501. A force for good?

Comment #60068 by Russell Blackford on July 31, 2007 at 6:30 pm

I do think that much of the bashing of genuinely moderate religionists - those who have thoroughly adapted to modernity - is misplaced. The genuine moderates are not bad people at all, and they do no more to shield the more dangerous religionists than do all the secular truth-relativists, etc., who are equally insistent about the requirement to "respect" religion. Indeed, some religious moderates have been more prepared to stand up and resist Dominionist ambitions and so on than a lot of secular intellectuals have been.

I must immediately add that I do not consider the Vatican leaders, for example, to be genuine moderates, though I think that lots of ordinary Catholic lay people (and maybe some of the lower-ranked religious) probably are. I don't know whether it's true that the majority of religionists are genuinely moderate. Perhaps it's true in a lot of countries or parts of countries, but it's clearly not so in others, including in much of the US.

However, it's important that there are people like Richard Dawkins who are making clear that what is fundamentally wrong with religion is that it is false, and that we can't - sorry - hide that message on the basis that it might offend someone. It is not only false, but also, in many of its forms, actually cruel and/or dangerous and/or absurd.

In the end, I don't care greatly if genuinely moderate forms of religion survive (though in some moods I express the wish that religion would die out altogether, and that would certainly make things simpler). For me, the point isn't to eliminate religion of all kinds by all possible means. It is merely to create a sufficiently powerful wave of dissent from its assumed truth to have a political impact. What I most want may not be what Dawkins most wants; I'm not sure about this. My main goal is simply to get to the point where religion-based moral reasoning is disregarded in the formulation of public policy. It's about the stricter separation of church and state.

Meanwhile, if part of the impact of the books by Dawkins, Hitchens, etc., is that more of the moderates begin to dissociate themselves from the most absurd and cruel forms of religion, then that's probably a good thing.

502. The Out Campaign

Comment #60047 by Russell Blackford on July 31, 2007 at 4:41 pm

I wonder if I get a prize?

503. God-Fearing People: Why are we so scared of offending Muslims?

Comment #60045 by Russell Blackford on July 31, 2007 at 4:37 pm

Hitchens is correct, but what sort of nutjob would think that throwing a book of any kind in a public toilet is a good way of making his point (whatever it was)? Referring the matter to the police is a ridiculous overreaction, of course.

504. The Out Campaign

Comment #59837 by Russell Blackford on July 30, 2007 at 7:28 pm

I'm not sure why we make such a fuss about whether something is "a choice". One of the points often made against Pascal's wager (certainly by me) is that belief is not volitional (certainly not in any simple way). Indeed, this is one of the reasons why Christian doctrines of hellfire and damnation are so abhorrent: what strikes you as true is not a matter that you can simply choose.

The main point about homosexuality is not that it is unchosen (that's not very relevant, even if it's true) but that it is essentially harmless. The main point about having dangerous beliefs is not that they are "chosen" (they are not ... not in any simple way) but that they are dangerous.

505. Philip Kitcher - Living with Darwin

Comment #59806 by Russell Blackford on July 30, 2007 at 5:26 pm

Donald, I don't know what you mean by saying that religions have to be forced to be secular. If you mean that literally, then I can't agree. I have no wish to use force against religionists.

I agree with everything else that you say, and what we can do is try to create a social ethos in which the prestige of religion is downgraded, in an effort to blunt the force of its political mission. I agree that that is exactly what Dawkins, etc., are doing and that it is extremely important. That's why I get annoyed when people who should be allies, like Terry Eagleton and Stanley Fish - major secular literary intellectuals - don't get it, and why I just get dismayed and disheartened when people who essentially are allies, like Michael Ruse and Philip Kitcher - heavyweight atheistic philosophers - don't really get this aspect either.

I'm afraid that we are going to need satire, passion, and all the other weapons of public debate, if we are going to be able to reach out to the public. That may not be everyone's style or talent, but I do wish the atheist philosophers like Kitcher would understand the need. Also, not every book can do everything. It's true that we need to build a naturalistic worldview, including a naturalistic morality, but we also have a helluva lot of ground to clear to make room for it in the public sphere. I don't think we can just sit around waiting for every country, including the US, to become a Scandinavian social democracy. We could be waiting for a very long time.

506. Philip Kitcher - Living with Darwin

Comment #59650 by Russell Blackford on July 30, 2007 at 3:26 am

Kitcher is one of our best current thinkers in philosophy, and in this interview he says many things that I agree with: it is difficult to reconcile the Darwinian picture with the idea of a providential deity; a significant diminution in the practical role of faith in the US will probably require a less relentlessly competitive society with a better social safety net; it is worthwhile doing follow-up philosophical work to explore the moral and political implications of a naturalistic picture of the world, and specifically to identify and develop a morality that does not depend on supernaturalistic skyhooks; it would be good if philosophers dealt more with the big picture and were less narrowly focused on specialised, technical problems; religion itself has been backsliding, or hardening, in recent decades, which creates an important social problem that must be addressed.

That's all music to my ears.

Furthermore, the book that Kitcher has written sounds like a very useful one, and I admire his earlier books such as The Lives to Come and The Advancement of Science (the best general work on philosophy of science that I have ever come across). Kitcher is someone who is worthy of great respect.

But I also disagree about some things. First, I am not so sanguine that a truly rational morality, based solely on a naturalistic understanding of the world, would preserve as much traditional Christian morality as Professor Kitcher assumes. In my view, religion fossilises a lot of morality that may never have been justified in the first place and is certainly not justified in current circumstances. I see no choice but to be open about this fact. I'm especially thinking about attitudes to sexuality and reproduction.

Second, I think that the negativity of his comments about Richard Dawkins, and the others who were mentioned, was very unfortunate, and I hope he will rethink his attitude on that.

On that subject, we desperately need major intellectuals such as Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens to play the role that we've seen from them in putting on the agenda the important idea that religion as we know it is just not true and is often harmful. That helps clear the ground for people who want to challenge religion's political and moral prestige, or authority, which seems to me something that must happen if we are to make progress. I, for one, am very grateful to Dawkins and Hitchens for doing that (and to Onfray, Grayling, Dennett, Carrier, Stenger, Hirsi Ali, Harris, etc., etc.).

These people cannot be expected to address every possible issue in just one or two books each - though I should note that Richard Carrier's Sense and Goodness without God, which is rather underrated, and doesn't even seem to have found a good publisher, does an impressive job of defending a truly comprehensive philosophical naturalism, including the moral implications. (If anything, Carrier tries to do too much.)

That said, of course we need more books, and the existing books have not done everything that is needed. How could a relatively small (still) number of books ever do that? But it is great that a torrent of explicitly atheistic work has now started, with more and more on its way. Opportunities are opening up. Kitcher's own contribution may well be an important one, and let's hope he follows up in the way he says he wants to do.

But, Professor Kitcher, please rethink this aspect. There is no need to be so negative about books, just because none of them so far has managed to be and do everything that is required. We need your contribution without it having to detract from those of others.

Btw, was I the only one who found Grothe a bit annoying with his long leading questions? Kitcher didn't let him put words in his mouth, fortunately, and I realise that this sort of interview is very difficult to do ... but I could have done with less of Grothe's own formulations of the issues.

507. OUT Campaign Launched, 'Scarlet Letter' Shirts Now Available!

Comment #59427 by Russell Blackford on July 29, 2007 at 3:12 am

Well, I ordered one anyway. Hope it suits me when it turns up. I'll look forward to seeing it.

508. OUT Campaign Launched, 'Scarlet Letter' Shirts Now Available!

Comment #59322 by Russell Blackford on July 28, 2007 at 7:42 pm

If people were complaining about the reference to RichardDawkins.net, I could at least understand it. I don't necessarily want to wear a T-shirt that advertises my involvement with a particular website (though I don't necessarily object, either). But it is totally beyond me why there's any objection to wearing a T-shirt that symbolises your belief about an important issue like adultery atheism. ;)

Seriously, the flak here really makes me scratch my head. I'm happy to be a cat who is difficult to herd, rather than a sheep, but if some of us decide we'd like to wear a T-shirt that makes a statement about something important, I just can't see the problem.

509. OUT Campaign Launched, 'Scarlet Letter' Shirts Now Available!

Comment #59277 by Russell Blackford on July 28, 2007 at 5:06 pm

What's the negative connotation of the scarlet letter? I would have thought that boldly wearing a scarlet letter on your T-shirt was a way of symbolising your rejection of puritan notions of sexual "sin", such as described in Nathaniel Hawthorne's book, The Scarlet Letter. More generally, it symbolises your rejection of cruel, narrow-minded religious ideas of morality.

I realise that the "A" stands for "atheism", but what I like about it is its broader cultural resonance. You can read it as symbolising "Atheism is not a sin", for example.

Nice design, too.

510. How could God allow 26 pilgrims to die in a crash?

Comment #59200 by Russell Blackford on July 28, 2007 at 7:47 am

Earthquakes are natural evils. They are not moral evils. In this context, "an evil" is just something we regard as bad (because it kills people, causes suffering, or whatever). Of course, when we describe people or their actions as "evil", we are usually thinking of moral evil. When an earthquake or something is called a "natural evil", the point is being made that it was a bad thing to happen but not something that involved moral fault.

This terminology is used by atheist philosophers as well as by religionists; there's nothing especially tendentious about it.

511. In defense of dangerous ideas

Comment #59181 by Russell Blackford on July 28, 2007 at 12:41 am

Bonzai sez:

University students taking "philosophy of sex" are by no means an unbiased sample of gen Yers.

512. In defense of dangerous ideas

Comment #59173 by Russell Blackford on July 27, 2007 at 9:57 pm

I said:

I don't really see the contrast that Pinker does between PC boomers (like him and me, presumably) and their bemused Gen Y kids or students.

513. Don't eat at the Outback Steakhouse on Route 3...

Comment #59064 by Russell Blackford on July 27, 2007 at 6:22 am

Bonzai, you ask a good question: What exactly is wrong with burning Bibles?

Well, I don't see it as the same as satire. Although it is a symbolic act, it is also a destructive one and tends to send the wrong message - one of the kind of "militance" that we are often falsely accused of. More importantly, it conjures up associations with past book burnings, which related to attempts to suppress those books. It's not surprising if someone interprets the act of burning a bible as meaning, "We want to suppress the content of your holy book", given what book burning has signified historically. Most of us, however, want to do no such thing.

I wouldn't ban the action of burning bibles, any more than I would ban flag burning. If people want to make strong symbolic statements, then they should be allowed to. However, they should be aware of how their symbolism is likely to be interpreted. For whatever it's worth (and my views cut little ice, I'm sure), I strongly discourage burning bibles or other holy books and I don't think that "idiocy" was too strong a word in the circumstances. It is the sort of action that gives totally the wrong impression of what most of us here are all about (I think). I, for one, would feel the need to dissociate myself from it.

514. The hitch in Hitchens' thinking

Comment #58973 by Russell Blackford on July 26, 2007 at 7:57 pm

Take this:

Hitchens' simplistic assault is itself a dangerous kind of fundamentalism. He externalizes evil, something he shares with the religious fundamentalists he ridicules.

515. Don't eat at the Outback Steakhouse on Route 3...

Comment #58957 by Russell Blackford on July 26, 2007 at 6:46 pm

All that said, talk of burning bibles and churches is idiocy, however humorous or ironic it is supposed to be.

516. In defense of dangerous ideas

Comment #58177 by Russell Blackford on July 23, 2007 at 9:55 pm

What's not clear to me is how much the questions listed match the actual "dangerous ideas" in the book.

More generally, Pinker is clearly right except for one odd thing. It's news to me that baby boomers are more PC than Generations X and Y. That seems to be Pinker's anecdotal experience, but it doesn't really match mine.

I think that the degree to which intellectuals are willing to entertain non-PC dangerous ideas has more to do with factors other than age, and if anything my Gen X friends and acquaintances strike me as more PC than my boomer ones. After all, boomers grew up during or shortly after the 1960s sexual revolution, which was not a PC time; PC, with its big streak of puritanism, is as much a reaction against the sexual revolution as a continuation of it. Not sure about Gen Y, but a lot of teenagers and twenty-somethings seem to be at least as close-minded as their parents. I don't really see the contrast that Pinker does between PC boomers (like him and me, presumably) and their bemused Gen Y kids or students.

517. Insurance for Sex Abuse: A policy tailor-made for the Catholic church

Comment #56893 by Russell Blackford on July 17, 2007 at 5:24 pm

In principle, this is just like any other employer getting insurance for any other kind of misconduct by its employees that might lead to litigation where the employer's vicarious liability is asserted. Remember that the Catholic Church itself is an abstraction; it's the individual priests who commit the acts. Therefore, liability has to be vicarious (of course, the individual priests won't have enough money to be worth suing unless you can also sue their employer.)

So far, that's totally standard.

It'll be interesting, though, to see whether the Catholic Church eventually becomes uninsurable in respect to this kind of claim. Insurers must be starting to worry.

518. Fears Grow Over 'Mega Mosque'

Comment #56704 by Russell Blackford on July 17, 2007 at 1:46 am

I don't see how this can legitimately be stopped. Well, it could be if there would also be grounds to stop a US-style Christian mega-church in that particular spot, e.g. traffic congestion. But not simply on the ground that it is Muslim.

519. Kenya: The Death of Religion And Rise of Atheism in the West

Comment #56629 by Russell Blackford on July 16, 2007 at 4:10 pm

It's good to see this one. It shows the mentality we are up against without the sugarcoating that comes from more circumspect Western religionists.

Here, for example, we have someone who blatantly considers sexual experience between people of the same sex to be some kind of "decadence", though it seems to me harmless and is obviously pleasurable to the people concerned. It shows how someone who is motivated by compassion and by a love of reason and individual freedom (like most of us here, I hope) is simply on a different wavelength from someone who takes religion seriously and literally (like Mr Odoyo). There couldn't be a better illustration of the need to debunk religion's claims to intellectual and moral authority.

520. The fundamentalist delusion

Comment #56283 by Russell Blackford on July 14, 2007 at 6:25 pm

Zwartz is entitled to use passionate language, if he wishes, as we all are, but it seems a bit odd after such a rant to end up with the bit about reasoning together.

There are so many red herrings in the piece that it's difficult to know where to begin. For example, logical positivism has nothing to do with it. Logical positivism was a brave but failed attempt to define the meaning of "meaning". As Zwartz mentions, it was trapped by being self-contradictory, in that it would have ruled out its own doctrines as "meaningless". But contemporary atheists don't rule out talk of God in that way. They simply argue that there is no good reason to believe in any deity that has been postulated so far ... and plenty of reason not to. To the extent that they are metaphysical naturalists, that stance is not based on a theory of meaning like logical positivism.

(*Makes note to self to get a copy of Pataki's book.*)

521. An Atheist Responds

Comment #56279 by Russell Blackford on July 14, 2007 at 6:01 pm

I'm not too worried about people falling into some kind of wanton nihilism if they lose their belief in God. It didn't happen to me or to anyone else I know. It looks to me as if there are very powerful reasons for us not to act like that, whether we believe in any supernatural beings or not. One is that such wanton nihilism is simply self-defeating: we are better off in the long run with a degree of kindness and altruism and genuine concern for others, rather than constantly thinking about our own pleasures or acting on whims. Another is that evolution seems to have equipped us with a healthy dose of altruism and capacity for sympathy quite naturally - you have to work quite hard to produce individuals who are prepared to hurt others who have not hurt them and who are not prepared to help out others in need, at least when it is easy to do so. A third is that society could not survive, at leaat not beyond a certain level, if we did not have laws regulating who owns what property, etc., with some means of enforcement, so there is always a powerful pull to create such laws, and to socialise people to honour them.

We are essentially moral beings, for a range of reasons. We evolved to be social animals who respond emotionally to each other in various ways, to form various kinds of intangible bonds, to punish those who deviate too harmfully from our social norms, and so on.

That's not to deny religion sometimes helps socialise some people who might otherwise be irresponsible or vicious, but I doubt that we need it. In fact, I'd rather get by without it, which would enable us to stop revering the out-dated, or just plain irrational, moral norms that religion tends to foster, preserve and protect. I'd much rather we "did" morality and law without religion's contantly distorting influence.

Looking at how places like Scandinavia get along without much religious input, I'd say that the balance favours the continued debunking and gradual elimination of religion, rather than trying to preserve it into the future.

522. Yes, the universe looks like a fix. But that doesn't mean that a god fixed it

Comment #52978 by Russell Blackford on June 28, 2007 at 9:56 pm

You do all realise, I take it, that this is just a short extract from his new book. That's not to say that his ideas become crystal clear if you read the whole thing - indeed I found some of the stuff in the last chapters very difficult, and I couldn't begin to explain it - but it's just worth bearing in mind when reading a short teaser in a newspaper.

523. Science of the Soul? 'I Think, Therefore I Am' Is Losing Force

Comment #52807 by Russell Blackford on June 28, 2007 at 5:57 am

Re the cogito, it's true that even if I am, at this instant, being deceived by a powerful, malevolent demon, I must exist for this instant. However, that says nothing about whether I existed in the past, whether I will continue to exist for more than a moment, whether I am anything like how I appear to myself, etc. So the cognito does not get us far.

To get further, Descartes had to prove the existence of an all-powerful and truthful God. His whole philosophical system depends on this. He tries to prove the existence of this being based on such things as a version of the ontological argument and an odd argument (to modern eyes) to the effect that he has the idea of such a being, and that such an idea could only have been caused by the being itself.

524. Science of the Soul? 'I Think, Therefore I Am' Is Losing Force

Comment #52804 by Russell Blackford on June 28, 2007 at 5:45 am

One other general observation: While it's true that some philosophers continue to defend some kind of mind-body dualism, the substance dualism of Descartes is a very unpopular position indeed within philosophy departments, and I'd have assumed everywhere else. I'm often amazed, reading this site, to see how much ideas that I thought were pretty much abandoned by intelligent people decades ago are still being defended, usually by American religionists or the Vatican. It's an eye-opener - keep up the good job, all those who collect this material. But it's also terribly disheartening to see how much the scientific worldview has not prevailed since, say, 30 or 40 years ago.

I mean, really, why has the article that starts this thread even needed to be written? One might have been forgiven for thinking that the existence of an immaterial soul was such a non-starter in serious debate that there's really nothing to write about. But obviously not.

525. Science of the Soul? 'I Think, Therefore I Am' Is Losing Force

Comment #52800 by Russell Blackford on June 28, 2007 at 5:30 am

I can't express adequately how much I HATE that expression "people of faith", as if religionists are analogous to "people of colour" in having to put up with hostility, oppression, and the legacy of historical injustices. Nothing could be more opposite to the truth. My one-person campaign against the expression isn't making much headway, but I'll continue to whine about it whenever I can.

Hmmm, I don't think it's true that secular philosophical thinking fails to keep up with the developments in neurological, etc., science. It would be more true to say that some philosophers resist what appear to be the obvious implications ... but they are all well aware of them, in my experience.

526. Lecture on Neo-Darwinism

Comment #52732 by Russell Blackford on June 28, 2007 at 12:33 am

Yeah, the T-shirt rules.

527. God Hates the World

Comment #51964 by Russell Blackford on June 25, 2007 at 5:25 pm

I don't know what's worst: the fact that this pathological travesty just takes a lot of traditional Christian teaching to its logical conclusion; the horror of seeing some otherwise-normal-looking young people having a good time, getting into it, singing these hateful words (lives already ruined); or the exploitation and brainwashing of little kids.

Hmmm, I guess I'll take the third of those. That last part, with the tiny girl trying to sing the words, was one of the most appalling things I've ever seen.

But the other points are pretty bad, too ... I've seen a lot of Christian fundamentalism in my time, and I'm here to tell you that its "normal" teachings are really not all that far from what has been expressed here.

528. The infinite wisdom of Richard Dawkins

Comment #51767 by Russell Blackford on June 24, 2007 at 7:54 pm

^Be fair. Evolution does not entail atheism, but it has had a huge psychological and sociological impact that has tended to favour atheism and subvert Christian belief. That is simply historical fact, apart from whatever anecdotal evidence Dawkins would have.

If Dawkins gave evidence, he would be subjected to cross-examination, and any competent cross-examining barrister or trial attorney would have no trouble thinking of some propositions along the lines we're discussing that (1) are very likely true, (2) are believed by Dawkins, (3) would do the cause no good in at least some circumstances, depending on the nature of the judge, or whatever. It's not a matter of Dawkins voluntarily blurting out something as broad and dubious as "Evolutionism leads to atheism." It's a matter of how a good courtroom advocate could get him to agree with carefully thought out, potentially damaging propositions.

Just think about it:

Barrister: You are an atheist, aren't you Professor Dawkins?

Dawkins: Yes.

Barrister: Do you believe that it became easier to be an atheist after Darwin published The Origins of Species?

Dawkins: On the Origin of Species ... but, yes.

Barrister: It was harder for pre-Darwinian atheists like David Hume?

Dawkins: I believe so.

Barrister: And that's because Darwinian theory offered an account of the complexity and order of biological nature that people like Hume lacked?

Dawkins: Essentially yes. (Qualifies point slightly but not in any way that basically disagrees with it.)

Barrister: Is it your experience that the proportion of atheists among evolutionary biologists is higher than in the general population?

Dawkins: Yes it is.


.... and so on. Give any competent lawyer time to prepare, and this line of questioning could go on for hours, with Dawkins being able to do very little more than say "Yes" to question after question. Courtroom cross-examination is nothing like a TV interview. Cross-examining barristers know how to control witnesses and destroy their credibility, they are allowed to ask nothing but leading ("yes/no") questions if they so choose, and they have all the time they want in which to do the job.

I don't blame him for thinking that this could be counterproductive.

529. Can we really learn to love people who aren't like us?

Comment #51654 by Russell Blackford on June 24, 2007 at 12:41 am

I really don't understand how we could have a choice about whether or not we obey the laws of physics. I suppose I'm missing the point in some way, and some kind of metaphorical meaning is intended, but the fact is that so-called "laws" of physics - unlike laws in the literal sense of legal norms - aren't the kind of thing you can disobey.

530. His word: Attacking religion can seem like breaking a butterfly on a wheel

Comment #51598 by Russell Blackford on June 23, 2007 at 5:00 pm

My post above raises an interesting point, though. Am I literally the only actual reviewer of the book who wasn't tone deaf when reading it? I don't know what that would tell us, if so, but it's a bit troubling.

531. His word: Attacking religion can seem like breaking a butterfly on a wheel

Comment #51596 by Russell Blackford on June 23, 2007 at 4:44 pm

Pffff @Richard (post 13 on the thread).

Cf: http://www.cosmosmagazine.com/node/1250

.... where I said:

This project could have gone wrong in so many ways, but The God Delusion is lucid and enjoyable, sometimes passionate but never shrill, certainly not stodgy, and frequently laced with cunning humour. It confirms that Dawkins is one of the supreme communicators of ideas writing in the English language.

532. 'Purity' ring case in High Court

Comment #51410 by Russell Blackford on June 22, 2007 at 5:26 pm

lol @ scottishgeologist. I must admit that I also had a small chuckle at the slightly-naughty-sounding name "Playfoot", given the context. That said, I'll be a hypocrite by also agreeing with whoever made the comment that it's unseemly to making comments about the girl's appearance, or whatever, none of which is the point.

I dunno, I kind of feel sorry for her. She's only 16 for Ghod's sake. She's a baby grownup - at that age when you can be very serious about all sorts of things that you later look back upon with a mix of horror and fond indulgence of a former, more innocent, self. Putting her in the limelight like this is not going to be to her benefit. It will either harden her views or cause her embarrassment later in life.

I'm just angry ,and disgusted, at whatever prurient, sex-obsessed bastards invented this whole purity ring thing. At 16, she should be exploring her sexuality - in a careful way, but without guilt or shame - not being put through all this.

533. 'Purity' ring case in High Court

Comment #51289 by Russell Blackford on June 22, 2007 at 8:02 am

If this brainwashed child wants to symbolise her allegiance to the cause of misery and unreason - epitomised by that disgusting bible verse - then, *sigh*, I suppose she should be allowed to. Similar leniency should apply to her classmates if they want to symbolise their allegiance to the life of freedom and reason. Maybe we should buy them all scarlet letter T-shirts.

534. Rushdie knighted in honours list

Comment #51034 by Russell Blackford on June 21, 2007 at 8:01 am

I'm not a great fan of royal honours, but Rushdie is one of the greatest novelists of our generation (even if he's not to pewkatchoo's taste). If he doesn't deserve a gong, no one does.

I think that the UK government should tell its detractors to stick it. This was a good decision.

535. Bush Vetoes Measure on Stem Cell Research

Comment #51032 by Russell Blackford on June 21, 2007 at 7:47 am

This is stupidity, of course, but it's hardly a surprise. Fortunately (1) it's only a funding measure, not a ban, (2) research will still go on in the US with state funding, especially in California, and private funding, and (3) it will still go on in other countries. Federal funding in the US would be great, but this situation has probably helped the very large funding that has become available in California, and for which Schwarzenegger's administration deserves praise.

What you need to watch is the role of bioluddite left-wing groups in all this. The so-called Council for Responsible Genetics looks like a nice cuddly organisation, but it is always looking for ways to restrict scientific research from its own blinkered viewpoint. Opposing such organisations is almost (almost because they are not completely beyond the pale of reason, and sometimes make a good specific point) as important as opposing the fundies and the Vatican.

536. The courage of their convictions

Comment #51012 by Russell Blackford on June 21, 2007 at 5:08 am

As Grayling suggests, those ten points (with only minor rewording for clarification) would make a good bill of rights for everybody, worldwide. It's not just Islam that we have to worry about; it's religious bullying in general.

537. The new preface to The God Delusion paperback and Q&A

Comment #50979 by Russell Blackford on June 20, 2007 at 8:15 pm

I never "get" the characterisations of his work as angry or strident. Dawkins follows in the footsteps of Voltaire and Bertrand Russell, skewering opponents in the most engaging way. He writes with freshness, wit, and an enjoyably cheeky quality. When he does become passionate, it's always over some undeniable outrage.

The people who complain about the tone of his writing must be tone deaf.

538. Richard Dawkins: Atheist

Comment #50972 by Russell Blackford on June 20, 2007 at 6:54 pm

First, great interview.

More specifically, I always squirm a bit at this "moderates pave the way for extremists" argument. As a generalisation it is too strong.

However, I'm quite happy with what was said in this interview, i.e. that a lot of mainstream religion is not moderate at all.

OTOH, I don't think the Quaker example is such an extreme or obscure one - one of my dearest teachers was a Quaker with moral and political views that didn't involve any of the cult-of-misery stuff that we see from the Vatican, but did involve strong commitment to peace and to the environment. So, for me, the example is quite close to home. Even though I did not agree with him enirely - I am not a pacifist, for a start - I genuinely respected his beliefs on their merits. I don't know whether he had any literal supernatural beliefs, and even if he did that is something that I can live with in itself. If all religious believers were like that, I'd have no terrible problem with religion. We should acknowledge, though, that there are plenty of people who are much more like that than they are like Ted Haggard. Such people don't do a lot of harm and probably do a lot of good.

The idea that all faith must be respected does partly come from mainstream religionists, and Dawkins is right to criticise it, but I think it comes just as much, or even more, from secular intellectuals with their post-colonial anxieties. This is also the source of much vulgar moral relativism. I think that the idea that we must respect everyone's beliefs, no matter how bizarre, has probably entered the Zeitgeist more by that route, or by way of the Christian Churches' own guilt about their past behaviour towards indigenous peoples, and it's not an entirely bad thing in that context. It becomes a bad thing when it means that we are discouraged from criticising religious belief from a rational perspective.

That was not the intellectual climate back in the 1970s, when I was a young student at high school and university, and it seems to be a product of 1980s political correctness. The intellectual community in the West took a wrong path quite recently, and I think that secular people of my baby boom generation (and the people a little older than us who led us down this path a couple of decades ago) need to blame ourselves to a large extent.

One of the good effects of the books by Dawkins and others is that they provide an opportunity to reconsider. What is rather galling is seeing the Terry Eagleton and Stanley Fish types rejecting the opportunity.

539. Vatican cardinal calls on Catholics to stop funding Amnesty

Comment #50781 by Russell Blackford on June 20, 2007 at 1:05 am

Since this thread has bounced up anyway, I'll publicly thank steve99 for being so reasonable.

540. Atheists: stand up and be counted

Comment #50764 by Russell Blackford on June 19, 2007 at 10:35 pm

My contribution at The Guardian's site:

There are plenty of atheists who would make lousy role models - though counting Hitler as an atheist, which the religious are fond of trying to do, will not wash.

That's fine; being an atheist does not thereby make you a moral exemplar, especially if you buy into some kind of crazy, but not strictly supernaturalist, worldview, such as the various loopy brands of communism.

That's not the point. The point is that being religious, or being a religious leader, if it comes to that, does not give you any wisdom or moral authority. It emphatically does not give others a reason to respect your moralising. Quite the opposite: basing your morality on a delusory worldview is one way (albeit not the only one) of ending up with a warped morality. We should scorn claims by preachers, pontiffs, and pulpiteers to have the kind of moral authority that they so evidently lack. Stop pandering to them, and start treating their claims with the contempt that they deserve.

At this point in our history, with all the religious mendacity and bullying that we see going on around us (faith schools, Intelligent Design, attempts to ban therapeutic cloning, renewed attempts to restrict abortion rights, etc.), it is necessary to stand up and say that.

So here I am, saying it as loudly as I can.

At some other point in history, it might have been more important to say something similar about Stalinists or other political mountebanks. At some future point, we may have to say it about others who imagine that their adherence to "the truth" (some bizarre, authoritarian belief system, religious or otherwise) gives them an automatic right to our respect.

541. Richard Dawkins on his online alterego

Comment #50739 by Russell Blackford on June 19, 2007 at 6:45 pm

Well, if anyone here ever bumps into Metamagician Apogee in Second Life, say hello. My ... er, his ... home base is Uvvy Island.

It sounds as if Richard is not going to be so willing to give up his anonymity. :)

542. Atheists: stand up and be counted

Comment #50551 by Russell Blackford on June 18, 2007 at 6:05 pm

I love Diplo's letter.

543. Vatican cardinal calls on Catholics to stop funding Amnesty

Comment #50411 by Russell Blackford on June 18, 2007 at 12:28 am

^We'll have to agree to disagree. I think that it's important to keep our terminology precise, and that failure to do so breeds confusion, but you're obviously entitled to take a different view.

544. Vatican cardinal calls on Catholics to stop funding Amnesty

Comment #50407 by Russell Blackford on June 17, 2007 at 11:09 pm

BAEOZ: I haven't read J's now-famous post - must track it down, since I keep seeing references to it.

I'm a fan of that essay by Clifford, though Graham Oppy - a card-carrying atheist philosopher - is a lot more critical of it, and it might be worth your while borrowing a copy and having a look at the relevant chapter of Arguing About Gods where he discusses Clifford and James. I say "borrowing" a copy, because it costs a fortune to buy one. I hope that Graham will write a book aimed at a popular audience when he's brought some of his other current projects to fruition.

He's more conciliatory to moderate religionists than I am, lol, and less likely to accuse them of irrational thinking, etc (though I, in turn, am quite a bit more conciliatory than, say, Sam Harris).

On the "liberal", "moderate", whatever thing, I guess a moderate religious believer is simply one whose views are not extreme. Those whose views are extreme include the bible literalists, a.k.a. the fundies, but also the Vatican in its current incarnation. The moderate-extreme spectrum covers many positions, but there are probably a few ways of being at the extreme end. In some respects, the Vatican warriors are even more extreme than the fundies, since the latter are less quick to condemn something (such as contraception) that is not actually forbidden anywhere in the bible, depending on what you think the story of Onan is all about. Hey, even Muslim scholars can seem conciliatory and moderate on some issues, e.g. in bioethics, compared to the Ratzingers and Pells of the world.

545. Vatican cardinal calls on Catholics to stop funding Amnesty

Comment #50396 by Russell Blackford on June 17, 2007 at 5:45 pm

I really think that we should avoid muddying the waters with the term "fundamentalist". It has a precise meaning: http://www.asktheatheists.com/questions/34_why_do_atheists_not_realize_that_they_are_just_as_fundamentalist_as_the_religious_believers_who_they_label_accordingly

Once we use it in any other sense, we go down the path of confusing talk about "fundamentalist atheists", etc, etc.

A fundamentalist is someone who believes in the literal, inerrant truth of the bible (or some other holy book, such as the Koran, by extension). It is a specific kind of irrationality.

The Vatican does great harm, as I've said often, and it advocates (and attempts to enforce) a morality of irrationalism and misery, but it is not fundamentalist. Indeed, its morality is not even particularly biblical, but a concoction of highly-intellectualised doctrines worked out over the centuries, some of it quite recently, as with Humanae Vitae. The C of E may be misguided on some issues - even drastically so, and in ways that can be oppressive or destructive or bigoted, or whatever; but it's definitely not fundamentalist.

I'm not sure what the word "moderate" really means, now I think about it, but I don't think it should be used in opposition to "fundamentalist". Plenty of religionists who are not fundamentalists are far from being moderate, the current pope being an excellent example.

546. Vatican cardinal calls on Catholics to stop funding Amnesty

Comment #50210 by Russell Blackford on June 15, 2007 at 5:57 pm

Okay, I can see that some people here are not familiar with the monstrosity known as Humanae Vitae, the key Vatican document that provides the rationale for much of the cruel morality of contemporary Catholicism. It is a must-read work for anyone seriously interested in understanding how the Vatican folks think, however distasteful (or possibly just boring) you might find it.

So, go here:

http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/paul_vi/encyclicals/documents/hf_p-vi_enc_25071968_humanae-vitae_en.html

547. Vatican cardinal calls on Catholics to stop funding Amnesty

Comment #50058 by Russell Blackford on June 14, 2007 at 7:34 pm

This is just one more demonstration, if we needed it, of how thoroughly contemptible the Vatican is.

Keep up the campaign, folks. This sort of thing is exactly why religious views deserve no respect, and some religionists are beyond the pale of rationality. Not only does the Vatican lack moral authority; it is nothing more than a bloated cult of superstition and misery.

548. Baptists Warned About Islam, Atheism

Comment #49659 by Russell Blackford on June 12, 2007 at 7:37 pm

None of the religions/denominations/sects/supernaturalist cults/whatever have the intellectual and moral authority that they claim. That doesn't mean that they're all as bad as each other, in any sense. Critique them all - that's important - but don't treat them all as morally, or even intellectually, equivalent.

549. The New Atheists

Comment #49421 by Russell Blackford on June 11, 2007 at 11:11 pm

^When I asked the same question - what's so "new" about it? - in another forum I was given the correct answer by Blake Stacey. What's new is that it sells a lot of books.

550. Tome truths

Comment #49385 by Russell Blackford on June 11, 2007 at 6:12 pm

Onfray's book is an enjoyable, erudite, fast-paced rant. I wouldn't be putting a lot of stock in it by itself, but it has its contribution to make.

Since I'm too lazy to write at length, my further thoughts about Onfray are here:

http://metamagician3000.blogspot.com/2007/05/i-just-met-michel-onfray.html

and here:

http://metamagician3000.blogspot.com/2007/06/more-on-michel-onfray.html