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Comments by AlanF


1. What's wrong with science as religion

Comment #222610 by AlanF on July 31, 2008 at 3:32 pm

Giberson's notion of faith is simply stupid. I don't need faith to hope that when I put my foot down on the floor it's not going to pass through. I know that it's not going to.

AlanF

2. Open Letter to a victim of Ben Stein's lying propaganda

Comment #165311 by AlanF on April 21, 2008 at 10:20 am

A truly excellent and kind letter, Richard!

What really angers me about Stein and his cohorts is the gross distortion of the history of anti-Semitism by pretending that it has anything to do with evolution or "Darwinism". I was exposed to some of this racism as a child beginning in the 1950s when I heard extremely racist comments from my grandfather. This man was born in Brooklyn and came from an old line of Scotch-Irish stock that came to the U.S. in the early 1800s. Apparently they brought along all their European racism -- exactly the garbage promulgated for centuries by the Catholic and many Protestant churches of Europe. Grandpa was prejudiced against all non-Anglo-Saxon Protestants, as were his forebears -- "them I-talians, those ni**ers, those Jews, ain't them Catholics something!" etc. etc. etc. Stein and company are liars, pure and simple.

AlanF

3. Fleabytes

Comment #156368 by AlanF on April 7, 2008 at 12:07 pm

In response to: 7693. Comment #156134 by clearthinker

I know that David Robertson has said he's made his final post on this thread, but I cannot let his continued lies stand unchallenged.

: Einstein

: 7410 - Steve

:: However, if David considers Einstein an expert on religious matters, that raises the slight problem for David that Einstein thought theism nonsense.

:: So, David. You seem to have a choice here. You either accept that Einstein was wrong about his pantheism, or you accept that Einstein was right about Christianity being nonsense.

: No. That is not the choice. I accept that Einstein was not a theist in that he did not believe in a personal God. I also accept that he thought Christianity nonsense. My faith does not rest on Einstein. I also accept that Einstein knew what he was saying when he stated that he was not a pantheist . . .

You continue to lie. In my posts 6779 and 7520, I proved that Einstein made apparently contradictory statements about being a pantheist. Contradictory statements cannot be used to prove that a person believed the one thing or the other. That's so elementary it hardly needs to be explained. Why do you continue to ignore this fact? The answer is clear: you have no argument otherwise.

Furthermore, Einstein's general statements show that he fit the dictionary definition of pantheist, so despite any of his protestations, he can properly be called a pantheist. You read both of those posts, and so your continued making of the same disproved claim proves you are a blatant liar. You've fully demonstrated what I said in my first post on this thread:

This David Robertson character is typical of the Christian apologist genre I've come to expect since first debating with such on Usenet in 1991 (talk.origins, talk.religion.misc, etc.). On every forum I've participated in, they're always the same. They always avoid specifics when specifics are detrimental to their cause, generally distort facts and quotations, and often resort to out and out lying when cornered. It's rare, but possible, to convince them by good argumentation.

It doesn't seem to matter what background the apologist has (I've concentrated on Jehovah's Witness apologists, since that was my background) -- virtually every denomination and viewpoint will resort to lying. Fundamentalists and creationists are usually the most dishonest and slippery, but even moderate apologists seem to go out of their way to deceive themselves.



: 7509

:: I've invited you twice now to provide links. Why have you not? I'm not going to ask my vile fellow atheists to do your work for you.

: No - But I do expect you to understand that to comment on something without reading it, is a bit silly.

I suspected that this little ploy was a red herring, and now that Robertson has at least provided a vague pointer to his "Letters", I will prove it.

: GIven that may people here have commented on my letters to Dawkins and that they all managed to find them on the Free Church website - and the link has been posted several times

Robertson expects someone to search through 5,000 to 7,000 posts for a link. Either he's a lazy SOB or he really didn't want me to find the source.

: - I kind of figured you might have the intelligence to work it out for yourself. Anyway since you are clearly having difficulties - try www.freechurch.org and go to Todays Issues (big clue- try the ones with Dawkins Letters in them!).

Even with this help it wasn't trivial to find the source of Robertson's quotation in question. Paula commented on Robertson's book The Dawkins Letters, whereas the Free Church website contains the original "Letters" posted as separate articles. The original articles were posted in 2006 and 2007, and almost every chapter in the book is titled differently from the articles, so it took the better part of an hour of searching through most of them to find the appropriate quotation. It would have been trivial for Robertson to post the exact link. But then he wouldn't have had the opportunity to drag out his red herring.

To recap, Paula commented with the following on Robertson's "Letter 2: The Myth of Godless Beauty":

Classic Robertson distortion ?quot; of the kind we are familiar with from Wee Flea's posts ?quot; follows, when he claims that Dawkins cites letters from Christians chiding Einstein's lack of religion purely so that he can "imply or assert that Christians are either ignorant or full of 'intellectual and moral cowardice'" ?quot; whereas actually it is quite clear from TGD that they are cited to refute the claim made by so many Christians that Einstein was himself a believer. Once more I must ask ?quot; how could an honest mind not realise this?


When I commented that if Paula properly represented Robertson's words, then her criticism was justified, Robertson claimed that she did not. Here is our exchange:

: No - she did not represent what I said. She added the word 'purely' which changes everything.

I see. Well, then, it should be very easy for you to quote sufficient text from your "Letter", or to give a URL to it, to allow readers to judge for themselves.

But I won't hold my breath, given your demonstrable penchant for misinterpreting Dawkins' words, and your apparent inability to realize when you contradict yourself in the space of three sentences.

: Its always dangerous to comment on something you have not read- especially when you are making accusations.

Um, remember that I said to you, "If such and such . . .", which gave you the opportunity to post the text in question.

: I did not say that Dawkins cites the letters 'purely' so that he can accuse Christians of 'intellectual and moral cowardice'. I actually pointed out that there were other letters which could be used to show that Christians disagreed with Einsteins view. I acknowledged the purpose in that. But why did Dawkins cite these particular ones? So that, as well as showing that some religious leaders in the 1940's did not agree with Einstein, he could also mock and make his comments about ignorance and intellectual and moral cowardice.

Methinks that now you're changing your tune. But again, if you cite the full text of your "Letter" or a URL for it, you can clear this up.


Robertson's original "Letter" from 15 November 2006 can be found here: Dawkins - A Religious Non-Believer . Here is what Robertson wrote and what Paula commented on (assuming that the 2006 article and the book read the same):

I also find that you have an interesting use of quotations. You cite letters from an American Roman Catholic and the president of a historical society. I am sure they are not the only letters sent by those who disagreed with Einstein's views but they are the ones you selected. Why? Because they allow you to imply or assert that Christians are either ignorant or full of 'intellectual and moral cowardice'. It is the classic ad hominem argument. Look how stupid these Christians are, therefore God cannot exist. I, as a Christian do not agree with either the tone or the substance of those letters, and I know of very few Christian scholars who would (but you already covered your bases with that one by declaring there is no such thing as Christian scholarship!). In particular the oft cited, but biblically false assertion "as everyone knows, religion is based on Faith, not knowledge". I would argue the opposite ?quot; faith without knowledge is blind and stupid. Biblical faith is in a person. If you do not know about that person you cannot have faith in him.

How would you feel if I took some of the more ludicrous and ignorant comments from some of the atheists on your website and used them as an example of how atheism rots the brain? It would not be fair nor honest. By the way I would also like to acknowledge that I have received some kind, thoughtful and intelligent letters from other atheists.


Any reader with at least half a brain can see that the only reason Robertson gave for Dawkins citing the "letters from an American Roman Catholic and the president of a historical society" was that "they allow you to imply or assert that Christians are either ignorant or full of 'intellectual and moral cowardice'." Because this is the only reason that Robertson allows for Dawkins' citations, it is perfectly reasonable for Paula to have stated that Robertson claimed that Dawkins made the citations purely for that reason.

So Robertson's claim that Paula's use of "purely" "changes everything" is demonstrably false. And of course, Robertson's completely ignoring all of the arguments that I've made in previous posts showing Dawkins' real reason for using those citations -- exactly as Paula stated in her review and contradicting Robertson's deliberate distortion -- further proves his intellectual dishonesty. Furthermore, Robertson's stalling on giving a URL for his "Letters" proves that his entire endeavor to justify himself is nothing but a huge, stinking red herring.

Way to go, David! You've managed to outdo even the most ridiculous and dishonest of the hundreds of Jehovah's Witness apologists I've dealt with for so many years.

I don't know what it is about the Christian apologist mindset that makes these people so inclined toward scholastic dishonesty and all manner of deceitfulness. I have a number of good Christian friends who are quite honest about their beliefs and about problems with these beliefs. But the fact that the apologists always resort to the same kind of distortions must say something fundamental about their need to defend their beliefs.

AlanF

4. Fleabytes

Comment #154576 by AlanF on April 3, 2008 at 1:17 pm

In response to: 7577. Comment #154297 by gimlibengloin

:: Of course, a great deal has been learned from the paleontological record since 1993, and I suspect that even such a scientist as Feduccia will have changed his mind by now.

: Well, you can suspect all you like but suspect doesn't equal evidence. As Sarfati pointed out Feduccia isn't just your average bird watcher and he made his views more than clear on Arch'y. If he has changed his mind someone needs to dig up the evidence.

I did a bit of research and found that Feduccia has not changed his mind. Indeed, he is quite convinced that birds and dinosaurs had a common ancestor about 220 million years ago. This of course does anti-evolutionists no good at all.

Here is what Feduccia told a Discover Magazine interviewer along these lines (http://discovermagazine.com/2003/feb/breakdialogue):

Creationists have used the bird-dinosaur dispute to cast doubt on evolution entirely. How do you feel about that?

Creationists are going to distort whatever arguments come up, and they've put me in company with luminaries like Stephen Jay Gould, so it doesn't bother me a bit. Archaeopteryx is half reptile and half bird any way you cut the deck, and so it is a Rosetta stone for evolution, whether it is related to dinosaurs or not. These creationists are confusing an argument about minor details of evolution with the indisputable fact of evolution: Animals and plants have been changing. The corn in Mexico, originally the size of the head of a wheat plant, has no resemblance to modern-day corn. If that's not evolution in action, I do not know what is.


I found some other interesting comments about bird evolution, fossils and Feduccia's opinions. Here are some of them:

Describing an Archaeopteryx found in Bavaria in 1861 (http://geowords.com/histbookpdf/h17.pdf):

. . . a complete Archaeopteryx skeleton was found with feather impressions in their life arrangement. The skeleon had the appearance of a bipedal saurischian dinosaur and would have been so classified, were it not for the feathers. . . From Solnhofen limestone, a tenth, and most complete, skeleton (now owned by the Wyoming Dinosaur Center, Thermopolis, WY) has feet with second toes that could be hyperextended as in dromaeosaurs and troodontids, and first toes pointing (as preserved) sideways as does a human thumb and not backwards as in perching birds. . .

According to most descriptions, birds diverged from small, bipedal when running, theropod dinosaurs (maniraptors). But the oldest fossils of these date 115 million years old, and Archaeopteryx is of Tithonian Age (146-151 My). "You can't be your own grandmother," Alan Feduccia in 2002 teases those in the camp of opinions who would have it so. In 2003, Xu Xing described from the Low Cretaceous Jehol Group of western Liaoning, China, two small (77 cm long) Microraptor gui, unequivocally a dromaeosaur theropod and with feathers on arms, legs and tail. These fossils, 124-128 million years old, non-avian dinosaurs, are not on the line that became birds, but as Alan Brush has said, "many dinosaur traits fit neatly into a family tree branching into birds." M. gui has feet comparable to those of arboreal birds and forelimbs similar to those of Archaeopteryx. . .


This article points out some problems with idea that birds evolved from theropod dinosaurs, and mentions that Alan Feduccia points to a common ancestor between dinosaurs and birds around 220 million years ago. In any case, the comments contain extremely interesting points: the only Archaeopteryx skeleton that retains the feet show that the feet were not those of a perching bird, but were like those of dromaeosaurs (the "raptors" of the movie "Jurassic Park" were such) and troodontids (another relatively small bird-like theropod) in that the second toes could be "hyperextended". On the other hand, the later dromaeosaur Microraptor gui had feet similar to perching birds and forelimbs similar to those of Archaeopteryx. Obviously, the evolution of all these creatures was extremely complex, bushy as many paleontologist like to say. So the whole story is far from in.

Feduccia's bottom line is merely that theropd dinosaurs were not bird ancestors (http://www.physorg.com/news7112.html):

We all agree that birds and dinosaurs had some reptilian ancestors in common. But to say dinosaurs were the ancestors of the modern birds we see fying around outside today . . . is a big mistake.


Feduccia thinks that most birds were killed off in the great extinction at the end of the Cretaceous Period that also killed off the dinosaurs. But he thinks that modern birds experienced a sort of evolutionary big bang after that. Go to this link (http://www.museum.lsu.edu/~Remsen/FeducciaTREE.pdf) for a picture of Feduccia's idea of bird evolution.


:: Whatever Feduccia thought or thinks, even as of 1993 most paleontologists realized that Archaeopteryx was a transitional form, in the sense of having a body structure that has strong features of both coelurosaurian dinosaurs and modern birds. I researched this topic thoroughly in 1991-1992 and presented a summary here: http://corior.blogspot.com/2006/02/part-5-gulf-between-reptiles-and-birds.html . Today the evidence for the evolution of birds from dinosaurs is far stronger."

: I'll read that:

Hopefully you'll have seen that the physical evidence is as Feduccia stated above: "Archaeopteryx is half reptile and half bird any way you cut the deck, and so it is a Rosetta stone for evolution, whether it is related to dinosaurs or not."

: as well as Billy's suggestion but again the real issue is lineage isn't it?

An issue certainly is lineage, but one can only decide that based on all available evidence. Today the evidence is inconclusive, but despite Feduccia's misgivings appears to be pointing more and more to, at the very least, a common ancestor between certain theropod dinosaurs and birds. More evidence is coming in all the time. I recently read someplace (can't remember where) that some researchers have concluded that certain theropods had bird-style lungs.

The Reverend Dark commented on your mention of the platypus. I will say that I've seen this canard brought up by creationists before, but to no avail.

AlanF

5. Fleabytes

Comment #154189 by AlanF on April 2, 2008 at 8:18 pm

mikejswalker said:

: Shit a brick!! This thread's a big fat unstoppable seal puppy!!

Maybe so, but you're drunk. Therefore God exists.

AlanF

6. Fleabytes

Comment #154136 by AlanF on April 2, 2008 at 6:31 pm

BillySands commented to GBG:

:: Archaeopteryx is one of the few examples that can be put forward yet evolutionists disagree even over this. I quoted you one leading authority (not a creationist) who stated that Archaeopteryx was no more than a perching bird.

: Ah, the fallacy of the argument from authority. I gave you a list of anatomical features, you gave me a quote probably taken out of context.

It appears that GBG has taken his claim from the Young-Earth Creationist website "Answers in Genesis" ( http://www.answersingenesis.org/docs2/4254news3-24-2000.asp ) from an article by the well-known YEC Jonathan Sarfati, who quotes from "Dr Alan Feduccia, a world authority on birds at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and an evolutionist" as follows:

"Paleontologists have tried to turn Archaeopteryx into an earth-bound, feathered dinosaur. But it's not. It is a bird, a perching bird. And no amount of 'paleobabble' is going to change that." From Feduccia, A.; in: V. Morell, Archaeopteryx: Early Bird Catches a Can of Worms, Science 259(5096):764-65, 5 February 1993.

Of course, a great deal has been learned from the paleontological record since 1993, and I suspect that even such a scientist as Feduccia will have changed his mind by now.

Whatever Feduccia thought or thinks, even as of 1993 most paleontologists realized that Archaeopteryx was a transitional form, in the sense of having a body structure that has strong features of both coelurosaurian dinosaurs and modern birds. I researched this topic thoroughly in 1991-1992 and presented a summary here: http://corior.blogspot.com/2006/02/part-5-gulf-between-reptiles-and-birds.html . Today the evidence for the evolution of birds from dinosaurs is far stronger.

AlanF

7. Fleabytes

Comment #154045 by AlanF on April 2, 2008 at 12:53 pm

Frankus1122 wrote:

:: I can say deliberately because you're not so stupid that you don't understand exactly what we said and meant.

: I am not so sure of that.

In that vein, I would say rather that David is morally stupid in the sense that when he is led to water he refuses to drink. Why does he refuse? For the same reason that so many religious people refuse to deal with reality. They can't face the real world without their religious crutch -- a crutch they usually acquired when small children. Their entire world would collapse without Big Sky Daddy.

I know exactly how this moral stupidity works with people I now classify as religious fanatics. Years ago, during my personal religious struggle, I was speaking to my fanatical Jehovah's Witness mother on the phone and complaining that neither she nor any of the other JWs I had been begging for answers were giving straight answers, but only excuses. I asked her, "Mom, how would you handle these questions if one of your Bible students asked them?" She said, "Well, I'd try to convince them to put the questions aside until after they got baptized." (Baptism is a formal induction into the JW cult.) "What would you then do to answer their questions?" sez I, somewhat naively. "Well I would hope that by then they'd have enough sense not to ask them any more!" she said, without a trace of embarrassment. "Do you know what you just told me?" I said. "What?" "You just told me that you would deliberately lie to your Bible students if you thought you could trick them into becoming a JW." "Oh! Oh! I can't deal with this anymore!" she said, and handed the phone to her husband.

This is the mindset of Fundamentalists: to lie and not be conscious of it. So Orwellian.

AlanF

8. Fleabytes

Comment #154010 by AlanF on April 2, 2008 at 11:39 am

In response to: 7403. Comment #153728 by clearthinker

You know, David, your latest response here has convinced me that the many comments from other posters that you are a deliberate liar are on the money. I will add "pathological". Here's why:

: Einstein -

: Steve - 6626 -

:: I hope you realise that whether or not he disliked how people quoted him has no relevance to what his belief was in relation to the existence of God. and 6650 No. The question is what Einstein was, NOT what he said he was/blockquote>

: One of my favourite quotes ever on this site. Such overwhelming arrogance. What Einstein said he was is not the question - what we say he was is what matters!

Lie number one.

In post 7421 Steve replied:

That is not what I was saying.

I said it is irrelevant what Einstein said he was in terms of being a pantheist, if what he said revealed that his views were pantheistic. It is not what we say, it is about definitions of terms. It is what the dictionary says.


I proved, in post 6779 -- which you read and of which you ignored 99% -- using quotations from Jammer, that Einstein made contradictory statements about being a pantheist. On the one hand he said he thought he couldn't call himself a pantheist, but on the other hand he said that in common parlance his beliefs could be described as pantheistic. "Common parlance" is what dictionaries use to define words, so Steve is correct. And you have deliberately misrepresented what he said, and ignored what I said. I can say deliberately because you're not so stupid that you don't understand exactly what we said and meant.


: Alan 6779 - Incredible that you manage to write so much without having read the material you are commenting on! Even by the standards of FA that takes some doing. You don't even know where my letters are - plenty people here can tell you!

I've invited you twice now to provide links. Why have you not? I'm not going to ask my vile fellow atheists to do your work for you.

: Perhaps next time before you accuse people of lying you could actually read what they have said.

More misrepresentations -- lies. In post 6632 I explicitly stated that I was relying on Paula's summary of your "Letters". I gave you the opportunity to post a link or to post the full text. You failed to do so. In post 6779 I gave you further opportunity in this exchange:

. . . it should be very easy for you to quote sufficient text from your "Letter", or to give a URL to it, to allow readers to judge for themselves.

But I won't hold my breath, given your demonstrable penchant for misinterpreting Dawkins' words, and your apparent inability to realize when you contradict yourself in the space of three sentences.

: Its always dangerous to comment on something you have not read- especially when you are making accusations.

Um, remember that I said to you, "If such and such . . .", which gave you the opportunity to post the text in question.

: I did not say that Dawkins cites the letters 'purely' so that he can accuse Christians of 'intellectual and moral cowardice'. I actually pointed out that there were other letters which could be used to show that Christians disagreed with Einsteins view. I acknowledged the purpose in that. But why did Dawkins cite these particular ones? So that, as well as showing that some religious leaders in the 1940's did not agree with Einstein, he could also mock and make his comments about ignorance and intellectual and moral cowardice.

Methinks that now you're changing your tune. But again, if you cite the full text of your "Letter" or a URL for it, you can clear this up.


The fact, David, that you have twice deliberately failed to post links to your letters, or post a full text, speaks volumes about your honesty. I suspect that you really don't want me to see your "Letters". At least, not without buying your book. Which I will not.


The only thing you commented on from my post 6779:

:: Again, I think that he was well aware that, as a public figure, he had to kow-tow to the prevailing theistic mindset of much of Western society.

: Of course. Einstein was a coward who kow-towed. Yep - that fits his profile - if you live in atheist fantasy land!

Misrepresentation number three -- another lie. I did not say or imply that Einstein was a coward. You put words in my mouth. In doing so, you lied. The proof that you lied is shown by the fact that I fully justified my comment about Einstein kow-towing to the prevailing theistic mindset of much of Western society by making:

. . . the point that Einstein almost certainly did not want to be labeled "atheist" for the same reason that atheists in the U.S. cannot be elected to public office -- the ill will shown toward them by the Christian majority. Remember that Einstein took a lot of flak from Jewish and Christian spokesmen for denying the existence of the Judeo-Christian personal God. How much more would he have taken had he explicitly acknowledged what in practical terms amounts to an atheistist belief -- that a supernatural personal god of any sort does not exist. He could get around this problem only by equivocating and claiming belief in a nebulous god-in-the-universe that has no supernatural aspect whatsoever (which amounts to pantheism). This is clear to me from Einstein's comments in 1945 (from the above-linked website): . . .


By ignoring my stated reason for my comment, and attributing a false reason, you deliberately misrepresented me, and so you're a liar.


: Remember the golden rule according to Steve, is that it does not matter what Einstein said he was, it matters what we say he was.

Sticking with the lies, eh?

: So now he is a closet atheist/pantheist who was just too scared to come out. If only the 'A' campaign had been around then to enlighten him!

I have little doubt that Einstein, in today's environment, would have been less inclined to pad his feelings.


: Alan F 7333

:: Well, no surprise, it looks like David Robertson has bowed out of our discussion of how he misrepresented Dawkin's use of Einstein in his book that Paula reviewed

: No. Wrong again. I already answered your comments. see 6645

My comment was about my post 6779 -- of which you ignored 99%. My comment stands.

: - And suggested that you actually read the things you are commenting on. It usually helps.

Post a URL and then I can comment. But I think you're afraid to.

: Of course it won't make any difference to you because you have already decided the outcome.

Not at all. I've commented based on Paula's summary and on what you've written on this forum. But based on what I've seen so far on this forum -- that you engage in deliberate obfuscation of issues and misrepresentation of what posters like me have to say -- I can be pretty sure of the outcome.


As for your continued and stupid misuse of the word "fundamentalism" by applying it to atheists, let me explain why this cannot apply to me personally (I and other more competent posters have already explained the logical reason why it's stupid to apply it this way):

From the late 1970s through the early 1990s I gradually extricated myself from the Jehovah's Witness cult. I gradually realized that the leaders of this destructive cult were not the unique "speakers for God to mankind" that they claimed to be. During this time I learned a great deal about many other forms of Christianity and about real science. I read various Christian apologetic works and found that most of the authors engaged in exactly the same gross misrepresentations of most everything that official and unofficial JW apologists did. Note that I'm mainly speaking here of the apologists not the rank and file. At one point, near the end of my personal struggle, there came a crisis. Several close Christian friends, including JWs, moderate Christians and Evangelicals, encouraged me to pray to God for help. I prayed a good deal and poured my heart out to God. Guess what? No answer. After months passed, I realized that either God wasn't listening or he wasn't there. If he wasn't listening, I thought, "What am I? Chopped liver?" (from the American comedian Don Rickles). But after thinking about what all my Christian friends said about God, I could only conclude that God is most likely not there. Since then I have not seen a single thing that convinces me otherwise. In fact, the existence of people like you -- a thoroughly dishonest Christian apologist -- convinces me more all the time that there is no Christian God. He would have to be an idiot to allow such people to apologize for him. Of course, as is true of most atheists I've talked to, if there really is such a God, or any other personal God, if he communicated with me in an unambiguous way, I would be delighted to sit down and ask him many questions. But I'm not holding my breath.

AlanF

9. Fleabytes

Comment #152211 by AlanF on March 30, 2008 at 12:52 pm

Well, no surprise, it looks like David Robertson has bowed out of our discussion of how he misrepresented Dawkin's use of Einstein in his book that Paula reviewed.

AlanF

10. Fleabytes

Comment #148861 by AlanF on March 24, 2008 at 10:45 am

On: 6826. Comment #148407 by Bonzai

: . . . An "atheist", therefore to Einstein was not a just a non believer, but a positive Philistine, a vulgar materialist who was tone deaf to "the music of the spheres".

You may well be right. Terms like "atheism" certainly evolve in meaning, as I think we're seeing today as the term takes on a good deal more respectability compared to what it had in, say, the 1960s.

AlanF

11. EXPELLED!

Comment #148400 by AlanF on March 22, 2008 at 11:09 pm

All this is hysterically funny! The faux pretense that what they're doing is really of any consequence in the real world!

It reminds me of my own "underground" excursion back in 2001 when I crashed a Jehovah's Witness "Elders Meeting" where some 1200 JW elders met in Fremont, California, for 12 hours of "divine instruction". Suffice to say that I recorded the entire 12 hours of bullshit and caused it to be published on the Net soon thereafter. My personal satisfaction can hardly be measured.

AlanF

12. Fleabytes

Comment #148399 by AlanF on March 22, 2008 at 10:55 pm

Response to: 6784. Comment #148305 by Steve Zara

:: I suspect most readers will disagree.

: I disagree, and I would like to add to praise of your useful, and highly educational, contribution here.

Thank you!

: I have seen David's tactics many, many times. It is "recursive arguing". If you can't deal with large issues, put them aside, go into into a smaller side issue. If you can't deal with that, go into yet a smaller issue and so on. The point is that by eventually finding something where you can claim victory, you can attempt to extrapolate this victory all the way back to a large issue.

Exactly the point of my first post on this thread, with respect to my 17 years of online experience dealing with people like David. It's pretty amazing, from a psychological point of view, how these folks come up with exactly the same tactics without consulting with each other. I think that it speaks volumes about the Fundamentalist mindset, which is a subset of the mindset of virtually all people with bogus ideas that they know, deep down, are bogus. Such ideas include astrology, Velikovskyism, the Earth Centric view of early 20th century Missouri Synod Lutherans, Young-Earth Creationism, "Intelligent Design" creationism, etc.

An extremely useful and enlightening book was published in 1957 by Leon Festinger: When Prophecy Fails: A Social and Psychological Study of A Modern Group that Predicted the Destruction of the World. The psychological principles that Festinger speaks about are applicable to an extremely widespread set of groups of, well, morons, that inhabit our world even today. Plenty of books have been written about how people succumb to such groups, or are sucked into them in childhood. But such is the stuff of Dawkins' The God Delusion.

: And so we end up with (for example) an attempt to deal with the "deeply offensive" way that Dawkins did not correctly the handle Einstein's "pantheism".

Right. Not even a tempest in a teapot. But to be complete, such tempests must be dealt with.

: You handled that with skill.

Thank you.

AlanF

13. Fleabytes

Comment #148299 by AlanF on March 22, 2008 at 3:31 pm

Thank you for your kind words, Styrer.



In response to: 6645. Comment #147949 by clearthinker

: More on Einstein.

: Alan F (6632) .

: 1) The letters are not cited by Dawkins to prove (as Paula alleges) that Einstein was not a believer.

You can deny Dawkins' own words all you want, but he is quite clear: He explicitly states that he wants readers to understand that Einstein can in no way be used to support supernatural religion. Why? Because some "religious apologists understandably try to claim Einstein as one of their own."

: Dawkins (rightly) uses Einsteins own words - not the words of those who opposed him. The letters he cites are intended to show that some religious people at the time did not think Einstein was a believer. This is done in order to refute the view that Dawkins sees in religious apologists the tendency to claim Einstein as one of their own.

Exactly what I just said. So what's your problem? I quoted Dawkins to prove exactly this.

: It is interesting that Dawkins does not cite any of these modern day apologists. I certainly am not aware of any but would think that if RD can cite representative people from the 1940's - then today should not be too difficult. So RD where is your evidence that today religious apologists are claiming Einstein as one of their own?

I myself can vouch that Christian Fundamentalists often use Einstein to bash atheism (of course, not realizing that Einstein bashes Christian Fundamentalism even more). I've seen it many times on various discussion boards. For example, on a discussion board oriented toward ex-Jehovah's Witnesses one such person (he cited no sources but is clearly borrowing from some Fundamentalist tract) wrote:

Alan F, what does it say to YOU when people such as Einstein, Copernicus, Sir Francis Bacon, Johannes Kepler, Galileo, Descartes, Newton, Boyle, Faraday, Mendel, Kelvin, Max Planck, and thousands of others scientists, philosophers, leaders such as Ghandi, MLK, every single President elected and many other successful people as well as BILLIONS of others believe in a Supreme Intelligent Designer and REJECT ATHEISM OUTRIGHT.


: Anyway the main point is that the letters are not cited to prove that Einstein was not a Christian.

Duh. The point was that Dawkins cited the letters to prove that believers cannot properly cite Einstein in favor of belief in a supernatural god of any sort.

: Paula asks how 'an honest mind' could not realise that Dawkins cites the letters to prove that Einstein was not a believer? The answer is quite simple. Because he did not. He cites Einsteins own words to 'prove' that he is not a believer.

What? Can you please refrain from writing gibberish? Don't you realize that you're contradicting yourself in these sentences?

: 2.

:: Let me remind you that Paula stated that you claimed "that Dawkins cites letters from Christians chiding Einstein's lack of religion purely so that he can "imply or assert that Christians are either ignorant or full of 'intellectual and moral cowardice'". Is Paula's statement correct? Did she fairly represent what you said?

: No - she did not represent what I said. She added the word 'purely' which changes everything.

I see. Well, then, it should be very easy for you to quote sufficient text from your "Letter", or to give a URL to it, to allow readers to judge for themselves.

But I won't hold my breath, given your demonstrable penchant for misinterpreting Dawkins' words, and your apparent inability to realize when you contradict yourself in the space of three sentences.

: Its always dangerous to comment on something you have not read- especially when you are making accusations.

Um, remember that I said to you, "If such and such . . .", which gave you the opportunity to post the text in question.

: I did not say that Dawkins cites the letters 'purely' so that he can accuse Christians of 'intellectual and moral cowardice'. I actually pointed out that there were other letters which could be used to show that Christians disagreed with Einsteins view. I acknowledged the purpose in that. But why did Dawkins cite these particular ones? So that, as well as showing that some religious leaders in the 1940's did not agree with Einstein, he could also mock and make his comments about ignorance and intellectual and moral cowardice.

Methinks that now you're changing your tune. But again, if you cite the full text of your "Letter" or a URL for it, you can clear this up.

: 3.

:: Yes indeed, now that you're really getting into it, I can see why various posters have pegged you as intellectually dishonest. You're deliberately missing Dawkins' point so that you can score points with readers who actually want to believe you. To prove my point, let's see what Dawkins actually wrote.

: No I am not being intellectually dishonest.

Provide the text to your "Letter" and allow readers to judge for themselves.

: And I know what Dawkins wrote. And I know all the quotes he gave concerning Einstein. I did not question those or disagree with those - or even Dawkins analysis of them. Yet you write them down as though I were. I was referring SPECIFICALLY to the four letters mentioned from the 1940's. So most of your quotes are irrelevant because they are not under dispute and it is intellectually dishonest of you to suggest that they are.

Nonsense. You continue to miss the point that Dawkins' purpose in citing those quotations (as he explicitly stated and as the quotations I cited prove) was to show that Einstein lends no support to believers in supernatural gods. His comments about the believers being ridiculous were merely asides that emphasized points he made more fully elsewhere in the book.

: 4. Your links and quotes about Einstein being a pantheist just don't work-

Of course they do. The point -- which you seem to have missed -- is not that the links somehow prove that Einstein was a pantheist, but that many people are of the opinion that, despite his protestations to the contrary, his beliefs amounted to pantheism.

I also pointed out that it's easy to find this information by Google search, and that the links I gave were among the first half dozen that I found in a couple of minutes of looking.

Here is some more help for you: Type "spinoza pantheism" at Google, and you'll find lots of links. The very first entry that came up when I typed this led to the following from a self-styled modern pantheist:

At the heart of pantheism is reverence of the universe as the ultimate focus of reverence, and for the natural earth as sacred.

Scientific or Natural Pantheism - Pan for short - has a naturalistic approach which simply accepts and reveres the universe and nature just as they are . . .


Now compare this particular pantheist's definition with Einstein's own description of his beliefs (the material below is taken from the website http://www.stephenjaygould.org/ctrl/quotes_einstein.html . A good deal more such material can easily be found by googling something like "einstein god"):

"I believe in Spinoza's God who reveals himself in the orderly harmony of what exists, not in a God who concerns himself with fates and actions of human beings."

Albert Einstein, upon being asked if he believed in God by Rabbi Herbert Goldstein of the Institutional Synagogue, New York, April 24, 1921, published in the New York Times, April 25, 1929; from Einstein: The Life and Times, Ronald W. Clark, New York: World Publishing Co., 1971, p. 413; also cited as a telegram to a Jewish newspaper, 1929, Einstein Archive 33-272, from Alice Calaprice, ed., The Expanded Quotable Einstein, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2000, p. 204.


"It seems to me that the idea of a personal God is an anthropological concept which I cannot take seriously. I feel also not able to imagine some will or goal outside the human sphere. My views are near those of Spinoza: admiration for the beauty of and belief in the logical simplicity of the order which we can grasp humbly and only imperfectly. I believe that we have to content ourselves with our imperfect knowledge and understanding and treat values and moral obligations as a purely human problem--the most important of all human problems."

Albert Einstein, 1947; from Banesh Hoffmann, Albert Einstein Creator and Rebel, New York: New American Library, 1972, p. 95.


"I cannot conceive of a personal God who would directly influence the actions of individuals, or would directly sit in judgment on creatures of his own creation. I cannot do this in spite of the fact that mechanistic causality has, to a certain extent, been placed in doubt by modern science. [He was speaking of Quantum Mechanics and the breaking down of determinism.] My religiosity consists in a humble admiration of the infinitely superior spirit that reveals itself in the little that we, with our weak and transitory understanding, can comprehend of reality. Morality is of the highest importance -- but for us, not for God."

Albert Einstein; from Albert Einstein the Human Side, Helen Dukas and Banesh Hoffman, eds., Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1981, p. 66.


On Einstein's bottom line beliefs about God and the universe:

"However, Einstein's God was not the God of most other men. When he wrote of religion, as he often did in middle and later life, he tended to adopt the belief of Alice's Red Queen that "words mean what you want them to mean," and to clothe with different names what to more ordinary mortals -- and to most Jews -- looked like a variant of simple agnosticism. Replying in 1929 to a cabled inquiry from Rabbi Goldstein of New York, he said that he believed "in Spinoza's God who reveals himself in the harmony of all that exist, not in a God who concerns himself with the fate and actions of men." And it is claimed that years later, asked by Ben-Gurion whether he believed in God, "even he, with his great formula about energy and mass, agreed that there must be something behind the energy." No doubt. But much of Einstein's writing gives the impression of belief in a God even more intangible and impersonal than a celestial machine minder, running the universe with indisputable authority and expert touch. Instead, Einstein's God appears as the physical world itself, with its infinitely marvelous structure operating at atomic level with the beauty of a craftsman's wristwatch, and at stellar level with the majesty of a massive cyclotron. This was belief enough. It grew early and rooted deep. Only later was it dignified by the title of cosmic religion, a phrase which gave plausible respectability to the views of a man who did not believe in a life after death and who felt that if virtue paid off in the earthly one, then this was the result of cause and effect rather than celestial reward. Einstein's God thus stood for an orderly system obeying rules which could be discovered by those who at the courage, imagination, and persistence to go on searching for them. It was to this past which he began to turn his mind soon after the age of twelve. The rest of his life everything else was to seem almost trivial by comparison."

Ronald W. Clark, Einstein: The Life and Times, New York: World Publishing, 1971, pp. 19-20.


Reading all of Einstein's words in a simplistic way might give the impression that he contradicted himself. I view these contradictions merely as the understandable equivocations demanded of a man who understood all too clearly the societal ramifications of outright denying the Judeo/Christian God within early 20th century Western society. I think it's also true that Einstein's views, and especially his way of publicly expressing those views, evolved over time as he became a more popular and influential public figure.


: not least because you do not say where they came from.

LOL! What do you think a URL is?

: The question is what Einstein said himself. And Jammer makes it perfectly clear.

Indeed Jammer does. And he makes it quite clear that Einstein made apparently contradictory statements with regard to his being a pantheist. From Jammer:

[Page 48:] When Einstein was once asked to define God, he gave the following allegorical answer,

I'm not an atheist, and I don't think I can call myself a pantheist. . .


[Page 75:] As [Einstein] once explained to a Japanese scholar, a deep feeling and his belief in a superior mind that reveals itself in the world of experience represent his concept of God. "In common parlance this may be described as 'pantheistic' (Spinoza). . ."


So here we have Jammer showing on the one hand that Einstein said he didn't think he could call himself a pantheist, and on the other hand admitting that in common parlance his beliefs could be described as pantheistic. What is one to make of these statements if one views Einstein as a consistent thinker? Again, I think that he was well aware that, as a public figure, he had to kow-tow to the prevailing theistic mindset of much of Western society.

: Personally I was quite happy to accept what RD says in TGD about Einstein (and say so in my letters - something Paula strangely misses out). However I had not realised just how selective (and dishonest) RD was being. He admits that Jammer's books is his main source of quotations from Einstein on religious matters. It is Jammers book which gives the quote where Einstein says he could not be called a pantheist - yet RD says he is a pantheist. RD specifically says that Einstein is not a deist.

Once again, I think that Dawkins is perfectly well aware of Einstein's equivocations and has seen past them, recognizing that Einstein was probably loathe to accept any label like "pantheist" or "deist" or "atheist", even though his stated beliefs have elements of all of those. Of course, I already stated this, but your next comment shows that you missed the point:

: Ironically it is Jammers book that says that what really made Einstein angry were atheists who quoted him in support of their views. Which is precisely what RD is doing!

Which completely misses the point that Einstein almost certainly did not want to be labeled "atheist" for the same reason that atheists in the U.S. cannot be elected to public office -- the ill will shown toward them by the Christian majority. Remember that Einstein took a lot of flak from Jewish and Christian spokesmen for denying the existence of the Judeo-Christian personal God. How much more would he have taken had he explicitly acknowledged what in practical terms amounts to an atheistist belief -- that a supernatural personal god of any sort does not exist. He could get around this problem only by equivocating and claiming belief in a nebulous god-in-the-universe that has no supernatural aspect whatsoever (which amounts to pantheism). This is clear to me from Einstein's comments in 1945 (from the above-linked website):

"I have never talked to a Jesuit priest in my life and I am astonished by the audacity to tell such lies about me. From the viewpoint of a Jesuit priest I am, of course, and have always been an atheist."

Albert Einstein, to Guy H. Raner Jr., July 2, 1945, responding to a rumor that a Jesuit priest had caused Einstein to convert from atheism; from Michael R. Gilmore, "Einstein's God: Just What Did Einstein Believe About God?," Skeptic, 1997, 5(2):62.


So Einstein clearly acknowledged that, from a Jesuit viewpoint, he was an atheist. I suppose this is similar to the way that Roman polytheists viewed early Christians as atheists. Of course, Einstein's view of "God" was more expansive than that of Jews and Christians, and so he himself thought of "God" in his own unique way that contained elements of pantheism, deism and atheism. This is consistent with his view as shown in a quotation above: that "words mean what you want them to mean."

That my above comments are not merely my own view is shown by the following material from Jammer. After commenting on the exchanges among Einstein and several others with regard to his views on God ("I'm not an atheist"; "I believe in Spinoza's God"; etc.), Jammer writes (pp. 49-50):

Chapman Cohen, president of the National Secular Society in England, an association mostly of freethinkers, devoted a whole chapter of his book, God and the Universe, to his claim that this communication between Goldstein and Einstein actually led to an affirmation of atheistic ideology. "The portraits we have seen of Einstein," Cohen wrote, "show him to be not destitute of humour, and we fancy he must have felt he was doing a little 'leg-pulling' when he gave his answer to Rabbi Goldstein."

Einstein's declaration that he believes in the God of Spinoza can be of no use to anybody who is religious. If God, according to Einstein, is not concerned with the actions and prayers of men, Cohen continued, it is obviously of no use to pray to him. "One might as well pray to the Albert Memorial. . . . What significance have all the churches, synagogues, mosques, and other gathering places of the religiously afflicted if they are worshipping a God who takes no interest in their fates or their actions." Einstein's confession is but a confession of "practical atheism," because there is no difference between there being no God to bother about man, and there being a God who does not concern himself with the fates and actions of human beings.

Spinoza's God is thoroughly deterministic, and, "if one translates his ideas into modern terms, completely atheistic." Goldstein's praise of Einstein's reply as "a scientific formula for monotheism" only shows that "we have reached the stage where genuine religion finds it increasingly hard to live honestly, and altogether lacks the courage to die with courage and dignity. . ." Cohen concluded this chapter with the remark that "one can imagine the twinkle in the eyes of Ablert Einstein when he replied to the Rabbi's inquiry, 'I believer in Spinoza's God.' Perhaps he whispered to himself, 'And that is no god at all.' "

But Einstein always made a sharp distinction between his disbelief in a personal God and atheisms. . .


So it's clear to me that a precise description of all of Einstein's views about God, atheism, and so forth, is difficult to impossible. He is no longer around to question, and obviously, his many remarks can be viewed by intelligent people in different ways. What is clear is that Dawkins has not misrepresented Einstein's views, contrary to your claim.

: So whilst Styrer might rejoice in your devastating expose of my ;wily ways' the fact is that most of your post is irrelevant

I suspect most readers will disagree.

: (the quotes from Einstein are not in dispute) and the two major complaints still stand. Paula is misquoting and misunderstanding what I said (which I still stand by) and Dawkins is, by selectively quoting, doing the very thing that Einstein said made him angry.

Again I think that most readers will disagree, and what remains in dispute can be cleared up by your citing your "Letter" in sufficient detail to allow readers to judge for themselves.

: Let me leave you with one more quote from Einstein.

: My religiosity consists of a humble admiration of the infinitely superior spirit who reveals himself in the slight details we are able to perceive with our frail and feeble minds. That deeply emotional conviction of a superior reasoning power, which is revealed in the incomprehensible universe, forms my idea of God"


: There you have it. When did an atheist or pantheist believe in a 'him' (note the personal pronoun) who is a superior reasoning power?

That really does Christians no good. Remember that even deists were generally thought of as only faintly removed from atheists a couple of hundred years ago by the Christian mainstream. As I mentioned above, in practical terms Einstein's view here is indistinguishable from complete atheism because whoever or whatever "him" is, "he" has no power in human lives -- which is the practical result of atheism. Only in a philosophical sense can Einstein's view be distinguished from pantheism -- which in my view is atheism by another name -- and since, as I showed above, even Einstein equivocated about being a pantheist, the point is pretty well moot.

: I am certainly not claiming that Einstein believed in the Christian God, or was even just a Theist. I have to go where the evidence leads me.

Which does you absolutely no good as a Christian apologist.

: Its just sad that RD has already decided the destination and, like many others on this site, only selects those things which help him get to his predetermined destination.

My discussion above shows how wrong you are.

AlanF

14. Fleabytes

Comment #147910 by AlanF on March 21, 2008 at 3:02 pm

In response to: 6482. Comment #147674 by clearthinker

: Distorting Einstein....

6452 - Alan F

Paula: Classic Robertson distortion -- of the kind we are familiar with from Wee Flea's posts -- follows, when he claims that Dawkins cites letters from Christians chiding Einstein's lack of religion purely so that he can "imply or assert that Christians are either ignorant or full of 'intellectual and moral cowardice'" -- whereas actually it is quite clear from TGD that they are cited to refute the claim made by so many Christians that Einstein was himself a believer. Once more I must ask -- how could an honest mind not realise this?

AlanF: Having just reread The God Delusion I can only agree with Paula's assessment of Dawkins' intent, and so your claim (as quoted by Paula) is simply false. If you, somewhere in these 130 pages of posts, have refuted Paula's assessment, then please point me to it. If you can't, then my opinion stands.


: Actually this is remarkably easy. The letters referred to are on p16 and 17 of TGD. They are from an American RC lawyer, the president of a historical society in NJ and the Founder of Calvary Tabernacle. Dawkins comments on these that they 'damningly expose the weakness of the religious mind', and 'every sentence drips with intellectual and moral cowardice'. Therefore I am perfectly correct in stating that Dawkins uses these letters to show that Christians are ignorant or 'full of intellectual and moral cowardice' - that is precisely what Dawkins himself says! Forgive me for taking him at his word! Besides which - why would Dawkins cite letters from Christians whom he regards as weak minded and intellectual cowards, as proof that Einstein was not a Christian?! Both Alan and Paula are so desperate to accuse me of distorting that they end up making Dawkins look foolish!

Yes indeed, now that you're really getting into it, I can see why various posters have pegged you as intellectually dishonest. You're deliberately missing Dawkins' point so that you can score points with readers who actually want to believe you. To prove my point, let's see what Dawkins actually wrote.

Quotations below are from The God Delusion, paperback edition from Mariner Books, 2008.

On pages 33-34 Dawkins clearly states his purpose for the material that follows:

Much unfortunate confusion is caused by failure to distinguish what can be called Einsteinian religion from supernatural religion. Einstein sometimes invoked the name of God (and is not the only atheistic scientist to do so), inviting misunderstanding by supernaturalists eager to misunderstand and claim so illustrious a thinker as their own.


Pretty clear, no?

After some explanatory remarks, Dawkins quotes Einstein and adds supporting comments (p. 36):

One of Einstein's most eagerly quoted remarks is 'Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind.' But Einstein also said:

It was, of course, a lie what you read about my religious convictions, a lie which is being systematically repeated. I do not believe in a personal God and I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly. If something is in me which can be called religious then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it.


Does it seem that Einstein contradicted himself? That his words can be cherry-picked for quotes to support both sides of an argument? No. By 'religion' Einstein meant something entirely different from what is conventionally meant. As I continue to clarify the distinction between supernatural religion on the one hand and Einsteinian religion on the other, bear in mind that I am calling only supernatural gods delusional.


Dawkins adds more quotations from Einstein in support of his view of "Einsteinian religion", and then begins his argument about "misunderstanding by supernaturalists eager to misunderstand and claim so illustrious a thinker as their own." (p. 37):

In greater numbers since his death, religious apologists understandably try to claim Einstein as one of their own. Some of his religious contemporaries saw him very differently. . .


Dawkins then makes four quotations (pp. 37-38), including the ones that you mentioned, but contrary to your claim, he makes them in support of his statement that some of Einstein's "religious contemporaries saw him very differently" from modern religious apologists who "try to claim Einstein as one of their own." In the middle of those quotations, Dawkins parenthetically comments that the third letter "so damningly exposes the weakness of the religious mind, it is worth reading twice," and that "every sentence drips with intellectual and moral cowardice." He ends the quotations with (p. 39):

The one thing all his theistic critics got right was that Einstein was not one of them. He was repeatedly indignant at the suggestion that he was a theist.


So, David, you've managed to confuse Dawkins' clearly stated purpose for making the quotations with his parenthetical comments about them.

Let me remind you that Paula stated that you claimed "that Dawkins cites letters from Christians chiding Einstein's lack of religion purely so that he can "imply or assert that Christians are either ignorant or full of 'intellectual and moral cowardice'". Is Paula's statement correct? Did she fairly represent what you said? Since I don't have your original "Letter" at hand, I can't say, but since you haven't said that she misrepresented your statement, I must take it that she didn't. Thus, you've confused purpose with side commentary, and Paula's assessment stands: " -- whereas actually it is quite clear from TGD that they are cited to refute the claim made by so many Christians that Einstein was himself a believer."

Perhaps you have a point about Einstein saying he probably couldn't be called a pantheist, but I'll have to read Jammer for myself. I suspect that Einstein fit the definition, but just didn't like being labeled. In the meantime, a quick Google search reveals plenty of material on the subject of whether Einstein can be called a pantheist. It seems that many people agree with Dawkins on this. Here are a couple of links and quotes:

Einstein's Pantheism

Einstein always said that he was a deeply religious man, and his religion informed his science. He rejected the conventional image of God as a personal being, concerned about our individual lives, judging us when we die, intervening in the laws he himself had created to cause miracles, answer prayers and so on. Einstein did not believe in a soul separate from the body, nor in an afterlife of any kind.

But he was certainly a pantheist. He did regard the ordered cosmos with the same kind of feeling that believers have for their God. To some extent this was a simple awe at the impenetrable mystery of sheer being. Einstein also had an urge to lose individuality and to experience the universe as a whole.


Did Einstein Believe in God?

Pantheists believe that nature itself deserves to be called "God" since nature itself deserves our feelings of reverence and awe. For the pantheist, nothing is more worthy of reverence, or even worship, than the awesome power and beauty of the cosmos itself.

Pantheism caters to the emotional need that many people feel for so-called "spiritual (as opposed to materialistic) values", a need to value something beyond themselves or even the human race.

Pantheism has a long and distinguished history. It has included several philosophers such as the seventeenth century philosopher Baruch Spinoza. Certain versions of Taoism are pantheistic. So is Therevada Buddhism. As Einstein pointed out:

[Therevada] Buddhism has the characteristics of what would be expected in a cosmic religion for the future: it transcends a personal God, avoids dogmas and theology; it covers both the natural and spiritual, and it is based on a religious sense arising from the experience of all things, natural and spiritual, as a meaningful unity.

Einstein himself, it turns out, was a pantheist. In his own words:

A knowledge of the existence of something we cannot penetrate, of the manifestation of the profoundest reason and the most radiant beauty - it is this knowledge and this emotion that constitute the truly religious attitude; in this sense, and in this sense alone, I am a deeply religious man.


So, David, before you go off on a tangent, I would hope that you'd get your facts straight, and just as importantly, not put them together as wrongly as this post demonstrates you're prone to.

AlanF

15. Fleabytes

Comment #147848 by AlanF on March 21, 2008 at 12:23 pm

In response to: 6480. Comment #147672 by clearthinker

6452 - Allan
My comments are not based on any received text -- which is the only basis for "fundamentalism" -- but on 17 years of personal experience with Christian (and a variety of truly crackpot) apologists. If it quacks like a duck, it probably is a duck, and you're certainly doing some quacking, so when I see from you exactly what I've seen from other apologists, what else am I to conclude?


: Your definition of fundamentalism is not one that I would share. I explain in my own 'Letters' why RD and his followers can be described as Fundamentalists. It if quacks like a duck, it probably is a duck....

I have not read your 'Letters' (and I'm not going to), but Paula Kirby has, and has responded accordingly in her discussion of your "Letter 2" in "Special topic: Atheism as faith". Apparently you think that anyone who holds strong views can be termed a "Fundamentalist". If not, then do correct me. Assuming that is the case, I agree with Paula's assessment that such a definition strips the term of all meaning. Remember that "Fundamentalist" is a term originally applied to themselves by a loose group of Protestants who adopted the views expressed in a four-volume tome called The Fundamentals, and as such describes a conservative form of Protestant Christianity. According to this definition, Catholics and virtually all non-Evangelicals today are not properly termed Fundamentalists.

Nevertheless, the term's meaning has broadened over time to describe "a movement or attitude stressing strict and literal adherence to a set of basic principles " (Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary). However, to broaden the meaning too much strips it of all meaning. For example, I'm an electrical engineer and design microchips. To do my job I must observe strict and literal adherence to a set of basic principles (electrical theory and so forth), but no one in his right mind would describe me as an electronic fundamentalist.

Similarly, using Dawkins' "orbiting teapot" analogy, I strongly believe that there is no china teapot orbiting the sun out beyond Mars. Does that make me an "a-teapotist" or an A-teapotist Fundamentalist? Of course not. One must use common sense when using common terms, or language becomes meaningless. Paula said it well:

The meaningfulness of concepts such as "heresy", "creed" and the like clearly depends upon the existence of a set of core doctrinal texts outlining the "terms and conditions" of an ideology, so to speak. Atheism can boast no such core texts, not least because it has no holy being to hand them down to us and declare their inerrancy. The one thing that binds atheists together is a lack of belief in a god or gods. Nothing in that simple statement suggests the kind of imposed orthodoxy that could make talk of "creeds" or "heresy" remotely appropriate.

But what of fundamentalism? Is atheist fundamentalism even possible? Again, no, for the simple reason that atheism HAS no fundamentals to be fundamentalist about, unless you count non-belief in a god or gods, which is no more than the definition of an atheist. If we are to say that having (or not having) a belief is the same as being fundamentalist about it, then we have no choice but to say that all Christians, too, are fundamentalists. Which would be to strip the term of all meaning.


What you and other authors are doing with the term "Fundamentalist" is borrowing its pejorative sense (as used by those of liberal mind against those of conservative mind) and using that as a rod to beat your opponents. But common sense would dictate that you use a term that doesn't become stripped of meaning by misuse. You could properly use a term such as "dogmatic atheist", as Paula suggests:

It is certainly possible to be a dogmatic atheist, i.e. an atheist who rules out any possibility that they might be wrong, in the same way as it is possible to be dogmatic on any subject, from politics to the right way to pronounce "scone". However, most atheists I know, whilst confident that current evidence points their way, are open to the possibility of new evidence emerging that could change their point of view. Many have actively sought to understand or even achieve faith. There's no reason to think that atheists are more dogmatic than anyone else in society.


This brings up another extremely important part of the notion of "Fundamentalist": an unwillingness -- indeed a complete inability -- to change one's mind on the subject. Protestant Fundamentalists cannot change their mind without abandoning their received text, because they have a huge emotional investment. Jehovah's Witnesses cannot abandon their belief that their religious leaders do not speak for God without going through a tremendous amount of emotional pain. But I have no investment in electrical engineering fundamentalism, or a-teapotistic fundamentalism, or atheistic fundamentalism. Indeed, with regard to the latter, were I to discover that the Christian God (or any other God) exists, I would very much like to have a strong talk with him. I suspect the same of most any other atheist.

AlanF

16. What are your qualifications to question religion anyway? Just who are you?

Comment #147482 by AlanF on March 20, 2008 at 3:14 pm

I was raised in a form of fundamentalist Christian religion (Jehovah's Witnesses), spent many years figuring out why it and Christianity in general have little to do with reality, and have studied a good deal about the roots of Christianity. I know a lot more about the Bible now than I ever did when I was still a Christian. I've successfully debated with any number of apologists for many years, and have been told by many former believers that my writings helped them get out of the muck of belief-without-real-evidence. I've paid the price of leaving a cult, since most of my family that is still in the JW cult will have nothing to do with me.

AlanF

17. Fleabytes

Comment #147475 by AlanF on March 20, 2008 at 2:40 pm

6331. Comment #147214 by clearthinker

6021 - Alan
This David Robertson character is typical of the Christian apologist genre I've come to expect since first debating with such on Usenet in 1991 (talk.origins, talk.religion.misc, etc.). On every forum I've participated in, they're always the same. They always avoid specifics when specifics are detrimental to their cause, generally distort facts and quotations, and often resort to out and out lying when cornered. It's rare, but possible, to convince them by good argumentation.

It doesn't seem to matter what background the apologist has (I've concentrated on Jehovah's Witness apologists, since that was my background) -- virtually every denomination and viewpoint will resort to lying. Fundamentalists and creationists are usually the most dishonest and slippery, but even moderate apologists seem to go out of their way to deceive themselves.


clearthinker: Oh well. At least it looks like I'm not the only one. We avoid specifics, are liars and self deceivers.

"You have said it yourself." (Matthew 26:25; New American Standard Bible)

clearthinker: It is of course a good tactic which enables you to not consider any of the arguments

Of course I have. I've read all of Paula's book review comments and some of yours in this long thread. I've seen that many of your "arguments" are just repeats, either in style or content, of those I've seen over and over again, and which are constantly refuted by truly clear thinkers. So your statement here is just the usual blowing of smoke.

clearthinker: but it is demonstrably untrue. Even on these last posts I have gone into a great deal of specifics.

Really. Since I was only making general observations based on a light reading of the now 130 pages of this thread, I haven't considered all of the specifics, and I'm not going to. But since you claim to have gone into specifics, perhaps you could point me to where you clearly dealt with the following from Paula's comments on The Dawkins Letters. In "Letter 2: The Myth of Godless Beauty" Paula wrote:

Classic Robertson distortion -- of the kind we are familiar with from Wee Flea's posts -- follows, when he claims that Dawkins cites letters from Christians chiding Einstein's lack of religion purely so that he can "imply or assert that Christians are either ignorant or full of 'intellectual and moral cowardice'" -- whereas actually it is quite clear from TGD that they are cited to refute the claim made by so many Christians that Einstein was himself a believer. Once more I must ask -- how could an honest mind not realise this?


Having just reread The God Delusion I can only agree with Paula's assessment of Dawkins' intent, and so your claim (as quoted by Paula) is simply false. If you, somewhere in these 130 pages of posts, have refuted Paula's assessment, then please point me to it. If you can't, then my opinion stands.

clearthinker: (But then again I'm a liar and self-deceiver and so you can dismiss even this statement

Before I decide whether to comment on any of your latest "specifics", I'll want to see if you can answer my challenge about your claims about Dawkins' use of Christians' comments about Einstein.

clearthinker: - and you wonder why I call some of you fundamentalists?!).

Actually this is a fine example of the sort of nonsensical conclusions that Christian apologists, in my experience, tend to jump to. You know nothing about me other than a few comments in one post, yet you call me a "fundamentalist" (never mind that many other posters have clearly shown why atheists cannot properly be called "fundamentalists"). My comments are not based on any received text -- which is the only basis for "fundamentalism" -- but on 17 years of personal experience with Christian (and a variety of truly crackpot) apologists. If it quacks like a duck, it probably is a duck, and you're certainly doing some quacking, so when I see from you exactly what I've seen from other apologists, what else am I to conclude?

AlanF

18. Fleabytes

Comment #145952 by AlanF on March 18, 2008 at 12:01 pm

Excellent reviews, Paula!

I haven't read this forum for some months, but recently resumed reading books by Dawkins and so forth. What a contrast between their clear writings and the muddled nonsense of their critics!

Several months ago a Christian aquaintance suggested that I read one of Alister McGrath's books. I could only get through a couple of chapters. Virtually every paragraph is gibberish. Reading them was like listening to a good politician try to avoid answering a question he knows he can't deal with truthfully.

Another Christian introduced me to "The Language of God" by Francis Collins (onetime head of the Human Genome Project). Collins writes clearly, thank goodness, but I concluded that his book is just another tiresome exercise in "I believe because it makes me feel good." I found Sam Harris's review of the book just yesterday, and found that he had many of the same criticisms that I did.

This David Robertson character is typical of the Christian apologist genre I've come to expect since first debating with such on Usenet in 1991 (talk.origins, talk.religion.misc, etc.). On every forum I've participated in, they're always the same. They always avoid specifics when specifics are detrimental to their cause, generally distort facts and quotations, and often resort to out and out lying when cornered. It's rare, but possible, to convince them by good argumentation.

It doesn't seem to matter what background the apologist has (I've concentrated on Jehovah's Witness apologists, since that was my background) -- virtually every denomination and viewpoint will resort to lying. Fundamentalists and creationists are usually the most dishonest and slippery, but even moderate apologists seem to go out of their way to deceive themselves.

Back in September I was able to attend the Atheist Alliance conference in Washington. What a refreshing experience! All of the speakers were clear and their presentations had none of the gibberish I've heard at the handful of creationist expositions I've attended. Every person I talked to was bright and a clear thinker, so much in contrast to the glassy-eyed Christian apologists I've spent time with.

Please keep up the fine work.

AlanF

19. An Inquisition in science's name

Comment #51086 by AlanF on June 21, 2007 at 12:10 pm

Preston Manning's complaint is typical of religious people who know their ideas haven't a leg to stand on, but want others to put their faith on a pedestal -- which is precisely what Dawkins is arguing against.

In many years of arguing for rationality on various online forums, I've seen this complaint many times: "You're not allowing me freedom of expression!" This virtually always comes up when arguing with irrational fundamentalists about evolution versus creation, irrational UFOlogists, and so forth. They automatically equate reasoned, devastating criticism with suppression.

Manning is quite wrong when he claims that the Church's biggest mistake was to "was to assume that we the church had an absolute monopoly on how truth was to be defined, discovered, and interpreted." On the contrary, the Church's biggest mistake was to think that it was God's executioner and to kill people who disagreed with its "monopoly on truth". Atheists and the science community are under no such delusions about themselves, and are obviously not able or even inclined to do what the Church did.

Manning concludes by asking Dawkins if he agrees that "the rights of human beings to freedom of conscience and expression should never again nor in the future be abrogated in the name of either faith or science." Obviously, Dawkins and other atheists and members of the science community agree. But it's equally obvious that any religious organization or movement that gains enough political power will indeed do everything it can to abrogate freedom of conscience and expression in the name of its god. The situation here in the U.S. with the abominably religious Bush administration is a case in point. The Catholic Church, despite its pretensions of tolerance, demonstrates regularly that wherever it has political influence, it tries to enforce its religious doctrine on the populace. Mexico is a good example of the latter.

20. The Great Mutator

Comment #49987 by AlanF on June 14, 2007 at 12:12 pm

I'm about three chapters into Behe's new book, so Coyne's review has been very helpful. I'm not a biologist, but very quickly smelled a rat in Behe's claims about evolution and malaria. Even I can see that one reason the malaria parasite doesn't evolve into a more virulent form is the same reason that extremely virulent parasites like the Ebola virus aren't very successful -- they kill their hosts too quickly, thereby killing themselves. Much better for the parasite to produce a mild enough infection that the host lives long enough to produce lots more parasites for the mosquitos to slurp up and transmit further.