601. Al Gore on Reason

Comment #45163 by Russell Blackford on May 26, 2007 at 4:31 pm

Interesting debate, folks. Once again, issues about tactics become all important. Al Gore may not be everyone's ally on every issue, but on the issue of whether the scientific picture of the universe is correct overall, including as it does the emergence of Homo sapiens about 200,000 years ago, he is actually on the same side as all of us. The expression "creationist" is not useful to apply to someone like that, as most of you now seem to agree.

602. I Don't Believe in Atheists

Comment #45071 by Russell Blackford on May 26, 2007 at 5:11 am

pewkatchoo: My own words, for better or worse. They're the words of someone steeped in lots of others people's thoughts and words (e.g., I'm not the first person to use the expression "disenchanted universe"), but, no, I didn't swipe the para from someone else. :)

603. Teachers rebel over atheism promotion

Comment #45042 by Russell Blackford on May 26, 2007 at 1:46 am

If I lived in the US and had an ankle-biter or two in my charge, I'd think about this. I'd like to know how it's run in practice, because I don't want to see kids indoctrinated in any particular belief system. But done properly, it could be an opportunity for kids to have fun in an environment guaranteed to be free of religious propaganda. If they receive some genuine teaching about comparative religion, then that's all to the good. That's exactly one of the things that they should be taught. A little bit about famous freethinkers doesn't worry me, either, though I hope it would be done with a pretty light touch, not as some kind of boring secular hagiography.

604. Fighting the Fundamentalists

Comment #44948 by Russell Blackford on May 25, 2007 at 4:14 pm

^That's not really true, you know. There's a difference between being rational and being correct. Moderate religionists who try to square their core beliefs with science have a worldview that's incorrect, and their methodology may well be hopeless in the long run, but in most cases it's going much too far to accuse them of being irrational. It's nothing like holding onto the literal truth of the Bible in direct contradiction to whatever emerges from rational inquiry.

605. Fighting the Fundamentalists

Comment #44624 by Russell Blackford on May 25, 2007 at 5:45 am

This is an unhappy situation. I like Ruse (or my internal model of him) and his work a lot, and it's very unfortunate that he's outside the tent. But I guess nothing can be done about it, if he feels so strongly about tactical and intellectual issues such as he's described.

Alas, I don't see how the way he has written this article, e.g. accusing people of bullying and of "scientism" is going to lead to the reconciliation that he asks for.

606. Lightning damages Jesus statue

Comment #44431 by Russell Blackford on May 24, 2007 at 5:16 pm

Uh-oh, looking at the posts above I can see a war brewing between the Thorians and the Zeusites (I mean, it's obvious that one of those gods did this).

*scared*

607. I Don't Believe in Atheists

Comment #44422 by Russell Blackford on May 24, 2007 at 4:32 pm

Where do you even start with this kind of rhetorical waffle? It seems to be a concoction of all things that sound nice and are likely to push emotional buttons - there is transcendent meaning in the universe, blah, blah - while giving no genuine intellectual understanding.

I would probably "lose" a debate against this guy in that I'd be uncompromising and say things that people seemingly don't want to believe. E.g., there is no "transcendent meaning". That is just as much a delusion as the idea that there is a sky god. That claim would not win me a popularity contest. I'm not even interested in making the idea sound dramatic and exciting like Sartre and Camus did, though maybe that's the way to go because, when you think about it, it actually is exciting to be liberated from all the dogma and waffle, and to realise that you have no choice, if you are honest, but to take responsibility for your own life.

Harris will doubtless find a good rhetorical package of his own. That's great. But I think it's about time we all simply faced up to the truth, however "bleak" it may appear to some: we live in a disenchanted universe - albeit one that is full of beauty and majesty, if we see it that way. There are no "meanings" save those that we create ourselves. It's entirely up to us how we live our lives, individually and collectively. There is no sky god to tell us what to do. Nor are there spooky transcendent meanings, or strange objectively prescriptive entities, somehow Out There. It really is up to us.

Just stop evading reality.

608. Richard Dawkins to appear in Second Life

Comment #44236 by Russell Blackford on May 23, 2007 at 7:59 pm

Veronique, I think there is room for plenty of approaches, but I do find it difficult to imagine saying things, as facts, to a class of students ... when I privately have no evidence for those things ... just to try to mould the students beliefs in a "nice" way. That doesn't seem to be a very respectful way to teach, but it seems to be what Rowe is admitting to doing.

I must add, though, that if the prospects for world peace depend on converting most people to a naturalistic worldview in a short timeframe, we're screwed. It just won't happen. What we can do is dissent powerfully from various kinds of damaging conformity, and force public policy and the public spaces to take our views and values into account.

609. The Conversion of the Casual Evolutionist - You can't spell love without evolve

Comment #44233 by Russell Blackford on May 23, 2007 at 7:48 pm

Not a bad parody of pop evolutionary psychology, and it gave me a laugh or two, but the trouble is that pop evolutionary psychology most likely contains a certain amount of truth. Some of these scenarios that we are supposed to take as obviously ridiculous are only mildly exaggerated extensions of recognisable human mating behaviour. We really are a little bit absurd when you stand back and look at how we act. Perhaps inadvertently, the piece ends up making fun of us as much as it does of evolutionary psychological explanations.

Also, surely it's more a parody of something like Matt Ridley's The Red Queen than anything by Dawkins.

610. Richard Dawkins to appear in Second Life

Comment #44220 by Russell Blackford on May 23, 2007 at 6:26 pm

It's evidently only a video being screened in SL - not RD appearing as an avatar and interacting in-world - so there need be no concerns about practical jokes, etc. It'd be good if he actually turned up there to talk, but the way SL works at the moment it's hardly worthwhile doing this. Any audience beyond a few dozen is likely to crash the sim, and he deserves an audience much bigger than that.

A virtual-reality meeting of richarddawkins.net regulars would be more manageable.

611. Despite what the scholars say, God isn't dead yet

Comment #44029 by Russell Blackford on May 23, 2007 at 7:42 am

PeteCole: The Sydney Morning Herald is a quality broadsheet, not a tabloid. Alas. But look at the crap The Guardian has been publishing lately.

As for Kohn, I'm astonished that she could be ranked as an important intellectual in Australia ... simply because I live here, have a good sense of the intellectual "scene" and have never even heard of her until today. As for her being one of the 100 leading Australians, wtf?

I sometimes wonder who makes up these lists.

612. Despite what the scholars say, God isn't dead yet

Comment #43995 by Russell Blackford on May 23, 2007 at 6:34 am

On the Nuremberg rally thing, and some of the other questions asked, he was actuslly pretty provocstive ... not the mild Professor Dawkins I'm used to. This is not necessarily a bad thing: sometimes you have to provoke people to see how they'll react. Haggard and the Muslim convert guy in Jerusalem both reacted badly, in ways that showed their true, freaky colours.

613. Gay row US Anglicans miss summit

Comment #43979 by Russell Blackford on May 23, 2007 at 5:49 am

It annoys me, in part, because rightly or wrongly I still have some residual fondness for the good old Church of England. I suppose I'm still welcome there, like lots of other atheists (many of them in the clergy). But they will go on equivocating about whether gays are welcome.

Take a stand, Dr Williams. Show some, er, goddamn courage.

Oh well...

614. Gay row US Anglicans miss summit

Comment #43978 by Russell Blackford on May 23, 2007 at 5:43 am

Rowan Williams is a coward. This was a cowardly act.

615. Shark virgin birth mystery is solved

Comment #43924 by Russell Blackford on May 23, 2007 at 4:10 am

It's a very naughty girl, I assume, if its DNA is identical to the mother's. Or is there some more complicated story like with those pesky Komodo dragons?

616. Despite what the scholars say, God isn't dead yet

Comment #43914 by Russell Blackford on May 23, 2007 at 3:59 am

Well, there's eugenics and there's eugenics. As practised in the first half of the 20th century by the US and by Nazi Germany it was a nightmare. But the word just means "good birth". We take all sorts of perfectly legitimate eugenic steps, as a society. For example, we ban (well, technically, we very severely restrict) the use of thalidomide.

617. Despite what the scholars say, God isn't dead yet

Comment #43901 by Russell Blackford on May 23, 2007 at 3:45 am

Another wingnut to write off.

I'd never heard of her before this, and it seems I wasn't missing much. As for Hitler, etc., I get so sick of this. Yes, there are nutty, dogmatic totalitarian belief systems that are not explicitly supernaturalist (though they often have other bizarre, unprovable ideas attached). All of these systems are dangerous, just as the supernaturalist ones are.

618. Some US Muslims say suicide attacks OK

Comment #43898 by Russell Blackford on May 23, 2007 at 3:42 am

Actually most of this doesn't surprise me at all. The really scary figure is that only 40 per cent believe that Arab men carried out the 9/11 attacks. That suggests that 60 per cent buy some kind of crazy conspiracy theory. I am reading this correctly, yes? If so, they (many of them) are deluded far beyond the call of their religious duty.

619. The root of all evil?

Comment #43853 by Russell Blackford on May 23, 2007 at 1:05 am

^I agree, though it is sometimes used to mean simply "activist" or something similar. E.g. a militant trade union leader may simply be one who is prepared to call the members to go on strike, not just negotiate "nicely" with management. It doesn't necessarily mean "violent". Looked at in that way, it might be said that Dawkins, Hitchens, etc., are "militant".

At the same time, it's not a good word in this context where we see real militants who are prepared to use actual violence lined up among the religionists. Adjectives like "passionate" and "forthright" are surely better, when, after all, Dawkins and Hitchens are only using words.

620. The root of all evil?

Comment #43848 by Russell Blackford on May 23, 2007 at 12:48 am

I hope the satellite technology works well for the interview at the Sydney festival . It was a disaster when a couple of us tried to interview Arthur C. Clarke that way a few years ago at the equivalent in Melbourne. I gather the technology has improved a fair bit since then (and I expect that Dawkins might be more forthcoming as an interviewee than Clarke was), but still, I'd love to see him actually come to Australia.

GodlessHeathen, I think the worst thing in it isn't the passage you quoted, which IMHO is fair enough, in context, in a journalistic review. It's the dogmatic claim that Dawkins does "surely" consider religion to be the root of all evil, despite the question mark. This is not a simple journalistic error or a fair opinion to have, but a strong claim that cannot be substantiated and is directly contrary to evidence that Huxley actually knows about and reports: i.e., it wasn't the title that Dawkins wanted, and was foisted on him against his will.

621. The root of all evil?

Comment #43826 by Russell Blackford on May 22, 2007 at 7:54 pm

The article makes mistakes, e.g. the "Darwin's rottweiler" sobriquet was, AFAIK, intended as a kind of compliment. Defending Darwin with a degree of ferocity is a good thing. And there were other small glitches.

But you know what, whenever I read an article by a journalist on anything that I have some expertise in, or some inside knowledge of, I find errors. That has tended to give me a jaundiced view of journalists, but to be fair they have to write under pressure on a whole range of subjects not all of which they can be expert on. We should always take what we read from journalists with a big grain of salt. This particular article actually seemed to me to be pretty good by realistic standards for journalistic writing.

622. Cult leader sparks Sikh riots with 'guru' stunt

Comment #43547 by Russell Blackford on May 22, 2007 at 1:24 am

Yeah, right ... "peaceful". Like all those other blood-soaked systems of organised superstition and misery. A bit like how Islam is a "religion of peace", perhaps.

623. Christopher Hitchens Is a Treasure

Comment #43335 by Russell Blackford on May 21, 2007 at 6:16 am

BaronOchs: I'm not sure I could sum up Habermas concisely and accurately, but one way to get an idea of how he thinks, fairly quickly, is to read his little book called something like The Future of Human Nature. You need to read the whole thing, but it's quite short.

The thing is, there are some genuine concerns about genetic engineering, which this whole book is attacking. But the kind of noble-sounding rhetoric he uses to argue his neo-Luddite position, the solicitude to irrational systems of thought, even though he's supposed to be a major philosopher in the rationalist tradition of Kant, blah blah, and is hugely influential in that role ... well, it's just, to me, how you don't do philosophy. (I'm more open to arguments about the same topic on different grounds.)

I think you'll get the impression of how this is the kind of person who "believes in belief" and is prepared to pander to misery and superstition.

624. Would the World Be Safer Without Religion?

Comment #43300 by Russell Blackford on May 21, 2007 at 4:40 am

Yeah, no true Scotsman would fly a commercial airliner into a city office block.

625. Christopher Hitchens Is a Treasure

Comment #43294 by Russell Blackford on May 21, 2007 at 4:30 am

As for Habermas, don't even start me. He's the ultimate traitor to the cause of reason.

626. Christopher Hitchens Is a Treasure

Comment #43292 by Russell Blackford on May 21, 2007 at 4:27 am

Well, this is certainly not a beneficent deity that's being described by Novak. If its values are the ones described, I'm more inclined to say that it's an infinitely powerful monster.

627. A meeting of unlike minds

Comment #43290 by Russell Blackford on May 21, 2007 at 4:18 am

I assume that was supposed to be "sacred texts", but I do quite lke the description of the Bible and the Koran as "scared texts".

628. Goodness without Godliness

Comment #42854 by Russell Blackford on May 20, 2007 at 2:30 am

The "no morality if no God" gambit always surprises me for its incredible naivety. It's as if people who say this have not read any of the last 2,500 years of moral philosophy at all, in which case they are not even qualified to discuss the issue. It was known way back in antiquity that the divine command theory of morality is incoherent.

The only coherent theological accounts of morality are the ones in which morality is discoverable by reason, but revelation provides us with a shortcut.

Those theories might give the Bible scholar an advantage, but they do not threaten morality if God doesn't exist; they only threaten our ability to find out what it is by looking it up in the Bible, with all its helpful hints about avoidance of shellfish because they don't chew the cud and cleave the hoof. I admit that that would have been difficult to reason out.

629. The Cyclic Universe: A Talk With Neil Turok

Comment #42826 by Russell Blackford on May 19, 2007 at 11:14 pm

You know, I really like ice cream. Pancakes with maple syrup are good, too. Just thought I'd put that out there.




Edit: Or putting it another way ... I suggest that the post immediately above this one not be dignified with any serious replies.

630. Manufacturing belief

Comment #42799 by Russell Blackford on May 19, 2007 at 5:01 pm

I tried to overlook the comments on philosophy, which really are a touch on the silly side. Philosophy is just the rational investigation of the universe, including ourselves. As philosophical theories become amenable to more precise empirical investigation, they drift into the area of science, but there is no sharp boundary between philosophy and science. It looks to me as if Wolpert's own theorising belongs more to philosophy than science - but it is scientifically-informed philosophy.

That said, Hume is pretty much my favourite philosopher, too, and I think that a lot of philosophers since his time have a lot to answer for in rejecting, or side-stepping, his work rather than building on it. There are libraries full of philosophy that is less helpful than it might have been because it tries to operate in a science-free vacuum. I blame Kant for much of this, but even Kant's work contains useful concepts.

631. Manufacturing belief

Comment #42724 by Russell Blackford on May 19, 2007 at 7:19 am

Jack Rawlinson:

I have a fond memory of him on "Desert Island Discs", when Sue Lawley started discussing his atheism, and I guess she decided he sounded a bit arrogant and condescending. She came right out and asked him something like, "Are you saying that atheists tend to be intellectually superior to religious believers?" He left a brief pause and then just said "Yes". That left her speechless.

632. Pedal power takes Islamic shape in Iran

Comment #42701 by Russell Blackford on May 19, 2007 at 5:01 am

Good one, Luthien. I just linked to it from my own blog, with thanks to you. Spread the meme!

http://metamagician3000.blogspot.com/2007/05/conspiracy-theories.html

633. Thought vs. feeling in religion

Comment #42676 by Russell Blackford on May 19, 2007 at 3:23 am

Religions are explanatory systems. They purport to explain aspects of life that seem (to many people) to be important and mysterious. That's always been the case. It's also true that they provide (many) people with emotional comfort and support.

Admittedly, the way I just put it is speaking about religion from the outside. The person who wrote the article is (perhaps?) speaking more from inside it, but it's still worthwhile seeing whether any of it "translates" and offers any insight.

As to that, I find it odd thinking of Pope Benedict as on the side of reason, when the dogmas that he advocates are so patently crazy. I think of him as the world's leading irrationalist. But I guess I sort of get the point being made about his personality: he does use reason to deduce the implications of certain dogmas, irrespective of the fact that these have no rational support. It's a kind of garbage-in-garbage-out application of the ratiocinative intellect, void of much emotional warmth or human concern. If that's what Carroll is really telling us about the current pope, maybe there's some truth in it.

634. Pedal power takes Islamic shape in Iran

Comment #42638 by Russell Blackford on May 18, 2007 at 8:38 pm

Newton30 is right, people. Sometimes, as with the claim that the moon landings were fabricated or with the various conspiracy theories that have grown up around the 9/11 attacks, the truth really is what is there in front of us. Armstrong et. al. really did walk on the moon, nearly forty years ago, and the Twin Towers really were destroyed by Islamist fanatics who crashed commercial planes into them.

635. Pedal power takes Islamic shape in Iran

Comment #42412 by Russell Blackford on May 18, 2007 at 7:05 am

Corylus, I'm looking forward to your report on those conversations in which you'll be looking for a chance to drop in the word "tribadistic".

636. Freethinking Ruins All Things

Comment #42356 by Russell Blackford on May 18, 2007 at 5:33 am

Logicel, I didn't know about that alternative name for narwhals. Wow! *Falls off chair laughing yet again.*

637. Manufacturing belief

Comment #42345 by Russell Blackford on May 18, 2007 at 5:16 am

1a) We evolved to find causal explanations in terms of the intentions of intelligent agents very important and satisfying, and we did not evolve with a need to understand how intelligent agency, in turn, has complicated material causes (i.e. the incredibly complicated functioning of human brains).

But that's a great list. This topic is worth much more research.

638. Freethinking Ruins All Things

Comment #42318 by Russell Blackford on May 18, 2007 at 4:06 am

slide protuberance into narwhal?

639. The Fastest-Growing Religion

Comment #42314 by Russell Blackford on May 18, 2007 at 4:02 am

Sure. Those wiccan types actually have a lot of good, down-to-earth values. I'd even rank them above Buddhists and those nice C of E folks.

640. Pedal power takes Islamic shape in Iran

Comment #42285 by Russell Blackford on May 18, 2007 at 3:04 am

Biker girls wear burqas; Muslim miss
Hides from the men of the metropolis.
But those velvet lesbian chicks,
With their tribadistic tricks,
Find lovely limbs to see and touch and kiss.

Meanwhile, the men who rule the caliphate
Proclaim that God is glorious and great.
But they're always full of lust,
And sometimes they really must
Cooperate to alleviate their state.

641. God grief

Comment #42224 by Russell Blackford on May 18, 2007 at 12:24 am

^It's true that we can sometimes get carried away with condemning good, moderate people for their failure to embrace an austere, naturalistic view of the cosmos - however convincing, liberating, beautiful, majestic, and awe-inspiring we (well, I) find it. And it's not just theists; plenty of atheists believe in lots of spooky stuff for which there is no evidence.

642. Bible drawn into Hong Kong sex publication row

Comment #42149 by Russell Blackford on May 17, 2007 at 5:47 pm

I quite like One Night with Onan

643. Bible drawn into Hong Kong sex publication row

Comment #42147 by Russell Blackford on May 17, 2007 at 5:46 pm

No, no ... I am just the humble author of some tie-in works for the franchise, among my other activities. If I'd written the original thing I'd be rich.

644. Bible drawn into Hong Kong sex publication row

Comment #42139 by Russell Blackford on May 17, 2007 at 5:28 pm

Well, Bonzai, let's kick it around a bit. Hmmm, Glory Hallelujah - The Bible Story Revealed. But that's just a first thought. I often like to whack down a first thought and then refine it, or see what further, hopefully better, ideas it prompts. Over to you and the rest ...

645. God grief

Comment #42130 by Russell Blackford on May 17, 2007 at 5:02 pm

Yes, clearly someone needs to take a stand against the religious views of William Blake and, of course, those of Simone Weil, since those views are causing enormous pain and damage, day by day. Look around, and you'll see how the contemporary world is in turmoil because of the age-old struggles of Weilian and Blakeist, and the stubborn resistance to modernity shown by both.

I mean, look at the extraordinary popularity of Weilianity and Blakeism - their inexplicable moth-to-the-flame attraction for countless millions of people, including politicians, military thugs, and others who wield great power. Look at the hurt this has caused, the endless violence it has prompted, the stigma and despair attached to the lives of so many good people who've been victims of Weilian or Blakeist thinking.

I appeal to Hitchens. He ought to devote his next book to an angry, yet comprehensive, rebuttal of these dangerous, insidious, strangely alluring faiths.

646. Hitchens' flat world

Comment #41466 by Russell Blackford on May 16, 2007 at 6:47 am

Another total idiot. I just don't seem to have the patience to put up with it today. The guy doesn't even deserve a limerick.

647. Brazil's Indians Offended by Pope Comments

Comment #41452 by Russell Blackford on May 16, 2007 at 6:18 am

Well, the stupidity stick has been getting a good workout again. But we're used to that where the Vatican is concerned.

648. How dare you call me a fundamentalist

Comment #41229 by Russell Blackford on May 15, 2007 at 4:45 pm

A fundamentalist is someone who believes on the basis of authority, such as the literal text of the Bible, irrespective of the outcomes of rational inquiry. In that sense, Dawkins is far from being a fundamentalist. As a good scientist, he is not going to believe something on the basis of, say, the literal text of Darwin's Origin of Species, and will accept that even current science is provisional.

If you want to say that someone is dogmatic or pigheaded or dismissive or aggressive, or whatever it is you think they are, then say it. If you want to accuse them of fundamentalism, then make sure what they are guilty of is not one of those other things but actually fundamentalism. Otherwise, we lose an important distinction that the English language currently enables us to make.

Of course, losing that distinction can be helpful to some people, but I don't see why anyone who is in the camp of science and reason would think it a good outcome.

649. Television evangelist Falwell dies at 73

Comment #41205 by Russell Blackford on May 15, 2007 at 4:03 pm

It's merely stating a fact when I say that he was an enemy of science, reason, personal freedom, and just about every other worthwhile value. That doesn't mean I rejoice in his death. He was a fellow human being with loved ones who must now be rent with grief.

He just happened to be terribly wrong about many things, and to have had far too much influence on political life.

650. Ted Haggard Is Completely Heterosexual

Comment #40783 by Russell Blackford on May 15, 2007 at 1:17 am

Logicel, a limerick about Ted Haggard might be more appopriate. Okay... let's see:

He denied and denied and denied,
But he lied and he lied and he lied.
Pastor Ted had to seek
A superior technique
For embracing his hetero side.