751. She's No Fundamentalist: What people get wrong about Ayaan Hirsi Ali.

Comment #25284 by Russell Blackford on March 11, 2007 at 5:05 pm

Matty, you have a point: yes, the people who defend Islam are doubtless well-intentioned. But, frankly, I'm just fed up with the trahison des clercs from secular intellectuals who are unwilling to criticise traditional beliefs.

It's reached the point where those of us who want to defend science, reason, liberty, and the Enlightenment cannot count on support from the very people who should be providing it. Indeed, my fellow secular intellectuals often sound more like the local Taliban than like defenders of the values that I stand for. (This comment isn't directed at anyone here - it's just my daily experience.)

We're at a time in history where we pretty much have to choose sides. Sure, the issues are complex, and our analyses should reflect the genuine complexities. But we can still choose, broadly, whether we worry about large evils or get hung-up about small (and often dubious) evils.

I'm saying that we have a choice. Broadly speaking, we have the opportunity to ally ourselves with values such as reason, science, liberty, and Enlightenment thinking, or we can become so obsessed with the evil of offending all the people who don't have those values that we end up giving succour to misery, medievalism, and superstition.

752. She's No Fundamentalist: What people get wrong about Ayaan Hirsi Ali.

Comment #25283 by Russell Blackford on March 11, 2007 at 4:50 pm

We really must stop straining at gnats and swallowing camels (to use a nice biblical phrase).

I would advise any woman not to have surgery to insert breast implants - too much can go wrong with that particular operation. But if an adult wants to use surgical techniques to alter his or her own body shape for some aesthetic purpose, after being advised about the risks, that's acceptable to me. People should be allowed to do that even if I'm not entirely approving. It is a far cry from these horrific "excisions" (as described by Hirsi Ali in her book and by joshuacslocum just above) performed on defenceless little girls.

Let's all stop the moral equivalence arguments.

Yes, Ayaan Hirsi Ali is not a saint. None of us would glow with sainthood if we were subjected to the kind of destructive scrutiny she is facing.

And yes, secular Western society is imperfect. It's still a lot better than any realistic alternative to date.

753. She's No Fundamentalist: What people get wrong about Ayaan Hirsi Ali.

Comment #25225 by Russell Blackford on March 11, 2007 at 5:30 am

Where does she "equate" genital cutting and forced marriage with Islam in the relevant quote? The quote does not even mention Islam.

In Infidel she is quite careful and nuanced about the relationship between these things and Islam. However, she did indeed leave a society where these things prevailed for the relatively rational, emancipated and liberal West, where they are generally frowned upon (and in context she is not talking about male circumcision; she is talking about what she usually calls "excision" in the English translation: i.e. pretty extreme female genital mutilation, which she descibes in appalling detail).

How is anything she says in that quote incorrect?

754. Was there ever dog that praised his fleas?

Comment #25105 by Russell Blackford on March 10, 2007 at 6:10 am

Someone give a call to Gregory Benford, Greg Bear, and David Brin. We could have the Killer Bees, rather than the Killer Fleas.

We could have: Dawkins' Fear, Dawkins and Chaos, and Dawkins' Triumph.

755. Happy 50th Birthday to PZ Myers!

Comment #25100 by Russell Blackford on March 10, 2007 at 5:41 am

The great McGonagall would certainly have eschewed such flourishes as the use of iambic heptameter, with little variations from dropping or adding unstressed syllables at the beginning of various lines. Just saying.

(He wasn't known for his ability to dash off an Elizabethan sonnet, either, but that's another story.)

756. She's No Fundamentalist: What people get wrong about Ayaan Hirsi Ali.

Comment #24882 by Russell Blackford on March 9, 2007 at 3:24 am

There are no Enlightenment fundamentalists, but there are certainly Enlightenment liberals. Not enough of them (us), though.

757. Long live satire

Comment #24881 by Russell Blackford on March 9, 2007 at 3:17 am

Long live Sue Blackmore - this was absolutely right. Nothing more I can add.

758. Happy 50th Birthday to PZ Myers!

Comment #24879 by Russell Blackford on March 9, 2007 at 2:54 am

Hmmmm, I don't like the second rhyme in the second quatrain of my sonnet all that much, but it'll have to do. I plead that it is rhyming the sound "zerved" with "served", if you listen to it, which is sort of acceptable.

759. Happy 50th Birthday to PZ Myers!

Comment #24878 by Russell Blackford on March 9, 2007 at 2:49 am

Myers is nearly halfway through his life,
But strong enough to make the wingnuts cry
When battle's drawn, with cursing, anger, strife,
And fierce debunking of the ID lie.

Throw in some well-formed anti-theist sneers,
Stir in a little mockery (well-deserved),
Spice it with cheers for Dawkins and his peers,
And that is Myers' blogging being served.

His hide is thick as any alligator's;
His mind is sharp from problems that it's solved;
His stinging tail will pierce the godly haters;
His attributes are strikingly evolved.

So here's to more years of Pharyngula,
The blog that Dawkins finds so syngula!

760. Pope is warned of a green Antichrist

Comment #23967 by Russell Blackford on March 3, 2007 at 7:53 pm

Sometimes you just have to laugh.

761. Books on Atheism Are Raising Hackles in Unlikely Places

Comment #23965 by Russell Blackford on March 3, 2007 at 7:23 pm

I am truly amazed by the complex irony of this article. Fancy observing the obvious fact that discomfort with The God Delusion has been expressed by a number of secular thinkers, such as Eagleton and Nagel, and then writing an article affecting sympathy with Dawkins about it. How novel and clever.

I'm particular impressed by the author's ability to sell an article to a well-known, high-paying market like the New York Times, while having nothing terribly original to say and just rehashing Eagleton, Nagel, and so on. Great work!

762. Merkel wants EU to be vocal about Christian roots

Comment #23613 by Russell Blackford on March 1, 2007 at 6:32 pm

Chirac has his own irrationalist moments, but kudos to him this time.

763. Dawkins v. Collins Debate

Comment #23466 by Russell Blackford on March 1, 2007 at 12:27 am

Yawheh could have demonstrated his existence with ridiculous ease back in the day. Imagine it: huge (say, 1000 feet tall) bearded man appears on battefield and hurls fire and brimstone - than hangs around interacting face to face with human beings for the ensuing hundreds and thousands of years. What's so hard about that, for a being of Yahweh's alleged resources? Admittedly, he would find it difficult to prove that he is literally omnipotent and omniscient, but he could demonstrate in thousands of ways that he possesses knowledge and power on a scale vastly greater than anything else we have ever seen. E.g. levitating cities and mountains, striking down sinners with a word, sending the moon's orbit into reverse, creating angels out of thin air. He could do all these things and far more easily.

The problem is that, if he does it tomorrow, there will now be real doubt as to whether it's the same being who spoke to Moses, etc. - or another powerful (but mendacious) being. He could and should have put the matter beyond doubt a few thousand years ago.

764. The joy of changing your mind

Comment #23459 by Russell Blackford on February 28, 2007 at 10:48 pm

John Mackie has some excellent words on this topic (i.e. being taught not only "X" but also "it is wicked to question X") in one of my favourite modern philosophy books: Ethics: Inventing Right and Wrong.

765. William Crawley meets Richard Dawkins

Comment #23457 by Russell Blackford on February 28, 2007 at 10:43 pm

I see that there are now a few more comments at Crawley's blog, including Derrick's - it looks like it just takes a while for them to be moderated, which is fair enough.

I do think some of you are reading just a bit too much into Crawley's expressions and mannerisms.

766. William Crawley meets Richard Dawkins

Comment #23419 by Russell Blackford on February 28, 2007 at 2:02 pm

Do check out the discussion on William Crawley's blog, folks. http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/ni/

So far, to my surprise, I am the only person who has posted there since this thread started, but some of the earlier discussion on the equivalent thread to this is interesting.

767. William Crawley meets Richard Dawkins

Comment #23334 by Russell Blackford on February 28, 2007 at 1:13 am

Good interview. I just responded at some length on Crawley's blog.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/ni/2007/02/richard_dawkins_tonight_on_bbc_13.html

Hopefully, it will make sense. Some of it got a little complicated, which is the problem with these arguments.

768. Ayaan Hirsi Ali on Islam

Comment #23210 by Russell Blackford on February 26, 2007 at 9:09 pm

Well, maybe I'm missing something, but doesn't a call to make Israel vanish from the page of time sound pretty bad? Is the argument that he only wants to destroy the current "regime", not the state of Israel? I can't help feeling that there's been plenty of opportunity to clarify that point if it was what he meant, and he did say something like "the regime occupying Jerusalem", which sounds like the whole system of government we know as Israel. Besides, even destroying a "regime" is pretty violent thing to do - look at what has been involved in the US destroying the regime in Iraq.

I just don't understand what the argument is really about on this issue. He wants to make "the regime occupying Jerusalem" to "vanish from the page of time". How, exactly, does that differ from wiping Israel off the map? After all, neither can be done literally. They are both metaphors. I'm quite open to an explanation.

I'm not actually wanting to defend the AEI, which is not my cup of tea at all, and I wish Hirsi Ali had been taken in by somebody closer to my way of thinking. But we all have to make compromises in our lives. Hirsi Ali has made more than some, but she has had to struggle to live and express her ideas against more opposition, and nastier opposition, than most.

As others have said from time to time, the pity of it is that some more left-leaning body has not offered her funding for her work. I suspect that it's difficult to get funding for criticism of Islam from the left side of politics. Actually, it's not the only thing that I - coming from a fairly lefty viewpoint - see value in, but that the organised left is uncomfortable with. Hence the need for bodies like the Richard Dawkins Foundation.

769. Faith

Comment #23199 by Russell Blackford on February 26, 2007 at 6:10 pm

Aha, it was the tube of course, not 9/11!

Okay, so Dawkins is much the same as people who blow up trains with passengers on board. Hmmm, let's see now, I wonder whether this makes him slightly less fundamentalist than people who crash planes into buildings that house thousands of people. Perhaps he's just slightly more fundamentalist than folks who murder their opponents with guns and knives, like the guy who assassinated Theo van Gogh.

It would be really interesting to see how all these different sorts of people might rank against each other in fundamentalism. Bring out the fundy-meter, please! For example, by writing posts here I am probably about as fundamentalist as van Gogh's murderer. Ian might be about the same as an average suicide bomber in the Middle East. Sam Harris compares well with those folks who killed a few hundred people in Nigeria in protest about a beauty contest. I'd say that Daniel Dennett performs rather poorly - he's only about as fundamentalist as those folks who burned down embassies and killed people to make their point about the Danish Muhammad cartoons.

I just love these comparisons. The fundy-meter is a ... well, er, dare I say a godsend?

770. Faith

Comment #23188 by Russell Blackford on February 26, 2007 at 4:56 pm

Some of the recent posts are great, people.

But I'd especially like to single out Ian's for elaborating what is so odious about the moral equivalency thesis - the idea that mass murder by using civilian planes as weapons of large-scale destruction is about the same as using reason and persuasion to undermine ideas that you disagree with. What kind of morally challenged person would imagine, even for a moment, that that kind of comparison is an appropriate one?

771. James Cameron finds grave of Jesus & Son

Comment #23159 by Russell Blackford on February 26, 2007 at 2:56 pm

This is all so inconclusive that it means nothing. Still, I had to laugh at the ridiculous sputterings by Rev. Schenck.

772. Pope speaks out against 'designer babies'

Comment #23158 by Russell Blackford on February 26, 2007 at 2:48 pm

This kind of idiocy from the Vatican is par for the course, really.

Still, it's worthwhile having it appear from time to time, just to remind us that religionists are not cute and cuddly little people with their nice rituals and their "other ways of knowing". They actually want to control what we're allowed to do. This article shows exactly why the world would be better if religion faded away.

773. Ayaan Hirsi Ali on Islam

Comment #23031 by Russell Blackford on February 26, 2007 at 12:23 am

I wrote a little review of Infidel on my own blog if anyone is interested.

http://metamagician3000.blogspot.com/

774. Faith

Comment #23020 by Russell Blackford on February 25, 2007 at 11:39 pm

Janus: "forthright" is a good word.

775. Faith

Comment #23019 by Russell Blackford on February 25, 2007 at 11:37 pm

I'm usually very temperate in this forum, partly because I've chosen to use my real name here ... but I have to say that this is a very stupid article.

The suggestion of a moral equivalence between people who use reason and persuasion, like Dawkins, and morally overreaching religionists, with their record of using force and terror to get their way, is simply odious. The claim that the former represent a kind of fundamentalism is an Orwellian abuse of the language.

And as for the abominable expression "people of faith" - analogous to "people of colour", as if it is religionists who have rational cause to fear persecution and intolerance - well, this is one of my pet hates. I am currently on a one-person mission to challenge this expression; anyone here want to join in?

776. Ayaan Hirsi Ali on Islam

Comment #22962 by Russell Blackford on February 25, 2007 at 1:34 am

Hirsi Ali dominated.

Oh, and funny about Maher forgetting the genocides commanded by the OT God against the Canaanites, etc., etc.

777. 'Everyone Is Afraid to Criticize Islam': Interview with Ayaan Hirsi Ali

Comment #22861 by Russell Blackford on February 23, 2007 at 4:39 pm

^And the recommendation is redoubled now I've finished it.

778. 'Everyone Is Afraid to Criticize Islam': Interview with Ayaan Hirsi Ali

Comment #22805 by Russell Blackford on February 23, 2007 at 12:20 am

I'm nearly halfway through Infidel - I bought a copy for a friend who will like it, I think, but I'm going to read it before I give it to her for her birthday.

Anyway, I can't put it down (except to type this, briefly). If anyone's in two minds about actually reading it, my recommendation is to go and get your hands on a copy and put an evening or two aside for it. It's a fascinating, involving narrative.

779. Is America Too Damn Religious?

Comment #22743 by Russell Blackford on February 21, 2007 at 4:18 pm

Riley, while I see what you're getting at, I do respectfully ask you to be careful about accusing people of fascism unless they really are fascists in some pretty literal sense. When I think of fascism, I automatically have an emotional response because I have associations with the evils committed by Mussolini, the close association with Hitler, the killings of Jews, ruthless suppression of opposition by violence etc, etc. To call someone a fascist is to evoke all those connotations.

Isn't it enough to say that someone is authoritarian, illiberal, in favour of coercion, an enemy of individual liberty, or whatever the real charge is? That might not pack the same emotional wallop, but if the person is not actually anti-Semitic, a fan of Hitler or Mussolini, in favour of killing opponents, etc., the emotional wallop is an unearned one.

I even worry a little about the word "Islamofascism", but not so much - it's pretty clear that that word is making an analogy, and the analogy has some point: extreme militant Islamists do not literally embrace fascism as a political philosophy, but they commonly are anti-Semitic, sometimes have a good word for Hitler, are prepared to use violence to suppress opposition, and are extreme enemies of individual liberty in a way that goes far beyond any mainstream Western ideas. They are blood-soaked totalitarians.

But when someone is simply accused of being a fascist it looks like a literal claim is being made.

Of course, I'm just making a suggestion, not wanting to browbeat you. It's obviously up to you entirely.

780. Battle for Europe's secular values

Comment #22683 by Russell Blackford on February 20, 2007 at 7:26 pm

Well, we'd all like to see our favourite idea in a document like this.

On second thought, I really wouldn't. I think that we need some basic protections from government overreaching into our private lives - protections of free speech, freedom of belief and association, and the like - and the rest should be left to the democratic process.

The more I think about it, the less I like the Brussels document, though it's obviously a lot better than anything I can imagine being drafted by Merkel and company. I think it's a mistake to start writing a whole lot of substantive values into such documents. In a liberal democracy, people are entitled to have a wide range of values. The main thing is to have constitutional protections so that the government of the day is constrained in how far it can impose its values on us.

781. God, sex, drugs and politics

Comment #22681 by Russell Blackford on February 20, 2007 at 7:17 pm

All this really shows the irrational mentality that we are up against. I mean, the crazy idea that there is some kind of absolute, divine law against sex outside of marriage is supposed to take precedence over saving lives.

I do remind myself that there are plenty of nice, moderate theists who don't think in this way - some of them are people who are dear to me. But when I read articles like this, I really wish there was some way we could make religion, and the morality of misery that so often goes with it, vanish from the Earth.

782. Is America Too Damn Religious?

Comment #22608 by Russell Blackford on February 19, 2007 at 10:02 pm

Yes, dammit.

783. Battle for Europe's secular values

Comment #22607 by Russell Blackford on February 19, 2007 at 9:58 pm

The Brussels version is a bit too wordy and specific for my liking, as well as kind of high falutin'. I subscribe to most of those values, but in most case only with qualifications about how I'd interrpet them, and I don't expect everyone else to subscribe to them.

The point is, we are all different but we have to get along in human societies. We have to live side by side, showing concern about each other's welfare, compassion for each others' sufferings, respect for each other's decisions - and that's about it. Once you start to elaborate in more detail, you'll start putting in things that are genuinely contestable. Leave the more detailed policies to practical politics, and lay off the sonorous rhetoric.

784. God, sex, drugs and politics

Comment #22605 by Russell Blackford on February 19, 2007 at 9:48 pm

It's beyond me why a decision like this should even be controversial. If this drug is effective and it can be made available reasonably cheaply, then go for it ... whatever the various varieties of wingnuts are going to say.

785. Researchers find 6,000-year-old fossil evidence

Comment #22453 by Russell Blackford on February 18, 2007 at 5:19 pm

Hey, lay off the Rolling Stones. They may be slightly mummified, but "fossils" is putting it too strongly. Either that, or I'll soon be a fossil myself - which is all too likely, now I think about it.

Back on topic, that 6000-year figure really does have unavoidable connotations, doesn't it? I, too, was expecting that there was going to be something for or against young Earth creationism.

786. Richard Dawkins interview with Paula Zahn

Comment #22277 by Russell Blackford on February 13, 2007 at 9:51 pm

The question of where someone's morals come from, if not from a "holy" text, is actually very complex to analyse and answer. In fact it's also very difficult for a believer in a text like the Bible to explain exactly how it can be relied on.

The Christian, or other religious believer, is stuck with the Euthyphro problem.

The non-believer is likely to say something that runs into the "is"/"ought" problem. E.g. it's one thing to say that we have evolved to act cooperatively, or to give some other factual explanation of how we come to be moral animals; it's a different thing to draw the inference that we therefore "ought to" or "should" act in that way.

But there's no time to get involved in any of this on TV. So what to do?

I think the best way I could use a 15-second window to say something intellectually honest and cogent would be to say that morality is based on concern and compassion for others, guided by reason - and to try to squeeze in that this is not only a guide to how we should best live but also to what parts of a book like the Bible are actually worth reading.

With a few more seconds, the last point could be elaborated on - Christians will cherry-pick those parts of the Bible that are consistent with acting in accordance with compassion and concern, guided by reason, and will reject the cruel or arbitrary commands attributed to God.

With 30 seconds, or a minute, it would be worthwhile pointing out that if you're not guided by those things you have no moral reason to do something just because a powerful being tells you to - e.g. torture, slavery, and genocide would not suddenly be morally acceptable if an all-powerful being commanded them while holding a cosmic weapon at our heads.

If the reply is that God would not order us to commit an evil act because God is good, this actually acknowledges that there is some independent standard by which God is good. Well, why not apply that standard?

A better reply from a theist might be that God only commands what is actually for our own good - about which he is far wiser than we are. But that reply admits that acting morally is in some way about acting for our own good (I take it this means everyone's good, or something), but if that's what it really is then we seem to have a choice between relying on reason and historical experience to find out what is good for us ... or trusting the supposed "wisdom" in texts from a more barbaric era.

Still, such discussions are unlikely to get far on television, as we saw. The important thing is to have an accurate, intellectually-honest, even if overly-simplified, answer that can be given in a few seconds.

787. Debate between Sam Harris and Reza Aslan

Comment #22273 by Russell Blackford on February 13, 2007 at 9:25 pm

I had to stop halfway through and can't be bothered (to be frank) going back to it now. Both were very smooth and articulate speakers, and neither gave solace to the people I consider my true enemies, i.e. the fundamentalists. The debate was really about how much extremist Islam and fundamentalist Christianity are typical of those religions, and Islam in particular, which is a fairly narrow point.

On that point, Aslan did a pretty good job of casting doubt on the more commonsense position (as I'd see it) being put by Harris. I think it was just a matter of casting doubt, but if that counts as "winning" the debate he can feel he won. I did think that Harris hung in there well, saying a lot of sensible things, even though it was territory on which Aslan is supposedly the expert.

I actually hope that Aslan is correct on this, and that Islam is undergoing a broad, grassroots renewal and will turn into something less dangerous than it currently appears to be. I have to say that he didn't give us much to go on - at least in that first half - except his aura of confidence and superior knowledge. I hope his written work contains something more solid to reassure us that he's right.

In general, it worried me that Aslan had to rely so much on point scoring tactics (e.g. the constant snipes of alleged intellectual crudeness and dishonesty, and the frequent twisting of Harris's words), rather than on solid facts. At the same time, he did have Harris defending material where he overreaches: I'm not convinced that any of us in the West, including either of these guys, are really in a good position at the moment to know how "most" Muslims view the Koran and its literal teachings.

788. Richard Dawkins interview with Paula Zahn

Comment #22123 by Russell Blackford on February 13, 2007 at 12:57 am

I've now seen the interview with Professor Dawkins.

It's very brief, but what is good about it is the sense of easy relaxation. Just having someone make these points in a calm, unruffled, matter-of-fact way is of enormous value. Many people in the same situation would be radiating tension, and making the interviewer and audience feel tense as well.

789. Richard Dawkins interview with Paula Zahn

Comment #22074 by Russell Blackford on February 12, 2007 at 9:59 pm

The interview is showing as unavailable at the moment, so I can't comment on that.

The panel was as good as could be expected. At least the moderator kept control of it this time.

790. Believing Scripture but Playing by Science's Rules

Comment #22063 by Russell Blackford on February 12, 2007 at 9:11 pm

So, once again we see epistemological scepticism and epistemic relativism (the latter in this case, with a strong nod to Kuhn) being the believers' best friends.

(I'm sure there's a snappier way of putting this, for the purpose of popularising the idea, but we see it happening again and again.)

791. My critics are wrong to call me dogmatic

Comment #21971 by Russell Blackford on February 12, 2007 at 2:33 am

I'm continually amazed at how many people don't actually understand the meaning of the word "fundamentalist", or affect not to.

792. Response to Orr

Comment #21935 by Russell Blackford on February 12, 2007 at 12:17 am

I have a lot of respect for Orr, actually, so I'd also be interested to know. Just who did he have in mind? I'd be prepared to put in the reading if he gave us all some guidance ... if it's something specific.

I do hope that Orr will also address the other point. I mean the point that Dennett makes about Orr never having set the record straight on an accusation he made regarding Darwin's Dangerous Idea. Even if the fault was partly Dennett's - say he expressed an idea badly, which everyone does from time to time - it would be nice to have everything cleared up so we know where the truth lies. Orr will look a bit bad if he doesn't make an effort here; he's an important contributor to our culture in his own right, and I hope he doesn't get defensive about this issue, but deals with it openly and candidly.

793. 'Everyone Is Afraid to Criticize Islam': Interview with Ayaan Hirsi Ali

Comment #21919 by Russell Blackford on February 11, 2007 at 6:03 pm

Well, folks, let's hope that the Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science (I realise this is not a think tank, but it could provide funding to individuals working with think tanks) emerges as an organisation capable of underwriting intellectuals like Ayaan Hirsi Ali, without them being forced to make unpalable compromises - not that I know how unpalatable she actually finds it.

794. The God Delusion

Comment #21908 by Russell Blackford on February 11, 2007 at 3:46 pm

Nice letter by Dennett. I wonder whether Orr will reply.

795. The God Delusion

Comment #21756 by Russell Blackford on February 11, 2007 at 1:42 am

I think we should work on the assumption that Orr is a very smart guy, and address his arguments on their merits.

To take one example, when Gould's Rocks of Ages came out, some years ago now, popularising the NOMA theory, Orr wrote a very good review in which he severely criticised Gould. I've also just read a devastating and detailed review that he wrote of Behe's Darwin's Black Box. And so on. Orr does actually have a lot of relevant knowledge and expertise, both in biology and in more general science, philosophy and culture.

I haven't read his original review of TGD, and must go and find it. (I almost feel like I've read it by now, having read a lot of discussion of it.) But, assuming Orr somehow fails to "get" the book, it's most unlikely that it's because he's stupid or has some kind of axe to grind.

I'm still trying to get to the bottom of why some people have responded to TGD with an unexpected degree of hostility ... i.e., unexpected to me that it should come from those particular people. Maybe it's partly that they feel aggrieved on behalf of moderate theist friends and loved ones, maybe it's a general cultural bias, often remarked on during this recent cultural debate, to being solicitous to religion and discouraging towards any critique of it. Whatever the cause, it won't be something as simple as Orr, say, or Terry Eagleton (to take another example) being idiots or acting in bad faith.

What we haven't yet seen, as far as I know, are any comments by mainstream atheistic philosophers of religion like Michael Martin or Graham Oppy. I wouldn't be surprised if they also had criticisms, but that's because the whole nature of TGD is that it's trying to do a lot of things at once in a popular package, and that must have required a lot of difficult judgments. Not everyone will agree with them all.

796. The questions science cannot answer

Comment #21619 by Russell Blackford on February 10, 2007 at 7:14 am

Scot, there are some things that no one can ever prove with certainty, for such reasons as that they are the very things that we assume when we do proofs. E.g. we assume basic rules of logic, but any attempt to prove them will have to assume them.

Also, think of how difficult it is to eliminate the claim - and so prove the opposite - that you are really a brain in a vat being stimulated to imagine everything that seems to happen to you. Or perhaps you are being deceived continually by a powerful and malicious demon. No one has ever found a way to prove certainly that such possibilities don't obtain.

I'm not suggesting that you should take any of those far-fetched scenarios seriously. Quite the opposite: my point is that religionists who make such points are strictly right about this, but what follows does not help them.

Do they really suggest that what they call our "faith", when we assume that no such far-fetched circumstances apply, is the same as their faith in the existence of a being which is never discovered, or even conjectured as a useful hypothesis, through ordinary processes of rational inquiry? Putting it another way ... if we just use ordinary standards of inquiry we will discover that there is such a being as Richard Dawkins, for example, and even that there were once such things as dinosaurs, but we never discover that there is such a being as God.

Aha! The theist might reply, but the existence of Richard Dawkins is equally in doubt. You might be being deceived by an evil demon, blah, blah.

Well, sure, there's a far-fetched possibility that I am not currently typing at my computer, that Richard Dawkins does not exist, that evolutionary theory is totally wrong. An evil demon may be deceiving me about all those things. But does someone like McGrath really think that ignoring those kinds of far-fetched possibilities is the same as having faith in the existence of a being which is never located through natural, ordinary methods of inquiry? Ignoring far-fetched possibilities (like being a brain in vat, or having the laws of logic not work) is the same as accepting a far-fetched possibility about a supernatural being?

That's what he seems to be saying, and I think its absurdity is apparent. Or if that's not his point, I'm at a loss to know what his point is.

*shrug*

797. The questions science cannot answer

Comment #21614 by Russell Blackford on February 10, 2007 at 6:12 am

^I don't think that's right about CS Lewis, ZT, which is not to gainsay your other points.

798. The questions science cannot answer

Comment #21556 by Russell Blackford on February 9, 2007 at 11:40 pm

Once again, a religious apologist ends up by invoking the spectre of radical epistemological scepticism like some sort of boogey man.

Yes, Professor McGrath, there are some fundamental things that I cannot ever prove with certainty: I cannot prove to myself, to a degree of total certainty, that I am not a brain in a vat imagining the world I am "experiencing". I cannot prove that logic works (without relying on logic)), etc., etc. If we take various kinds of radical epistemological scepticism as our starting point, we all seem pretty badly off.

Okay, folks, now we've got that obvious point out of the way, let's be serious. When we just apply our ordinary methods for assessing the truth or falsity of belief, where do we end up? Are religion and reason equal? If we conduct ordinary inquiries using ordinary means, do we discover a supernatural entity, or not?

Hmmm, can't see one around. *scratches head* Nope.

By means that are continuous with those ordinary methods, we do end up postulating various things that we can't observe in the ordinary way (sub-atomic particles, extinct animals, whatever ...). But we accept the existence, or past existence, of such things - of electrons and dinosaurs, for example - because there is a huge body of highly precise, observable, and convergent evidence that points to them. Theories involving sub-atomic particles, extinct animals, etc., have great explanatory power, and they are corroborated every day by activities that could potentially falsify them. E.g. we never find dinosaur bones in 6000-year-old archeological strata, but always where the story built up by evolutionary biology tells us we should.

There is nothing corresponding to this to support claims about supernatural entities and forces.

It always annoys me when religionists try to gain their plausibility by hinting at - or blatantly relying upon - the banal claim that rational inquiry is no better than religious doctrine because both are equally incapable of ruling out radical epistemological scepticism once and for all - so, both must actually rely on "faith". That is just not the test.

The test in deciding what to believe is, "Where are we led to if we simply apply, and refine, our ordinary standards for the acceptance of truths about the world, which we apply in every other practical context in life?"

Based on that test, there's no legitimate question that science and reason can't answer plausibly but that religion can - and there are plenty of truths that science and reason have taught us, but which religion has never had a clue about.

799. Does Richard Dawkins exist?

Comment #21398 by Russell Blackford on February 9, 2007 at 3:12 am

Mind you, I find it very hard construing what is being said on the sound track, so maybe I'm inferring too much from other experiences. I actually gave up halfway through and relied on the printed comments. :D

800. Does Richard Dawkins exist?

Comment #21397 by Russell Blackford on February 9, 2007 at 3:05 am

But some kind of argument like I described seems to be implicit in the whole joke. I.e. the joke is supposedly that Dawkins uses "hyperscepticism" which could prove anything, including his own non-existence (so it can't be used to argue against God, because it proves too much). My point is that Dawkins doesn't actually rely on anything that could pejoratively be called "hyperscepticism".

I mean, if he argued "We could all be brains in vats, for all we know, so we can't prove God exists", that would be using hyperscepticism. But of course, he nevers argues in that way, nor needs to.