Comments by keith
401. Richard Dawkins at AAI 07
Comment #86016 by keith on November 7, 2007 at 8:48 pm
I have a suggestion, namely that we make Christians tick certain boxes before starting a discussion with them on this site. This would save a lot of time and misunderstandings. We would find out just how much of the bible that person subscribes to. Are they literalists or sophisticated non-literalists that don't believe in the old man with the long beard but do believe in 'some kind of force'? Somebody ought to create a form with all the possible categories, from honest, clear-as-day believers in resurrections and god and Jesus being one and the same person, to the ones who believe in an enigma wrapped in a mist, inside a cloud, enveloped in a haze and then smeared with baby oil to make the whole thing slippier still.
It might even help the faithful to focus a little better on precisely what they themselves really believe. Anyone up for the task?
402. Richard Dawkins at AAI 07
Comment #85993 by keith on November 7, 2007 at 6:15 pm
ADH,
Yes Keith, when I used inverted commas for the phrase "fell into my hands" I guess I was hinting at Providence guiding my search. I can't speak for the experience of other searchers.
ADH, you must have misunderstood me. I don't want you to speak for others. I want you to tell me why you think your life is being guided.
I am aware of the paradox contained in the concept of prayer.
At what point does 'simply not working' become 'a paradox' in your book? If paradoxes are allowed, then surely there is no need for either of us to argue coherently.
I guess my prayers are aimed at my need to be guided in how I broach the question of faith when I am talking to them.
That's a very indirect prayer. So vague in fact, that it might even come true. Why not pray for something you really want e.g your children's salvation?
I have been told to pray for wisdom
Really? By who, the butcher? Your vicar? How does he know what god wants? Or did god himself tell you? If so, why is he asking you to pray for something you don't really want while ignoring the thing you want? How did he tell you to pray for wisdom? By email?
403. Richard Dawkins at AAI 07
Comment #85944 by keith on November 7, 2007 at 2:36 pm
Nighttripper,
I have to say that you're absolutely right about the fact that I should have noticed the sarcasm in that comment. The truth is that my mind had been bludgeoned into a kind of hypnotic trance by the rest of your comments and I just read it as more of the same. To tell you the truth, it's still a mystery to me why you wrote it. Was it funny? Perhaps in the same way that saying, "That was a great movie - NOT!" is funny?
Posing the man with questions to which you already give some sarcastic answers in the same sentence. I believe all in letting people have their own say.
I also believe in letting people have their say. Strangely enough, me including my own sarcastic answers doesn't preclude ADH from responding or adding his. Were you under the impression that the number of answers allowed per question was limited to one and I had used them all up?
Another example would be Comment #85652 by walk
Really? This is overly disrespectful for you? Nighttripper, you really are quite a delicate flower, aren't you?
Or Steve99 practicly assuming that ADH automaticly makes anythin Martin Luther says, his own opinion.
You're making me go back over the entire thread by not quoting but I remember this one quite well and I think you've misunderstood it completely.
I didn't quite catch your drift on the "this is an atheist website" comment. What do you mean by that
I meant that if I were to post my ludicrous atheist views on a Christian website where the people care enough about Christianity to actually spend their free time posting comments, I would expect to encounter some firm views rebutting my own 'invading' opinions. In fact, I would be a little disappointed if I didn't.
Nighttripper, this is a grown man we're talking about here. Do you think he's made of candy floss? What are you trying to protect him from? Our nasty views expressed in a forceful way? Please, have a little confidence in him. He won't suffer any lasting damage from this exchange, I promise.
404. Richard Dawkins at AAI 07
Comment #85795 by keith on November 7, 2007 at 6:06 am
Nighttripper,
I think you need to go back and read your own post. Does all of it belong in sarcasm tags or only part of it? Where does your genuine opinion stop and the sarcasm start? Please remember that many atheists, apart from not believing in god, don't believe in mind-reading either.
405. Richard Dawkins at AAI 07
Comment #85791 by keith on November 7, 2007 at 5:55 am
Nighttripper,
And here I was thinking that all Atheists were well-thinking, repectful people!
Now what would have made you think that? It's like saying, "And here I was thinking that all people from Manchester were well-thinking, respectful people!" Atheists are real people with human emotions and come in all stripes. Just look at Hitchens. What brought you to the conclusion, after watching him, that atheists were somehow politer than others? I agree with you that a degree of civility should be maintained. Perhaps we just disagree on that degree. Who, precisely, do you think has been inappropriately uncivil, bearing in mind that this is a debate and this is an atheist website? I like to think that we don't resort to stupid name-calling but I also hope that we don't don the rather creepy mask of Jesus-like perfection as often as our Christian brothers.
Or maybe its just me..
Yep, maybe it is.
406. Richard Dawkins at AAI 07
Comment #85782 by keith on November 7, 2007 at 5:16 am
ADH,
Me again.
the way the Bible has long been dealt in Sunday schools and RE lessons has actually given wings to this "decontextualising"
What, precisely, is the 'context' that would, at a blow, make complete sense of the virgin births, carpenter re-births and all the rest of the things that the faithful believe in?
You say this is not the place for biblical exigesis and I'm relieved to hear it. And surely it's not necessary. If what you believe can be grasped by a child there shouldn't really be any need to resort to complicated interpretations. Imagine that I'm a child and just tell me in the simplest possible terms what it is you think I've missed.
But then a book by CS Lewis "fell into my hands"
Why the quotation marks? Would it make sense to you if I said, 'But then a book by CS Lewis "didn't fall into my hands"'? Would you see in this some kind of divine guidance, that the Lord didn't want me to read CS Lewis? Are you one of these people who see the hand of fate in the fact that you met your wife? Would it mean anything to you if someone who had been watching you the day you met her told you that there was an equally attractive woman standing on the road you didn't take. And had you actually taken that road, would you today still be talking about having been guided by divine hands. Is the brute fact that things happen more than enough evidence for you that He exists?
Life seems to me to be absolutely meaningless outside of a relationship with Him.
Yes, if I were you I wouldn't whisper this in your wife's ear in a moment of intimacy. In fact, probably best to keep that one to yourself.
I believe that all of us, including the posters on this thread, are still on a journey, and there may be surprises in store even for the most vociferous and belligerent atheists among you. Stranger things have happened.
I wouldn't disagree with this. Antony Flew is a case in point. I'm sure that if I ever reach 80 I'll have lost a lot of my marbles and a lot of my bravado in the face of death and all it will need is a couple of clean-shaven, clean-livin' boys in suits and Invasion-of-the-Bodysnatchers-smiles to have a nice pleasant chat with me and I'll be won over to your side in no time at all. And will this prove anything to you? Will it signify to you that I have suddenly come to my senses?
407. Richard Dawkins at AAI 07
Comment #85770 by keith on November 7, 2007 at 4:08 am
ADH,
First let me say: brave man for putting forward your views on this site and well done for being interested enough to enter a debate on religion...
...But now gloves off.
I am hoping and praying that they come to faith.
Phew! For a while I was a little worried there. I genuinely thought that you had been doing nothing about the possibility that your children could die unconverted and go to hell. Why didn't you say earlier that you had prayed for them? Relax everybody, it's all sorted. Alarm over. Dad's got things in hand.
Just one or two small questions though:
Is it better to pray more than once? If so, why? Is God hard of hearing? Is he forgetful and needs reminding of a previous petition? Is there ever a danger that he might respond, "Yes, yes, alright! I heard you the first time for christ's sake!" How can you know when you've prayed enough but not so much that you start to get on his nerves?
My second question is about the efficacy of prayer. What do you think?
1. Prayer is always effective, and all prayers are answered every time, everywhere, to all petitioners.
2. Prayer never ever, not a single measly time brings about the required results. Strangely, this is almost as interesting as number 1. If every time a prayer is offered the desired results never come about this would be so odd that scientists would be falling over each other to try to explain it.
3. Prayer sometimes brings good results, probably about the same number as you would expect to happen were you not to pray at all i.e. through chance. This one is, of course, not very interesting at all. We already know that good things sometimes happen, and sometimes don't. Probability Theory, and more prosaically common sense, can easily deal with this one.
Which number, do you think, best describes the efficacy of prayer? If you choose 1 then you can stop worrying right now. God's got things in hand and is on the case as we speak.
If you choose 2 then it's actually against your interests to pray since this will guarantee non-compliance of your wishes, so you really ought to stop immediately.
If you choose 3 and the chances of achieving the required results are the same as blind chance you might equally well stop praying since it brings no tangible results.
In a nutshell my question is: Why pray?
408. Response to Theodore Dalrymple
Comment #85670 by keith on November 6, 2007 at 7:11 pm
Arcturus,
Your English is wonderful. I used to have a Romanian friend and she too learned to speak English to almost native-speaker level with no accent. What is it about Romanians?
Even the word 'consistent' doesn't really work. It has the meaning of doing the same thing and logical coherence, but there's still something missing that I can't put my finger on.
Okay, back to work.
409. Response to Theodore Dalrymple
Comment #85557 by keith on November 6, 2007 at 6:57 am
Atticus,
Yes, I remember old fatty West too. The way he used to scale those walls with such ease used to amaze me as a kid - until my older brother told me to watch the TV lying on my side and then all became clear.
410. Mother dies after refusing blood
Comment #85548 by keith on November 6, 2007 at 6:18 am
Wow, there's an awful lot of wringing of hands here. And of course, when someone like Anton refuses to join in he is jumped on.
Yes, it is sad, but is it really any sadder than a hundred other stupid deaths, injuries, rapes and accidents, all preventable, that happen every day and we read about in the papers? All these things genuinely upset me, but it would be silly for me to spend my day telling people just how upsetting it all is for me.
It seems to me that the only thing different about this case is that religion is involved. This, of course, is reason enough for us to take an interest in it and rightly so. And of course I understand that we all want to show that although we might not possess a soul like the rest of humanity we can grieve as well as the next man. However, maybe the crying, the blaming by some of the medical staff, the labels of 'tragedy' attached to this death and the outpourings of sadness are starting to border dangerously on levels last seen when Diana Spencer left us.
411. Response to Theodore Dalrymple
Comment #85535 by keith on November 6, 2007 at 5:22 am
Ukantic,
I agree with all of your points except the one about the pot calling the kettle black. That would be the case if Dalrymple were a theist but he isn't. He's an atheist.
412. Response to Theodore Dalrymple
Comment #85532 by keith on November 6, 2007 at 5:11 am
Arcturus,
If we were consecvent in discarding wrong and outdated ideas and practices, religion is where humanity has failed miserably.
Im fascinated by your use and spelling of the word 'consequent'. You used it in the same way a German-speaker would and also misspelt it (though not in a German way and the rest of your English was faultless). I'm convinced that English is lacking precisely this word, the German word 'Konsequent', as I don't think that the English 'consequent' has the same meaning or that any other word we have does. Please put me out of my misery and tell me it was just a simple misspelling and nothing more.
413. Response to Theodore Dalrymple
Comment #85430 by keith on November 5, 2007 at 9:04 pm
Atticus_of_Amber,
Wowza!
You know a couple of weeks ago, when I said Sam was incapable of rhetorical rough-housing? I take it back.
Holy Sh*t that was a zinger.
Atticus, did you use to write Batman comics?
BicycleRepairMan
Killing people for their thoughts alone is not a recipe for anything except bloody disaster.
Again with the out-of-context'ing , Sam is ver clear in TEOF on this, talking about specific what-if scenarios, where unreasonable-ness is completely out of control. Take the man who slaughtered Theo Van Gogh in broad daylight in Amsterdam, then stabbed a knife through his ribcase passing a note on the way saying "Ayaan Hirsi Ali"
Imagine if he and a group of likeminded individuals where to come across a nuclear weapon.
Thoughtcrime my ass. That requires thinking. And the last time I read "1984" ,compulsory Doublethink is not thinking, its the opposite.
Pardon?
Comment #84908 by keith on November 4, 2007 at 6:50 am
epeeist,
What's bellicose (or even pseudo-bellicose) about thinking that 'Zen and the Art of Archery' is thought-provoking? Are there some people on this site who don't like (or pseudo-don't like) Zen?
Both "Narziss and Goldmund" is Christianity with an Apollonic/Dionysian viewpoint.
Does this mean that both characters in the novel is Christianity or that both books, "Narziss" and "Goldmund" is?
Comment #84888 by keith on November 4, 2007 at 3:48 am
Steve99
Then I stand corrected. I must be thinking of some other geezer. Mohammed, perhaps?
Comment #84884 by keith on November 4, 2007 at 3:00 am
Steve99,
I'm not well up on this but didn't Jesus pre-date Buddha by about 600 years? If that is the case, then of course, he really must be the Messiah. QED!
418. Jesus Rides the Number 7 Train
Comment #84878 by keith on November 4, 2007 at 2:28 am
Kurtdenke,
No, I don't think you're dim. I can't make out why the writer used the word 'penultimate' either and suspect he doesn't understand it.
419. Hitler, Stalin, Mao, etc. were atheists, and they were terrible! Answer that!
Comment #84867 by keith on November 4, 2007 at 1:18 am
I am re-posting a question I posted earlier on this thread because I've been thinking some more about it:
If I got so sick and tired of the stupidity spewed forth in the TV program Songs of Praise one Sunday that I went out to the nearest church and punched the vicar squarely in the face, would this not be a crime caused by my atheist views?
Now, since no one answered my question I started imagining for myself what an answer might look like. Perhaps something along the following lines:
'No, there's nothing intrinsic to the atheist viewpoint that would inevitably lead to Stalin killing millions of his fellow countrymen, nor to you punching a vicar in the face. In the latter case, this would just be caused by simple exasperation at the vicar having a different point of view to you and you thinking, "Why can't the old fool see that he's wrong and I'm right?". It could have been a disagreement about anything; football or literature, or flower arranging, but there's nothing intrinsically in any of these subjects that inevitably leads to violence. You were just intolerant, nothing more complicated than that. Basta'.
This sounded reasonable enough to me, after all, it was me who dreamt it up. Then I wondered if believers could use the argument in the same way. Could they claim that there's nothing intrinsic to the religious outlook that would inevitably lead one to do violence to another person? The more I thought about it, the more I felt they could use this argument. After all, most religious people manage not to be violent to others so there can't be anything intrinsically in their religion that inevitably leads them to violence.
One objection to this could be that there are passages in the Koran and the Bible that seem to sanction violence. If we atheists had a sacred book, there would certainly be no passages resembling anything like these. However, I'm not convinced that it is these passages that cause some religious people to commit acts of violence. After all, I suspect that even Muslim suicide bombers are convinced that theirs is a 'religion of peace' and might try to downplay these passages (here I may be very very wrong). Much more of a cause for religious violence, it seems to me, is simply that we refuse to see things their way and this annoys them to a murderous degree! This emotion is far closer to my punching the vicar (really really hard in the face...twice) and has little to do with how the Koran or bible should be interpreted. Whether or not a believer reads his holy book literally becomes just a side issue though there could well be some overlap between religious fervour and literal readings of sacred texts.
It seemed to me that whether or not you did violence to another person depended much less on the actual content of your beliefs than on the degree to which convincing them of your being right and them wrong mattered to you. I wondered if the causes of religious violence lay less in certain justifying passages in religious texts that were being taken literally by some, than the extent to which it mattered to these same people that convincing others of their 'truth' was of such importance that it became a matter of life and death. Is it possible that almost any set of beliefs, if held strongly enough, could lead to violence? Think of pro-life activists killing abortion clinic doctors. And would some fervent 'pro-Iraq' peace marcher have killed George Bush back in 2003 if he had had the chance?
The only reason this could be relevant to this thread is that it occurred to me that concentrating exclusely on the actual beliefs of atheists rather than the fervour with which these beliefs are held might be a bit of a red herring. As soon as it really matters to you that others conform to your beliefs (maybe the Chinese' oppression of religious groups is a case in point), then perhaps any strongly held belief, atheism included, can lead to violence. Even so, although it can be a reason for violence, I don't believe that atheism meant very much to either Stalin or Pol Pot or any of the other usual suspects, or that it represented even a small motivation for their crimes. If their power had depended on it I'm sure they would have converted at the drop of a hat to any religion you might care to name and then forced the rest of their countrymen to follow suit.
I can't work out if this whole comment was quite profound or just too banal to have been worth mentioning...or somewhere between the two.
However, if it really is rubbish (and I'm really afraid that it might be), could someone answer my question about how my punching the poor old vicar is not an atheist crime? And if atheism is not a belief system but simply a lack of beliefs, once again, why did I punch him?
420. What the New Atheists Don't See
Comment #84845 by keith on November 3, 2007 at 11:55 pm
Will Young,
Going by what you said about "petty, seemingly pointless lives" he would have no grasp on "the rest of humanity". From the article he sounded like a snooty elitist and your statement confirmed this for me.
Thinking religion offers a useful door to something larger and more meaningful in some people's lives is a sure way of keeping those people ignorant. From personal experience, from within my own family, that is not a good thing by any stretch of the imagination. Only someone without an understanding of this could believe otherwise.
It's possible that you really did understand me (and Dalrymple) correctly but because I'm not 100% sure I just want to expand a little.
Dalrymple's view is that all lives seem petty and pointless if you only concentrate on yourself. This goes for both atheist and believer alike.
A Christmas Carol by Dickens is an illustration of this. As long as Scrooge only has his own interests at heart he is basically unhappy and fearful of death. As soon as his interests encompass something larger than himself, in this case a particular concern for Bob Cratchett's family and then, by extension, an interest in the community in general, he becomes happier and less fearful.
Now, all of us connect to a larger world than ourselves, often through an interest in our families and friends. Intellectual types can connect to an even larger world through intellectual pursuits, which often give them some internalised view of the sweep of history (and pre-history) and the real size of our world and it's place in the universe. Less intellectual types find this all rather dull but can connect to the larger world in other ways. Dalrymple feels that one of these ways is through religion. Although it might be a delusional kind of short cut for the lazy-minded to gain some kind of perpective on their lives, a way out of a mean Scrooge-like existence, a relief from selfish thoughts and the pointlessness of it all, he would claim that it's still better than the feeling of pointlessness it replaces.
Now, like you I find a belief in gods stupid and it would be much better if these people would just grow up. Mostly I just find religion annoying. After all, I have to share the world with these people and I'd much rather have kindred spirits as my neighbours. However, I feel that some forms of religion are actually dangerous, so of course, I want to see these disappear from the Earth as soon as possible. Even so, I don't believe that the mildly religious really threaten me in any way, and if they do, only in such an indirect way that is almost impossible to quantify and is therefore not at the top of my hitlist for eradication. I find the selfishness and purposelessness of some people today much more of a threat to society and this, for me, really is worth fighting. I think this is how Dalrymple feels too.
Of course, it would be great if all of us felt there was already enough meaning in the world without trying to manufacture some more from dubious sources. However, you can't order someone to feel 'meaning'. I think that for some people, religion can offer a fairly benign ersatz relief from a feeling of solitude in the world.
You suggest that Dalrymple is cynically elitist for encouraging the hoi polloi to cling to their ridiculous beliefs, thus keeping them forever ignorant. Ignorant of what, exactly? Please don't tell me that people, even people in your family, aren't aware of atheist' views. That they have chosen to believe in god is lamentable, but did they do so because they weren't aware of any other viewpoint?
Although Dalrymple may very well be elitist, I don't think this is what generates his belief that we should leave the religiously-minded in peace. In his work as a psychiatrist, working in both a hospital and a prison in a poor district of Birmingham, what he saw as the most depressingly common trait among the criminals in prison and patients suffering from depression in the hospital was a lack of interest in anything other than themselves, no sense of there being anything beyond the gratification of momentary whims. Often their depression was not of the type that is often referred to as 'clinical depression'. Dalrymple feels that this is an overused term. Most of his patients' depression was more a feeling of pointlessness that could have been overcome with a change of attitude and lifestyle. As it was, they were not interested in anything outside themselves but could not find any purpose within themselves either. As Bertrand Russell once commented, a person looking for meaning purely within, without any reference to the outside world is rather like a sausage-making machine taking a long, hard look at itself and trying to figure out what it's for without reference to meat.
The long and short of all this is that Dalrymple feels that religion gives some people meaning to their lives and if you take this away they might well start to resemble the people he used to treat in prisons and hospitals.
Some of us have found much more solid things that give our lives meaning but if someone feels that their existence only makes sense if there is a god, who are we to say otherwise? You and I might say we have every right to say so. Dalrymple disagrees. That's his prerrogative. However, it doesn't make him an elitist.
You say that events in your own family are a testament to the wrong-headedness of Dalrymple's views. Without prying too much, could you tell me why? I'd actually be more than happy to learn that Dalrymple is wrong wrong wrong.
421. A House Divided: Hitch at Georgetown
Comment #84837 by keith on November 3, 2007 at 9:48 pm
Dialector,
Given that the forces of darkness have always enjoyed a sufficiency of brilliant apologists like Bertrand Russell, Steven J. Gould, Carl Sagan and Gore Vidal,"
I am always dissapointed to hear the forces of rationality and humanistic enlightenment being portrayed as the "forces of darkness"
I know you know that the author had his tongue firmly in his cheek when he wrote this. He was, of course, describing atheists in the way that believers tend to see us. The fact that he clearly doesn't subscribe to this view had some comedic effect. Now, I know you know all of this. So, this being the case, why the complaint? There's nothing to be 'disappointed' about at all. No one is going to be persuaded by this comment that we really do represent the forces of darkness, not even at the deepest subconscious level. Please, lighten up a little and be pleased that out side has a sense of humour while theirs doesn't.
422. The Transcendental Argument for God
Comment #84835 by keith on November 3, 2007 at 9:32 pm
A genuine question: Could someone explain to me what a non-rational force is? For example, is gravity rational or non-rational?
Thanks in advance,
Keith
423. A House Divided: Hitch at Georgetown
Comment #84697 by keith on November 3, 2007 at 8:16 am
Very good article. Nice to hear what someone who doesn't already belong to the Hitchens fanclub thinks of him. I thought the writer picked up on some easily overlooked but telling moments in the debate.
424. Atheists don't believe in anything
Comment #84693 by keith on November 3, 2007 at 8:00 am
Loren Michael,
Sorry, I pretty much repeated your posts. I only saw them after I posted.
By the way, is that you on your avatar? You look like a very pleasant chap.
425. Atheists don't believe in anything
Comment #84690 by keith on November 3, 2007 at 7:52 am
Atheists believe in everything 'normal' people believe in, minus gods. Actually, the name is a bit of a give-away. Why the confusion among believers? It does exactly what it says on the tin.
My only confusion is with the wording of the topic under discussion:
"If you don't believe in God, you must not believe in anything".
As it stands, this is an order not to believe in anything. The opposite of 'you must believe in something' when talking about logical deduction is 'you can't believe in anything', not 'you must not'. This, surely, is the sense in which it is meant.
426. Believe it or not, courtesy counts
Comment #84684 by keith on November 3, 2007 at 7:28 am
Good post Roger.
427. A new website addition: Debate Points
Comment #84625 by keith on November 2, 2007 at 11:52 pm
Dear Eric,
Who is the audience? What are their assumptions? Are you trying to change their assumptions or reinforce them? How do you know if you've done it?
I enjoy your comments but when you start them, you could tell us if you're referring to something someone said or whether they are just extensions of ideas that started in your head 20 minutes previously.
I imagine that the first comment was referring to the implied assumption in the thread topic that a good argument is valid in all situations. Is that right? If so, and if you're right that unless you know who you're arguing with you can't know where your argument is going, then the same would apply to any book you care to mention. Therefore, a book written for an atheist audience would be incoherent to a religious audience since they wouldn't be able to decipher what the writer was saying. Thus no believer (or atheist, depending on who you think it was written for) could begin to understand The God Delusion? In your opinion, which audience was this book specifically written for and which groups are excluded from understanding it? Or maybe arguments are different to books? But since there are any number of possible people to debate and we can never know in which direction any particular argument will develop, does this mean that we can never rehearse any arguments? You always have to know who you're opponent is and why your having the argument before even thinking the problem through (albeit out loud and on a website)?
Perhaps by starting your comment in mid-thought you were graphically showing us just how necessary the context is to a thought? Nice trick.
Forgive me for asking, but what happens when you win the debate?
I had the same problem with this post. I'm guessing that this was motivated by the implied assumption in the thread topic that one side can actually win an argument or were you responding to something someone wrote? Either way, I believe you can win an argument without there being some kind of formal acknowledgement of the fact by your opponent. It's not like a war where one side has to officially capitulate. It doesn't have to be a knock-down victory. Just a slow erosion of their certainties is fine. Even just having the satisfaction of arguing well can sometimes be enough. There is pleasure to be had in simply expressing your thoughts. If you're after all or nothing results then, of course, you'll find most arguments pointless.
428. What the New Atheists Don't See
Comment #84602 by keith on November 2, 2007 at 6:52 pm
35bluejacket,
...the true nature and purpose of man is "to seek meaning". This is our evolution. Grab a telescope, microscope, emerse ones self in the math of Newton, Godel or any of the greats. Stand in awe of the cosmos, atomic world, biology, etc. Swim in the fountain of knowledge that will flow through every door we open and will never cease to quench the desire of our hearts and its longing. No human imagination can hold a candle to the glorious mysteries of the universe. And through our efforts we will drag, as always, reluctant civilizatin with us.
Does this sound too religious?
No, not too religious. In fact, I can almost hear Carl Sagan's sonorous voice intoning the words, heavy with significance, as the dramatic crescendo to a 164-part series made for American TV about man's place in the cosmos. Grand stuff. The only bit I felt that was missing was something akin to Darwin's moan about the time he got his clothes caught in an entangled bank. You could also, perhaps, have finished the whole thing off with a sentence about boldly going where no man has gone before.
Incidentally, I enjoyed the joke about emersing oneself in Godel. Personally, I'm still working my way through, 'Have Fun with Long Division!' by Eric Blackmore (pub. Longman Press, 1983) and that evergreen classic, 'Trigonometry for Schoolgirls, vol 1' by Edward Parker-Smythe (4th Edition; pub. Oxford Press 1954).
429. What the New Atheists Don't See
Comment #84601 by keith on November 2, 2007 at 6:34 pm
Damien White,
"...and challenge God to strike him dead in 60 seconds. God bided his time, but got Bradlaugh in the end..."
So what? Wasn't the challenge to strike him dead IN 60 SECONDS?
If this drivel is to be believed, I can prove i'm a god right now by pointing at someone and saying: "You will die at an unspecified time in the future."
This, I think, was a joke. The man's an atheist. Atheists don't believe that there is a god to strike people down.
430. What the New Atheists Don't See
Comment #84600 by keith on November 2, 2007 at 6:30 pm
Will Young,
Sorry Will, but I didn't understand this sentence:
So he is functionally illiterate concerning what it is like to be part of the "rest of humanity"
Does 'funcionally illiterate' mean he doesn't understand the rest of humanity? If so, why doesn't he?
431. What the New Atheists Don't See
Comment #84533 by keith on November 2, 2007 at 9:32 am
In my opinion Theodore Dalrymple is usually an excellent writer, both in style and in his thinking. He is, of course, on Sam Harris's recommended reading list (I have been wondering if Sam will strike him off it in a fit of pique. To do so would be childish, but not to do so would be like saying you adored someone who despised you; this is possible of course, though perhaps it's not a normal human reaction. Still, Sam's a Buddhist of sorts so I'm sure he'll have some trick up his sleeve, something along the lines of different definitions of the self e.g. the self that wrote The End of Faith was not the self who was insulted in the review etc.).
From the comments now raging on another thread I suspect that most members of this site would not be impressed by Dalrymple's analysis of where the current evils of British society come from. Though he puts the blame squarely on the shoulders of progressive left-wing intellectuals, he also sees the people at the bottom of society as being better able to direct their fate than they presently do. Once they are stripped of the fiction that they are simply helpless victims whose fate is as inevitable as the weather, they might start to see themselves as active agents and begin to gain some control over their lives. Of course, to do this they would need some help. But they would also have to want to help themselves.
Dalrymple is critical of the welfare state and sees this as having contributed to the breakdown of traditional social relations and creating a section of self-perceived passive victims in society. The fact that Sam has recommended Dalrymple's book, Life at the Bottom, suggests to me that he subscribes to many of Dalrymple's views. If not, why would he recommend the book? I can almost hear the comments on this site if that turns out to be really the case:
"Though Sam Harris is an astute commentator on religion I think it's time he got his act together on social issues. How can he be so callous as to not give a damn about the poor? I really don't think he can trusted on anything if he thinks in such a right-wing way" etc. etc.
I personally think 'Life at the Bottom' is a wonderful book and simply because Dalrymple writes for a right-wing journal shouldn't disqualify his views from serious consideration. For me this is obvious, but I've noticed here that labelling someone as right-wing is seen as both an insult and a winning argument rolled into one.
While on the topic of labels being a way of circumventing an argument, I think Sam was right in dividing his reasons for wanting to lose the badge of atheism into philosophical reasons and strategic reasons. I feel he was completely right on the former and partially right on the latter. However, in my view he wasn't right enough on the strategic part to warrant exchanging the strength we now feel in our new-found solidarity for a more refined way of infiltrating the defences of the faithful. I feel a sledge-hammer approach rather than the odourless knock-out gas approach is what's needed, at least at the moment.
Back to Dalrymple. He reviewed The God Delusion about a year ago and BaronOchs is absolutely right in his analysis of what is on Dalrymple's mind when he attacks the New Atheists: he sees the fabric of society unravelling and anything that might keep it together, as he believes moderate religion can do and has done, is worth preserving. He adheres to Dan Dennett's car bumper sticker advice regarding how to achieve happiness, namely, to dedicate your life to something bigger and more important than yourself. Religion is obviously one way of doing this with the added bonus of keeping unbribled selfishness and nihilism from the door.
I think Dalrymple feels that although the intellectually inclined can have larger-than-self interests like reading the classics or developing an appreciation of art, for the rest of humanity religion offers a useful door onto something outside their own petty, seemingly pointless lives.
I have to say that when I look at the problems that English society has right now, I actually don't believe that getting rid of the C of E is our main priority, at least in the short term, though getting rid of Islam possibly is. Once again I think Sam is right to point out that we are being dishonest when we try to be even-handed in our criticisms of religion. Moderate Christianity isn't really a danger any more and to tar it with the same brush as Islam is facile. I think it is the former kind of religion that Dalrymple is trying to defend - from us.
Having said all that, I found his review of The God Delusion really lame and this latest review is even worse. I couldn't believe that someone who could write with such insight about other subjects could write so sloppily and tendentiously about the so-called New Atheists. Just the fact that he wants to corner the market in transcendental moments for the faithful is a big fat cheek. Though I must confess to never having had a proper one myself (this is tantamount to confessing to being a 30-year-old male virgin at the rugby club), others here appear to have them on a regular basis, assuming that 'awe' counts as something transcendental. However, I did, one night several years ago, suddenly feel strangely at home in the universe as I sat on a hard wooden bench, gazing up at the night sky while my friend went off to get us both another 'Krug' from the beer tent at the Oktoberfest in Munich.
Comment #83763 by keith on October 31, 2007 at 7:10 am
Northern Bright,
You must have some energy, and patience, to actually read David Robertson's book while doing a university course. Aren't you ever tempted to send the book sailing through the kitchen door and over the neighbour's fence? Or is he your neighbour?
433. AAI 07
Comment #83754 by keith on October 31, 2007 at 6:27 am
Mejdrich,
Actually, no. Not cold feet. It occurred to me that some people might quickly read what I had written and think that you had written it, which wouldn't have been fair. Also, I suspect there is some ruling about not impersonating other members, at least not to the extent of using their name.
I have to say that I liked your last post much more than the one before. It sounded much less like Francis of Assisi. But I also have to confess that I really was having a 'peachy time' reading the comments. Sometimes they can become a bit mutually congratulatory and I can't see the fun in that.
However, here we had a genuine discussion. Actually, I only became interested in it when I suddenly became aware that there was something vaguely annoying about Scooter's avatar. I started to wonder if that was Scooter himself or perhaps some 1980s American TV star I had missed (David Hasselhof's brother? Don Johnson's cousin?). While I was wondering about the strange juxtaposition of having an avatar of a man with a Richard Gere wannabe smile on a science website for nerds, I suddenly and inexplicably became distracted by the thread itself.
I have to say that in the end Scooter spoiled things a little, at least for me, by turning out to be completely insane. This was not so much because of his extreme stance, but because he wasn't able to answer some basic questions in a style that didn't bring to mind a cornered and wounded Tasmanian Devil.
You suggest that I wasn't being even-handed in calling Veronique's tirade verbally abusive when I didn't do the same about Scooter's comments;
Just what does ScooterNYC have to say to meet your standard of "verbally abusive", Keith?
Of course, 'verbally abusive' is a very subjective term. I suspect it depends, like many things, on the degree. I think on this occasion Veronique overstepped the mark and I think she knows it.
The truth is that I actually found it quite funny to hear a grandmother using the word 'c*nt'. Nowadays the only person I'm likely to hear say that in public is my dustman. What I really objected to was the way she was trying to coyly excuse, under the guise of an uncontrollable outburst, not what she had already done, but what she was about to do i.e. post a comment full of vitriol. I felt that if she was composed enough to add asides to her friends, she was composed enough not to send it. Bonzai's half-arsed attempt at moral outrage (basically the same trick that Veronique had pulled but more plodding) was not much better. So, my comments to them were written not because I felt Scooter was right, but because I thought they were not quite playing fair.
You suggest that all of these comments had gone way off topic and ask, "What happened to the good Matthew Chapman?" The truth is that Matthew Chapman does talk about this issue i.e. replacing the support of the church with something else. As far as I can see, the argument was related to that topic. However, even if this had all been beside the point, it still would have been one of the most entertaining threads this month.
434. AAI 07
Comment #83679 by keith on October 30, 2007 at 10:34 pm
Bonzai,
Santa Clause wrote,
"trust I am not the only lurker who has flagged this comment as offensive. Based on the policies of this site, you (Veronique) should be banned in short order".
I think many people would find scooter's antisocial, let them eat cake, "you don't have it if you can't pay for it" philosophy much more offensive than the four letter word for copulation.
If you think it is not obscene to suggest that poor children should be punished because their parents are having more kid than they could afford
but swearing is an offense that merits banning I think you have your priorities rather screwed up.
I think we can safely read this as "anyone who disagrees with me and my friends has their priorites rather screwed up".
Scooter disagreed with Veronique and you. For this she wrote, among other things, "get fucked you dickhead" for which she has apologised and that should be the end of the story. At least, for her. I'm intrigued as to how, in your book, there is an equivalence between taking a contrary stance and verbally abusing someone? The rules of this website allow the former but not the latter.
Stupid rule, perhaps?
435. AAI 07
Comment #83678 by keith on October 30, 2007 at 10:20 pm
People people people, please! I know you're all enjoying yourself but I've come to take your ball away (and demonstrate what a great guy I am at the same time). Blessed indeed, are the cheese-makers.
If only we could just agree on everything there would be no need for all of these discussions so please, let's all just talk about what I want to talk about and if we find ourselves disagreeing then I'll interject again. How's that?
436. AAI 07
Comment #83500 by keith on October 30, 2007 at 8:21 am
Steve,
I really might have misrepresented you. In fact, this is quite probable since I generally agree with your posts. The thing that caught my eye was:
I guess it is just that being a nice guy, I rescue first and then ask questions later.
Being an advocate of finding out whether someone really can't work or simply doesn't want to, I would tend to ask questions first.
437. AAI 07
Comment #83489 by keith on October 30, 2007 at 7:36 am
The two arguments seem to have polarized. In the blue corner we have Scooternyc who sees us all as captains of our own destiny. On this view there are very few mitigating circumstances that might excuse a person from having failed, at least in the western world, where nearly all of us have opportunities of a kind. Indeed, it's hard not to look at someone like AHA and notice what she has made of her life, then compare her to someone who seemingly had greater opportunities but didn't take them.
Since Scooternyc has obviously worked with unfortunate people before then I suspect he does care about them, at least those who genuinely have never had much of a chance but could do well if given a little help.
And in the red corner we have Steve and Veronique who see people as just so many billiard balls, hit around the table by those in power and who are never quite able to find their feet. This is the way we always feel about others but never about ourselves. We generally tend to attach praise and blame to our own actions. However, the fact that large numbers of people from certain groups seem to fail en masse, for example the poor generally do worse than the rich at school, suggests that it really is much harder for some people to achieve than others. Social factors then, aren't negligible. Therefore, it's not entirely down to the individual.
Maybe the truth lies somewhere between the two positions: we are neither totally in control of our fate, nor are most of us completely helpless to direct our lives (if we can be bothered). Maybe the argument about the pros and cons of the welfare state could be resolved by simply agreeing test just how deserving those who apply for benefit are rather than giving it to everyone who asks for it. It is pretty much accepted, at least here in England, that there is almost nothing you can do to disqualify yourself from being provided for by the state. In fact, it's often the case that the worse you behave, the more you get. (A case in point is the suggestion that those in need of parenting classes who actually attend the classes should receive twice as much benefit as an incentive. If ever you wanted to show that bad parenting pays, I can't think of many better ways of doing so). As a result, some people decide, either consciously or unconsciously, that there's not much incentive to try very hard to support themselves when the government will do it for them, and I have some sympathy with this logic; if it's offered, why not take it? You must have heard, Steve, of the town in Wales where 75% of the working-age population receive disability payments. It can't possibly be true that they are all disabled, or that none of the 75% could find a job. (This figure seems so high that I'm not entirely sure that I didn't just invent it, but it rings a bell). The money that goes to these people could actually be going to the people who really need it i.e. the genuinely disabled and those who find themselves unemployed through no fault of their own and who are willing to not be too choosy about the jobs they'll do. In fact, the people Steve envisaged when extolling the virtues of the British welfare state. However, I'm sure that Scooternyc wouldn't quibble with providing for this section of society, i.e. the genuinely needy rather than the needy by choice.
438. AAI 07
Comment #83486 by keith on October 30, 2007 at 7:12 am
Veronique,
I can understand 'losing it' in a face to face argument but to lose it in front of a keyboard, even comment on what's happening to a sympathetic bystander while in the process of 'losing it', still have the opportunity at this point to take anything back you had written in haste and perhaps regretted and then still to send it! In my book this is a long way from 'losing it'. It's saying precisely what you wanted to say while creating an excuse for having done so. Naughty.
439. Tests of faith over 'The Golden Compass'
Comment #83479 by keith on October 30, 2007 at 6:24 am
Crazymalc,
Err... Why problem did the have with my main main Spongebob Squarepants?
Do you wear boxing gloves while your typing?
440. Face to faith
Comment #82902 by keith on October 28, 2007 at 8:06 am
So we should actively try not to learn about the world since this will diminish our awe? We should keep children out of classrooms in case they actually learn something? In so doing, we would have to turn off our natural curiosity, since genuine curiosity, as opposed to the kind that the faithful like to feign in their 'search for truth', would force us to want to understand whatever it is that is perplexing us. It seems that in Mark Vernon's world awe always trumps curiosity (or rather, imitation awe trumps curiosity).
But what kind of awe is it that only survives by knowingly and willingly shutting out the explanation? The obvious difference between the writer and the savage who stands awestruck as thunder and lightning crash around him is that the savage and couldn't possibly know why this was happening. The writer, however, would 'choose' not to know. So what if the metereological office issued a warning of an approaching hurricane and suggested everybody leave the area? Would Mr. Vernon still choose not to know? It seems to me you can't pick and choose like that.
The writer seems to have decided that science has now answered enough questions: he has his washing machine, his TV, his laptop on which to type his articles. "I'm comfortable now, you can stop. Please don't reveal another thing, you'll only spoil things for me". His idea of awe sounds remarkably like he would like to bury his head in the sand, stick his fingers in his ears and watch every film, not only the scary ones, through his fingers. As Darwin might have commented, there certainly isn't grandeur in that view of life. Just abjectness in abundance.
441. A new website addition: Debate Points
Comment #82165 by keith on October 25, 2007 at 7:24 pm
My suggested topic that I haven't seen covered is: Atheism is a belief system, just like any other.
The way I'd counter it is by saying that a head can contain a certain amount of belief systems but since there is an infinite number of things that don't exist, it simply isn't possible for a brain to hold belief systems for all of these. Therefore atheism can't be a belief system. Have I missed anything here? Do we just hold one belief system that should coherently include everything we believe in? Have we gained anything by refuting the fact that it's a belief system?
Comment #81787 by keith on October 25, 2007 at 7:21 am
Phillip, Scottishgeologist, CJ22,
I agree with you all. The only thing I'm not so sure of is whether the government actually wants "good little drones" or whether they have just inherited a way of thinking that started back in the 1960s and has become part of the intellectual air we breathe; namely, that people are not to blame for the situations in which they find themselves, or for their actions. Consequently, they can't really be blamed for anything since they are more victim than perpetrator.
I personally don't believe that this is the case, but even if it were, the worst approach to dealing with it would be to constantly announce it.
I believe that most politicians are capable of real cynicism but I suspect that most of the problems you are talking about are due to a lack of imagination, or a lack of real political will, or simply a dislike of looking at things squarely if it means saying something unpopular. I suspect that many people's values and motivations have become twisted by what they see - or perhaps don't see as it has become so much the norm of British life - as the misuse of the welfare state.
As you say Phillip, bad behaviour is seen as cool, the government sometimes even seems to encourage it, and values such as hardwork and a determination to provide for yourself and your family start to appear decidedly old-fashioned and really quite naive. I mean, why work if the state will simply give you the money? I have to confess that even I am quite tempted to live off what they would give me, simply because it's offered. And this lesson filters down: Why try at school if you know the government will simply give you money when you leave school? Why even think about what used to be important life decisions, like who to marry and whether to have kids? The government seems determined to underwrite any bad decisions people make. No wonder so many young people behave badly. I think they are drowning in a sea of narcissism (usual for young people) and relative values that seem to be anchored in...precisely nothing.
Yours,
Victor Meldrew.
443. Hitler, Stalin, Mao, etc. were atheists, and they were terrible! Answer that!
Comment #81748 by keith on October 25, 2007 at 6:01 am
Rather than making a point I have a question. Sorry it's not concise.
Okay, someone steals your wallet and he later - because the police always get their man - turns out to be a Christian. Did his Christianity cause him to rob you? Of course not. His religious beliefs were totally irrelevant.
Okay. Next week an atheist robs you. Was it his atheism that made him rob you? No. Of course not.
Okay. Next week a Muslim suicide bomber blows up a shopping centre. Was it his religion that caused him to do it? Some say yes, while some (Chris Hedges, Scott Atran et al) say it was for political and social reasons. Even though in a video the bomber himself attributed his actions to a belief in god, unless we can prove this to be the case, we might have to let this one go. Or is it enough that he claimed this in the video? After all, it was what he believed he believed that made him do it. Why isn't this enough evidence to damn his faith? But, Scott Atran would annoyingly interject, maybe he was confused about his real motives. When there are so many contributary factors involved it's hard to disentangle the mess and quantify precisely what role the bomber's religion had in his actions. Even if we ourselves are satisfied that his religious beliefs contributed to his decision to bomb the shopping centre - here we could point to the fact that only Muslims in Britain perform such acts - unless the evidence satisfies the religious themselves, our conviction does us no good, at least in an argument.
Okay, so female genital mutilation then. Some may say it's cultural but if we pressed the point I think we could chalk this one up as being caused purely by religion. Okay, so we have a religious crime. Good.
Now, if the Chinese government crack down on Tibetan monks or when Stalin tried to crush religious belief in the Soviet Union (I apologise for using him and have no idea if this really was the case), could this be called an atheistic crime? If not, why not? And if so, does this mean that atheism isn't just a harmless lack of belief in something but a belief itself that can lead to suppression or worse? If I got so sick of the stupidity spewed forth in Songs of Praise that I went out to the nearest church and punched the first person I saw emerging from its hallowed entrance really really really hard in the face, would the police ever catch me?...No, sorry, I got lost there. That wasn't my intended question. I meant, in what way would this not be a crime caused by my atheist views? We could, of course, do tit-for-tat and play the social/political card; after all, we atheists are also affected by these factors. However, I like to think we're a bit more honest than that.
This is just a question. It was taxing me as I walked home this evening, having one of those internal conversations that Sam Harris suggests I should keep within reasonable limits.
444. Interview with Ayaan Hirsi Ali
Comment #81125 by keith on October 24, 2007 at 7:35 am
Windweaver: I'll never forget being in Ramallah and people coming up to me and giving me sweets and fruit and offering to put me up for the night. Even when the subject turned to politics, I found people interested to debate and eager to hear my opinions on things like the Israeli/Palestinian conflict.
Keith: So, what was your opinion, Windweaver? That Israel should stand firm and the Palestinians should be integrated into the surrounding Arab states? I bet they would have been interested to hear that in Ramallah. Or could it be that your opinions pretty much coincided with theirs? In which case, to paraphrase Mandy Rice Davies, they would be pleased to 'debate' politics with you, wouldn't they?
Why the sneering tone, Keith?
The sneering tone, Windweaver, is because I find your posts trite and self-congratulatory.
Not happy with my criticisms of Hitchens, perhaps? It's revealing that I can submit an innocuous post and be pulled up by you straight away and yet, in another thread, Fanusi advocates the extermination of radical muslims and there's not a sound from you.
And what precisely did this reveal to you? That I'm an escaped nazi? Let me spell out why I commented. Had a Manchester United fan written "While travelling to Manchester, even when the subject turned to football, I found people interested to debate and eager to hear my opinions on things like the Manchester United versus Liverpool match", it would have been obvious that there weren't likely to be any points of conflict between one Man Utd fan and a group of Man Utd fans. Although not in detail, I know the general thrust of your political beliefs and could hazard a guess that you would be largely sympathetic to the Palestinian cause (as is Hitchens, of course). For this reason I found it rather disingenuous of you to insinuate that you could have arrived in Ramallah with almost any kind of beliefs, even wildly Zionist ones, and the people would still have been "interested to debate and eager to hear my opinions". Believe me, I wasn't picking on Palestinians (as Nighttripper assumed I was). I would have said the same had someone claimed they had travelled to the Israeli Settlements and found the people interested to debate and eager to hear his opinions that all Palestinians should be wiped from the face of the Earth. It is not your politics that I object to; in fact I find your views really quite sensible. I just find you unbearably smug.
The reason that I can't help teasing you, windweaver, and your sidekick (whose handle now escapes me) is because the following happens. Someone on this site writes a very one-sided post about Hitchens' views on Iraq and feels wonderfully self-righteous and safe in knowing he is in the moral majority. Who could object to being against war, even if it is off topic? After all, peace is always in season. I generally feel duty-bound to put forward the other side of the story i.e. that the choice wasn't between war and peace but between war and continued life under a dictator. It is then assumed that I subscribe to not only all of Hitchens' views and all of his certainties (when in truth I do subscribe to some of the former and none of the latter), but also anything vaguely neocon-ic. I'm probably even a bit of a Bush fan, it's suggested.
Pointing out that I have also had Iraqi and Iranian friends and have no desire to see them suffer would just be completely perplexing to the person who wrote the original anti-Hitchens article. "But you were for the war! 1.2 million people dead. This is what you wanted" Actually, it's not what I wanted, at all. I neither wanted to see Iraqi people blown to bits by American bombs, nor see them rot for the next few decades under a vicious dictator. Neither war nor letting things drag on interminably for the Iraqi people were ideal solutions and I really couldn't decide what I thought. However, the untruthfulness with which the issue was always framed by the peace movement drove me, through simple annoyance, into Hitchens' camp. Of course, none of this mattered because no one ever asked my opinion anyway. Had I been called by the Pentagon to cast the deciding vote, I would have found out a bit more about it before calling them back. As it was, I had read about conditions in Iraq for decent people (a woman doctor who was dragged out of her house and decapitated for criticising the corrupt health service was just one image that has stayed in my mind) and I felt something more should be done that simply wait. I can see the dangers of intervening and the dangers of never intervening. I like to think that Hitchens was worried by the same kinds of things. But of course he's portrayed by some on this site as being either politically naive or incredibly callous and I don't believe either of these to be the case. So, I try and put forward the other side of the argument just to balance things out, for which you castigate me...and I tease you...and you etc. etc.
I think the often simplistic views of Hitchens' critics go hand in hand with an arrogant sureness. Likewise, it seems to me that AHA is uniquely positioned to make a good assessment of the threat from Islam, though her views have been dismissed out of hand by some of the posters here when they can't possibly know as much as she does about the situation. I actually think her comment about the west doing something about flag-burning in other countries really can be dismissed out of hand, but such comments don't invalidate her other observations.
While we're on the subject of AHA, I was interested in this post by Russell Blackford and yourself:
Richard may not be too happy with this being said, but I think a time is coming when he will have no choice but to distance himself from some of the pronouncements by his allies. Hitchens and AHA are making extreme claims about how the West should respond to Islam, in particular. Some of us smaller fry are troubled by them (it's not just people who've commented on this thread; PZ Myers is obviously quite worried about Hitchens, over at Pharyngula).
Windweaver: I'd like to second your comments, Russel. There are ethical and moral principles at stake here and I'm sure RD is aware of this.
What if Richard Dawkins agrees with Hitchens and AHA? Should he still distance himself from them. Do you even know what his views are? I can't help thinking this is just more "I'm right-on in my thinking, Dawkins is right-on in his thinking, therefore he must agree with my views". However, if you are party to his views on what is to be done about Islam, I take this back.
For the record, I support a 2-state solution to the Irael/Palestinian dispute based on the original 1967 borders- the same position, it happens, as the UN and the majority of Middle East experts. Would you care to outline your own stance on this issue?
Certainly. For the record, I support a quirky plan, not supported by any experts and with no historical precedence which involves moving Israel slightly to the left and down a bit.
As for my political orientation, I would describe myself as a mainstream social democrat (in the European mould) with a strong libertarian bent. Any problems with that? You might care to outline your own political orientation for the interest of all concerned on this thread.
I would describe myself as a fringe crypto-communist (in the Stalinist mould) with a dash of neo-Trotskyite thrown in for good measure. Any problems with that? (I'll admit that I'm being a bit childish here if you'll admit to being a bit pompous).
Re Fanusi Kiyal's posts, you're right, I haven't ever commented on them. The truth is that I agree with some of what he says, some of it seems a bit extreme, and I often don't know enough about the subject to either agree or disagree with what he says. I just read it. However, I always have the impression that his views are really his own. With you I don't always (ever?) get this feeling. Have you seen the film 'Invasion of the Body-Snatchers'? When I read your posts, it always comes to mind. Why should that be?
445. Interview with Ayaan Hirsi Ali
Comment #80856 by keith on October 23, 2007 at 8:01 am
Windweaver,
Even when the subject turned to politics, I found people interested to debate and eager to hear my opinions on things like the Israeli/Palestinian conflict.
So, what was your opinion, Windweaver? That Israel should stand firm and the Palestinians should be integrated into the surrounding Arab states? I bet they would have been interested to hear that in Ramallah. Or could it be that your opinions pretty much coincided with theirs? In which case, to paraphrase Mandy Rice Davies, they would be pleased to 'debate' politics with you, wouldn't they?
446. Christopher Hitchens at AAI 07
Comment #80830 by keith on October 23, 2007 at 6:27 am
Riley,
BTW, if you can demonstrate that my arguments have no merit, then i think it would be fair to speculate about my motives for making them - but you should address the arguments first, realize that my motives are irrelevant to the validity of the arguments I make, and then tread carefully when speculating about motive.
It's a mystery to me why you think I might be interested in your motives and not concentrate on your arguments. I have always only dealt with the latter. However, this is a useful strategy for not answering my questions i.e. Did you or didn't you misconstrue Hitchens challenge? Did you think it implied that someone had actually claimed that believers could perform ethical acts that atheists couldn't? If you didn't think this, why the constant questions:
What believer has made that claim? What Christian argument relies on that claim? Give me a quote from a noteworthy Christian.
And if you did think this, then you must have interpreted it from the challenge, i.e. gone beyond Hitchens' actual words, despite having ruled such interpretation of Hitchens meaning out of court to various other posters. After all, you take him at his word.
I take Hitchens at his word, much the same that I take the Bible at its word. It says what it says and Hitchens makes no bones about what he is saying and he would never accept a similar argument about what the Bible is "really saying" from an opponent in a debate. It's fair to hold him accountable to the same standard he holds everyone else.
And later:
Unless you're willing to let the moderate theist off the hook with the argument: "you're taking the Bible too literally", then you should not let yourself off the hook with the arguemnt that I'm taking Hitchens too literally. Fair?
I don't know if it's fair or not, but it certainly seems that you've poked yourself in the eye since your analysis of Hitchens' challenge goes way beyond his actual words.
Re the flack you took early on in the thread, let me give you a simple explanation for it. One of your posts read like this:
Maybe you misunderstand. I'm not defending the Christian doctrine of freewill. I'm not claiming it's rational. I'm simply claiming that the doctrine of freewill is in fact a Christian doctrine. It is a consensus Christian belief.
Now, it was for these kind of posts that 'the pack', including myself, was assailing you with objections. The reason? We were all under the impression that you were Christian, but one that accepted nonsense as being part of the doctrine. None of us could understand how you could be representing Christianity while at the same time quite happily admitting things like, "Their belief may be irrational, but that's the belief". It seemed that you wanted it all ways. We weren't attacking you because you were Christian; we were attacking you because you seemed to be arguing for Christianity while accepting its irrationality. This didn't seem to worry you but for us it was confusing. It was only when you made it clear that you didn't subscribe to the views of Christianity yourself that the penny dropped. So, there really is no need to grasp at dubious psychological explanations of pack behaviour when there is a much more prosaic and realistic one at hand. It might make you feel a little less like Giordano Bruno against the mob, but you'll have to settle for that.
Some of your latest posts I have found confusing:
>"As I pointed out earlier: morality depends on the choices you make not the choices made available to you".I totally agree. And the relevance to the challenge? Has Hitchens said otherwise?
You also write:
The conclusion that: "believers and non-believers have the same ethical choices available to them" is a non-seqitur to the challenge that "believers are more moral than non-believers".
I have no idea where this one came from or what it might mean. Was it something someone said or have you just made it up?
At one point you say, "Argument over who is more moral is itself a fools game" and then a few lines later "I absolutely agree that Christians consider themselves to be, in general, more moral than non-believers". So, Christians have indulged in a fool's game. Perhaps this is why Hitchens issued his challenge? That is, to show the fallacy of it. What do you object to here? After all, he isn't trying to show that atheists are more moral.
Later we get to the crux of things, the challenge itself:
Those individuals who are silly enough to play along with the challenge lend the challenge credibility in much the same way that a man silly enough to answer the question: "Have you stopped beating your wife yet?" lends apparent credibility to the notion that he actually beats his wife.
No. Those individuals who are deluded enough to actually believe they can answer 'Yes' are precisely the ones that Hitchens is trying to reach. The challenge also lights up an area that is usually only seen in half-light and consequently only half-thought through, though as soon as it is uttered, the ridiculousness of the idea that someone could answer 'yes' becomes clear - but only then.
Incidentally, I think your analogy of the man beating his wife is incredibly silly. I can't see any similarity to Hitchens' challenge. If the man doesn't even have a wife in the first place, as you said the first time you brought this up, then that really is a pointless challenge. And even if he did have a wife, both 'yes' and 'no' answers would be wrong (assuming he is innocent). Where are the parallels to the Hitchens challenge? Believers could answer either 'yes' or 'no' to the challenge and both are reasonable answers. Your supposed analogy relates to an insinuated action that it was impossible both to perform and impossible to refute by answering directly. Hitchens' is a question aimed at straightening out just what it is that religious people believe (which is not necessarily what they say they believe). I just think that this analogy brings no clarity to the situation at all, only more questions about how similar it really is to the challenge. It puts me in of mind the lazy analogies of the people who like to claim that Richard Dawkins is a Fundamentalist. Such claims are even beyond the term 'lazy', they are just plain wrong and I think yours belongs in the same category.
As an aside, I also see no relevance to the Steven Weinberg quote, as some have claimed. Both are about morality, religion and atheism but there any relevance ends.
It seems to me that you have gradually turned the challenge from what was clearly meant to be about moral capability to physical capability. Dr. Benway is right to draw your attention to the slippiness of language. When a waitress brings two meals and I say to her, "I'm the fish", I hope she has enough experience of the English language to know in what way I mean this. If she wished, she could of course go hilariously on and on about how this could also mean something quite different while my companion and I politely smile and hope she will soon put the plates down in front of us. By insisting on the reading of 'could' in the challenge to what amounts to physical capability, you have become that waitress.
447. Christopher Hitchens at AAI 07
Comment #80549 by keith on October 22, 2007 at 6:19 am
Riley,
When I said I thought you had been misunderstood and falsely called a troll, I hope you didn't interpret this as meaning that I didn't think you were wrong. I do.
You were wrong in claiming that Hitchens' challenge is only valid if one of the people he has challenged has ever claimed that only a believer could perform certain ethical deeds. (I don't know why you insist on restricting this only to the people who have been physically in his presence when he uttered the challenge, though of course it improves your odds of such a quote not being found. I think that the challenge was offered to all people, the faithful and atheists alike. After all, an answer to the challenge would be valid regardless of whoever it came from). I think I have shown you that this stipulation, added by you, was not part of the Hitchens' challenge. The challenge was whether anybody could name such a deed, not whether anyone had actually claimed they could do so.
Although I pointed this out to you, not once have you admitted that you might have got this part wrong. You pride yourself on taking Hitchens at his word while putting words into his mouth. Rich.
And getting this bit wrong is actually quite important. You have written that you have been the victim of a pack mentality and that some people (possibly the same pack) worship Hitchens as a hero and follow him whether he's right or wrong. However, if it turns out that you were wrong all along about the challenge, this means that the people might not have been attacking you because they were part of a pack or because they were slavishly following Hitchens, but because you were simply wrong. Both Alfred Wegener (plate techtonics) and some crazy 19th century flat-Earther must both have felt that they were victims of a pack mentality. However, only Wegener really was; the reason being that he was right. Many religious people like to claim that we agree with anything that Richard Dawkins spouts, but this is only a reasonable observation if he is wrong and we agree with him. If he is right, we are also right to agree with him. The same goes for Hitchens.
Now on to the second part, which is a little more involved. I know you'll want to claim that the challenge, (even the real one that remains undoctored by you), isn't really a challenge because everybody, the religious and atheists alike, is equally capable of performing any ethical deed. Therefore it's a nonsense challenge and a straw man. However, all this really means is that it's not the challenge that you want. You think that whether or not the religious actually do more ethical deeds is more interesting, not whether or not they alone are capable of them. However, this can be another challenge for another day. First you have to clear the ground a little.
For you and me it's clear that everybody is equally capable of doing a good deed; the important thing is whether or not the religious really believe this to be the case. I know you have poured scorn on anyone who has suggested that the religious might actually believe that they are more moral than us atheists, but the truth is (and no, I don't have proof) that there are religious people who believe precisely that. Dr. Benway more or less professed to that belief during his 'believing' days. You'll probably want to answer (I'm turning into Alister McGrath!) that if these people believe such a thing then what they mean is that they do good deeds more often than atheists, not that only they are uniquely capable of doing them. And that's all Hitchens wants to hear from them, something so obvious that you suspect it might be a trick: that a belief in god isn't necessary for doing good. (The operative word here is 'necessary').
For you this might be stating the obvious. However, Hitchens might believe that it has cleared away one often-believed but unspoken obstacle. After this, a believer shouldn't really be able to say the words, "People don't need a belief in God to do good".
One more thing. In your vehemence in saying that Hitchens' challenge is a false one, a straw man, I think you might be on shaky ground. All it would need was for someone to find a single quote by a believer (or you might wish to include the rider 'not a believer but more specifically, one of the people directly challenged') and your whole argument falls apart, both the 'no one has ever claimed this' and the 'no one could ever claim this because it's so stupid' parts. (You perhaps have forgotten that stupidity is no obstacle to believers). And if someone actually takes up Hitchens' challenge then your argument also falls apart. By taking it up, they accept that the challenge is reasonable and therefore not a straw man. They actually believe that they have found a good deed that only a believer could have performed. You, of course, will claim they've been tricked. Please spell out, specifically, how the trick works. Hypnosis?
If that person succeeds in finding a good deed that only a believer could do, Hitchens loses. And if they rise to the challenge but don't pass muster, then Hitchens continues to win (for the time being). But either way you lose because the challenge has been accepted as meaningful. Indeed, if one of Dr. Benway's postings including two possible candidates for meeting Hitchens' challenge are to be believed, namely:
1) Only a believer can pray
2) Love thy enemy
then you have already lost. Notice again, that they don't have to pass the validity test. They just have to be offered since Hitchens' point is what religious people believe, not what is true. If someone believes that prayer is an ethical act and only believers pray, then you have been proved wrong, even if Hitchens hasn't.
The reason I've written all this is not to try to prove you wrong. I'd just like you to drop the accusations of pack behaviour and slavish hero-worshipping. Please.
448. Debate between Christopher Hitchens and Alister McGrath
Comment #80285 by keith on October 21, 2007 at 6:07 am
bluejway,
I think a better analogy for atheism is the disbelief in fairies. If you think to disbelieve in fairies is a belief system then yes, atheism is a belief system. Be careful though, if you choose that route, there are an infinite number of belief systems for all the things that don't exist in the universe.
449. Christopher Hitchens at AAI 07
Comment #80281 by keith on October 21, 2007 at 6:00 am
Diacanu,
Course, you seem to be going to the opposite extreme of translating quantum phenomena all the way up to the macroscopic universe.
If I had any idea what this meant I'd be happy to claim that that's what I was doing. However, I was trying to make a much more prosaic point, one that doesn't require a degree in physics. It was simply that there is probably less probabilty of free will existing in a deterministic universe than in an undeterministic one, the reason being that you can rely on things doing what you expect them to do in a deterministic universe so are better able to judge what to do.
I know very little about the subject, but using quantum phenomena to try to explain free will sounds to me like using Relavity Theory to decide whether to have another piece of cake or not.
450. Christopher Hitchens at AAI 07
Comment #80245 by keith on October 21, 2007 at 1:41 am
Diacanu,
Read Dan Dennett. Random chance cannot give you free will. If things simply happen at random in the universe, on what can you base a decision? If you can't know what the results of an action are likely to be there's no point in even trying to choose. You're more likely to have free will in a deterministic universe. At least here you can predict that when you decide to pour yourself a glass of water the chances are that it will end up in the glass rather than randomly flowing out of the tap, snake randomly around your glass and end up on the floor. Where's the free will in that?
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