101. Fleabytes

Comment #130851 by Artful_Dodger on February 21, 2008 at 11:52 am

This isn't a new argument, and I've heard it a lot, and it keeps getting stupider every time I hear it.

There's no "meaning", to the universe.
And there's no "meaning", to life, except what we give it.
And the instrumentality that we use to give that meaning to our lives, is our brains, which evolved via group cooperation, and gave us our innate moral sense.
And it's this moral sense with which we define "human dignity".
So, while the universe doesn't give a damn about our human dignity, I couldn't give a shit, because I do care, and that's enough.

If you think a godless universe equals humans mattering as much as cauliflower, well, go ahead and try to treat me like a cauliflower, and see what happens.
Go on.

Valiant words Diacanu. They say more for your morality than the philosophy that you subscibe to does. When atheists like you care about human dignity it is in spite of a belief system that makes no ontological distinction between human beings and ... cauliflowers, or compost, or whatever. It is fortunate for all of us that most materialists do not live in accordance with their creed.

102. Fleabytes

Comment #130653 by Artful_Dodger on February 21, 2008 at 5:26 am

Ah, the arrogance and conceit of religion. We are NOT the end result of evolution. Evolution doesn't care; it could have been any other species that evolved to best fit the niche available. If history had been repeated, the geological upheaval that caused the rift valley that changed the environment from forest to savannah may not have occurred, our ancestors would not have become bipedal, and humanity would not have existed on this small planet. We are here due to geology, not any supernatural agent

Vaal, I was referring to Darwin's position here, not to my own. My point was that 19th century atheism was humanistic, and Darwin's theory did nothing to disabuse these atheists of their human-centredness. Quite the contrary. That contemporary evolutionism is not man-centred is neither here nor there.

What I am saying is that if evolution is indeed indifferent, if it neither knows nor cares, then it is meaningless to expend our energies in defense of the weak and vulnerable. The "survival of the fittest" theme will always have the last word. Human dignity is of no more importance than the dignity of compost.

103. Fleabytes

Comment #130582 by Artful_Dodger on February 21, 2008 at 12:37 am

Paula, I am working on a riposte to this lenghty article. Suffice it to say for the moment that, despite its length, you write off many very serious objections to a priori materialsm with a few keystrokes in which you show that you have actually missed the point. I have not read what David Robertson, for example, has written, but I am familiar with his arguments. As a case in point, you simply cannot say that atheism, unlike Christianity, is modest with regard to where it has placed man in the scheme of things. You must surely e aware of the fact that the athism of the Enlightenment was (illogicallyI agree) humanistic. Even Darwin portrayed evolution as being "towards" the higher forms of which human beings are the supreme example. It is only more recently that atheism has endeavoured to demolish the idea that humanity occupies a priveleged place in the cosmos. But not even contemporary atheists are willing to grasp the implications of this: that talking about "human dignity" makes as much sense as talking about the "dignity" of caulilowers!

Likewise you dismiss in a sentence or two the idea that the Big Bang implies a pre-existent cause outside of itself. I am sure that you realise that given the substantive nature of the arguments in question such dismissal is facile and unworthy of a scientist.

I could go on, but I do not have time right now. In th meantime I would like to suggest that you place this article not only on atheist websites like this one but also on the blogs (if they exist) of the people hose criticism of Dawkins you supposedly demolish, or at leas of other theist blogs or wepsites. It is easy, and reassuring, to come out with stuf like this on the Dawkins website, where all the winds are favourable to your position. You might find it a bit more challenging to do the same thing elsewhere.

104. Charles Simonyi Professorship in the Public Understanding of Science

Comment #126531 by Artful_Dodger on February 13, 2008 at 1:15 pm

The problem with communism in practice is that it has tried to redistribute wealth by fiat and force (a top-down regime), instead of allowing the super-organism to emerge from the bottom up, which is of course the only way organisms and super-organisms have ever emerged in nature.

We might have been waiting a long time, don't you think? In politics as in everything else, letting things spontaneously follow their own evolutionary pathways without top-down intervention can be a recipe for disaster. In fact it has never happened. For better and for worse, human reason and technology have both destructively and creatively interfered with nature again and again: we have invaded it, plundered it and also brought out the best in it ... and also inflicted the worst on it. But we are intrinsically incapable of "allowing the super-organism (whatever the hell that is!) to emerge.

Besides this comment reflects not just natural selection but naive historicism of the kind that was tried and found wanting in the 19th century. The idea that society (the "social organism"!?) is somehow on the up and up, relentlessy headed twoards super-dom. We were not very far into the 20th cetury before that idea was proven to be ingenuous nonsense!

105. Charles Simonyi Professorship in the Public Understanding of Science

Comment #126427 by Artful_Dodger on February 13, 2008 at 8:29 am

One chair that no billionaire will ever endow though is for Professor for the Public Understanding of Politics! A lof of atheists here need to lose one delusion further : Capitalism.

Actually Jiten, capitalism is perfectly compatible with atheism. In fact it is delusional and naive to believe that materialistic atheism is compatible with the kind of socialism that insists on capital or resources being equally divided.

106. Charles Simonyi Professorship in the Public Understanding of Science

Comment #126024 by Artful_Dodger on February 12, 2008 at 11:44 am

I really hope Pinker gets it. He'll really have his work cut out for him trying to defend his reductionist conception of consciousness in real public debate. It's one thing to write sparky books about it, but it's quite another to have to show such a conception to be coherent in the cut and thrust of publi debate. I am sure he will not shrink from taking his views into the debating arena. He hasn't really done that, but with a position like this one, he would find it hard to avoid such "opportunities".

107. Charles Simonyi Professorship in the Public Understanding of Science

Comment #125447 by Artful_Dodger on February 11, 2008 at 11:36 am

Francis Collins would also be a wonderful choice. But then again, he is not a materialist so I guess his chances are pretty slim.

108. Charles Simonyi Professorship in the Public Understanding of Science

Comment #125321 by Artful_Dodger on February 11, 2008 at 8:24 am

Assuming as I do that the holder of the post would implicitly be required to be a materialist, I suggest Stephen Pinker. If Pinker were to follow in the footsteps of Dawkins into the debating arena, that would make for some exhilerating combats.

109. Charles Simonyi Professorship in the Public Understanding of Science

Comment #125143 by Artful_Dodger on February 11, 2008 at 2:51 am

Is it a case of: "materialists only need apply"? If not, I'm sure that many non-materialist candidates would be more than eligible in every other respect. However I suspect that the di is cast in that respect.

110. Why Darwin matters

Comment #124482 by Artful_Dodger on February 9, 2008 at 3:40 pm

Religious belief is the biggest ball and chain around our legs that hampers the widespread acceptance of this view and in some cases is reversing the gains we as a species have made (American levels of literacy anyone?) so is possitively damaging to us at this stage of our development.

That position is untenable and you (should) know it. Are you saying that religous belief in a culture coincides with low literacy levels in the culture? What is the evidence for that? Christianity, more than any other movement, has actually given wings to science, lteracy and the arts wherever it has taken root. The scientists and philosophers of the enlightenment were scientists and philosophers because of the judeo-Christian culture in which they received their education. It's not Christianity that is killing culture and literacy. It is rather a decline in the engagement with "words" which Chrisianity, especially since the Reformation, fostered. It is the inane, "zombic" obsession with TV images and celebrity.

111. Why Darwin matters

Comment #124472 by Artful_Dodger on February 9, 2008 at 3:14 pm

On the other I could see this as a monstrously egotistical revelation of your mindset ("Ho hum, the atheists have posted their opinion about the faith status of their viewpoint but it will NOT be decided until I have pronounced upon it"). And be led to thinking that the writer of that phrase, while seeming to be a polite and thoughtful person is, in fact, so welded to their blinkers that they refuse to meaningfully enter into discussion, knowing that they will let any ideas that confront their belief slip from their backs like water heads for a ducks arse.

Precisely the same comment could be made of the blinkered souls who remain unconditionally welded/wedded to natural selection as an omni-explanatory paradigm. There may be grandeur in such a view of things but evidence for such total explanation is actually sadly lacking. Just keep joining the dots to construct your picture - and if (quite) a few dots have to be pencilled in here and there, what the hell. The picture is awesome anyway!

112. Morality and the 'new atheism'

Comment #124009 by Artful_Dodger on February 8, 2008 at 6:46 am

There are many examples in the Bible of people who have got to heaven without knowledge of Jesus: Abel, Enoch, Noah, Abraham and others in his family, Rahab, and many Jews in the Old Testament.

That is true Steve. That doesn't mean they can't have been "saved" by Jesus - forward referencing and all that. C.S. Lewis put forward an interesting argument that I'm beginning to find quite compelling. He suggessted that people who had never heard about Jesus could have nevertheless been saved by him - in much the same way as you benefit from the food you eat even if you don't know what its nutritional properties are.

113. My critics are wrong to call me dogmatic

Comment #121801 by Artful_Dodger on February 4, 2008 at 7:26 am

This quick fix is ideal for those who like glossy, superficial spins on complex questions. But in the real world, things turn out not to be quite that simple. Two other interesting books appeared in the same year as Darking's. Owen Gingerich, Harvard University's distinguished astronomer, published Fairies' Universe. Francis Collins, director of the Human Genome Project, brought out The Language of Fairies. Both these scientists, with a long track record of peer-reviewed publications, made the case for belief in fairies as the best and most satisfying explanation of the way things are.

...

It is worth reminding ourselves that the hallmark of intelligence is not whether one believes in fairies or not, but the quality of the processes that underlie one's beliefs.

...

It also shows that it makes little sense to talk about "proof" of a world view, whether Fairian or afairyist.


Fairians will argue that their world view represents a superb way of making sense of things, while accepting that this, like its afairyist counterparts, is open to challenge by sceptics. "I believe in fairies as I believe that the Sun has risen - not only because I see them, but because by them, I see everything else," wrote C. S. Lewis.

This is just so pathetic it takes my breath away.

114. Morality and the 'new atheism'

Comment #121391 by Artful_Dodger on February 3, 2008 at 10:54 am

Epeeist, that may well be what some people believe, but the idea that we get to heaven by behaving in a certain way is not a Christian belief. I agree that those who believe it are deluded. If people could get to "heaven" - if they could be accepted by God by believing a certain way - then it wouldn't have been necessary for Jesus Christ to come. Christianity would therefore not have needed to exist if people could make it on their own.

115. Morality and the 'new atheism'

Comment #121383 by Artful_Dodger on February 3, 2008 at 10:40 am

We will invoke our rational faculty of course, but reason can be rationalised self-interest.

OK Baeoz, let me rephrase this. Rationalised self-interest can be mistaken for reason.

116. Morality and the 'new atheism'

Comment #120669 by Artful_Dodger on February 2, 2008 at 9:19 am

Steve, I'm not sure what you mean about the difference between "physical" and "natural", and what kind of natural evidence you would find conincing that was not also physical. The "knowledge" that believers speak of when they talk about the reality of God is not "warm fuzzy feelings". If you have no knowledge of this reality you cannot describe the experience in these terms because, by your own admission, you know nothing of it. To people on the outside of it belief in God may "seem" indistinguishable from belief in the FSM. But to assume that there is no difference shows a naivety that frankly beggars belief. The "evidence" has to do with God "disclosing himself" to the individual in ways that cannot be analysed rationally, just as a relationship between two people transcends rational analysis. Of course you will immediately think of "imaginary friend" scenarios. But again, that is to show the same naive dismissiveness as to come out with the FSM nonsense. I am not, by the way, dismissing reason in the way that Luther (apparently) did. Faith has in no way been shown to be contrary to reason, it is just not reduceable to reason. For example it is "reasonable" to believe that the constants of the universe have been established by God and that the appearance of design is more than just an appearance. I'm not saying that this has been proved conclusively, but there is nothing inherently "irrational" about holding such a belief. It is reasonable to believe that the universe actually had a beginning, and that that beginning could have been the action of a personal, intelligent Creator. There is nothing in science per se that actually contradicts that thesis, as, by your own admission, science exists for the exploration and the understanding of the universe, not for the identification of that which brought the universe into being.

117. Morality and the 'new atheism'

Comment #120643 by Artful_Dodger on February 2, 2008 at 7:48 am

If the supernatural really existed, then is was natural!

That beats it all! So if the metaphysical existed it would turn out to be physical! Obviously, if the metaphysical were descoverable by empirical means then it would be physical, not metaphysical at all! So are you expecting me to produce physical evidence that the metaphysical exists, in which case it would not be metaphysical anyway?

Why should God, supposing him as I do to be personal and purposeful, subject himself to our methods of empirical enquiry to determine his existence? Why should he not interact with nature as he sees fit rather than in line with our agendas? "Dieu sensible au coeur" as Pascal said. Believe me he DOES reveal himself, in the depths of their being, to those whose hearts are inclined towards him rather than away from him. That is evidence. Pink unicorns and FSMs may reveal themselves to our fertile imaginations, but they do not reveal themselves in the way that God does. I am not, by the way, saying that he does not make himself known within a variety of religious paradigms. At this stage I am not arguing for Christian theism. It is not for any one religion to dictate how God must make his presence felt. I would commend Wittgenstein's advice to those on this site who have had no experience of God
"whereof we cannot speak thereof we must remain silent".

118. Morality and the 'new atheism'

Comment #120535 by Artful_Dodger on February 1, 2008 at 11:11 pm

No. Naturalistic assumptions aren't gap-fillers. They are a strategy for investigation. Naturalistic assumptions don't explain things: they allow explanations to be researched.

They ARE gapfillers in the sense that as you proceed to apply the strategy for investigation that arises out of the naturalist assumption you discard, a priori, any possible metaphysical considerations. Any "gap" that remains unfilled by naturalistic evidence is assumed to be "fillable" by future naturalistic findings. Thus any indication which seems to point towards a metaphysical entity is squashed, and a hypothesis is elaborated which, without any evidence whatsoever, is made to sit well with naturalistic assumptions. The explanation is, therefore, assumed before the experiments take place that are designed to establish the explanation.

The same tactic is used for the explanation of the anthropic principle. The constants of the universe are so precise that "the impression of design is overwhelming" (Paul Davies), but on a materialistic premise that is impossible, so the "multiverse" hypothesis is conjured up, without the slightest evidence, in an (unsuccessful) attempt to account for the appearance of design without inferring the presence of a Creator. If it waddles like a duck, quacks like a duck, looks like a duck, eats like a duck, call it anything you like but for Dawkins' sake don't call it a duck!

119. Morality and the 'new atheism'

Comment #120403 by Artful_Dodger on February 1, 2008 at 3:22 pm

If the first simulated brain makes decisions about justice in a way in than we see people doing, then the naturalism question would be finally put to rest.

That's a big if Steve. This will only happen if your naturalist assumptions are correct. Are you not filling the "gap" with a naturalistic assumption just as I am, admittedly, assuming the existence of God as I try to make sense of the world around me? But I don't believe in God BECAUSE no other explanation is forthcoming. I believe in God because belief in God seems to me increasingly coherent. And the Christian hypothesis, among all the theist hypotheses available, seems to me, at present, to be the most coherent of all (they can't all be right!).

120. Morality and the 'new atheism'

Comment #120375 by Artful_Dodger on February 1, 2008 at 2:36 pm

I disagree Steve. What about when we have gut feelings that tear us one way and others that tear us towards empathetic action. Can it be a "feeling" that enables us to decide? We will invoke our rational faculty of course, but reason can be rationalised self-interest. It does not necessarily sway us towards justice or mercy. And I think that to attribute the ability to choose justice to animals is highly speculative, and is informed by your materialistic, naturalist world-view, according to which there can be no alternative. But you certainly have no empirical evidence that this is so. It's a bit like Dawkins saying: "Well of course we don't know, but because naturalism is necessarily right, a naturalist answer will be found sooner or later". That is very unsatisfactory and, indeed, unscientific. A hypothesis cannot be held indefinitely in the absence of evidence.

121. Morality and the 'new atheism'

Comment #120344 by Artful_Dodger on February 1, 2008 at 1:51 pm

(1) is consistent with the principles of natural selection and (2) requires no supernatural influence whatsoever.

What do you mean it's consistent with natural selection? The fact that a certain degree of intra-species or rather intra-family group altruistic behaviour can be observed among certain non-human animals hardly amounts to an application of the golden rule. Humans are often faced with the choice to behave not so much altruistically as "justly" or (at level which is even higher than justice but which presupposes it - "mercifully") or to trample over the rights of the other in pursuit of their own or their clan's interest. Reason is obviously involved, but justice (or mercy) is not reducible to reason.

One wonderful illustration of this can be found in King Lear - in my opinion Shakespeare's most magnificent play. It enacts precisely the choice between self-interest and its perceived and real consequences on the one hand (Edmund, Goneril and Regan) and justice transcended subsequently by mercy (Cordelia and Edgar). Edmund Goneril and Regan are shown to be subject to and driven by, for all their apparent strength of will and purpose, driven by the "nature red in tooth and claw" principle. Cordelia and Edgar know that they are subject to the "natural Law" (in Aquinas' sense). They make conscious moral choices which have nefarious consequences for themselves, but they do not flinch from them. Reason is involved in these choices, but the "mutineers", the destroyers, also reason. They reason on the basis of self-interest and supremacy. Choices like these, the choices we all have to make which involve doing justice or failing to do it, have no equivalent in nature. This is not just altruism and empathy, it is acting courageously and (dare I say it) "virtuously" even if all our instincts cry out against such a choice.

122. Morality and the 'new atheism'

Comment #120015 by Artful_Dodger on February 1, 2008 at 5:29 am

I'll check out the thread MPhil. But if we cannot conceive of a world without justice and accountability, which then turn out not to exist, then our "peceptions" and our intuitions are makeing sport with us. Life then turns out to be a cruel mockery. It is easy for us to say this, molly-coddled as we are in the Western world (though I don't know your circumstances so I can't pronounce). But the fact that massacres have been perpetrated, or outrageous violations of human rights, in so many parts of the world and left people crying out for a justice which they will not only not get but which is actually meaningless anyway, is a bitter pill to swallow. The worldview that denies not only that justice will be done, but that it can be done, and even that there is such a thing as justice, is nihilistic in the extreme.

123. Morality and the 'new atheism'

Comment #120000 by Artful_Dodger on February 1, 2008 at 4:36 am

I realise that even if I could establish the non-material universality of numbers that in itself would not imply "God" as the mind that brought numbers into existence. There is more to the non material origin of morality than that, of the Golden Rule, or whatever other formulation we might want to give it. What distinguishes "Christians" of "Jews" from, for example, Platonists, is that for the former morality is bound up with Personality. One of the problems with seeing the "Golden Rule" as an Absolute in the way that numbers are Absolute and universal is that it makes the application of the golden rule "mechanical", devoid of compassion and hard choices. If we are "hard-wired" to behave altruistically in the interests of the long-term survival of the species, then it will be, by and large, "automatic" save in the case of the "misfits" whose genetic impulses are misfiring left right and centre. It will be a matter of natural course. Therefore, just a no one would deserve any credit for behaving altruistically, so no one would be blameworthy for failing to do so. It will all come out in the wash. Another question is, what becomes of "justice"? If people don't get their "just deserts" (and what is it in us that gives rise to a sense of justice being done or not being done, and to the accompanying satisfaction or indignation)? In this respect there is a lot of meat in Elisabeth Anscome's establishment of justice as the supreme criterion, over and above the perceived "goodness" or "badness" of the consequences of a given course of action. Materialism drives us towards consequentialism (at best), and "justice" gets dispensed with. "Justice" (along with "Mercy" - for which justice is a prerequisite) can be very "counter-intuitive" and "counter-instinctual" - it can ride roughshod over short or long-term survival considerations. No one has come up with a satisfactory answer to ADH's probing question arising out of the film Matchpoint. What was it right for Chris Wilton to do? He opted for survival against justice. So what? And what about hope? A world where there is no justice, in fact where is meaningless is a world without hope.

124. Morality and the 'new atheism'

Comment #119930 by Artful_Dodger on February 1, 2008 at 3:16 am

Why not?

Because if numbers are universals they are prior to and independent of the evolutionary process. The first "mathemetician" (however complex or rudimentary) did not invent numbers but discovered them. Die-hard materialists are required by their assumption of materialsm to deny the existence of universals as universals are not physical or empirically detectable entities. The same goes for the Golden Rule, which udermines materialist assumptions.

125. Morality and the 'new atheism'

Comment #119919 by Artful_Dodger on February 1, 2008 at 3:05 am

the Golden Rule exists independently of any religion: it is a mathematical fact.

I like that. I never came across that before. If it's true I wonder more isn't made of it when debating the theists.

So the Golden Rule is an Absolute. I agree with this, of course, but it cannot be argued from a naturalistic premise.

126. Morality and the 'new atheism'

Comment #119895 by Artful_Dodger on February 1, 2008 at 1:16 am

Moreover, the argument that people would be horrible without belief in God seems to have been falsified by the experience of organically atheist societies such as Sweden

I thought there was a consensus on this site that there is no such thing as an "atheist society" or an "atheist regime", only atheist people. What is an "organically atheist society"? How can a society be organically atheist? Furthermore, is that not the same as stating what RD has been arguing against: that you cannot label people as anything until they have made a conscious commitment to that worldview? There is no such thing as an "atheist child" just as there is no such thing as a "Moslem child" or a "Catholic child". I agree with him there by the way. So how can a society be labelled "organically atheist"?

127. Atheism and Violence

Comment #118774 by Artful_Dodger on January 31, 2008 at 12:55 am

"Wait, you claimed to be agnostic in another post."

Yes, but less and less so the longer I spend on this site. :-)

128. Atheism and Violence

Comment #118026 by Artful_Dodger on January 30, 2008 at 8:46 am

"Atheism is non-belief in gods. Belief - and lack thereof - is a human attribute. Parrots cannot be atheist. Bananas cannot be atheist. Regimes cannot be atheist. Only people can be atheist."

I've rarely read anything so stupid on these threads. People, as you say, can be atheists, and powerful atheists have been known to foist atheist agendas on their subjects (whether the latter be willing or not). The result is an atheist regime, and the more political clout the said atheist has the more tyrannical the agenda will be. Take note, mind, that I am not denying the reality of tyranny on the part of many religious regimes. Of course there has been. I am just pointing out that it is ludicrous to say that the brutality perpetrated by atheist leaders has nothing to do with their atheism.

So-called Christians who use brutality to further the aims of the Church fly in the face of Jesus' explicit command. "My kingdom is not of this world. If it was, my servants would fight". He commanded his followers to put away their swords. When they don't they are disobeying him, even if they say they are fighting in his name.

129. Atheism and Violence

Comment #118020 by Artful_Dodger on January 30, 2008 at 8:35 am

Why do Dawkins-devotees absolutely refuse to see what is staring them in the face. Nietzsche was right! Any appeals that atheists make to "morality" just show a refusal to follow the implications of biological materialism through to their logical conclusion: morality does not exist and when you scold or praise anyone for behaving "indecently" or "decently" as the case may be you do so in spite of, not because of, your materialism - you do so because you are all, like George Eliot (and the good professor Dawkins), "cultural Christians".

Oakes' article is not, by the way, a defence of the Church's behaviour down through the centuries, which has often been loathesome. It is a statement of the fact that our beliefs about right and wrong, justice and injustice, have a supernatural origin - they are the result of human beings having been created in the image of the transcndent and also personal freely-choosing Source of justice and morality.

There is no choice for atheists but to, with Nietzsche, go the whole hog. Down with Ethics! The weak and vulnerable were not meant to survive so there is no reason why they should! Let's jhave no more of this mamby pamby, mealy mouthed, half-baked type of materialism which still pays lipservice to Christianity by retaining the concept of right and wrong! I would fight tooth and nail against that kind of atheism, but at least it would be intellectually consistent!

130. Richard Dawkins on The Big Questions

Comment #117897 by Artful_Dodger on January 29, 2008 at 11:50 pm

"Well, the one thing I didn't like was when Prof. Dawkins agreed with Lord Carey that the freedoms and liberties of "western" societies is a basically a product of Christianity... definitely not!"

Definitely not indeed, that is if you are prepared to rewrite history, and able to get away with it!

131. New atheists or new anti-dogmatists?

Comment #117309 by Artful_Dodger on January 28, 2008 at 2:33 pm

Steve I really think that we haven't begun yet to see, in western Europe, what the consequences of God being driven out of the public square will be. "Nature abhors a vacuum". Watch this space ...

132. New atheists or new anti-dogmatists?

Comment #117301 by Artful_Dodger on January 28, 2008 at 2:27 pm

"And how does one explain China (where God is a rather minor deity....)"

Approximately 100 million Chinese people (in China alone) might disagree with you there.

133. New atheists or new anti-dogmatists?

Comment #117298 by Artful_Dodger on January 28, 2008 at 2:25 pm

By the way, I don't know of any theist debaters or scholars who have argued that "you cannot be good without God".

134. New atheists or new anti-dogmatists?

Comment #117290 by Artful_Dodger on January 28, 2008 at 2:12 pm

"Russians of all persuasions died because of their rejection of Stalinism which was made up of policies based on centralization, totalitarianism and the dream of communism. It didn't matter if you believed in God or did not believe in God, reject these policies and you suffered the consequences. Period.

Also, there was no dogmatic enforcement of Atheism either...... All beliefs and ideologies other than those of Stalin were banned but a "no belief in God" dogmatism was never adopted."

You're rewriting history! Stalin and most other Soviet block dictators had a militant anti-religious agenda. There are countless stories of people in the Soviet block who were persecuted for the fact of their religious faith. I know that Stalit had it in for anyone who refused to bow and scrape before him. But he was just one of many Communist dictators who vigourously and violently imposed atheism and punished whoever did not toe the line. As for Stalin, he (like his predecessors and successors) was the pseudo-deity that slid into the vacuum left by the God that they banished. This is what typically happens when faith in God is driven out.

135. New atheists or new anti-dogmatists?

Comment #117179 by Artful_Dodger on January 28, 2008 at 11:39 am

"In Stalinist Russia, dogmatic enforcement of atheism was a tool used to propagate the dogmatic cult of personality of his quasi-theistic dictatorship. This doesn't make atheism per se a dogma - as the article clearly explains."

_J_, I beg to differ! Atheism in Soviet Russia was well established by Marx (via Lenin) long before Stalin came on the scene, and it continued to be the default assumption long after Stalin's death. Atheism was the foundation on which the Communist edifice was erected. In each and every Communist state Christia believers were hunted down and locked up. In many cases they were tortured and executed, and this was done to them because they were not atheists. I beloieve you are right that this tyranny is not inherent in atheism, but it is the kind of tyranny that rushes in to fill the void after life-enhancing faith in God has been driven out. It is not the only kind of tyranny that rushes in. There is such a thing as religious tyranny. But the solution to religious tyranny is not to exclude God. The answer to bad faith is not not no faith. It is true faith, or rather faith in the true God. That is the journey that I am on. I sense that the faith that Jesus preached and embodied has a lot to do with where the answer lies. But I don't know for sure yet.

136. New atheists or new anti-dogmatists?

Comment #117076 by Artful_Dodger on January 28, 2008 at 8:06 am

"we need to be ruthless with obscurantism - whether it comes from orthodox theology, post-modern nonsense, new age silliness or naïve mechanistic psychology."

Just a couple of questions here:

What does "ruthless" mean in practical terms? What constitutes "obscurantism"?


If this means that we have to counter arguments from superstition with better arguments, then I can go along with this. The problem is that this article, like the posts submitted by the vast majority of contributors to this forum, classes as obscurantism any and all belief in a transcendent Creator, and fails to make the necessary distinction between the kind of "faith" that gave rise to the music of Bach (soli Deo gloria) and the "faith" that "inspired" the 9/11 attacks.

I would like to know how the writer would suggest that the "ruthless" suppression of the "obscurantism" that faith is should be effected. This could sound ominous unless carefully qualified. If it is just a question of vigorous debate in the pblic square, with everyone having access to the public square to have their views challenged, then no problem. Many Christian thinkers have shown that they are more than capable of compellingly defending the Christian faith in this kind of scenario. But if it means that access to the public square should denied to people who believe in God, or curtailed in any way, then this sounds like totaletarianism. There are many well-documented cases of people in the Soviet block, up until the late 80s, who were excluded from public education because they were not prepared to declare that they were atheists.

And what about the "dogma" that religion is a virus (evidence please?) and that "religion is the root of all evil"? What about the dogma that Stalin's atrocities had nothing to do with his atheism (you try telling that to people in the Soviet Union who were threatened with the Gulag or who were sent there on account of their theism!)?

On the scientific level, what about the dogma (still unproven belief based on a priori commitment to - in this case - a materialist worldview) that life can arise spontaneously out of inanimate matter?

If it's "dogma" the four horsemen or going to tilt at, let them tilt at ALL dogma.

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

Comment #115449 by Artful_Dodger on January 24, 2008 at 7:57 am

I am truly amazed at the investment of time energy and thought that you are all making to dispute and discredit faith in God and to defend the inherently negative proposition of a-theism. Chapeau!

It reminds me of the poem by (I think) Lewis Carroll:

"As I was walking up the stairs
I met a man that wasn't there
He wasn't there again today
I wish that man would go away"

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

Comment #115284 by Artful_Dodger on January 23, 2008 at 11:34 pm

"All that we know about savages, or may infer from their traditions and from old monuments, the history of which is quite forgotten by the present inhabitants, shew that from the remotest times successful tribes have supplanted other tribes. Relics of extinct or forgotten tribes have been discovered throughout the civilised regions of the
earth, on the wild plains of America, and on the isolated islands in the Pacific Ocean. At the present day civilised nations are everywhere
supplanting barbarous nations,excepting where the climate opposes a deadly barrier; and they succeed mainly, though not exclusively, through their arts, which are the products of the intellect. It is, therefore, highly probable that with mankind the intellectual faculties have been mainly and gradually perfected through natural selection; and this conclusion is sufficient for our purpose."

"Descent of Man" chapter 5

Or the prose version of "Rule Britania"

139. Ken Ham in Leicester April 2008

Comment #114922 by Artful_Dodger on January 23, 2008 at 7:30 am

You guys need to remember that Ken Ham and his ilk do not represent the majority of Christians as regards the creation and evolution issue. ADH has referred to scientists like Francis Collins and Denis Alexander among others who are quite happy with evolution.

http://www.eauk.org/resources/idea/bigquestion/archive/2005/bq7.cfm

140. This Week's Flea

Comment #114100 by Artful_Dodger on January 21, 2008 at 11:24 am

"By your premise, he sits back in his armchair, does fuck all about anything bad going on and wants to take the credit for everything good. Sounds just like my boss, really. Perhaps that what he is - just a crap boss who wants to hide away in the corner and appears only when there's a pat on the back to be had. Not much of a God, really, wouldn't you agree?"

"straw-man"ning again?

141. This Week's Flea

Comment #114008 by Artful_Dodger on January 21, 2008 at 7:57 am

For now my position is agnostic. I am open to the possibility that there is a transcendent Deity who interacts as he chooses with the world that he has created, and not as we whould have him interact. Therefore I do not require the kind of evidence that you are insisting upon. Theists cannot be required to produce empirically decisive evidence because that is to insist that God subjects himself to our agenda. Why should he? As Pascal said: "C'est le coeur qui sent Dieu et non la raison. Voilà ce qu'est la foi, Dieu sensible au coeur, non à la raison."

Pascal, Blaise, 279

He may well be willing to reveal Himself to those who are willing to have him reveal himself to them - on his terms. I don't know. I'm on that journey.

142. This Week's Flea

Comment #114000 by Artful_Dodger on January 21, 2008 at 7:37 am

Yes I know that if asked you would all be able to trot out the usual argument: "a-theism is not belief but the absence of belief, it is not believing that God does not exist so much as NOT believing that he does". Nevertheless, in your more unguarded moments you find yourselves taling about being "confirmed in your beliefs". I was actually referring to what Walk said, not making an independent judgement regarding whether you are "believers" or not.

In any case, to define your ideological position, your core philosophy of life in terms of a negative prefix is a little sad. It aslo shows a lack of imagination. I would also argue of course, that it is not possible. That simple negative pre-fix entails a philosophy, a set of beliefs, a belief system which is actually (as you proudly insist) replete with affirmation. "There is grandeur in this view of things ...". Call it scientific materialism, naturalism or whatever - it is the other side of the atheistic coin. It is a philosophical paradigm, a FAITH in the absolute explanatory power of science.

143. This Week's Flea

Comment #113926 by Artful_Dodger on January 21, 2008 at 2:39 am

"Actually, by continued reading, and participating in these threads, I find more and more evidence to support my beliefs"

Yes indeed, as you have correctly inferred, atheism IS a set of beliefs rather than merely the negation of belief.

144. The Moral Instinct

Comment #112524 by Artful_Dodger on January 17, 2008 at 12:28 pm

OK Goldy, I realise these are troubled waters. I would not have supported the banning of alcohol. Alcohol can be consumed without it creating external and external havoc. I suspect that is not the case with the other drugs I mentioned. Even moderate consumption is harmful. If they were made legal, how would minors be kept safe from them? Maybe you have information that would prove me wrong.

I can imagine cultures that would condone paedophilia. I stand by what I say. Cultural sanction does not make it right, either here or there. What bout female circumcision? Is that just another case of cultural diversity?

145. The Moral Instinct

Comment #112508 by Artful_Dodger on January 17, 2008 at 12:00 pm

No Geoff. Of course not. The violation of the "absolute" is the callous manipulation of a young person, trapping them into a syndome of dependence, resulting in money being handed over, for which purpose delinquency was probably involved. This is a moral offence on the part of the pusher.

If soft drugs were legalised, trafficking would shift to cocaine, crack, ecstasy, heroin ... Or are you recommending that ALL hallucinatory drugs should be legalised?

Sorry about my tone. But I think there is a lot of naivety around when it comes to the legalisation issue. The death-dealers would quickly find some other "product" to push!

"Thus drugs are a source of institutionalized racism."

I agree.

146. The Moral Instinct

Comment #112501 by Artful_Dodger on January 17, 2008 at 11:02 am

"If authorities ceased their immoral behaviour of outlawing drugs, then the problem would go away"

That is a very subjective reading of morality. As for drug-traffickers, try saying that to the parents of someone whose life has been wrecked by being targetted by neighbourhood traffickers - forcing him into deliquency in order to finance his habit and keep the payments up.

147. The Moral Instinct

Comment #112463 by Artful_Dodger on January 17, 2008 at 7:16 am

Peacebeuponme,

I do not agree that there are no absolutes. As I said, they are the framework of the building. Within the building there is negotiation to be done. But the framework of "first principles" must be accepted by the negotiators. Otherwise the prowerful will ride roughshod over the weak and defenseless. The Golden Rule cannot work in a vacuum. It presupposes that I am in a position to "do as I would be done by", and it presupposes that my desires are not in fact ultimately nefarious. How would the principle operate between two drug-traffickers for example? Or between a drug-trafficker and a client? Or between a prospective briber and a member of a jury or a judge? First we have to establish that both drug-trafficking and dishonesty are wrong.

148. The Moral Instinct

Comment #112449 by Artful_Dodger on January 17, 2008 at 6:48 am

I agree with you Dr Benway ... for the most part. Commitment to universals does not rule out the need for dialogue. I agree that sometimes great harm has been done by a cold, clinical application of a moral absolute. For me universals are the overarching framework, or the foundations of the building if you prefer. They are not specific instructions for any given situation. In that case the Golden Rule is a pretty good basis for action.

But take the scenario I described earlier. The "powerful" employer does not so much bypass the Golden Rule as ignore it altogether. He should not ignore it, of course. He needs to be told not that he should observe the Golden Rule but that he has a moral duty to. That's where the Law comes in, providing it is on the side of the victim of the exploitation. But that's a big "if".

149. The Moral Instinct

Comment #112440 by Artful_Dodger on January 17, 2008 at 5:44 am

"You have to wonder whether a more humane outlook can only develop as societies become more democratic."

Maybe. But I wouldn't hold my breath if I were you. Authoritarian regimes are famous for riding on the coattails of democracy for as long as it suits them to do so. In any case, democracy is often more apparent than real. But democracy also has to be anchored. The fact that a majority have "voted" for something by electing representatives to implement it does not make it right, nor will their agenda necessarily be more humane.

150. The Moral Instinct

Comment #112437 by Artful_Dodger on January 17, 2008 at 5:33 am

Certainly not anarchy. All I'm saying is that the "Law" itself (like Reason) must be anchored. It is not a sufficient anchor in itself and is just as liable to succumb "to drift" and to be hijacked by majority (or minority) interests. That's why commitment to "universals" is so important.