Comments by Rieux
Comment #103269 by Rieux on December 24, 2007 at 8:36 pm
discipline (#103261):
As a progressive, I'm seriously thinking of campaigning for [Huckabee's] election.I think you mean "nomination," not "election."
(I hope you mean "nomination." [Shudder])
2. Christmas with Christopher Hitchens
Comment #102905 by Rieux on December 23, 2007 at 9:10 pm
Rtambree (#102216):
Take Abrahamic monotheism out of the world, and you've removed the principle source of religion-induced harm. It's a long way back to second place which would be Hinduism, and I don't even know what would be the third-ranked most harmful strain. Any candidates?
My suggestion would be Buddhism. Lots of Buddhism is fairly harmless, but not all of it (check out Hitchens' account of the Dalai Lama in god is Not Great and/or Julia Sweeney's tale of her brush with Buddhism in Letting Go of God)--and, strictly by number of believers, Buddhism is definitely a Major World Religion(tm), one of the few left after you've mentioned the Abrahamic faiths and Hinduism.
Another religion eyeing the front-runners in the "most harmful" race is Scientology--substantially worse than Buddhism in harm-per-believer terms, but also much smaller numerically.
3. Norway flourishes as secular nation
Comment #76267 by Rieux on October 5, 2007 at 9:28 am
fides:
Surely there's only one definition of athiesm, and by that definition only 26% of Norwegians are athiest.Sure--to my understanding there's only one definition of athiesm: "Belief in athies." But the poll you cite doesn't show that any Norwegians believe in athies, so I don't know where you're getting this 26% nonsense.
Nor do I understand why you think the above article, or this website writ large, has anything to do with athiesm. How odd.
- Rieux, who is athier than most, but probably not the superlative
Comment #76029 by Rieux on October 4, 2007 at 12:21 pm
Jack:
And for the record, I hadn't even read your post when I wrote this.
Okay; I'll take your word for it.
It was just that, not too many hours after making a particular point about Harris, "independence," and "anti-racism," I read a comment on the same thread that looked very familiar. (The Google search was one of three similarities between our comments--and AFAIK, no one but you and I has made any of those three points about Harris' speech.)
We'll leave it at "great minds think alike," then.
(Perhaps one could insert a passage from Unweaving the Rainbow about unlikely coincidences here--though, of course, by the terms of that book this coincidence is extremely penny-ante.)
Comment #76007 by Rieux on October 4, 2007 at 9:52 am
Jack Rawlinson:
The Problem With IndependenceUh, Jack, I'm waiting for you to mention me ( http://tinyurl.com/24zfpy ) in your bibliography:
[...]
How many people have had to identify themselves as "non-racists" to participate in this process? Is (or was) there a "non-racist alliance" somewhere for me to join? Of course not. Well, apart from such organisations as Anti-Racist Action....
One other point that I think needs to be made, though (perhaps it already has been on this thread, but if so I missed it) is that, contra Harris, plenty of social movements have defined themselves in logically negative ways. Harris introduced, and dismissed, the notion of "anti-racist" identity--but he's flat wrong: there are all sorts of efforts that have specifically adopted the term "anti-racist." (Take a look: http://tinyurl.com/3d8ta2 .) Moreover, how about abolitionism (a term used for opposition either to slavery or to capital punishment)? Gandhian non-violence? Independence (as in "The Declaration of," or myriad movements for)? Those terms are all logically negative, but the movements in question are frequently successful--and frequently, I think, morally praiseworthy.Your list of overtly "anti-racist" organizations is eerily similar to the result list of the Google search I linked to above, too.
Comment #75780 by Rieux on October 3, 2007 at 3:56 pm
Frequent ScienceBlogs commenter (and early Order of the Molly laureate) Blake Stacey has a good rejoinder to Harris' speech up as a comment at PZ's blog. A taste:
There were things to like in Harris's little spiel, but it left me unmoved, both emotionally and intellectually. Kudos to the guy for trying to shake things up, but he just didn't persuade.(http://tinyurl.com/3bdl3e )
Anybody who has witnessed Terrorism become the new Communism (to wax a little snowclonish) will recognize that new words can be given the emotional baggage of the old ones. Merely changing your label won't win the rhetorical battle. . . and if you don't give yourself a label, a person with less patience and tolerance for subtlety will stick one upon you. Consider that inane coinage of Wired, the appellation "New Atheist" itself. Do all the authors whose books are shelved together as "The New Atheism" agree with one another? No. Do the people who read those books follow their authors in all intellectual decisions of consequence? Nope. If I wrote a book, we'd have a "New Atheist" author who disagreed with Hitchens about the Iraq war, Dawkins about group selection, and Harris about "spirituality". Better call me a "New Atheist" of the Sokal-Blackford-Avalos-Nanda-Myers Reformation!
Comment #75742 by Rieux on October 3, 2007 at 2:29 pm
ricey:
Some contributors sound as if they are saying, "look at me; I am too clever to believe what mere theists believe".Would you mind pointing to one such "contributor" and his or her contribution? I haven't seen a comment on this thread that was nothing but silly self-aggrandizement.
Atheism as a philosophy is just as inscrutable as any religious dogma. Harris is spot on on this point.Nonsense--atheism is just the lack of belief in gods. That's hardly inscrutable.
And Harris certainly made no such "point."
Comment #75739 by Rieux on October 3, 2007 at 2:23 pm
Hm--something tells me Norm isn't unfamiliar with the Sullivan-Mr. X exchange I just quoted.
http://tinyurl.com/ypua7o
http://tinyurl.com/yr82z9
http://tinyurl.com/29cosm
Good stuff in there, Norm.
Comment #75734 by Rieux on October 3, 2007 at 2:11 pm
NormanDoering:
There are also quite a few theists with political views very similar to my own.Same here--but so what? Why should referring to ourselves as atheists prevent us from allying with well-meaning theists in worthwhile political endeavors?
One obvious answer to that question is that many (not all) theists despise atheists, which could make coalition-building somewhat more difficult. But I submit that the proper response to that problem is not to run away from it. Bigotry should be openly opposed, and atheophobia is no exception.
I think some theists, like Andrew Sullivan, in spite of having a few crazy religious beliefs, are on to something more workable with his ideas of a "conservatism" of doubt. He's rationally defended against some of the worst of theistic thinking."Rationally"? To the contrary, a certain athe--I mean, secular guy recently tore Sullivan to shreds on beliefnet.com over Sullivan's attempts to distinguish his variety of irrational belief from uglier flavors. You may have read it: http://tinyurl.com/2fejr3 . (Strangely, said secular guy called himself an "atheist" repeatedly in that exchange. Which seems an odd decision in light of recent developments.)
No one has the right to speak on behalf of God in a dictatorial political sense. That's what the enemy we all have to fight together believes.Fine; so let's fight that enemy. And let's also fight the group that contends that it's unacceptable to call faith, religion, or theism writ large into question.
Someone once pointed out that the latter group makes the former much harder to oppose:
Religious moderates—by refusing to question the legitimacy of raising children to believe that they are Christians, Muslims, and Jews—tacitly support the religious divisions in our world. They also perpetuate the myth that a person must believe things on insufficient evidence in order to have an ethical and spiritual life. While religious moderates don't fly planes into buildings, or organize their lives around apocalyptic prophecy, they refuse to deeply question the preposterous ideas of those who do. Moderates neither submit to the real demands of scripture nor draw fully honest inferences from the growing testimony of science. In attempting to find a middle ground between religious dogmatism and intellectual honesty, it seems to me that religious moderates betray faith and reason equally.Wow--whoever that guy is, he's willing to tell the truth about religion, even if it alienates moderates. "Who was that masked atheist?"
[....]
Finally, let me make it clear that I do not consider religious moderates to be "mere enablers of fundamentalist intolerance." They are worse. My biggest criticism of religious moderation ... is that it represents precisely the sort of thinking that will prevent a fully reasonable and nondenominational spirituality from ever emerging in our world.
Comment #75709 by Rieux on October 3, 2007 at 11:59 am
Damn--I even Googled it to check; evidently someone has made that mistake before.
As I said, I'm no Francophone.
Comment #75705 by Rieux on October 3, 2007 at 11:40 am
Richard:
Good pseudo also....As you perhaps know better than I, Dr. Bernard Rieux is the hero of Albert Camus' wonderful novel, Le Peste (The Plague for us non-Francophones). Of course, Dr. Rieux and his creator, Camus, were both staunch atheists and humanists.
I'm a big fan of both the book and the character--though I'm much more of a loudmouth than he is.
12. A New Debate
Comment #75701 by Rieux on October 3, 2007 at 11:26 am
To quote entomologist Edward O. Wilson, human beings are "the first species in the history of life to become a geophysical force."This is a bit of an aside, but what about the Oxygen Catastrophe (http://tinyurl.com/2ejnlz )? Around 2.4 billion years ago, weren't the species that belched out planet-changing amounts of oxygen acting as "a geophysical force" (and engaging in environmental degredation) to at least the same extent as homo sapiens is now?
Comment #75698 by Rieux on October 3, 2007 at 11:15 am
I agree with the commenters here who can't accept Harris' notion that we should abandon the term "atheism." I am deeply skeptical that any other descriptive term has any hope of providing a cohesive category for those of us who have rejected theism.
I am not moved by the notion that many theists have stupid stereotypes about atheism (and, they think, conclusive disproofs of atheism): allowing our enemies--people who despise us--to define what we are and are not seems to me tantamount to suicide.
One other point that I think needs to be made, though (perhaps it already has been on this thread, but if so I missed it) is that, contra Harris, plenty of social movements have defined themselves in logically negative ways. Harris introduced, and dismissed, the notion of "anti-racist" identity--but he's flat wrong: there are all sorts of efforts that have specifically adopted the term "anti-racist." (Take a look: http://tinyurl.com/3d8ta2 .) Moreover, how about abolitionism (a term used for opposition either to slavery or to capital punishment)? Gandhian non-violence? Independence (as in "The Declaration of," or myriad movements for)? Those terms are all logically negative, but the movements in question are frequently successful--and frequently, I think, morally praiseworthy.
A major reason that the negativity of the term "atheism" seems worthwhile to me is that the concept being negated--God--is, in the perspective of so many of us, a bad idea. Sticking with "atheism" keeps that objection in the forefront, where it belongs. (Again, the analogy with abolitionism, non-violence, and independence is nicely apt.) I will call myself an atheist until my society stops treating "God" with such absurd levels of deference.
So I'll take Dawkins' OUT Campaign, PZ Myers' outspoken advocacy of atheism, and even Hitchens' acid-tongued anti-theism, thanks. The guerilla bands of rationalists Harris speaks of are a nice dream, but it seems to me that there is no hope of such a thing ever coming to pass in the real world.
In this world (and especially Harris' and my home nation), we desperately need cohesion and identity if we hope to improve the station of run-of-the-mill nonbelievers. It seems to me that united we stand; divided (and un-labeled) we fall.
14. Logical Path from Religious Beliefs to Evil Deeds
Comment #75285 by Rieux on October 2, 2007 at 8:36 am
Chris McL (#9):
The religious need to see that they themselves are moral relativists. Their beliefs about the moral teachings of their god(s) has changed over time. There are so many interpretations of the moral teachings of their god(s), even within each religion, as to make absurd their claims to moral absolutism.Well, that doesn't really show that they're all relativists. You and I know well that they'll merely claim that All Those Other Theists just misunderstand God--so they're not relativists, they're just wrong. (This position deserves the derision from Dennett you quote, but that doesn't refute it.)
I think the more serious problem with theists who whine about atheist relativism is that they are arbitrarily presuming that God Is Right. Why? Why is a pronouncement from God necessarily The Moral Truth? Plato (and/or Socrates--http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euthyphro ) saw the problems in that notion approximately 2,400 years ago; modern theists only avoid those problems by ignoring them.
I happen to think that the ethics of any all-powerful, all knowing being who created this Universe would be disgusting, so "relativism" that.
15. Logical Path from Religious Beliefs to Evil Deeds
Comment #75281 by Rieux on October 2, 2007 at 8:25 am
pete (#2):
I'm a little uncomfortable with the claim that there is no logical path from atheism to evil deeds. It seems true enough, but only if we also accept that there is no logical path from atheism to good deeds.That's right; there isn't.
For every atheist in the world committing a good deed, there is something else at play besides her lack of belief in god(s). Dawkins, here, offers "the welfare and suffering of others" as matters that "tend to" matter to atheists--which is true enough. But "I lack a belief in gods" is an insufficient justification for "therefore I take action X," regardless of what X is.
(There is the minor, albeit important, point that lacking a belief in gods can lead one to avoid certain actions that are only justified by belief in god(s)--Dawkins mentions a few above--but that only weeds out a small number of options... which generally tend to be crazy stuff anyway.)
I think what's behind Weinberg's statement (by the way, I heartily recommend his book, Facing Up) is that humanity is fully capable of coming up with sufficient reasons to do good, worthwhile things without needing gods to tell us to do them. But "God says do X" is an idea that has power over plenty of people who would otherwise find X reprehensible. So the net effect, he argues, is negative. I agree.
Comment #65107 by Rieux on August 22, 2007 at 11:14 pm
I thought the second episode was much better than the first, if only because I think charlatanry in medicine is vastly more destructive than is silly superstition about astrology and the like. I agree that the latter category does denigrate reason and science, but in that respect ordinary superstition can't hold a candle to the far and away world champion in that regard--traditional religion.
Too bad Professor Dawkins has never put together a documentary questioning traditional religion.
(Joke!)
BTW, what was that bizarre music over the closing credits to Episode 2? My first reaction was "Goodness, this is a ridiculous tone with which to end this series." My second was "Wait a minute--is this 'The Universe Song,' from Monty Python's The Meaning of Life? I guess that would be fairly apropos, topically." And then my third reaction was "No, it's not 'The Universe Song,' it's just a bad, cloying synthesizer tune."
So what was going on there (er, besides me talking to myself)?
17. Scientists should unite against threat from religion
Comment #65051 by Rieux on August 22, 2007 at 6:22 pm
C'mon Bizzaro, that's 20 out of the last 25 posts exposing your illogical (bizzaro) views.I'm sorry, but I don't think the adjective "illogical" does BD's comment justice.
Responding to a continent-wide pandemic that has visited unspeakable, and unbelievable, death and suffering on well over one hundred million innocent people with "Aw hell, I kin keep it in m'pants! ;)" does not deserve to be called "illogical." How about "obscene," "disgusting," or "stunningly callous and inhuman"? This person is depraved.
18. PZ Myers sued for a negative review in a blog post
Comment #64771 by Rieux on August 21, 2007 at 6:58 pm
In the interest of staving off the "chilling effect" (and daring this kook to sue the entire blogosphere), would it make any sense to engineer an "I'm Spartacus" movement, in which several hundred bloggers post on our sites that, for the reasons PZ has set forth, we too believe that Stuart Pivar is a classic crackpot?
Or would that give Pivar and his stupid book more publicity than they deserve?
19. PZ Myers sued for a negative review in a blog post
Comment #64766 by Rieux on August 21, 2007 at 5:53 pm
if Pivar actually wins this thing I'm specializing in defamation cases, moving to the States and making a damn fortune!Don't worry. Or, er, get your hopes up. Or whatever. Pivar's going to lose this, and lose big.
Peter Irons, a litigator who specializes in defamation cases, has a comment up on The Panda's Thumb ( http://tinyurl.com/yuofc4 , seventh comment from the top) that analyzes the complaint and mentions some shocking admissions that Irons elicited from Pivar's lawyer.
I'm a U.S. litigator too, though I have vastly less expertise in defamation law than Irons does. I'll take his word for it that the only thing PZ and SEED have to worry about is a fair amount of (1) bother and (2) attorney's fees--though, as Irons explains, they've got a shot at recouping the latter from Pivar.
20. PZ Myers sued for a negative review in a blog post
Comment #64679 by Rieux on August 21, 2007 at 9:23 am
Jim Lippard's blog has more specific facts about the Complaint filed against SEED and PZ. Link: http://tinyurl.com/yrebbm .
I've taken a look at the Complaint (the document he has filed to commence this lawsuit), too; it's eye-opening. Pivar is demanding fifteen million dollars in damages for (1) tortious interference with business relations and (2) libel.
Most interestingly, his Complaint doesn't contend that the negative review per se makes the defendants liable; he's just complaining about one phrase he says PZ used--calling Pivar "a classic crackpot." That's it. Three words; that's the entire basis of the suit.
The Complaint also brags about the reviews (good and serious ones, it implies) that Pivar says his book has received from famous scientists like Neil deGrasse Tyson, and it contends:
Plaintiff discussed the LIFECODE project on numerous occasions with Professor Stephen Jay Gould, who, until his untimely death in May 2002, was working on a refutation of the fundamentalist Darwinian theory of evolution,," [sic] a position of scientific orthodoxy that LIFECODE questions.Thus $15 million in damages, apparently.
[...]
Because Defendant Myers' defamation of Plaintiff has been disseminated widely throughout the world, his remarks were also likely and possibly intended to hold the Plaintiff up to ridicule in his business relationships as an industrialist, Plaintiff's social relationships and in his activities as a philanthropist
The document also (and necessarily, for the tort alleged) avers that Myers' "classic crackpot" line was
made with actual malice ... fully knowing that statement to be false as a statement of fact and in reckless disregard of the truth about Plaintiff because Myer's [sic] knew full well, the time [sic] of publishing his defamatory statement that no scientist holding the international reputation of any of Hazen, Sasselov, Goodwin or Tyson would endorse or review the work of a crackpot.
I'm sort of speechless.
Comment #63834 by Rieux on August 16, 2007 at 11:11 am
Ohnhai (#63805):
My memory might be going, but didnt Sue rip Richard a new one for criticising the falsehoods and irrationality of religion?I doubt it. I've read Blackmore's The Meme Machine (with a foreword by some Oxford professor named Richard), and she certainly didn't seem antagonistic to Dawkins' take on religion then.
That was pre-God Delusion, of course, but Dawkins' ideas about religion have been clear to anyone who was paying attention to his work (such as the memetics chapter of The Selfish Gene) since at least the late '70s. And Blackmore, of all people, was certainly paying attention.
22. Arrogance, dogma and why science - not faith - is the new enemy of reason
Comment #61897 by Rieux on August 7, 2007 at 10:18 am
Phillips is lying about more than just Dawkins (and science, and reason, and...).
It was GK Chesterton who famously quipped that "when people stop believing in God, they don't believe in nothing - they believe in anything."False. Chesterton never said (or wrote) that. (See http://tinyurl.com/ywqsmp .)
Has this woman no integrity whatever?
23. They let anybody onto the faculty at Oxford nowadays
Comment #61026 by Rieux on August 3, 2007 at 11:17 am
Blaine:
is it pedantic of me to expect a critic to say whether he agrees or disagrees with a point after he quotes i[t]?Yes, I'd say so.
I don't Myers cares much, in this post at least, whether A (i.e., the idea that agnostic uncertainty is the proper "default position" regarding the existence of gods) is a valid notion. Far more important to show the holes in McGrath's argument is the fact that McGrath is being dishonest and hypocritical--blasting Dawkins for denying A when McGrath denies it himself.
I'm a proud pedant in many respects, but in response to your question (blockquoted above), the following exchange comes to mind:
Prosecuting counsel: Where were you on the night of the murder?
Famous Oxford Professor: I was in Milwaukee.
Prosecuting counsel: You were "in Milwaukee"? But what about all of this evidence (she dumps documentation in front of Professor a la journal articles being stacked before Michael Behe in Kitzmiller) showing that you were in Chicago?
Famous Oxford Professor: Aha! Apparently you have no quarrel with my assertion that I was in Milwaukee.
The point is that Myers didn't respond to A because he didn't centrally care about A in this context. McGrath's mendacity (which he demonstrated by blathering about A, thus the quote) was much more relevant to the points Myers wanted to make than was the validity of A.
24. They let anybody onto the faculty at Oxford nowadays
Comment #61015 by Rieux on August 3, 2007 at 10:26 am
Blaine (#60953):
I think Myers misunderstands McGrath's point wrt the "default position".Not so; you are misrepresenting Myers' comments.
Myers argues as if McGrath says that the default position is the religious position,False. Myers says nothing of the kind.
In fact, Myers is accusing McGrath of lying about his own (McGrath's) "default position." McGrath claims that the proper default position is "We don't know, we need to be persuaded one way or the other ... not being sure." (The man is apparently ignorant of the fact that this agnostic line also implies ("weak") atheism, but never mind.)
Myers contends that McGrath is "being dishonest," in that he and his religious brethren do not in fact start from the position of "need[ing] to be persuaded one way or another ... not being sure." To the contrary, Myers asserts:
[McGrath's] position and the religious position in general is one of certainty in their dogma in spite of the lack of evidence (this is called "faith," and is considered a virtue by the religious; it's called "gullibility" and is considered an error by the rational).
So you're misrepresenting Myers: he never questions the legitimacy of McGrath's statement regarding "default position[s]" in and of itself. He also never asserts that the modern-science position is the "default" one.
Instead, Myers just denies that McGrath's comment about "default position" accurately describes the thought processes of McGrath and his peers. McGrath is criticizing Dawkins for abandoning a particular "position" when, in fact, McGrath pays that position no heed himself. (And, though Myers doesn't say it in so many words, Dawkins' logic does start from the "default position" McGrath describes, making McGrath's criticism doubly flawed.)
You're misreading Myers, blaine.
25. Resisting peer pressure: new findings shed light on adolescent decision-making
Comment #59590 by Rieux on July 29, 2007 at 8:41 pm
I always thought that will power came from the big toe on the left foot....This reminds me of the hilarious Monty Python quiz show sketch ( http://orangecow.org/pythonet/sketches/takepick.htm ):
Michael Miles: What swims in the sea and gets caught in nets?
Woman: Henri Bergson.
26. Come Out!
Comment #59588 by Rieux on July 29, 2007 at 8:34 pm
Summer:
I totally believe you and the stories, I just have never, ever, experienced it myself.Oh, I believe you, too. I meant it: you're lucky! I wish I could get away with being as out-and-proud, and yet unscathed, as it sounds like you are.
But like I said, I like the shirt idea and I think it's fab and people should wear it if they want, or like it, or feel the need...whatever. It's a T-Shirt people! It's not like you're joining the Krishnas by wearing it!!!I agree. It seems to me that a lot of the complaints here are, to put it mildly, much ado about nothing.
27. Come Out!
Comment #59452 by Rieux on July 29, 2007 at 5:12 am
gcdavis:
OUT is completely associated with Gay issues.But, as I just pointed out, the analogy is nearly perfect. Society understands what it means to be "out," "in the closet," and so on--and it tracks almost exactly with the experience of being an atheist in a fundamentalist society. (Plus, GLBT rights movements happen to be winning right now.) That similarity is good, not bad.
The other problem is geography, in the UK being an atheist is not an issue publicly, politically or commercially. In parts of the US and the wider world it obviously is a big issue.Well, thanks a freakin' lot. What do those of us who live in places where it's a "big issue" need to do in order for you to allow us a little attempt at community-building? Should we bow and scrape a little more? How nice it must be for you that you don't have to worry about atheophobia in your life. Shame we all aren't so fortunate.
Atheism is an absence of faith, it isn't any thing else!And "gay" is a sexual orientation, "black" is a (basically undefinable) range of skin pigmentation, "female" is a mater of chromosomes and gender identity....
What all of those words have in common is that they describe categories of human beings (and obviously they're not an exhaustive list) who are frequently subject to oppression by people who don't like them. Like it or not, you belong in a subset of humanity that is detested by a much larger subset of humanity merely because your "absence of faith"; we're a class because much of the world treats us that way. For those of us who aren't lucky enough to be able to escape oppression by living thousands of miles away from it, banding together can be a vital survival strategy.
I suppose someone here can put the whole point in Selfish Gene-ish terms....
28. Come Out!
Comment #59449 by Rieux on July 29, 2007 at 4:58 am
BT Murtagh:
The only physical assault I know of an atheist suffering (it's listed in one of Rieux's links) is a kid in high school being bullied by other high school kids.Well, there is the incident described here ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Mirecki , bottom of page), too. And I would bet heavily that there are many more incidents of schoolyard beatings similar to the Calgary case you read at one of my links ( http://tinyurl.com/37683 ).
Otherwise, I agree--assault is not the primary problem atheists face. But (as I think you recognize) other things, like employment discrimination, custody discrimination, family shunning, etc., are very real problems.
29. Come Out!
Comment #59447 by Rieux on July 29, 2007 at 4:51 am
BMMcArdle:
Out, nowadays, has conotations related to hidden homosexuality.Indeed. And, as Dawkins (among many others) have noticed, gays and lesbians have lately been fighting a very successful campaign to (1) promote humane treatment of sexual minorities and (2) convince society that homophobic speech and actions are wrong and should be discouraged. One major tactic in this struggle has been public campaigns to "come out." I suspect the tactic is only part of the reason, but regardless, the attempt to improve societal attitudes toward gays and lesbians is succeeding mightily. I wish we were doing as well!
A large "A", also known as the scarlett letter, is punishment for aldulterers.It was, at least, in one novel by Nathaniel Hawthorne, yes. But, er, so what? I think that's cute--it gives this T-shirt an amusing literary tie-in. We're mocking the attitude that atheism is (like adultery) something shameful that one would only make public if one were forced to do so.
Looks like something Jerry Falwell would have come up with.Maybe. If so, I don't think he would have liked the result. We'd have shoved those scarlet A's right down his theocratic throat.
30. OUT Campaign Launched, 'Scarlet Letter' Shirts Now Available!
Comment #59402 by Rieux on July 29, 2007 at 12:31 am
Brother Maynard ("you're our scholar") wrote:
Far be it from me to have a problem with a giant A on my chest, but the address is a bit of a throw-off.Okay; for those of us who feel the same way, what could we suggest to RD.net as an alternative?
Some ideas I can think of (please chime in, anyone):
- RD.net URL on back only
- Replace RD.net URL with "http://outcampaign.org"
- No URL at all; replace URL with (a) blank space, (b) "-theist", (c) snappy slogan/one-liner joke, (d) ...?
31. Come Out!
Comment #59400 by Rieux on July 29, 2007 at 12:01 am
nobody has threatened me ever - in the south, the midwest, and the southwest. It's just...never happened.Then I think you should consider yourself lucky!
A few years ago, there was an article in Free Inquiry magazine on the topic of discrimination against atheists--and the writer had found ample evidence that it's widespread. Take a look: http://tinyurl.com/37683 .
A few other cites (and sites) that are more recent, and very much on topic:
Law review article finding that non-religious parents routinely lose custody of their children, because of the parents' lack of religion, during divorce cases: http://tinyurl.com/yov2rh
Sociology article documenting the degree to which atheists are a despised minority in the U.S.: http://tinyurl.com/p6npl
And the long-standing "Would you vote for an X for president" poll, in which we've been coming in dead last for decades: http://tinyurl.com/2eyhr9
I dunno--given the evidence from sources like these, I think the "Aw, is there really a problem with bigotry against atheists?" sentiment risks being severely insensitive, if not outright dangerous.
I'm in favor of out-and-proud tactics. If scarlet-A t-shirts make us a more visible, stronger minority, I'm all for it.
32. The hitch in Hitchens' thinking
Comment #58925 by Rieux on July 26, 2007 at 5:30 pm
Bonzai wrote:
So what if it is wrong? You fail to convince me why if something is factually wrong it is automatically undesirable.No, I meant morally wrong--which is why I quoted Russell.
How is it my business to burst your bubble because your self image is "not true".Non sequitur. That it is wrong for Person X to believe Delusion Y does not imply that Person Z is obligated to "burst [X's] bubble."
Your resort to repeated non sequiturs aside, it appears that we are at a moral impasse regarding the status of delusion. I guess I"m comfortable being on the "delusion is bad" side of the impasse.
es, but "identity" is how one sees onself, it is by definition subjective.No, only its particular content is subjective. "My gender identity is male" is an objective fact. Though again, your argument is a total non sequitur.
Sex change operation is cosmetic only as it doesn't change one's genetic make up as male or female.Says who? Not the law, in most of the Western world. As I stated in my previous post (and Western law broadly recognizes), "genetic make up" is not determinative of a human being's sex. On what basis do you assert that chromosomes are more important than gender identity?
Harris was not aware of the difference between height and believing in God.Bollocks. Harris knows perfectly well about liberal theists' attempts to equivocate about the nature of deity. He just dismisses it as meaningless verbiage. Many of us agree with him.
33. The hitch in Hitchens' thinking
Comment #58865 by Rieux on July 26, 2007 at 1:15 pm
Bonzai wrote:
And Sam's point being? Why is it his business if someone wants to believe that he is taller?Uh, perhaps because it's wrong?
I wish to propose for the reader's favourable consideration a doctrine which may, I fear, appear wildly paradoxical and subversive. The doctrine in question is this: that it is undesirable to believe a proposition when there is no ground whatever for supposing it true.I don't think that Sam Harris, of all people, has left it ambiguous why it is that he thinks it's dangerous for people to believe patent falsehoods.
- Bertrand Russell, Introduction to Sceptical Essays
Now we commonly call male to female transexuals "she" and female to male trans "he". Is that not respecting the truth?No--it is the truth. There is overwhelming evidence that gender dysphoria is a "true" biological condition, and plenty of us believe that a person's own gender identity (regardless of chromosomes or external anatomy) is perfectly legitimate as a determinitive factor as to whether to call that person "he" or "she."
For sure it is if you look at gender as just the biological sex....Goodness--do you not know what the word "gender" means? If it meant "just the biological sex," the word would have no function at all. I suggest you look it up.
I'm well acquainted with a married couple consisting of a genetic man and an MTF woman. There's nothing un"truth"ful about that.
Sam Harris is an atheist loon.Because you aren't aware of the difference between height and gender? I'm not sure how that follows.
34. The hitch in Hitchens' thinking
Comment #58862 by Rieux on July 26, 2007 at 12:59 pm
blueollie wrote:
Hey Rieux, I too am a Unitarian Universalist.Okay, but I'm surlier than you!
I do see some value in religious myths and metaphors in my personal life, and I profit from prayer and meditation.For me, I wouldn't even go that far (with the minor exception of meditation, in which I've had some worthwhile experiences). To my mind, there's nothing that should stop a full-blown Dawkins- or Harris-style anti-religion atheist from being a UU... except, of course, if said atheist finds UUism untenable for her. I don't see any doctrinal incompatibility, any requirement in UUism to "see some value in religious myths and metaphors in [one's] personal life" or "profit from prayer." You can find all of the above meaningless, for the ordinary atheist reasons, and still be a UU in perfectly good standing.
This is not to say, though, that Blueollie's account of his/her own perspective on UUism is inaccurate or out-of-the-ordinary; quite the contrary. In fact, a UU atheist who sees religious matters in ways similar to Dawkins/Harris/etc. is likely to find her co-parishioners utterly gobsmacked that she disagrees even with liberal religion. (E.g., "Whaddya mean you don't think 'Einsteinian religion' is real religion? I've never heard of such a bizarre idea!" That kind of shortfall in understanding among UUs--that is, their total ignorance of what so many atheists believe--is something I'm trying to redress.)
Unfortunately, instead of saying "these practices and/or myths help my personal life" (that sounds so bland), many try to put such sentiments into new-agey, post-modernist type diction and end up sounding like airheads.Yes. Guh.
35. The hitch in Hitchens' thinking
Comment #58827 by Rieux on July 26, 2007 at 9:16 am
jeepyjay wrote:
Rieux: How can you possibly be a "Unitarian" AND an "Atheist"?Because Unitarian Universalism (please note I never claimed to be "a Unitarian") is much different from what you think it is.
A unitarian is someone who believes in one god (Uni = One).Sure--150 years ago. But Unitarianism is a real-life entity that has long since moved on--in North America, at least--from that dusty old theological position.
Specifically, in the early Twentieth Century Unitarianism eliminated first Christianity and then theism from its statement of belief. Take a look at the first Humanist Manifesto, composed in 1933 ( http://www.americanhumanist.org/about/manifesto1.html ); it has statements like
Humanism asserts that the nature of the universe depicted by modern science makes unacceptable any supernatural or cosmic guarantees of human values.and
We are convinced that the time has passed for theism [and] deism.......And yet a huge chunk of the authors and signatories of the Manifesto were Unitarian ministers! (This continued to be the case in Manifestos II (1973) and III (2003).) All of which is to say that there have been atheists within the (American) tradition called "Unitarian" for approximately a hundred years. In the mid-Twentieth Century, nearly every American who called herself a "Unitarian" was an atheist!
In 1961, Unitarianism merged with the Universalist church to form the Unitarian Universalist Association (UUA). That Association has no requirement of belief in anything, much less gods. The closest thing to a statement of beliefs from the UUA is the seven Principles (see http://www.pilgrimhouseuua.org/seven.html ), none of which even approach belief in gods.
In point of fact, there are thousands of atheists who belong to UU congregations all over North America. In fact, a significant number of those congregations are staunchly atheist (and overtly humanist) in their outlook and expression.
We atheist UUs are currently in a twenty-year-old brawl with Hedges-flavored UU theists who would like UUism to become much more theistic than it ever has been since the '61 merger. Would you like us to surrender to the theists? I intend to keep fighting to hold on to a place within UUism for nonbelievers.
An atheist is someone who believes in no gods (A = Not).I'd say "a" = "without," not "not," but otherwise--sure. That's me: no belief in gods.
I have an introductory essay regarding Unitarian Universalism on my LiveJournal at http://dr-rieux.livejournal.com/ . (There's one about atheism, intended for UUs who need to learn about us, on there as well.)
I think UU congregations can be very valuable safe havens for atheists; for example, recall that Dawkins has written repeatedly about the value he sees in memorial services that are free from "he's in heaven now" nonsense. Well, there are lots of UU bodies (and ministers, plenty of them atheists themselves) that do that kind of thing very well. A UU funeral, or child dedication ceremony, or wedding (like mine) never references afterlives or immortal souls or that kind of silliness--and it will only include "God" if the parishioners who are centrally involved demand it.
Hedges-style language tampering is, alas, common within UUism--but supernatural superstition is not.
36. The hitch in Hitchens' thinking
Comment #58810 by Rieux on July 26, 2007 at 7:39 am
discipline wrote:
As drive1 said above, we secularists/humanists need to encourage liberal Christians like Hedges, not mock them.Hey, I am a Unitarian Universalist (though not, I hope, a "wishy-washy" one--I'm also an out-and-proud atheist and fan of Dawkins, Harris, Dennett, Hitchens, Myers and company). But the religious criticism that D/H/D/H/M/etc. provide is something that needs to be heard, even when it's sharply critical of my "wishy-washy" co-parishioners who agree with Hedges here.
I, of all atheists, agree that the world would be vastly better if we replaced all of the Pat Robertsons with Chris Hedgeses (or John Shelby Spongs, Bill Sinkfords, etc). But the societal Overton window needs to be stretched, and the "wishy-washy" religious need to be educated that some of their ideas (such as the notion that one can only be an atheist if one is totally ignorant of liberal religion) are flat wrong. We atheists have to respond to them; we won't get anywhere by hiding.
37. The hitch in Hitchens' thinking
Comment #58801 by Rieux on July 26, 2007 at 7:26 am
Oh--I've seen Dennett beat up the Courtier's Reply, too ("Perhaps some claims should just be laughed out of court"): http://ase.tufts.edu/cogstud/papers/dawkinsreview.pdf
Here's Harris ("many religious moderates imagine, as you do, that there is some clear line of separation between extremist and moderate religion. But there isn't"): http://www.beliefnet.com/story/209/story_20904.html
And, finally, here's our boy ("The melancholy truth is that decent, understated religion is numerically negligible"): http://richarddawkins.net/print.php?id=1071
38. The hitch in Hitchens' thinking
Comment #58796 by Rieux on July 26, 2007 at 7:05 am
Dawkins has written that he scribbles "teapot" in the margins any time he reads an apologist resorting to the "You can't prove there's no god...." escape hatch.
I think a similar tactic is appropriate with regard to apologetics like this one, so....
Everyone say it with me: "Courtier's Reply, Courtier's Reply, Courtier's Reply"! ( http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2006/12/the_courtiers_reply.php .)
[That said, I would very much like to see Hitchens' rebuttal to Hedges on this point. I've read Dawkins, Harris, and (obviously) Myers explain why Hedges' argument here is meritless, but I've never seen Hitchens address the point squarely.]
39. All the mistakes of the godly are merely metaphor
Comment #57459 by Rieux on July 19, 2007 at 12:17 pm
There's been another round of exchanges in this "debate":
Kleiman responds to the above: http://www.samefacts.com/archives/spirituality_and_religion_/2007/07/bigoted_atheism_redux.php
And Myers rebuts:
http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2007/07/another_round_in_the_kleimanmy.php
40. Kenya: The Death of Religion And Rise of Atheism in the West
Comment #57432 by Rieux on July 19, 2007 at 10:13 am
Bonn and New York are mention'd early in the piece as Western capitals.Well, they're both former Western capitals. The writer's information is just seven and [cringe] two hundred seventeen years out of date.
Comment #56378 by Rieux on July 15, 2007 at 12:50 pm
Uh, folks....
A few commenters have hinted at it, but I think it needs to be said outright that this map (at least represented as "the US map of faith") is garbage. It fundamentally fails to show what it purports to show.
As our friend PZ Myers ( http://tinyurl.com/2fg6jx ) writes:
The consensus is that this is NOT such a nice map after all. The methodology involved querying a subset of the religious organizations in the country about their membership, which has the dual problem of inflated self-reporting and the omission of religious groups that aren't part of major national organizations. The general feeling, I think, is that the overall frequency of religious adherents is grossly underreported in major parts of the country.Sheesh.
42. God only knows who's right or wrong
Comment #3255 by Rieux on October 27, 2006 at 1:16 am
I'm yet another atheist and Dawkins fan on this site, and (as is the case for so many of us) I'm growing increasingly tired of the lazy and cliched complaints we keep seeing in the reviews of TGD.
All that said, though, I think Wakefield is right that Dawkins neglects the (very informal) Argument from Religious Experience and the role it plays in the lives of scads of believers.
I guess I've always thought that Dawkins overrates Paley and the Argument from Design--most importantly, I think he overestimates the degree to which ruminations about Design are at the root of human belief in the supernatural. For extremely obvious reasons, examining the design argument is a topic dear to Dawkins' heart; but I strongly suspect that believers' own experience with internal phenomena that they ascribe to God (or to "the spirit," to angels, etc.) matters more to most of them than do ("boring") intellectual discussions about watchmakers.
Several of these reviews have complained that Dawkins just doesn't "get" what it's like to believe in God. Generally I think that's a silly criticism (I'm confident Wakefield would be eating plenty of "Sunday hats" if she seriously pursued her little wager, because reason does matter to plenty of wavering believers), but I for one would like to see Dawkins concentrate more on the particular pitfalls of the Argument from Religious Experience than he has to date.
Which is to say: I sure as heck believe it's a bad idea to take an internal mental experience and decide that, on that basis, one has derived fundamental facts about the universe--but I'd love to see how a writer as talented as Dawkins could make that point.
Comment #3253 by Rieux on October 27, 2006 at 12:32 am
johnc wrote:
Sam Harris raises this very problem - how do we support moderate Muslims to effect the required changes in Islamic culture to bring it into the modern world? Surely not by piously intoning that all religion is superstition and arrant nonsense.
Well, goodness--as I read The End of Faith, Harris sure seems to be "piously intoning" almost exactly that. And especially with regard to Islam. (Are you using the verb "raises" in some obscure way? I.e., are you accusing Harris of said "intonation"? That would make a fair amount of sense.)
The fact that [A] some of us may believe all religion is based on fantasy does not [B] make such as an intellectualisation the basis for effective action.
I agree that B does not self-evidently logically follow from A, but (as this thread, among many others, makes clear) many, many of us agree with Dawkins that in the particular context of here and now, such an "intellecualisation" is our best shot for a "basis for effective action" against the rise of unreason.
Dawkins himself makes it abundantly clear that he thinks the current state of the world does not call for people like him to write kind treatises in appreciation of liberal-religious beliefs; rather, he apparently believes, what the current situation calls for is clear explanations of the errors of even those relatively innocent lines of thought.
You and Krauss (and surely many others) recoil at the baldness of Dawkins' tactics; but many of us believe that those tactics are exactly what is needed in 2006 America/Britain/etc. Yes, TGD will alienate some people. It'll also do a whole lot of good--and (we submit) more good than it would have done had he been more reserved in his rhetoric.
As for the Australian controversy you cite--well, obviously Dawkins' target isn't (narrowly) Islam, and his intended audience isn't (primarily) Australian. Even if a harshly critical essay on Islam would be a bad idea in the Australian case, it would not follow that Dawkins' essay--on a different topic, and intended for a different audience--is therefore poorly pitched.
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