the simple act of applying cold hard logic to the fundamentalist's beliefs by necessity exposes those beliefs as ridiculous -- and then you've made them look/feel ridiculous. What to do? If you can somehow be intellectually uncompromising in dissecting their fundy-worldview and at the same time be kind and try to go out of your way not make the easy gratuitous and cutting asides that we wouldn't think twice to make at a site like this (and nor should we here -- it is our oasis), then I'm sure they would appreciate it.

However, if one finds oneself in a group context and you've got a religious loudmouth sounding off their reliospeak -- they need a good dose of logic and ridicule. Then, you never know, in a few years time, someone else in that group might end up talking to evolutionary middleman aka the Happy Hominid on his wonderful new project.

Other Comments by bouwe

31. Comment #69695 by Flagellant on September 12, 2007 at 8:32 am

Many thanks for that, bouwe (32). I had noticed Duff's (18) comment and I was wondering what to say. I had edited my piece down from a much longer post so perhaps I'd left some of the argument, that you both amplify, behind. For example, I was deducing from my own experience in dumping the baggage. (So if Happy Hominid wants to ask me anything, I've got nothing to hide and I remember lots. Lol) I think we have to be constantly thinking 'What are we trying to do?' I guess the answer to that is to 'un-delude' people but there are many ways to do that...

hungarianelephant (26) raised the subject of (contemplation of) death. About twelve years ago, I had major heart surgery and, beforehand, I thought about death and dying. It never occurred to me to 'backslide': instead, I concentrated on being totally ready for the op. My atheism was a very positive part of the whole experience. It was further strengthened by surviving. And to cap it all, I chose to come round to one of my favourite pieces of music: Mozart's Requiem - a rude signal to both 'god' and superstition. Speaking very subjectively, I don't see a problem with death.

I've been to lots of non-religious celebrations of the lives of deceased friends; invariably, the occasion has been wonderful. On another thread, someone asked about what to do about one's funeral. Well, it's my ambition to have none of my friends and family at my funeral, having outlived them all (lol). In the event that some of them are still around, my instruction to them is 'Do what you like, whatever comforts you. I'm not going to notice, or complain, whatever you do...'

Religion - an activity for consenting adults in private.

Other Comments by Flagellant

32. Comment #69704 by Vaal on September 12, 2007 at 9:36 am

Pewkatchoo

I think you mean 2 millenium's accumulated knowledge to back you up, and that is "just" since the New Testament.

Personally speaking, I was bought up in a very religious background. We were bought up to go to church regularly and my father was and is still very fixed in his views. Even now, he clucks at a David Attenborough program, with a "that didn't happen", with all the zeal of someone who "knows" absolutely he is right and the world is only 6000 years old. Conversely, my mother really went through the motions, and I have to say that none of the 5 children are in the least bit religious.I could never comprehend who all these people in church were "talking" to, and it seemed fairly obvious from the beginning that God was created by Man. In fact, I couldn't figure out why anybody could possibly need a "God". It just seemed a bit childish. Still, maybe I was just contrary.

A healthy interest in Astronomy and prehistoric man, including the history of "Gods" is highly recommended to clear the mind of any lingering solipsismal superstition.

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33. Comment #69705 by Mr C on September 12, 2007 at 9:36 am

Thanks for the helpful hints bouwe (32). We should collect these and others up to form a conversion advice centre!

Other Comments by Mr C

34. Comment #69708 by Flagellant on September 12, 2007 at 10:32 am

Yes, good idea, Mr C! On the matter of adapting tone to venue/audience, I watched a recent You Tube video of RD talking at Randolph-Macon Women's College, Lynchburg VA, close to Liberty University, that august institution founded by the thoroughly charming Jerry Falwell (RIS). Here's the link to the questions bit: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qR_z85O0P2M&mode=related&search=. At least half of the audience seemed to be 'normal'.

At question time, there were many fundy questions from Falwell's lot. Richard answered them all with considerable restraint and patience. The last question, AFAIR, from a 'Libertarian', was particularly silly but it gave Richard the opportunity to say something like 'Well, you could always go to a proper university.' It brought the house down.

By saving his one derogatory remark to the end, although his patience must have been fraying well before then, the serious and considered answers that he'd given to the previous questions left a very sound impression. Had he gone on a turkey shoot earlier, this would have been impossible. Everybody, the fundies included, learnt quite a bit about 'real' evolution and something of style, too, as a result.

Religion - an activity for consenting adults in private.
[Edited for sense and 'readability'. Also, this link: http://onegoodmove.org/1gm/1gmarchive/2006/11/not_a_trivial_e.html added. It is a very short clip that has the 'proper university' question and answer only. I'm sorry it's not'clickable' but cutting and pasting works.]

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35. Comment #69742 by Northern Bright on September 12, 2007 at 1:39 pm

I watched a recent You Tube video of RD talking at Randolph-Macon Women's College, Lynchburg VA, close to Liberty University, that august institution founded by the thoroughly charming Jerry Falwell (RIS). Here's the link to the questions bit: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qR_z85O0P2M&mode=related&search=.

Thanks for the link, Flagellant - there were some real gems in here that made me laugh out loud:

1. To a Liberty University student who had asked what the Darwinian explanation might be for the evolution of critical thought: "Critical thinking isn't something that is universally a feature of the human mind."

2. Summing up another question put to him by an LU student: "Do I acknowledge a distinction betwen blind faith and reasonable faith?... No."

3. To yet another such student: "I understand the words of your question."

Great stuff. Very dry. :-)

Other Comments by Northern Bright

36. Comment #69747 by Corylus on September 12, 2007 at 2:24 pm

Northern Bright

Answer #2. Was addressed to our boy Bizarro Dawkins!!

Heartbreaking isn't it?

20 years old, very smart, articulate and polite .... also priggish, prudish, self-righteous and a right pain in the proverbial (but I'm hoping he will grow out of that).

A good mind completely squashed by that bloated pustule Falwell. (I'm with Hitchens here, I reckon he was well aware he was teaching lies). May this quote be etched upon on his grave:

It is impossible to calculate the moral mischief, if I may so express it, that mental lying has produced in society. When a man has so far corrupted and prostituted the chastity of his mind, as to subscribe his professional belief to things he does not believe, he has prepared himself for the commission of every other crime.
Thomas Paine

One thing that would make me very happy indeed would be to see an ex-Liberty student sue that 'university' and the Falwell estate for providing a (I hesitate to even call it a sub-standard) "education".

Dormice are even poorer than Church mice, but I would happily donate cash money to their legal fund....

Dammit, I was determined to be cheerful, but here I am getting all wound up!!

Please forgive :-)

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37. Comment #69750 by Northern Bright on September 12, 2007 at 2:35 pm

Answer #2. Was addressed to our boy Bizarro Dawkins!!

Good heavens. It's a small world! :-)

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38. Comment #69917 by bitbutter on September 13, 2007 at 7:09 am

I also got the sense that Dawkins would agree that technically he's agnostic.

zarcus

I think Richard D's arguments about Agnosticism and Atheism in TGD were quite silly and needlessly confused.

For me this was also one of the weakest parts of TGD. We needn't even choose between 'agnostic' and 'atheist' since agnosticism/gnosticism relate to the question of knowledge and theism/atheism relate to belief. Two separate vectors.

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39. Comment #69941 by walk on September 13, 2007 at 8:49 am

I clicked on the video link mentioned by Flagellent (36.) and Northern Bright (39.), and got the old - "This video has been removed due to terms of use violation" - prompt. I wonder what's up with that.

I found another version at:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-8033327978006186584&q=Richard

This was recorded 10/23/06, and as this is not "recent" I'm hoping it was the same one you guys mentioned.

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40. Comment #69946 by Flagellant on September 13, 2007 at 9:26 am

Sorry you had difficulty, walk. I always check that the links work before and after posting. I did this today, but I've just done it again and I agree about the message. The little link, at the bottom of the original post, still works, though. Here's another link from Richard Dawkins's site to the same material: http://richarddawkins.net/article,303,Reading-of-The-God-Delusion-in-Lynchburg-VA,Richard-Dawkins--C-SPAN2.

I've checked this one, too. [I've just done it again and it still works.] You'll have to look within it for the appropriate stuff but it's not difficult. For the moment I specifically refer to, click on 'Click here to watch this great moment!'

(The link you've given, walk, is the reading part and the questions but it's a bit long. Nevertheless, it's very interesting. If you go to about 1hr 40mins on your link, you'll get the great moment there, too. )

~~If an ISP can mess up a link, it/they will~~. Religion – an activity for consenting adults in private.
[Edited only with respect to link information.]

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41. Comment #69955 by walk on September 13, 2007 at 10:24 am

Thanks! Richard is truly at his brilliant best here, occasionally hilarious, and with great comedic timing!

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42. Comment #79322 by Teratornis on October 16, 2007 at 11:44 pm

In reply to comment #69490 by USA_Limey:

This interests me in a number of ways but mainly because I was never raised religiously and as far back as I can remember have never 'believed'. The question this has always made me ask myself is this: if I could re-run my life but be raised with a religion would I have walked away from it?

I think that would have to depend on the particular religion, how effectively the religion (but more importantly, your fellow religionists) satisfied you emotionally, the number of lucky coincidences you had in your life that you could plausibly misinterpret as confirming your faith, and the number of reasonable ideas you also became exposed to.

Had you been raised in fundagelic Christianity, like I was, your escape might have been easier, because that brand of Christianity with its constant assertion of a God who works miracles frequently and right now, along with all the young-Earth creationism nonsense, makes it much easier to go all the way with atheism upon hearing the facts than to turn into a "murky." The fundamentalists are at least honest enough to draw a clear line in the sand, which the evidence runs right over.

You can be smart and be a "murky," but you cannot be smart and be a fundamentalist, not without expending vast mental energy battling the cognitive dissonance. I testify to this from personal experience.

My concept of God is tied directly to a literal reading of the Book of Genesis, so when I read Gould's proposals for NOMA, it sounds like pure nonsense to me. As if Gould seemed to think there is a chance the young Earth creationists will listen to a scientist dictating to them which topics religion can comment on and which topics should be left to godless science.

Of course my ego would like to have me think that yes, even if I had been indoctrinated as a child with a particular faith my intelligence would eventually have led me away from it. But then sometimes I wonder... would it have?

Well, I received pretty close to state-of-the-art religious indoctrination (which still grips every member of my immediate family), and I saw my way out. So I suppose it would come down to whether you are as smart as I am, however smart that happens to be, or only as smart as the others in my family (and although it sounds and is immodest, I am smarter than the rest of my family, and I have the test scores and degrees etc. to prove it - plus I crush them whenever they are foolish enough to try debating me).

A lot has to do with how smart you are. The smarter you are the more you can think, reflect on what you think, and notice contradictions in what you hear, and the more you tend to read challenging material and associate with other smart people, who are statistically much less likely to share any one specific religion (or any religion).

However, on the plus side, I think the necessary intelligence for do-it-yourself atheism is getting lower all the time, in the sense that the arguments for rationality are getting better and more accessible all the time. I overcame religion years before books like The God Delusion came out. I had to make do with books like The Selfish Gene, along with books that specifically refuted every argument of the Gish/Morris young Earth creationist school. Now there are more resources available to feed our doubt and critical thinking, making it less necessary to expend as much personal effort as I did.

I have listened to many interviews, (mostly on this very website), with people obviously smarter than me who profess faith.

Well, that's a frightening confession, because I find it simple to see right through all the theistic arguments I've heard so far as being nothing more than a giant superstructure reducing to "It's true because I believe it is true." It's very hard to feel intellectually inferior to someone who buys that. I used to buy it, but that was before I understood the arguments.

This is a paradox I still find difficult to come to terms with. It leaves me with the uneasy feeling that if I had been raised with a religious belief it would not have been as easy as I would like to think to walk away from.

I would say it's like giving up any other addiction, or making any other substantial life change such as starting and sticking to an exercise program.

If you could, say, quit smoking cold turkey, and never smoke another cigarette, if you are the kind of person who can do something like that, then you could quit religion with a similar effort. You might not succeed on the first dozen attempts, but eventually you could find your way out.

Atheism to me seems so obvious, such a logical default position... and yet, and yet. Well I hope you see my difficulty.

Of course. Had my life taken a few different turns, I might have stayed mired in nonsense. But I'm not sure. Even when I took religion as seriously as I've taken anything, I could still see a lot of fellow believers around me doing things that looked as silly to me then as they do now. I remember hearing preachers saying any number of things that just didn't add up. There was a limit to how much I could write off to "seeing through the glass darkly."

I think an even more interesting question is, could my life have taken any alternate course that would have ended up turning me into a mass-murdering despot like Adolf Hitler? That's extremely doubtful, of course, because I lack the personal charisma and electrifying speaking skills to command the allegiance of millions, and I think the window of opportunity for despots has largely slammed shut in the modern world because we have too many telephones now (a way of saying it's too hard for a central government to monopolize information in a modern society).

A more realistic question is, could any of us have ended up being one of the millions of ordinary Germans who had to know something about all the Jews disappearing, but went along without raising any objections? Ordinary Germans did vigorously object to the Nazi program of actual eugenics, when it meant exterminating the retarded and deformed children of good German Catholics. The Nazis had to abandon that part of the eugenics program to prevent a mass uprising.

Anyway, the answer of course is yes, most if not all of us could have supported the Holocaust had we been raised in that anti-Semitic culture. The Germans of today have different values but the gene pool has not changed much.

The experiment that is my life can only be run once and I can't go back and change the parameters to see if things would turn out differently or stay much the same as far as my current views on religion are concerned.

True, you'll never know for sure. One measure of your vulnerability to the religion scam might be the extent to which you allow your emotions to be dictated by objectively irrelevant events (this is pure speculation on my part; I know of no psychological research which finds such a correlation). Do your emotions careen up and down in response to the changing fortunes of your favorite sports team? If so, then I suspect you'd have a difficult time escaping theism. I think people who are rabid emotionally uncontrolled sports fans, who identify irrationally with "their" team as if they are actually part of it, are people who suffer from excessive emotional suggestivity. They too freely submit to outside authority telling them how they should feel. They aren't reflective. They bend whichever way the wind around them is blowing. They want something else to tell them what to feel, and they don't question their own emotions - they just succumb to them.

Hence, I am very interested to hear from those who were raised with faith and once believed but have now given it up. In some ways it is an experience I wish I could have gone through because those people at least now know they had the strength of character and intelligence to overcome their earlier delusions.

Well, I think it comes down more to luck. I happened to be born at the right time when the right books happened to be sitting in the right library for me to stumble across because I was at the right university and I needed to be in that library for other reasons, etc.

There was no strength of character involved in my case. I just happened to come across information I found compelling, and I found it so engrossing that I read more and more for years. Once it became obvious that all the religious arguments were bankrupt, I stopped believing in nonsense.

It's like coming home some day and finding that your house burned down. It doesn't take any strength of character to believe what happened. It takes strength to deal with it, but not to recognize it. It would take more strength to pretend you still had a house, and ignore the plain evidence of your senses.

I am left with the knowledge that I will never know for sure, not for sure, that I could have been that strong. On the other hand... I am damn glad I never had to go through any of that crap as kid!

Yes, and perhaps you have the added benefit of being able to actually relate to your family members, instead of feeling like your family is completely insane.

On a certain level, it is impossible for a rational person to respect a theist. It's like trying to respect a person who thinks it makes sense to periodically vomit on himself. No matter what else you admire about that person, the peculiar vomiting habit is impossible to get past. Having to feel that way about one's own family can be a bit ... troubling.

Of course I'm not looking for any sort of pity here. To see people dealing with real problems, watch the news about Iraq. I think all in all, we're doing OK for a bunch of semi-evolved monkeys.

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43. Comment #79327 by Veronique on October 17, 2007 at 12:36 am

43. Comment #79322 by Teratornis

What a beautifully revealing (deliberately so) post. I am finding that I like your posts more and more:-).

I had never been subject to any political and/or religious upbringing. So, obviously, I hadn't any need to combat either political or religious ideology. I grew up pretty much free except for cultural imperatives that are unavoidable.

Over the years I have been involved, emotionally (especially when young) in various 'movements'. I have said before that you made sure you built a successful escape route from which you cannot be extricated. Well done.

This is just a thank you to you. You give me hope:-).

Cheers
V

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44. Comment #79371 by keith on October 17, 2007 at 5:04 am

Mr. Darcy,

Unfortunately I'm not new, but I am an atheist. Good luck in seeing if these rookies can give us some information we don't already know.

I'm not absolutely convinced that the idea of the interviews is to "give us some information we don't already know". I think the main appeal will be the emotional lives of others and their intellectual journey to atheism rather than groundbreaking research. To expect some new information from this would be like sitting down to watch an Ibsen play and remarking, "Let's see if this can tell me something I don't already know about Norway".

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45. Comment #79474 by Teratornis on October 17, 2007 at 11:28 am

In reply to comment #79371 by keith:

I'm not absolutely convinced that the idea of the interviews is to "give us some information we don't already know". I think the main appeal will be the emotional lives of others and their intellectual journey to atheism rather than groundbreaking research. To expect some new information from this would be like sitting down to watch an Ibsen play and remarking, "Let's see if this can tell me something I don't already know about Norway".

Well, there might be something to learn from watching an Ibsen play about how Ibsen writes plays, or perhaps how to act in them, and there might be something to learn from how people evolve from religion to (at least partial) rationality about what sort of persuasive strategies might help others still trapped by religion.

Obviously we aren't likely to learn much that we don't already know about the overwhelming lack of evidence to support the wildly conflicting claims of the thousands of extant and extinct religions, cults, schisms, and sects. But that overwhelming lack of evidence, by itself, hardly suffices to dislodge them. By studying what did dislodge religion from a few minds, we might become somewhat better at dislodging it.

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46. Comment #79484 by Teratornis on October 17, 2007 at 11:58 am

In reply to comment #79327 by Veronique:

What a beautifully revealing (deliberately so) post. I am finding that I like your posts more and more:-).

Well, I can't say I suffer much from low self-esteem, so I'm glad we agree on something (how's that for the least-gracious acceptance of a compliment you'll likely ever endure?). All seriousness aside, I usually prefer to avoid too much in the way of navel-gazing and focus more on the outward objective stuff, but religion is a collection of psychological phenomena and as such, introspection certainly has its place. We know that a mere recitation of irrefutable facts rarely, by itself, knocks the monkey of religion instantly off anyone's back. It certainly didn't for me, the first time I encountered incredulous folks who couldn't seem to believe they were hearing me spouting the religious nonsense I had been fed.

I had never been subject to any political and/or religious upbringing. So, obviously, I hadn't any need to combat either political or religious ideology. I grew up pretty much free except for cultural imperatives that are unavoidable.

You clearly don't live where I do. Not believing in God around these parts pretty much obligates a person to have a solid explanation at the ready, just as choosing to live without a gaswasting terrorist supporter (my favorite factually correct pejorative label for "automobile") also does. I seem to spend much of my life explaining myself, so I've tried to develop some facility at it. I wouldn't say I have "mad skilz" yet, but I'm still trying.

Over the years I have been involved, emotionally (especially when young) in various 'movements'. I have said before that you made sure you built a successful escape route from which you cannot be extricated. Well done.

While I would say the odds of my flipping back at this point are remote, they are not zero. Just as I would abandon my SETI skepticism at the first indisputable evidence of an extraterrestrial civilization, so too would I abandon my skepticism of the supernatural just as soon as someone claims the Randi Prize (and I examined the outcome to my satisfaction).

Who knows? Maybe it will turn out that Santa Claus really does exist. That's certainly not the way I'm betting, but I freely admit I could conceivably lose that bet.

After having already changed my mind on things almost beyond the limit of human comprehension, I'd like to think I have learned never to be too sure of anything. I have a palpable awareness that overwhelming belief in something, by itself, means absolutely nothing.

I do have to laugh whenever I crush someone in a debate, and they go for the last gasp of the defeated, namely to accuse the source of troubling yet irrefutable facts of "dogmatism." Well, mea culpa, I am pretty dogmatic about reality. I have no doubt whatsoever about what happens to a person who makes a habit of leaping out in front of speeding motor traffic, for example. All sane people are 100% dogmatic about things like that. Arguments that expose the nonsensical nature of religion are generally just as solid, albeit slightly harder for some people to grasp because they may require the odd logical inference or two.

Anyway, back to the richly ironic point - I have personal experience with being actually dogmatic, as in refusing to change my mind in response to any argument, always falling back as necessary (i.e. often) to the logically-waterproofed refuge that even though I could not refute the arguments I was just then hearing, there had to be some subtle point we were all missing. Maybe it was one of those things we could never understand until we died and went to Heaven, when Jesus would finally explain it all. So when someone calls me "dogmatic" today, it really is silly, because I've moved beyond that childish religious habit of steadfastly refusing to admit defeat. Someone calling me "dogmatic" is really just tacitly admitting that they failed to present a compelling argument (although there is the occasional possibility that I just failed to understand an argument).

I think in some ways it actually helps for authoritatively religious people to have a go at apologetics. Then they at least make the suggestion that they have the information they need in this life to defend their faith - no need to punt it off to the afterlife. By choosing to present their faith as defensible, they draw a clear line in the sand for the bulldozer of reason to drive at. And the bulldozer gets there every time.

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