1. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #174998 by Polydactyl on May 4, 2008 at 4:50 am

Medieval thinkers did point to both the stars and 'nature' for evidence of God: there was a long tradition going back to Saint Basil (in Greek) and Saint Ambrose (in Latin) of marvelling at the wonders of nature, and the evidence they show to praise God. Lots of the material was drawn from Aristotle: the intelligence of the stag, the organization of the bees, the planning of the ant, the skill of the spider. There was a parallel tradition looking to the stars and planets, 'for by the works is the workman shown', which similarly looks back to Greek thinkers.
Darwin really did dynamite a lot of past thinking.

2. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #159900 by Polydactyl on April 13, 2008 at 11:20 am

To Dr Benway's point:
Well, there are all sorts of levels of believers, and it probably isn't a good idea to use the same ammunition against all of them.

In increasing order of distance from atheism:

1. The most accessible: those who merely want to put 'God' in the spot where science says 'we don't know'. No problem with that, unless they start saying 'God' doesn't want us to know or try to find out.

2. The next are those who argue for some religion or other. Religion has been around since humanity began, probably, and all the more persuasive for that. If religion is so common, and so old, it must serve a purpose. We could find out more about that.

3. The third lot are those who argue for a particular, revealed religion: Christianity, Islam, whatever, with Holy Book, rules, an interventionist God, etc. Shades into Dr Benway's Biblebots, who are the most unreachable. But many in this category could be asked to ponder on such crucial questions as 'why is your holy book uniquely true?' and 'why is your revelation so late and narrowly restricted in such a vast universe?' Possibly more effective than nitpicking bible quotations?

But no point in using heavy artillery against type 1, and arguments about type 2 would be more interesting than just insulting noises. Mixing levels doesn't help, though: we shouldn't assume that everyone who argues for 1 is a secret bible-thumper or believes in an 'invisible friend' without further clarification.

3. Fleabytes

Comment #159496 by Polydactyl on April 12, 2008 at 10:20 am

Nice that the Oxford English Dictionary can still beat out Google: see under genethliac, complete with late Latin and Greek etymology. Right up Cartomancer's street is the noun, Genethlialogy, 'the science [sic!] of casting nativities.'

4. Richard Dawkins on The Big Questions

Comment #159167 by Polydactyl on April 11, 2008 at 2:22 pm

People love conspiracies. And the internet makes them both easier, quicker and more entrancing.

I love Cartomancer's fantasy of a society made up of conspiracy theorists, all socially stratified. I wonder if conspirators do discriminate amongst theories, or do they all subscribe to a general 'there is a giant plot to keep things from us' ethos?

5. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #158904 by Polydactyl on April 11, 2008 at 6:48 am

Useful information on various teas ... and I really appreciate Goldy's reference to a recipe on lamb curry which sounds very enticing.
What a useful site this is.

(sidenote: I don't think 'our' Richard Morgan (whom I miss) would write 'mom'. And 'Diogenes' for a grouchy persona probably points to a similar age-group, not an identity.)

6. Happy Birthday, Richard Dawkins!

Comment #149891 by Polydactyl on March 26, 2008 at 10:17 am

Happy birthday!

I know very little about science--but you write so beautifully it is a delight to read your books. Keep at it!

7. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #149675 by Polydactyl on March 26, 2008 at 5:22 am

Then Wooter and Ben Stein raise an awful doubt in my mind: could evolution be wrong? They seem to be moving in the opposite direction to homo sapiens. A divergent species?

8. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #149665 by Polydactyl on March 26, 2008 at 4:47 am

Wooter/Clearmind isn't sane. It has been enjoyable, and I have learnt a lot from the responses (the superb and masterly Calilasseia!), but Wooter doesn't go anywhere: just repeats himself/herself endlessly.

Enough already?

9. Fleabytes

Comment #148953 by Polydactyl on March 24, 2008 at 6:25 pm

mikejswalker:
I agree with you. No sense in two sides just shouting 'liar' at each other, or arguing trivia. We all need to try to understand a bit more clearly where the other side is coming from. We are not always as rational as we think we are.

Richard M: bring back the ginger cat?

10. Fleabytes

Comment #142175 by Polydactyl on March 12, 2008 at 5:45 am

Facts, evidence, reason ... not always what we think them. Our minds do funny things with evidence. As Richard Morgan showed, even the 'facts' of our own past are interpreted by the memory. Religion works because it offers a story, one which answers a whole series of human problems--the stories have been around from the beginning of time, so they have evolved very successfully with human questions. And the stories belong in the part of our minds which is far below reason and fact. You can't really refute a story with a fact. You can deal with effects on a one-by-one basis, as medicine does.

Many years ago a friend of my father, a physician, vaccinated a baby and it had one of those rare reactions to the vaccination and died. The physician was devastated. My father got him to vaccinate me as a kind of vote of support for the procedure. His, I suppose, was the 'rational' response: vaccination is, on the whole, a very good thing, even if the odd child has an adverse reaction or dies. But religion does more for the person who is unlucky, whose child dies. It has a better 'story'.

11. Fleabytes

Comment #140981 by Polydactyl on March 9, 2008 at 11:55 am

Eugenics seems to have been an erroneous idea. But thought reasonable at the time.

12. Fleabytes

Comment #140975 by Polydactyl on March 9, 2008 at 10:24 am

Dr Benway:
My point was that reason can lead to bad things too: I worry a bit about our confidence in it. It might be all we have--but that doesn't make it invariably non-toxic. You said yourself you had had to do terrible things to children in your line of work, for their greater good. The principle isn't that different.

13. Fleabytes

Comment #140942 by Polydactyl on March 9, 2008 at 6:35 am

I can see why a believer might regard atheism as dangerous (and with some justification). I read--in Steve Jones, I think--that the whole eugenics movement to 'sterilize the unfit' was promoted in its day as a most reasonable way to proceed. It was opposed by the religious, for religious reasons; and by and large today it is considered completely discredited. But it was thought to be convincingly reasonable in its day. Similarly euthanansia and abortion are still thorny issues: they can be argued for rationally, but conflict radically with religious positions. So are the 'rational candies' always non-toxic?

14. Crossing the Divide

Comment #140693 by Polydactyl on March 8, 2008 at 11:14 am

Yes, but you were actually turned off by the hateful spy-god aspect of religion. People who cling to religion see other aspects: the loving and forgiving creator who validates their existence. I have trouble with the idea that everyone 'ought' to get rid of that idea and accept the cold hard truth of atheism, and even more trouble with the idea that we are essentially rational beings. Occasionally rational, perhaps, but always? I think the 'truths' of atheism are a good deal more bitter than the 'truths' of religion. Not that that defends me from atheism.

15. Crossing the Divide

Comment #140662 by Polydactyl on March 8, 2008 at 9:23 am

I confess I get a bit turned off by all the cheerful atheists here who keep saying, 'Just face the truth, it's really wonderful.' The truth can be bloody awful, and horribly destructive. I think you have to be a bit cautious at forcing it on people.

16. Fleabytes

Comment #140659 by Polydactyl on March 8, 2008 at 8:50 am

Ugsome has even more potential: it has a verb as well: to ug = 'to inspire with dread, loathing and disgust'. It may be used transitively or intransitively:'something ugs me' or 'he ugs sore' = he feels disgust. And then there are things that are ugglesome ...

17. Fleabytes

Comment #139559 by Polydactyl on March 6, 2008 at 4:51 am

Yes: religion offers not just love, but forgiveness for all the mess you have made of things, a way of becoming reconciled, comforted, etc etc

One trouble is that being 'social animals' necessarily means that there is a lot more to us than rationality. Reason is, perhaps, so far our highest achievement, but it needs constant maintenance, and often wears out before life does. So how far is it a good idea to ignore all the other aspects of our nature? And how can 'rationality' substitute for emotions and feelings?

18. Fleas on the Horizon: In Defense of God

Comment #138465 by Polydactyl on March 4, 2008 at 11:41 am

One problem is that rationalism isn't the only alternative to religion. I meet a lot of people who have given up religion in favour of 'spirituality' or some variety of New Ageism or superstition. Not sure it isn't better to be opposed to something systematic than to be opposed to the nebulous irrational. Though I suppose the irrational doesn't necessarily involve fanaticism.

19. Add another flea to the list...

Comment #133651 by Polydactyl on February 26, 2008 at 1:13 pm

Steve Zara # 133620

With all respect, a phrase like 'theistic idea of reality' comes from a discourse which has little to do with religion. Religion appeals to something much less intellectual, much closer to the submerged bulk of our ape inheritance. Our reasoning powers are just the pointy bit that sticks out of the water: not there in children, needs training in adults, fades away in old age and illness. But the big subrational bulk is there underneath, and it matters. It's not surprising that the religious treat your carefully-reasoned posts as if they were written in a foreign language.

20. Add another flea to the list...

Comment #133608 by Polydactyl on February 26, 2008 at 12:33 pm

Thanks for the reply, Richard.
A cruel sod indeed: not quite sure why so many of the atheists here seem so upbeat!
Hang on to the wife. I had to watch my husband die, which both confirmed the atheism, and showed exactly how cruel it is.
Reading the Iliad was about the only helpful thing there.

I like your orange cat. Cats are good.

21. Add another flea to the list...

Comment #133545 by Polydactyl on February 26, 2008 at 10:48 am

Richard Morgan #133248

Interesting comment. It is true that not much real engagement seems to take place between believers and non-believers. Believers' comments seem to fall into three main groups:
1 those who argue from design/beauty/origin of universe (these are very ably dealt with here by explanations of the 'appearance of design' etc)
2 those who have a 'personal experience' of God which has convinced them of 'the truth'. These are really impossible to argue with, once you have pointed out how subjective experiences are.
3 Those who feel a strong psychological need for God. These are the ones who are almost never approached with anything except derision by non-believers.
But until atheists can address seriously the (until now) almost universal human need for some sort of divine mythology, the two groups will just continue to talk past each other.

Incidentally, I fall into Richard's category of someone who once used to believe, and now no longer does. I embraced atheism with considerable regret.

22. Fleabytes

Comment #131800 by Polydactyl on February 23, 2008 at 10:39 am

David Robertson,
A quick observation about the atheist 'creed': I don't think you are right about it all being rationalism and evidence. What finally convinced me that Christianity was not true was two things: a knowledge of how texts are made, and the idea (forcefully expressed by Hitchens) that, in a world which is billions of years old, in a universe with billions of stars, the idea that all truth suddenly appeared on earth a mere 2000 years ago (or 1400, or 100)is incredible. Why did God wait so long to sort things out? Why us?
And since I know something about the way stories work and are composed and transmitted, I came to see that religions are 'good stories' which work in satisfying ways. Part of the realization came to me when I had to teach the gospel of Matthew as 'literature', a story among other stories.
I am not a scientist or a logician, but it does seem that religion is much more easily explicable as myth and story than by positing an actual deity to make it 'true'.
So, for me, claiming religion is true seems to arise from a peculiarly literal reading of story. I don't ask you to show me evidence, but I'd like to hear an argument for why your particular story, amongst all the others recorded in time, should be uniquely 'true'.

23. Are the 'New Atheists' avoiding the 'real arguments'?

Comment #124692 by Polydactyl on February 10, 2008 at 4:50 am

A slightly different way of looking at it would be to think about the nature of stories. Humans seem to be committed to all sorts of tales, and they tend to come in patterns. The story of the great king who did marvels, died, and will come again is a deeply satisfying pattern: turns up all over the place (as people have said, King Arthur to Elvis). The story of Jesus fits the pattern perfectly (and I agree with Shrommer, he was probably a real person). The kind of admiration he aroused drew his story into the familiar pattern: tales about him grew into marvels, and gradually into a religion. I find much of the teaching of Jesus cited in the gospels of significant moral value, and that is the core of the message; but even that has been mediated through oral tradition and selective memory, and is not always consistent or reliable. The life details and marvels belong to the world of stories, not history.

24. The real danger in Darwin is not evolution, but racism

Comment #121920 by Polydactyl on February 4, 2008 at 11:14 am

'Dwarfs on the shoulders of giants' was a saying current in the Middle Ages (John of Salisbury, I think); and probably older.

25. Math Religion Trouble

Comment #117379 by Polydactyl on January 28, 2008 at 5:46 pm

Cartomancer, when you have finished the thesis, you have a book, or books to write. With your knowledge, fluency, and skill with words you could aim at something like a professorship in the public understanding of the Middle Ages.
We can't tackle religion in the present without the past.

26. Richard Dawkins - Science and the New Atheism

Comment #95386 by Polydactyl on December 8, 2007 at 8:24 am

I agree with Northern Bright: steve99 is always interesting to read.
Surely, surely, atheists have to engage with others who disagree--and communication is hard work: fatally easy to misunderstand each other. Lots of the debates here show that people are not really understanding the position of the other side at all.

And it would be powerfully boring to read only atheists' comments congratulating each other on their insight.
Please carry on, Steve99 (and all those other tireless folk who keep up the rational arguments).

27. Banishing the Green-Eyed Monster

Comment #93506 by Polydactyl on December 3, 2007 at 10:07 am

Then that is the difference between us: I have a hard time seeing jealousy as 'something very healthy'.

And 'may have to do with the feeling of betrayal, of breach of trust': well, is that feeling always justified? You keep saying 'this is not the point', which I find bewildering. The article argued that it seems to be possible to love more than one partner at a time (the French seem to manage it, and I have seen TV footage of happy wives of polygamous mormons), so perhaps we should try not to give jealousy a free pass, and consider whether a variety of different sexual arrangements (private matters between consenting individuals) are not equally valid ways of living one's life. Article didn't say that one should betray or deceive: it merely suggested that 'marital' arrangements should perhaps be considered in a less restrictive frame, and that we should perhaps look upon 'jealousy' in a more disapproving light. And it was talking about 'love', not just sex.

28. Banishing the Green-Eyed Monster

Comment #93496 by Polydactyl on December 3, 2007 at 9:30 am

Etny:

What is good about jealousy then? (Sexual urges don't really need defending.)

29. Banishing the Green-Eyed Monster

Comment #93406 by Polydactyl on December 3, 2007 at 5:13 am

A broken promise is a broken promise: divorce formalizes that.
But substitute 'exclusive fidelity' for 'lifelong fidelity' if you like: I would still argue that it is something we should look at, not dismiss out of hand.
Are your reasons for thinking exclusive fidelity is the only valid moral pattern based in biology, or our mammalian heritage, or what?

30. Banishing the Green-Eyed Monster

Comment #93396 by Polydactyl on December 3, 2007 at 4:41 am

It is an emotional subject.
But, given that formal promises of lifelong fidelity seem to be broken rather more than half the time, does it make sense to ask the question: why do we make such promises? Is it rational to expect such a promise to be kept? Is keeping such a promise invariably a virtue?

Isn't raising questions about the development of human morality something atheism, by its very nature, has to tackle?

31. Banishing the Green-Eyed Monster

Comment #93322 by Polydactyl on December 2, 2007 at 5:27 pm

Goldy:

Guess that makes

If you are a grownup, then you know that sex with the person you really love is the most exciting kind of love that there is.


Sex with the one you love the SAFEST love there is...


Only if the one you love is safe.

There is a need for a new morality, already well in the process of being formed: along the lines of: responsible people should be honest as possible with their partners; should not toy with the emotions of others or string them along; should not start a baby unless they are emotionally and financially able to take proper care of it; should not risk transmitting an STD.
Maybe there are others, but those are the ones I would start with with a child of mine. Promising lifelong fidelity is something I would not presume to recommend; though it is a nice idea,it seems to work slightly less than half of the time.

32. Banishing the Green-Eyed Monster

Comment #93305 by Polydactyl on December 2, 2007 at 4:11 pm

The focus on fidelity is a bit misleading. Times have changed: most young people, as far as I know, engage in sex before marriage. Sex and marriage are no longer as intimately coupled as they were when life-long pair mating was essential to ensure the legitimacy of the children. You don't have to worry about having babies anymore if you are otherwise prudent, so the boundaries have all changed. When I was young, a girl was expected to stay chaste so a husband, when caught, could be fairly sure the babies were his. This does not happen anymore in a good many enlightened corners of the west. So the young arrange their pairings on rather different premises. And I get the impression that it is considered very 'uncool' to be jealous, possessive, or even nosy about one's partner's previous experiences. It really is a new world out there.

33. Banishing the Green-Eyed Monster

Comment #93158 by Polydactyl on December 2, 2007 at 10:45 am

Surely the invention of reliable contraceptives must make a huge difference to the treatment of sex and marriage in society. Professor Dawkins' point of view actually seems to be the usual one amongst the young people I know (university students in major cities). They all (I think quite properly) seem to explore various relationships (and genders!) quite openly, and usually settle down after a while to a comfortable relationship and perhaps have babies. But they can't be anything like as naive about their attachments and commitments as people were a couple of generations ago. They are used to negotiating the terms of a relationship.
I think it is clear that marriage has, to some degree, to be rethought because we can now, perhaps for the first time, reliably control reproduction.

34. A Revelation

Comment #78701 by Polydactyl on October 14, 2007 at 11:20 am

But all the evidence, before the Renaissance, tended to support the 'God hypothesis'; it would hardly have been possible to question the 'evidence' of the senses until the whole intellectual system was shaken to breaking point by the telescope, the microscope, etc. etc. It sure looks as if the sun rises and sets; Copernicus developed a theory which defied the 'evidence' and was subsequently proved correct.

A god hypothesis lay behind the most influential classical philosophers and scientists too: it is hard to know how anybody living then could have 'tested' it: the argument from design was pretty compelling before the Darwinian explanation provided an alternate solution.

Surely we must hold assumptions today which seem wholly 'scientific' to us, but which will be exploded by a later paradigm. All I am saying is what Cartomancer put better: it makes no sense to attack a mudfish for not having evolved legs.

Medieval medicine was based on incorrect assumptions, but the church had nothing to do with the forging or preservation of those assumptions; only the accumulation of centuries of intellectual effort would prove them wrong.

35. A Revelation

Comment #78652 by Polydactyl on October 14, 2007 at 5:05 am

mmurray:
Well, don't all theories start from some pre-existing view of the world? You can't have a theory in a mental vacuum. Medieval medical theory was based on the model outlined by Galen (2ndc.) which provided a framework of anatomy and physiology on which medieval doctors built. In our view they were too accepting of Galen: they should have done some anatomy of their own, but, as Cartomancer says, developing modern structures of enquiry takes time, and when they got hold of Galen he seemed so far in advance of what they had that they bought him wholesale. But they did criticise, enlarge, and develop. As Kuhn says, you don't get a paradigm shift in science until there is a mass of accumulated data which doesn't fit with your theoretical framework: that is when you throw out the old frame and propose a new one (which will be thrown out in its turn).

And much of medieval religion thought enquiry into nature was virtuous: the examination of 'God's work'. So nature was examined, and, since Darwin, we have come to suspect that it isn't 'God's work' at all--but it took a long time to come to that view. Typically the larger the frame around a system of thought, the harder it is to see it or change it. The church's emphasis on literacy and education is something we all have reason to be grateful for.

36. A Revelation

Comment #78490 by Polydactyl on October 13, 2007 at 7:58 am

Cartomancer puts it beautifully.

Many on this site get very annoyed when the other side trot out arguments they consider trite, strawmen, or produced in ignorance of the real position of the unbeliever. But some of the arguments by unbelievers show similar failings: attacking an entirely notional "church" and erroneous ideas of what it is supposed to have said and done and thought. Isn't it important for a real discussion to have an accurate idea of the other's position? Otherwise we are not really talking to each other at all.

37. A Revelation

Comment #78404 by Polydactyl on October 12, 2007 at 5:10 pm

Bonzai: when did the medieval church declare Aristotle to be infallible?

PGFM: people divide up 'medieval' and 'Renaissance' in different ways: I guess I should have explained that I take anything after the beginning of printing to be 'Renaissance'; I don't think there was much trouble between the church and science before printed texts began to get around. The Galileo row was long after the medieval period of history.

38. A Revelation

Comment #78342 by Polydactyl on October 12, 2007 at 1:13 pm

On medieval scientific thought: most ideas grew out of the theories of ancient Greek thought, especially that of Aristotle. There was a bit of trouble when Aristotle's works first became known in the West,but it did not take very long for them to become the staple of the university curriculum. They might be, by our views, erroneous, but they were real scientific theories, and expounded at great length by medieval academics such as St Albertus Magnus: so, no: the medieval church was not opposed to science at all. Medieval medicine is similarly based on erroneous foundations (the theory of the four elements), but within that framework it is 'scientific' in reasoning. I have found nothing on demonic possession in medical texts of the high Middle Ages, and it is safe to assume that most of them were written by clerics of one sort or another. PGFM must be thinking about the Renaissance turmoil over Galileo, etc. but Copernicus was a cleric, and it didn't seem to prevent him from elaborating the heliocentric theory.

39. Postmodernism Disrobed

Comment #29110 by Polydactyl on April 1, 2007 at 4:58 pm

Either very funny or very embarrassing. I do assure you that not all of us at the University of Toronto write like that. Some of us favour the 'Faith, Hope and Clarity, and the greatest of these is Clarity' line: but I suppose that isn't quite right for an atheist website either.
The McLuhan Centre is 'for Culture and Technology': makes you think, doesn't it?