Bare Knuckle Pickups Forum
At The Back => Time Out => Topic started by: MDV on December 16, 2011, 05:27:22 PM
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:(
Sad loss of, agree with him or not, a fearless and honest voice.
Imma go get some whisky and revive one of my old online hobbies for the evening - pwning the living shite out of creationists - in his honour.
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One of the finest orators of our time - A great mind rests; a great voice falls silent.
Meh, I'm at a loose end - I might join in a bit of creationist bashing tonight too ;-)
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mere hours later... http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-16224394
:lol:
Not always a man I agreed with, but unfailingly interesting. And I can't argue with that.
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mere hours later... http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-16224394
:lol:
Christian country my a*se! I'm proud that we're not a christian country and that we don't have real christian values!
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mere hours later... http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-16224394
:lol:
Christian country my a*se! I'm proud that we're not a christian country and that we don't have real christian values!
Our Head of State is head of the national Church and 26 bishops sit in the House of Lords, of course we're a Christian country, regardless of what the majority of people would call themselves (which would be Christian anyway). Further, "real" Christian values fit in pretty much fine with any reasonable secular morality, with the possible exception of attitudes to promiscuity.
I'm an atheist, and relatively hostile to modern Western organised religion, but it's annoying when people denigrate something they don't have a proper grasp of. Hitch was great, but very guilty of using a very specific, quite modern approach of a minority to their scriptures as his only example when making an argument against faith. Possibly in part because he (like Dawkins, Dennet etc) tended only to debate fairly "fundamentalist" (a misnomer, they miss the fundamentals of their holy writings) opposition.
A great loss, though. Always an articulate, interesting and spirited character.
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Our Head of State is head of the national Church and 26 bishops sit in the House of Lords, of course we're a Christian country, regardless of what the majority of people would call themselves (which would be Christian anyway). Further, "real" Christian values fit in pretty much fine with any reasonable secular morality, with the possible exception of attitudes to promiscuity.
I agree with all of that. It's a Christian country, albeit one with very few actual Christians in it - in the sense of observing their "faith" in any way or even actually believing in God.
I do wonder what it'll be like in about 30 years, when the last generation who were raised as "habitual" churchgoers will have died off. I suppose the Catholic church may still be relatively strong, even if the Anglicans go into terminal decline.
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mere hours later... http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-16224394
:lol:
Christian country my a*se! I'm proud that we're not a christian country and that we don't have real christian values!
Our Head of State is head of the national Church and 26 bishops sit in the House of Lords, of course we're a Christian country, regardless of what the majority of people would call themselves (which would be Christian anyway). Further, "real" Christian values fit in pretty much fine with any reasonable secular morality, with the possible exception of attitudes to promiscuity.
I'm an atheist, and relatively hostile to modern Western organised religion, but it's annoying when people denigrate something they don't have a proper grasp of. Hitch was great, but very guilty of using a very specific, quite modern approach of a minority to their scriptures as his only example when making an argument against faith. Possibly in part because he (like Dawkins, Dennet etc) tended only to debate fairly "fundamentalist" (a misnomer, they miss the fundamentals of their holy writings) opposition.
A great loss, though. Always an articulate, interesting and spirited character.
Just because we have a figurehead who also happens to be head of a church and we have representation in the house of lords that are religious, this does not make us a christian nation. We may also be nominally christian as a country, but since the majority of citizens are not practising any religion by a long way, we cannot be called a christian nation. The citizens are the most important thing in defining a country in my book.
Also, "christian values" is a vacuous phrase; since there are almost as many different interpretations of "christian values" as there are christians, there is no commonly agreed upon set of values. And the ones that are generally agreed upon long predate christianity, so they are not really christian values at all, they are human values that religious people mistakenly attribute to their faith. In fact if you really read the bible in depth the majority of it is positively immoral by today's standards.
Also, you will find that Dawkins, Hitchens, et al. have debated as many 'moderate' religious people as they have fundamentalists, it's just that the fundamentalists get more exposure because of the greater entertainment value :lol: I have heard them collectively argue against just about every type of religious position - not just a 'modern minority'.
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By pretty much any accepted definition we are a Christian nation. Given that we have a state religion and over 70% of the nation define themselves as Christian. You can't decide what constitutes "practicing".
That was my point regarding "Christian values", it's a meaningless phrase, so how can you attest we don't have them? It's most sensible definition though, would be those espoused by Christ, which as a nation, for the most part, we do hold.
Regards "actually reading the bible" I'll wager I know it better than the vast majority of people, and I'll actually be curious as to what parts of it you think are immoral that are also intended to be a moral code for Christians. James' epistle and Paul's letters will refute pretty much any you care to mention between them, with the exception of promiscuity, which I think is fine but they deny - that said, most people disagree with me on that, too.
I'd love to see links to them debating more moderate Christians other than the odd Dawkins appearance on the likes of Sunday Morning Live and similar. The problem in these seldom appearances though, is that they still make a point of arguing the same lines, which are generally irrelevant (Hitchens was less guilty, he did tend to be better at tackling the specifics of the people with whom he was conversing, but he was often still at fault). For instance, in almost any argument against faith they'll bring up Creation being incompatible with science (which is acknowledged by every major church, never applied to Islam, was abandoned by Jews in the Middle Ages and was never intended to be a literal story in the first place), the binding of Isaac (a story of sacrifice from oral tradition, absolutely not ever meant to have been an example to anyone or of morality) and things like Jonah and the Whale (a satirical story) as proof of the Bible's nonsensicalness.
I'm happy to see them debate relevant stuff, the Intelligence Squared debate with Fry and Hitchens was excellent for example, since it presented such a specific remit, but all too often they drop to tropes which simply don't apply to the majority of religious people outside a few small independent churches and the Bible Belt. It's often embarrassing to watch, and really, really disappointing as an atheist with great respect for the people's academia.
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By pretty much any accepted definition we are a Christian nation. Given that we have a state religion and over 70% of the nation define themselves as Christian. You can't decide what constitutes "practicing".
I don't need to decide what constitutes "practicing" - people themselves have spoken on that:
In the UK overall, a Guardian/ICM poll in 2006 found that 33% describe themselves as "a religious person" while 82% see religion as a cause of division and tension between people.[20] The Ipsos MORI poll in 2003 reported that 18% were "a practising member of an organised religion".[12] The Tearfund Survey in 2007 found that only 7% of the population considered themselves as practising Christians. Ten per cent attend church weekly and two-thirds had not gone to church in the past year.
All taken from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_the_United_Kingdom#Statistics. As I say - definitely not a christian nation in any real sense. The statistics are much more realistic when people are not simply asked about their religion but about their religious practice.
That was my point regarding "Christian values", it's a meaningless phrase, so how can you attest we don't have them? It's most sensible definition though, would be those espoused by Christ, which as a nation, for the most part, we do hold.
The point is that if it is a meaningless phrase, you can't attest that we DO have them!
Regards "actually reading the bible" I'll wager I know it better than the vast majority of people, and I'll actually be curious as to what parts of it you think are immoral that are also intended to be a moral code for Christians. James' epistle and Paul's letters will refute pretty much any you care to mention between them.
Just because parts of the bible contradict the teachings of other parts does not mean that they can provide apology for it. This is one of my biggest bugbears - people cherry-pick the parts that are good, and say that the rest is obviously only allegory or was never meant to be used as a moral code. If you are going to cherry-pick, then the moral code is that of the cherry-picker, and not that of the text. One thousand years ago the parts that were cherry picked as the moral code were different than the ones today, purely because the moral zeitgeist of the time was different.
I'd love to see links to them debating more moderate Christians other than the odd Dawkins appearance on the likes of Sunday Morning Live.
There are thousands, but these should get you started, Dawkins alone has debated professors of theology, archbishops, chief rabbis and more. I have extensive collections of them if you want more, these are just the first few that I found from google video search:
http://www.fixed-point.org/index.php/video/35-full-length/164-the-dawkins-lennox-debate
http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL011F711D91FA1560&feature=plcp
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=6474278760369344626
There problem in these seldom appearances though, is that they still make a point of arguing the same lines, which are generally irrelevant (Hitchens was less guilty, he did tend to be better at tackling the specifics of the people with whom he was conversing, but he was often still at fault). For instance, in almost any argument against faith they'll bring up Creation being incompatible with science (which is acknowledged by every major church, never applied to Islam, was abandoned by Jews in the Middle Ages and was never intended to be a literal story in the first place), the binding of Isaac (a story of sacrifice from oral tradition, absolutely not ever meant to have been an example to anyone or of morality) and things like Jonah and the Whale (a satirical story) as proof of the Bible's nonsensicalness.
I think this is a by-product of you only watching the debates with fundamentalists, in which case those are relevant points to bring up as they are genuinely part of their belief systems. If you watch some of the debates with more moderate people you will see more nuanced arguments surface. Also the point about the incompatibility with Science is an important one - it applies to every faith as they all make claims about the natural world that are incompatible with science - without exception. This will not go away no matter how much individual churches might claim to have no argument with Science.
I'm happy to see them debate relevant stuff, the Intelligence Squared debate with Fry and Hitchens was excellent for example, since it presented such a specific remit, but all too often they drop to tropes which simply don't apply to the majority of religious people outside a few small independent churches and the Bible Belt. It's often embarrassing to watch, and really, really disappointing as an atheist with great respect for the people's academia.
Was that the one with Anne Widdecombe? That was a good one, I agree. It is telling that even in these good debates with more reasonable people of faith the religious arguments fail hard. IIRC the auidence on that one swayed wildly toward the atheists after the talk.
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Bugger the rest cause I'm not going to search for references when I'm reading other stuff at the minute and I'm genuinely sad about Hitch's passing so don't want to bash him. But this bit is the most key in terms of how I think the new atheists fall down and why they're not really taken seriously by philosophers, religious scholars and theologians. Yeah I did mean the Widdecombe one, though, her and the Bishop whose name I'll never spell right made a fool of themselves. Worth noting though, a recent one with Hitchens and Willian Lane Craig, Hitchens comes off terribly, and he should have ripped Craig to pieces, the monstrous bigoted clown that he is.
Regards "actually reading the bible" I'll wager I know it better than the vast majority of people, and I'll actually be curious as to what parts of it you think are immoral that are also intended to be a moral code for Christians. James' epistle and Paul's letters will refute pretty much any you care to mention between them.
Just because parts of the bible contradict the teachings of other parts does not mean that they can provide apology for it. This is one of my biggest bugbears - people cherry-pick the parts that are good, and say that the rest is obviously only allegory or was never meant to be used as a moral code. If you are going to cherry-pick, then the moral code is that of the cherry-picker, and not that of the text. One thousand years ago the parts that were cherry picked as the moral code were different than the ones today, purely because the moral zeitgeist of the time was different.
I'm not talking about parts that are contradictory. I'm talking about specific passages which refute earlier ones. At the council of Jerusalem James specifically says that henceforth NONE of The Law applies to non-Jewish followers of The Way except dietary and promiscuity concerns. So NO Christian is compelled to follow any rule set down in the Pentateuch except those that concern promiscuity or food. One of those has nothing to do with morals so you can bin that and are left with the only biblical moral stipulation that any sensible person could question is about sex out with a prolonged relationship. Paul and Jesus both earlier repeatedly make the case that it is the message that matters, following the rules does not make one a follower, belief does and so the rules are secondary, if a concern at all.
Now, regards what was meant to be used as a moral code - the ENTIRE Hebrew Bible is a collection of oral traditions. Compiled through great effort to retain all the inconsistencies. They're not accidental contradictions that are present, they're deliberate to show the breadth of traditional folk tales of the Jewish people. Like in Herodotus' Histories, it's not a moral code, it's just folk stories that helped construct their identity.
The wisdom literature might have been included because it presents some nice ideas as might the wisdom psalms but all the horrible stuff is in the Historical Books, the ones which are purely meant to be a grouping of the different ways in which the history of the Jewish people remember their own history. No one was interested in a literal reading at all until very recently. The rise of that understanding pretty quickly led to The Enlightenment, just as the more recent rise in fundamentalism over the past thirty years or so has brought about this new atheist rejection of faith altogether.
Now some people have made a total arse of reading this stuff sensibly, but that is neither the book nor the faith's fault. Only of (some of) the adminstrations which have appropriated it.You'd be as well blaming Thus Sprach Zarathrusta for the Holocaust, The Illiad for the Greco-Persian wars or Helter Skelter for the Manson Cult.
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Bugger the rest cause I'm not going to search for references when I'm reading other stuff at the minute and this bit is the most key in terms of how I think the new atheists fall down and why they're not really taken seriously by philosophers, religious scholars and theologians. Yeah I did mean the Widdecombe one, though, her and the Bishop whose name I'll never spell right made a fool of themselves. Worth noting though, a recent one with Hitchens and Willian Lane Craig, Hitchens comes off terribly, and he should have ripped Craig to pieces, the monstrous bigoted clown that he is.
Regards "actually reading the bible" I'll wager I know it better than the vast majority of people, and I'll actually be curious as to what parts of it you think are immoral that are also intended to be a moral code for Christians. James' epistle and Paul's letters will refute pretty much any you care to mention between them.
Just because parts of the bible contradict the teachings of other parts does not mean that they can provide apology for it. This is one of my biggest bugbears - people cherry-pick the parts that are good, and say that the rest is obviously only allegory or was never meant to be used as a moral code. If you are going to cherry-pick, then the moral code is that of the cherry-picker, and not that of the text. One thousand years ago the parts that were cherry picked as the moral code were different than the ones today, purely because the moral zeitgeist of the time was different.
I'm not talking about parts that are contradictory. I'm talking about specific passages which refute earlier ones. At the council of Jerusalem James specifically says that henceforth NONE of The Law applies to non-Jewish followers of The Way except dietary and promiscuity concerns. So NO Christian is compelled to follow any rule set down in the Pentateuch except those that concern promiscuity or food. One of those has nothing to do with morals so you can bin that and are left with the only biblical moral stipulation that any sensible person could question is about sex out with a prolonged relationship. Paul and Jesus both earlier repeatedly make the case that it is the message that matters, following the rules does not make one a follower, belief does and so the rules are secondary, if a concern at all.
Now, regards what was meant to be used as a moral code - the ENTIRE Hebrew Bible is a collection of oral traditions. Compiled through great effort to retain all the inconsistencies. They're not accidental contradictions that are present, they're deliberate to show the breadth of traditional folk tales of the Jewish people. Like in Herodotus' Histories.
The wisdom literature might have been included because it presents some nice ideas as might the wisdom psalms but all the horrible stuff is in the Historical Books, the ones which are purely meant to be a grouping of the different ways in which the history of the Jewish people remember their own history. No one was interested in a literal reading at all until very recently. The rise of that understanding pretty quickly led to The Enlightenment, just as the more recent rise in fundamentalism over the past thirty years or so has brought about this new atheist rejection of faith altogether.
Now some people have made a total arse of reading this stuff sensibly, but that is neither the book nor the faith's fault. Only of (some of) the adminstrations which have appropriated it.You'd be as well blaming Thus Sprach Zarathrusta for the Holocaust, The Illiad for the Greco-Persian wars or Helter Skelter for the Manson Cult.
If your particular reading of the bible leads to the only moral stipulation being the promiscuity one, which we both disagree with, then we are back to having no meaningful biblical set of values, which is exactly where I started. We are back to looking at a historical text and cherry-picking the bits we like to justify our own moral code, which quite frankly I could do with any text - such as The Lord of The Rings - it doesn't matter as the moral code is divorced from the religion until the believer decides to try to tie the two together.
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Firstly, I didn't say it's the Bibles only moral stipulation, I said it's the only one that might be considered negative by any sensible reader. There are plenty others which are not disregarded in the book which are wholly positive, about compassion and altruism, for example. The New Testament is full of them.
I'm also not cherry-picking. At all. I'm going totally by what the book says. Leaving everything in.
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Good shite. Hitchens would approve of this thread :D
A couple of quick notes -
We are only on paper a christian nation. There are two obvious metrics for this: institutionalised practice/tradition and the beliefs, concerns, practices and sources that inform them of the people. By the former measure the USA is one of the only genuinely non-religious nations on earth. By the latter its by far and away the most religious developed nation, and that has a knock on effect in the rhetoric and posturing of its politicians. Here its the other way around. nfe rightly points out that most people identify, when pressed, as christian here. Thats a shallow misrepresentation of the facts, which are really qutie unclear. What is very clear is that many people that dont practice christianity or reach for the bible for moral and behavioural instruction identify as christian in censuses (censi? Whatever) because they were baptised or they went to church as a kid (by went I mean were dragged) or their parents are christian or they say grace or whatever. Some lip service, or some confusion or unwillingness about identifying as anything else.
Morally, well, christianity appropriated its moral instructions from many other sources. As one cannot claim a clear british culture, one cannot claim a clear christian morality. Same reasons. The sources of the various ethical precepts that we currently find it easy to agree with and a prevelent pretty much anywhere (dont kill, steal, blah blah) are unclear, but we see similar behaviours in chimps, so its likely that the imputus to follow such behaviours is not only older than christianity but older than our species. Specifics pertaining to things like contraception, abortion, sex outside marraige, economics and government are far less clear, and far less easy to agree on. Its quite clear that the average joe in this country doesnt hold a christian view on any of them, however.
Dawkins I believe made a point of going after moderates and apologists, since he says while they arent so obviously egregious themselves, they effectively shield the big time nutters.
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The point is that any positive value (and many negative ones) that you can find espoused in any reading of the bible existed before christianity did, even before humans did in some cases believe it or not, so none of these are really christian values, they are secular values that early christians chose to borrow, and therefore it is erroneous to say that we hold christian values dear as a country.
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Morally, well, christianity appropriated its moral instructions from many other sources. As one cannot claim a clear british culture, one cannot claim a clear christian morality. Same reasons. The sources of the various ethical precepts that we currently find it easy to agree with and a prevelent pretty much anywhere (dont kill, steal, blah blah) are unclear, but we see similar behaviours in chimps, so its likely that the imputus to follow such behaviours is not only older than christianity but older than our species. Specifics pertaining to things like contraception, abortion, sex outside marraige, economics and government are far less clear, and far less easy to agree on. Its quite clear that the average joe in this country doesnt hold a christian view on any of them, however.
That's what I was trying to say, but you made it much more clear - I'm not good with whiskey and argument together, unlike Hitch :-)
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Obviously the bulk of "Christian values" at least those connected to The Golden Rule are older than Christianity (hell, a good bulk of the Hebrew Bible, that book I love to bits - better than that silly New Testament that doesn't even have folk getting swalled by whales in it - is nicked off of Egyptians, Babylonians and Canaanites) but I'd dispute the assertion about Christian contraception and so on not being held by the average joe, simply because there isn't real biblical basis for them. There is however for government and any socialist will agree with the Christian biblical ideas on that. Note Christian, ie, AFTER the death of Christ.
On Dawkins going after moderates. I used to agree with his ideas on that, about moderate religion and confidence in faith as a virtue making it possible for extremists to arise. But I think I agree more with Karen Armstrong nowadays, her take being that if we look through history, any erosion of a moderate base vastly increases the number of extremists. When there are great losses in the numbers of moderate religious people where societies become more secular, the extremists thrive all the more. Which is what caused the Iranian Revolution and the establishment of one of the most fundamental religious administrations in the world today. The same might be seen in far history with the Maccabean revolt or the fundamentalist response to the Enlightenment. Which is very sad, certainly.
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On Dawkins going after moderates. I used to agree with his ideas on that, about moderate religion and confidence in faith as a virtue making it possible for extremists to arise. But I think I agree more with Karen Armstrong nowadays, her take being that if we look through history, any erosion of a moderate base vastly increases the number of extremists. When there are great losses in the numbers of moderate religious people where societies become more secular, the extremists thrive all the more. Which is what caused the Iranian Revolution and the establishment of one of the most fundamental religious administrations in the world today. The same might be seen in far history with the Maccabean revolt or the fundamentalist response to the Enlightenment. Which is very sad, certainly.
That is a fair point, I don't know enough about the history to comment on that, but it sounds reasonable. However I don't think I can respect the moderates' beliefs just to avoid an uprising of fundamentalists. I feel morally obliged to oppose religion in all of it's forms. I personally think that in today's post-enlightenment society we can avoid such an uprising anyway. With every successive generation people are becoming less superstitious and more independent of thought, and I think that this is why religion is in decline in developed countries - I don't see this changing.
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You can pretty much flip the bible open on a random page and if you manage by some stroke of luck to avoid some drug induced bar-stewardisation of greek or egyptian mythology, you will more than likely find some ethical stance that is highly contradictory with what most people in the UK think. On homosexuality, for example, or selling daughters into slavery, blasphemy, eating shellfish, working on the sabbath or if you happen to open a very early page, the mechanism for the whole damned thing; original sin and the required concept of inheritance of responsibility for all actions through a line of descent.
Besides, the question isnt even as simple as 'are the beliefs common with christianity', nor even 'are they derived from christianity', for us to be a 'christian nation' our perspectives and actions would have to be informed directly, no handwaving collective unconscious hypothesising, from the bible, for a majority of people. This is clearly not the case, no matter the stats on those that identify as christians. Even many people that go to church are basically modern secular in their beliefs. Many even make little to no attept to reconcile their actual beliefs and practices with their religions teachings. I know no numbers, though I'd like to, but we all know these people (or at least know of them). Its this complexity that a simple quesiton in a census of poll cant take into account, and so we dont really know how religious the UK is, but its pretty clear that strongly religious people, the sort that (kinda literally) consult the bible on what to have for dinner (or what not to) arent a significant majority.
I'm not sure that I agree or disagree with dawkins on that, and you/Mrs/Ms armstrong may well raise a valid point;it seems quite reasonable from the nesessarily massively stripped down version you present: I was just stating that that position has been presented by at least one highly visible atheist. i believe sam harris has argued similarly.
My view on it is tricky to me. I find it difficult to scorn a person for being factually errant in their views of the nature of reality. I have a physics degree, I know more about it than most, and I'm likely wrong about most of it (via most of modern science being likely wrong, or at the very least always ready to be). The specific claims are unimportant to me, its the methodology that counts: you seek the truth and never really care to find it, doubt all, be prepared for all to be wrong when new information or circumstances come to light. What religion has to say on that is fatally out of date, and my problem with it really is it fails to learn; it cant, since one text is enshrined as truth and only whatever tenuous interpretations you can contrive provide variability and change in your position. You dont see that with, say, Principia or On the Origin of Species;; pretty much thown out/rendered a limiting case and continually expanded and built on, respectively. It boils downt to semantics and framing persective with religion. How do we think this passage was intended, and what kind of translation are we going for? The flipside of that and a very significant danger, is that somewhat paradixically, we can engineer these supremely dogmatic guides on existance and behaviour to mean whatever the $%&# we want.
What really gets my goat is something that hitchens spoke very well on: the capacity for religion to make 'good' people do harm in the name of their religion, motivated ostensibly (perhaps simplisticly) by supernatural mumbo jumbo. Secondly, the defensive barrier that 'Religious Reasons' creates around anything whatsoever; even, to some, mass murder and genocide. Thats not on. Its ethically repugnant and its contradictory with free enquiry and speech.
But, the chaps that think more or less as I do, that try to be compassionate and often do a better job of it than I do, but do it because their imaginary friend told them to, or because they believe he/it did....I'm reluctant to lay into them. Even if they think daft shitee like the earth being 6000 years old. I'd rather you treat people well because of your beliefs than your beliefs be factually accurate and epistemologically sound. So I'm not terribly inclined to go after the moderates. I'm quite moderated with those I know. I jibe them a bit bit have little to no real ire or scorn for them.
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Don't get me wrong - I don't just go after anyone for the sake of it, moderate or otherwise. People can believe whatever they like, but I draw the line at when they start to affect other people because of their irrational beliefs, especially children. I'm also a Physicist and have taught Physics (and more generally Science) in the past, and have encountered many instances of religious people trying to subvert Science education, which really gets my goat.
I have two very close friends who could be described as fundamentalists, one a Jehovas Witness, and one a Christian, but I don't lay into them every time I see them - we've had our sparring sessions in the past (always friendly enough), but I don't go on about this to people like that generally.
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On Dawkins going after moderates. I used to agree with his ideas on that, about moderate religion and confidence in faith as a virtue making it possible for extremists to arise. But I think I agree more with Karen Armstrong nowadays, her take being that if we look through history, any erosion of a moderate base vastly increases the number of extremists. When there are great losses in the numbers of moderate religious people where societies become more secular, the extremists thrive all the more. Which is what caused the Iranian Revolution and the establishment of one of the most fundamental religious administrations in the world today. The same might be seen in far history with the Maccabean revolt or the fundamentalist response to the Enlightenment. Which is very sad, certainly.
That is a fair point, I don't know enough about the history to comment on that, but it sounds reasonable. However I don't think I can respect the moderates' beliefs just to avoid an uprising of fundamentalists. I feel morally obliged to oppose religion in all of it's forms. I personally think that in today's post-enlightenment society we can avoid such an uprising anyway. With every successive generation people are becoming less superstitious and more independent of thought, and I think that this is why religion is in decline in developed countries - I don't see this changing.
I would agree that in and of itself is not a reason to leave folks be if we sincerely think they should be tackled. Only that concentrating on the moderates is a mistake. If someone believes in god but is happy to live in a secular (or near enough secular) society I couldn't care less about them. It's extremist (and I consider extremist to be anything that seriously effects the daily lives of others, clown not wanting ferrys to sail on Sunday through to guys blowing up abortion clinics) belief that should be gone after, the moderates really aren't hurting anyone.
I think that's where the new atheists do people a disservice, the concentration on relatively moderate believers as a target but using the examples of the loons which are really quite irrelevant to the average Christian, Muslim, Jew, Hindu etc.
You can pretty much flip the bible open on a random page and if you manage by some stroke of luck to avoid some drug induced bar-stewardisation of greek or egyptian mythology, you will more than likely find some ethical stance that is highly contradictory with what most people in the UK think. On homosexuality, for example, or selling daughters into slavery, blasphemy, eating shellfish, working on the sabbath or if you happen to open a very early page, the mechanism for the whole damned thing; original sin and the required concept of inheritance of responsibility for all actions through a line of descent.
As I say, I was tackling Christian theology and "values", meaning homosexuality is not contested at all, nor is blasphemy, nor working on the Sabbath. Selling your daughters into slavery and original sin are obviously from Exodus and Genesis respectively, and as such never considered to even be true stories until very very late and were binned by non-Western Christians in the middle-ages. Selling your daughters was entirely commonplace pretty much the world over until the 19th century (in that they were sold as concubines, and people were still selling their daughters to be wives as political agreements) and the books, since they are not intended as objective moral guidelines, need to be considered alongside the zeitgeist of their authors.
Besides, the question isnt even as simple as 'are the beliefs common with christianity', nor even 'are they derived from christianity', for us to be a 'christian nation' our perspectives and actions would have to be informed directly, no handwaving collective unconscious hypothesising, from the bible, for a majority of people. This is clearly not the case, no matter the stats on those that identify as christians. Even many people that go to church are basically modern secular in their beliefs. Many even make little to no attept to reconcile their actual beliefs and practices with their religions teachings. I know no numbers, though I'd like to, but we all know these people (or at least know of them). Its this complexity that a simple quesiton in a census of poll cant take into account, and so we dont really know how religious the UK is, but its pretty clear that strongly religious people, the sort that (kinda literally) consult the bible on what to have for dinner (or what not to) arent a significant majority.
This is difficult to assess, I suppose. I don't know how you define strongly religious (and neither does anyone else). Nor do I know if you need to be "strongly religious" to be considered a member of a faith. It will certainly be true that many people call themselves Christian when they actually have a more deistic or existentialist leaning, I don't believe that prevents them from being considered Christian. Christian mystics are considered Christian after all, and Kabbalists are considered Jewish. I don't think it really matters, anyway. I don't think any nation should really be thought of as being attached to a religion, but if they are, a national faith with a majority membership probably counts.
My view on it is tricky to me. I find it difficult to scorn a person for being factually errant in their views of the nature of reality. I have a physics degree, I know more about it than most, and I'm likely wrong about most of it (via most of modern science being likely wrong, or at the very least always ready to be). The specific claims are unimportant to me, its the methodology that counts: you seek the truth and never really care to find it, doubt all, be prepared for all to be wrong when new information or circumstances come to light. What religion has to say on that is fatally out of date, and my problem with it really is it fails to learn; it cant, since one text is enshrined as truth and only whatever tenuous interpretations you can contrive provide variability and change in your position. You dont see that with, say, Principia or On the Origin of Species;; pretty much thown out/rendered a limiting case and continually expanded and built on, respectively. It boils downt to semantics and framing persective with religion. How do we think this passage was intended, and what kind of translation are we going for?
I have difficulty with this. We again are speaking only about a very specific (albeit very vocal) Western tradition of Christianity. It is not true of any of the Eastern sects or many of the Western ones. In fact, most faiths, Christian and otherwise have actively encouraged scientific discovery, Islam especially, but historically Christianity very much too. It's really not until 500 years ago people started making an arse of that in Rome, while the Greek and Eastern churches were still singing the praises of those advancing science, because any further knowledge took people closer to understanding the glory of god. The fluidity of the scripture has always allowed this to happen, nobody but a total moron can take exception to scientific cosmological theories since Genesis 1 and 2 don't agree in the first place - no one should have an argument that goes further than "Was humankind created singly or pluraly?" with a Creationist. And the vast majority of religious people have always understood that. It's the cornerstone of the understanding of the Bible as a collection of traditions.
What really gets my goat is something that hitchens spoke very well on: the capacity for religion to make 'good' people do harm in the name of their religion, motivated ostensibly (perhaps simplisticly) by supernatural mumbo jumbo. Secondly, the defensive barrier that 'Religious Reasons' creates around anything whatsoever; even, to some, mass murder and genocide. Thats not on. Its ethically repugnant and its contradictory with free enquiry and speech.
Can't (and wouldn't want) to argue with that.
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I've no intention of flaming this thread, but I want to point out that Hitchens wouldn't agree with the sentiment of "bashing" creationists - that's far more Dawkins approach.
Hitchens was a gentle, persuasive and articulate man, and everything that I've read by him (not much, granted, mostly his journalism) was without malice.
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You're right about Hitchens MrBump, he always wrote what he thought was right without malice, however I don't think Dawkins is any different - I think he is genuinely trying to do good and I don't think he dislikes religious people, just religion. I am the same; when I say "bashing" creationists it is a bit tongue in cheek, I'll argue with them over the truth, as Hitch would too (although admittedly with nowhere near his flair), but I don't think badly of religious people; only religion.
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We've debated Dawkins on this board before - for me, personally, I just can't bring myself to like him, or rather like the image he portrays. It's not like I don't agree with him - for the most part I do - maybe it's a personality thing, but I think that he often comes across as "fundamentalist" as some of the zealots that he criticises.
Again - I very much agree with the secular argument, I guess I just don't "like" Dawkins!!!
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Fair enough. We can't help who we like/dislike. I won't argue with that. I think that 'fundamentalist' is a mischaracterisation of Dawkins though.
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nfe, I dont believe we fundamentally (see what I did there? ho ho ho) disagree.
The specific articles of christian belief, or at least biblically justifiable behaviour (very serious statement, words chosen carefully) some of which I was a tad flippant about, are *relatively* unimportant. The point of that part is that most people in the UK dont directly consult the bible for moral guidance or behavioural instruction, and that would be the priciple defining characteristic of a christian (if we assume that perspectives of the nature of reality are not pertinent). I dont really see that thats a contestible point, but would like to see what you say about it.
I suppose in the back of my mind in my private definition of 'strongly religious' is that you will give greater credence to a sciptual instruction than to the ethical climate of your ambient culture or empirical evidence. There is some obvious overlap, but I speak of the people that will argue a biblical statement simply because its in the bible, and follow it to the best of their ability or interpretation, regardless of whatever contradictions or challenges they find from modern secular ethical values (such as free speech or the right to birth control, or lead uranium dating). Those that place the bible as the highest authority and dont then try to water it down or find a way to circumvent its explicitly stated literal reality and permanence of its instruction in order to better operate day to day with a secular culture. Why I semi-humourously said 'consult the bible on what to have for dinner'. I say 'semi' (hehe) because I know some christians that do that, have chosen to intpret the bible that way, but the fact that its an interpretation is irrelevent, same as if you choose a more science-friendly intperpretation of genesis, or an historically contexutal interpretation of the prohibition of women wearing clothes with more than one cloth in them; its the fact of placing the bible as a priciple source of greater authority than anything else possible.
Same goes for all religious texts. I choose the bible and christians because I know it and them best.
The same answer can also be applied to your response to my comment on science with respect to religion. There are no real attempts to reconcile science and religion with believers. There are interpretations, that I'm sure the interpreters hold quite sincerely, that are superficially more congenial to scientific enquiry, but the ultimate authority is not observible evidence, its scripture, and science has been done in service of scripture, as a religious quest, albeit a kind of novelty to assist in the glorifying of a god by fleshing out the details of his portfolio.
While I'm at it: science and religion are fundamentally, diamatrically opposed. Science is based on applied skepticism, religion is based on faith and authority. First person to say that science needs faith loses the thread ;). (though I believe, hehehe, that we have a brighter crowd here, I just couldnt resist saying that).
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I've no intention of flaming this thread, but I want to point out that Hitchens wouldn't agree with the sentiment of "bashing" creationists - that's far more Dawkins approach.
Hitchens was a gentle, persuasive and articulate man, and everything that I've read by him (not much, granted, mostly his journalism) was without malice.
Fair enough. I've seen him bash plenty though. It does seem to me that a human decency and humanist values (among the gentlest sort to my understanding) underpinned his bashing. He seemed most angry and bashy to me when some fundamantally brutal or uncompassionate act, in terms of its 'practical' social and emotional consequences, was paraded as virtue by a religious authority.
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MDV - I am not writing this as a challenge, but I would like to draw out some issues. You seem to be saying that those who believe in the sola scriptura view of biblical teaching as a means of living their life (so are we here talking of Calvinist style evangelicals?) are wrong because there understanding of 'the right way to live a life' conflicts with the ethics of their 'ambient culture' or 'empirical evidence'. Are you saying that these 'ambient ethics', which I take you to mean the majoritarian way of behaving 'rightly', are the standard to which all should conform?
Surely this is a relativistic argument - For example, lets postulate an island where the inhabitants are all Wee Free type presbyterians - in such a place, the ambient ethics involves observing the levitical law, not having pre-marital sex, not permitting homosexuality or idolatory and blasphemy (such as denying the literal truth of the creation myth in genesis). The ambient ethics on that island is entirely based on a version of biblical (unless yo). Switch the example to the Dale Farm travellers that caused a ruckus here a few weeks ago and you can see the problem with 'ambient ethics' arguments (if what is meant by 'ambient ethics' is majoritarian ethics).
As to the 'empirical evidence' point - are you saying (and I am sure that you are not) that 'science' should be the basis of ethics (again I assume you are not)? i.e. that the way to behave rightly should be based on what the lab tells us. On that basis, we would substitute biblicism for scientism (which is one of things that does distinguish Dawkins, at least in his earlier thought, from Hitchens - Dawkins' at times has come across as having a rather scientistic line on ethics). Lets take another example - homosexuality was considered a perversion or mental deficit in early and mid 20th century science cable of being 'cured' - and it wasn't until the so-called 'gay gene' was discovered in the 1990s that the empirical basis existed in science to challenge this. If scientific experiment was the font of ethical activity, there would have been little difference from science c.1940 and the Church(es)' traditional teaching on homosexuality.
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No and no. At least as far as how I meant what I said goes (whether I'm right is another matter). Its a matter of priority, not relativism or absolutes in the case of the ethics. That you'll (the hypothetical you) would prioritise the bible simply because its the bible, rather than by any other value or metric; proceeding from a standpoint of it being 'more right', or even absolutely right.
Science has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with ethics. It may be able to reveal how they work, neurologically and socially, and how they evolved, but it can never be used to make ethical decisions. Its the natural extrapolation of the opposition between science and religion, that they cant be reconciled; nor should they be, they deal with totally different things (or should at least). Feynman said it best of science: it cant tell you what you want. Augistine spoke, like, millions of years ago, on the irrelevance of religion and theology to empiricsim, too.
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Elliott - I think you've misunderstood the role of Science in informing ethical decisions - I don't think that anybody is arguing that all ethics should be based on Science; rather that when faith and Science collide, we should inform our ethical decisions using the evidence-based study of Science, rather than the faith-based position of, well, faith. I don't think that anyone is saying that all of our moral or ethical decisions should be based purely on Science.
For example, I don't think your argument about homosexuality is sound - Science did not consider it a perversion or a mental deficit, maybe Psychology did, but Psychology is not a Science. Indeed, long before the so called 'Gay gene' was discovered (which is a gross oversimplification anyway), Scientists had already observed common homosexual behaviour in hundreds or thousands of species of animals, suggesting that it is a perfectly natural phenomenon that can be evolutionarily advantageous. I think that the Scientific consensus for a very long time has been that homosexuality is not 'wrong' or 'against nature'.
In any case, my personal opinion is that where a consensus on ethics and morality is required (I don't think that a consensus is always required except where laws are needed, etc.), it should be informed by Anthropology, Science and other objective disciplines, but not on a faith position that is held by only a minority of the population.
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Science has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with ethics. It may be able to reveal how they work, neurologically and socially, and how they evolved, but it can never be used to make ethical decisions. Its the natural extrapolation of the opposition between science and religion, that they cant be reconciled; nor should they be, they deal with totally different things (or should at least). Feynman said it best of science: it cant tell you what you want. Augistine spoke, like, millions of years ago, on the irrelevance of religion and theology to empiricsim, too.
I think this is a bit of an oversimplification. Presumably an action's being right or wrong depends in some way on facts about the world - it's wrong to shoot someone in the head because they will die. If the empirical facts were different, if shooting someone in the head simply tickled it might not be wrong at all.
I don't think anyone who has given it thought would say you can derive an ought from an is, but science will still come into play where oughts are derived from combinations of is and ought claims.
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I just want to wade in here and show my ignorance but I feel like im learning. How does Anthropology form an idea of ethics and morality? My understanding is that Anthropology is the study of human life and the origins of man, though not necessarily evolution of man. I would have thought religion would be a huge factor in Anthropology. Is it too simplistic to say that hundreds of years of religion being so important to generations of people, that even if we don't claim to be practitioners of any faith, our ideals are still based on what is essentially christian teachings?
What I'm trying to understand is that without that historical base, how would I actually define my ethics and morals? I've read an argument that when we are born, we instinctively know it is incorrect to take another persons life for the sake of it, but is that really the case?
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Anthropology is not based in christian teachings - the christian teachings have shaped modern societies and therefore are involved in anthropology in some way, but anthropology is also built on other ideas such as linguistics, sociology, biology (most definitely including evolution), and others. Christianity is a very recent phenomenon in the history of man, and so it is not as big a concern in anthropology as you might think.
Ethics and morals are a very personal thing, I think. I am happy for my morals to differ from yours, in fact I think it is a good thing if they do. To take an example that has already been mentioned, I think that sexual promiscuity is fine, however others will think otherwise; I don't think this is a problem. I will act according to my morals, and they will act according to theirs, and we shouldn't affect one another. The problems arise when some groups try to impose their own morals on others - that should not be allowed unless there is good reason. In the sexual promiscuity example, I don't think there is any good reason to impose one moral or another on anyone else - live and let live. Of course there are areas where one particular moral has to be enforced on others, such as not killing others. In this case I would advise looking to objective disciplines such as Science or Anthropology for guidance, rather than religion.
For example, let's look at the contraception debate; catholic view is that condoms are wrong and should not be used, they actually preach this in AIDS riddled places like sub-Saharan Africa, they teach that only abstinence should be used. However the evidence from more objective fields is that abstinence only does not work, and that condoms are very useful in preventing unwanted pregnancies and diseases.
To answer your other question - yes, it seems that we are born with a rudimentary 'innate morality'. I don't know much about it, because it isn't my field, but I have read about it and from what I understand the evidence is quite strong.
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Anthropology is not based in christian teachings - the christian teachings have shaped modern societies and therefore are involved in anthropology in some way, but anthropology is also built on other ideas such as linguistics, sociology, biology (most definitely including evolution), and others. Christianity is a very recent phenomenon in the history of man, and so it is not as big a concern in anthropology as you might think.
I wasn't saying Anthropology is based on Christianity, just that faith as an element that shaped would be studied under its umbrella, like everything else you mentioned. So we agree on that, though maybe i wasn't as clear.
Ethics and morals are a very personal thing, I think. I am happy for my morals to differ from yours, in fact I think it is a good thing if they do. To take an example that has already been mentioned, I think that sexual promiscuity is fine, however others will think otherwise; I don't think this is a problem. I will act according to my morals, and they will act according to theirs, and we shouldn't affect one another. The problems arise when some groups try to impose their own morals on others - that should not be allowed unless there is good reason. In the sexual promiscuity example, I don't think there is any good reason to impose one moral or another on anyone else - live and let live. Of course there are areas where one particular moral has to be enforced on others, such as not killing others. In this case I would advise looking to objective disciplines such as Science or Anthropology for guidance, rather than religion.
I agree with and understand what you're saying about differing ideas of morality and the example of those teachings by the catholic church came to mind before I even read that paragraph. One thing that has sparked my interest recently was reading a book published a while ago that related a lot of mythology and folktales from the north of England to the Hindu Vedas using Anthropology, Etymology etc. I've also read part of the Bhagavad Gita which instructs of 3 situations in which killing another person is acceptable or necessary. I don't think I can think of a Christian equivalent. It made me question my own belief that killing is wrong in all cases, not because I thought The Gita was correct, but because it struck me as a very different sentiment to the ideas i was either 'born with', or raised to have. Actually It made me think about my morals and the nature of aggression.
As for being born with innate morality, i don't know much about it either. I vaguely remember that there was an idea that in the animal world chimps would never commit anything comparable to murder. However there was an incident caught on film of a chimp murdering another chimp and at the time it raised some interesting questions about our own society or evolutionary makeup. That story sounds a little too creative for something I made up... time for a google.
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That thing with the chimp sounds interesting. There have also been all kinds of thought experiments done where people have been asked to decide, for example, whether they would push a man off a bridge into the path of a train if it would cause the train to stop before it carried on down the line where it would kill five men who are working around the bend - logic would say to push the man off the bridge into the path of the train, but most people instinctively say no, they would not kill the one man. This was true irrespective of culture and background. The experiment went something like that anyway, I'm off to google too! :-)
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On the position of science and ethics, I'd like to clarify.
Feynman said it best, yes. In his typically direct and sometimes deceptively simple way. It cant tell you what you want. More recently Antonio Damasio has led/promoted a more fleshed out view that seems to hold a lot of water to me: we dont make rational decisions, we make emotional ones.There is no empirical evidence that alive is better than or preferable to dead. We value life. Thats not a falsifiable or empirically justifiable position, its not derived from any evidence. We use reason, often scienctific evidence, to facilitate our descion making. A trivial example is the proverbial train tracks thing, where you have a run away train and you cant stop it or phone the driver or whatever, the only thing you can do is choose what track it goes down at a fork, and down one is one person and down the other, ten.
Now, we count. Counting is rational. Its empirical evidence that tells us the numbers of people, and we then use that to inform our decision, but not to make it. What makes the decision is our value of life, and the corresponding perception that saving more lives is therefore better. The numbers helped us choose, but rationality on its own simply wouldnt give a shite. It would toss a coin, or leave the lever to direct the train however it found it. Pure reason is apathetic, and empirical evidence is a means to an end.
In pure science that end is often satisfaction of curiosity about how the world works. Thats an emotional motivation for research. Or research and rationality can be used to help treat cancer or supply clean water. And so on and so forth.
The obvious question of 'then why do we care about life/other people/guitars/whatever' is harder, and is quite probably emprically assesible; dynamics of social interactions, emotional consequences of actions and positive and negative ascociations, the empriically demonstrable fact of our sense of empathy, more handwaving could follow, but we arent terribly clear on the how of our values; it is clear that we have them, and its quite clear that they are at the core of what we choose to do, the actions we take, rather than a pure empirical analysis.
This is another angle to look at why theres no meaningfull overlap between religion and science. Science doesnt give a shite, or have anything to say about what you do, or choose to do with scientific information, its a set of epistemilogical mechanisms for empirically revealing the workings of the world around us, and in that sense it may well be a fanastic tool for ethical decisions, since it gives the best information about reality that we can use in conjunction with our values to make decisions, but its not in and of itself a moral code. Religion is obsessed with what you do, and happens to have some baggage about the natural world, largely in service of its theologies (like its not nearly as important how god made the world, as that he made it).
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Apologies for the apparent contradictions between the above post and previous where i say 'you cant use science to make ethical decisions' - when I said that what I meant was you cant consult science, crack open the big book on science on page 112,543,829 in the middle of the chapter on nuclear fission and find a passage that tells you 'Thou shalt not use this empirically derived revelation for smiting of thine enemies, nor shalt thou detonate devices hitherto derived from these principles to see of they work cos it would be cool, and nor shalt thou maketh many devices of nuclear destruction and keep them locked up for a rainy day, yet though shall split many atoms in controlled conditions to heat water and drive turbines, thus making electricity and pleasing the Lord Science'.
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This is another angle to look at why theres no meaningfull overlap between religion and science. Science doesnt give a shitee, or have anything to say about what you do, or choose to do with scientific information, its a set of epistemilogical mechanisms for empirically revealing the workings of the world around us, and in that sense it may well be a fanastic tool for ethical decisions, since it gives the best information about reality that we can use in conjunction with our values to make decisions, but its not in and of itself a moral code. Religion is obsessed with what you do, and happens to have some baggage about the natural world, largely in service of its theologies (like its not nearly as important how god made the world, as that he made it).
You're not talking about the 'non-overlapping magisteria' thing of Stephen J Gould here are you?
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Chris, I don' think I have misunderstood anything per se - I am posing questions - I am not saying that science should be the basis of morality, I was asking MDV if that was what he thought.
Also to say that my argument on the gay gene is unsound - to say 'Psychology is not a science' is to be a bit of a cherry picker to weed out things that give science a bad name, rather as Christian orthodoxy weeds out heretics from time to time. Clearly the cognitive science part of psychology is 'science' (it being based measuring things in brains and nerves), endocrinology is part of science and psychiatry is a branch of medical science. Furthermore, in the recent (20th century) past even a cultic theory like psychoanalysis was considered 'science' - it may have been dropped now, just as E=MC2 may be dropped in light of recent experiments, but it was still respectable science until recently. All of these have had a go at finding a 'cure' for homosexuals - As to your scientific consensus that homosexuality has been seen as 'not against nature' for 'very long time' - I would disagree. It has been observed since the 19th century and there have been those that have argued it is part of animal sexuality that there was large disagreement about the topic until the 1970s. For the application in humans, see the timeline here: http://www.glreview.com/article.php?articleid=42 -
As to anthropology being an objective discipline not based on Christian teaching - there are two main branches of anthropology - physical/biological and social/cultural. The first deals with human evolution, so tells us little about morality and ethics (and has its own chequered past in the form of skull measuring racism), the second is a branch of sociological theorising based on the theory of cultural relativism (that also has a chequered past as an agent of colonialism and the search for the 'noble savage'). I have an MSc in anthropology and most of what was was done in anthropology departments when I studied it was the academic Marxist 'cultural critique' of the West's view that it is the natural order and of post colonial practices rather than anything 'objective'.
As to 'innate morality' - How can you test this scientifically without the interference of history and culture (including religion)? Clearly you cannot dump a group of babies on an island and watch them group up from a telescope. Last time I looked on the subject, the issue on innate morality is based on an extension of the Chomskian theory of universal grammar in linguistics. Which puts you back into the realm of those psychologists you deny are scientists. The experiments are based on taking young children and getting an authority figure to order them to override certain rules. The evidence being that they will override some (e.g. not spitting on the floor) but not others (hitting their neighbour). The criticism is easy to spot - perhaps the child fears reprisal (i.e. they have already learnt this fact before they went into the experiment). Certainly, army basic training performs an overriding of any 'innate' morality against killing all the time - so are the 'experiments' skewed? Can an 'innate' morality, if it is a fact of biology, be overriden as easily and as often as it has been in human history and really be classed as 'innate'?
I won't go on - but there is also evidence from Protestant/Muslim parts Africa on HIV infection where condoms are available that HIV infection rates have either equalled or exceeded those of neighbouring Catholic countries. I know that the condom argument is used against Christians ad naseum but I think the facts may present some problems for some of these arguments on Africa and HIV infection and the blame attached to the Roman Catholic church.
(I should say, to clear things up, like all of you I am an atheist who would rather put my trust in a repeatable action in a lab than faith in God.)
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I would also add that much of Christianity in its fundamentalist guise is not really about ethics per se but about soteriology and echatology. People are not converted because they want to lead the 'christian' life - they are converted because they want to be saved. As in the questions 'How can I be saved from my inherited and actual sinful life?' and 'If it were to end tomorrow, what account would I give to the Almighty'. One can debate ethics with Christian fundamentalists or give them reams of scientific formula until you are blue in the face but until you grapple with the soteriology and echatology roots of their beliefs you aren't going to get anywhere.
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Chris, I don' think I have misunderstood anything per se - I am posing questions - I am not saying that science should be the basis of morality, I was asking MDV if that was what he thought.
Fair enough, I could have worded that better; my mistake.
Also to say that my argument on the gay gene is unsound - to say 'Psychology is not a science' is to be a bit of a cherry picker to weed out things that give science a bad name, rather as Christian orthodoxy weeds out heretics from time to time. Clearly the cognitive science part of psychology is 'science' (it being based measuring things in brains and nerves), endocrinology is part of science and psychiatry is a branch of medical science.
No, it isn't cherry picking at all because there is a very clear criteria. Science (in it's strictest sense) is about explaining how things are, not how we would like them to be. Psychology, on the other hand, holds an ideal at it's core which has not been reviewed in hundreds of years, it classifies people according to their deviation from this ideal and attempts to 'fix' them if they deviate sufficently - this is not a Science. We have a further classification of 'soft sciences' which includes Psychology, Social sciences, computer Science, medical Science etc. which are subjects that use the tools and techniques of Science and approach their subject in a Scientific way, but they are not strictly speaking sciences. This idea is shared with most of the Psychological community and well as the Scientists, although there are people who disagree. If you choose to use a different terminology then fine, but I am not cherry picking anything. A more detailed account can be found here http://www.arachnoid.com/psychology/index.html
Please note that by saying Psychology is not a Science I am not meaning to be derisive - it is a very useful field in it's own right and in any case my wife is a Psychologist, so I can't be derisive :-D
Furthermore, in the recent (20th century) past even a cultic theory like psychoanalysis was considered 'science' - it may have been dropped now, just as E=MC2 may be dropped in light of recent experiments, but it was still respectable science until recently.
There are no recent experiments that suggest E=mc^2 will be 'dropped'. I assume you are talking about the results from CERN that got anomalous results suggesting that neutrinos were travelling faster than light, but this was very badly handled by the media (as usual). First, there was no discovery made, these results have been largely refuted by further results from T2K and MINOS (as every Physicist expected, including the Scientists at CERN), and we expect a final result early next year. Secondly, even if these results did hold, this would not suggest that E=mc^2 would stop working - it's predictive power has been proven many times over, the most it would mean is a tweaking of relativity, not a replacement of it, in much the same way that relativity did not replace Newtonian mechanics, it just extended it.
All of these have had a go at finding a 'cure' for homosexuals - As to your scientific consensus that homosexuality has been seen as 'not against nature' for 'very long time' - I would disagree. It has been observed since the 19th century and there have been those that have argued it is part of animal sexuality that there was large disagreement about the topic until the 1970s. For the application in humans, see the timeline here: http://www.glreview.com/article.php?articleid=42 -
Again, that is from a Psychological point of view, and not a Scientific point of view. This mirrors quite well what I explained above about Psychology classifying people as a deviation from an ideal norm, and trying to 'cure' this deviation if necessary. From the Scientific perspective homosexual and bisexual behaviour has been observed in nature since at least the early 1800s and probably a lot earlier (it isn't my area of expertise), so I can assure you that Science has been aware that homosexuality is perfectly natural for a long time.
As to anthropology being an objective discipline not based on Christian teaching - there are two main branches of anthropology - physical/biological and social/cultural. The first deals with human evolution, so tells us little about morality and ethics (and has its own chequered past in the form of skull measuring racism), the second is a branch of sociological theorising based on the theory of cultural relativism (that also has a chequered past as an agent of colonialism and the search for the 'noble savage'). I have an MSc in anthropology and most of what was was done in anthropology departments when I studied it was the academic Marxist 'cultural critique' of the West's view that it is the natural order and of post colonial practices rather than anything 'objective'.
It sounds like you know more about Anthropology than me - I've never formally studied it, but I didn't mean to say it is completely objective, what I mean is that it is a MORE objective discipline than religion, and therefore it would make a better base for informing a common morality. Christianity comes at morality from the perspective of one group, and Anthropology combines other teachings that are relevant to all people, that is what I meant, but I might not have been very clear about that. Anthropology is informed by linguistics, evolution, etc. and so is surely more objective than one school of thought (christianity).
As to 'innate morality' - How can you test this scientifically without the interference of history and culture (including religion)? Clearly you cannot dump a group of babies on an island and watch them group up from a telescope. Last time I looked on the subject, the issue on innate morality is based on an extension of the Chomskian theory of universal grammar in linguistics. Which puts you back into the realm of those psychologists you deny are scientists. The experiments are based on taking young children and getting an authority figure to order them to override certain rules. The evidence being that they will override some (e.g. not spitting on the floor) but not others (hitting their neighbour). The criticism is easy to spot - perhaps the child fears reprisal (i.e. they have already learnt this fact before they went into the experiment). Certainly, army basic training performs an overriding of any 'innate' morality against killing all the time - so are the 'experiments' skewed? Can an 'innate' morality, if it is a fact of biology, be overriden as easily and as often as it has been in human history and really be classed as 'innate'?
I did say from the beginning that I don't know much about this, but I remember reading articles in New Scientist and such (okay, okay) which presented evidence that seemed reasonable, although I can't remember all the experimental controls. I'm a Physicist, so this is well out of my comfort zone, but I find it interesting even if I don't know a lot about it.
I won't go on - but there is also evidence from Protestant/Muslim parts Africa on HIV infection where condoms are available that HIV infection rates have either equalled or exceeded those of neighbouring Catholic countries. I know that the condom argument is used against Christians ad naseum but I think the facts may present some problems for some of these arguments on Africa and HIV infection and the blame attached to the Roman Catholic church.
The World Health Organisation published figures which disagree with you on this one, but I can't find the paper at the moment - I am trying to. You have to account for other factors such as the epidemiology of the area, etc. but what is clear is that using condoms will help to stop the spread of disease if used correctly; abstinence only will not help when you are telling someone with a biological urge to have sex not to. I'm not sure how you can disagree with this.
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A fair enough response (the E=MC2 thing was a joke btw, I should have used a smiley). I note from the link that there are running battles between the author and psychologists who dispute the rejection of psychology as being a science.
As to the HIV infection rate business - I totally agree with you, I am not saying I applaud the abstinence nonsense of the RC church. However, I had read a comparative study of Malawi and Uganda recently which brought up that issue up that infection rates were the same despite condom availability and higher in certain age groups (I too can't quite locate the study, although the author was a doctor working in Uganda). If that is true, this issue, which is trotted out by atheists to attack the RCC (and I have done it myself), may, in light of facts, need to be reconsidered. (but I agree, as you say, that you have to look at other factors )
As to scientists and homosexual animals - I think we agree it has been observed since the 1800s - I am sure you can see, however, the semantics of the words 'perfectly natural', are potentially loaded - are you saying that the interpretation given to homosexual activity by scientists since the early 1800s differed from that of society in general? - i.e. a slow and painful progressive acceptance of difference? I am sure that no learned Dr of biology or zoology from Imperial College rushed off to give evidence in the Oscar Wilde or the Pitt Rivers buggery trials as to the universality of homosexuality in the animal kingdom (OK, IC it wasn't founded at the time of Oscar Wilde's case) that caused the change of the law.
As to you saying 'Science (in it's strictest sense) is about explaining how things are, not how we would like them to be'. I agree. Christians who believe in the inerrancy of the Bible would say the same about biblical teaching and even cosmology - OK they would say so by twisted circular logic that none of us would accept. It is no good saying to fundamentalists - 'but we are right and you are wrong', because it goes no-where except to score points for the already converted on either side. If one wants to attack Christianity (as I think the late Mr Hitchens realised) you have to go for the internal consistency of the Christian theology - like the notion of original sin, the need for the atonement and how God can be said to be good yet predestine some to eternal hell).
My main concern is that in throwing out Christianity we replace it with an equally problematic Scientism - i.e. that the personal views (which are usually second order abstractions) of scientists in the fields of morality and politics have more 'truth' to them because that person happened to observe ants performing the same operation again and again, or came up with an equation that solved a mathematic defect in the grand unified theory. OK I am exagerating, but I have encountered many people whose views based on their lab work would look pretty horrific as legislation (of course, I do not accuse you of this).
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A fair enough response (the E=MC2 thing was a joke btw, I should have used a smiley). I note from the link that there are running battles between the author and psychologists who dispute the rejection of psychology as being a science.
There are, but having a lecturer of Psychology and a Psychologist in my family I've had the discussion with them in the past, and I'm assured that the majority of Psychologists agree that it is not a Science - it is a minority that do not agree.
As to scientists and homosexual animals - I think we agree it has been observed since the 1800s - I am sure you can see, however, the semantics of the words 'perfectly natural', are potentially loaded - are you saying that the interpretation given to homosexual activity by scientists since the early 1800s differed from that of society in general? - i.e. a slow and painful progressive acceptance of difference? I am sure that no learned Dr of biology or zoology from Imperial College rushed off to give evidence in the Oscar Wilde or the Pitt Rivers buggery trials as to the universality of homosexuality in the animal kingdom (OK, IC it wasn't founded at the time of Oscar Wilde's case) that caused the change of the law.
I think that we have to accept that Scientists are people and have their own views. I would guess, although it is pure speculation, that if you were to ask a Biologist from the 1800s whether homosexuality is right, they would probably say no, but if you were to press them on whether it is natural and whether there is a Scientific basis to think of it as wrong, I think you would get a different answer. Similarly, when looking to Science for guidance on ethical issues I don't think we should look at the morals of Scientists, but we should look at the facts of Science. Another point is that in the time of Oscar Wilde, the legal process was not as secular as it is today - I very much doubt that the testimony of any Scientist would have outweighed that of a religious leader, so it would likely have been pointless. Thankfully today that position is somewhat reversed.
As to you saying 'Science (in it's strictest sense) is about explaining how things are, not how we would like them to be'. I agree. Christians who believe in the inerrancy of the Bible would say the same about biblical teaching and even cosmology - OK they would say so by twisted circular logic that none of us would accept. It is no good saying to fundamentalists - 'but we are right and you are wrong', because it goes no-where except to score points for the already converted on either side. If one wants to attack Christianity (as I think the late Mr Hitchens realised) you have to go for the internal consistency of the Christian theology - like the notion of original sin, the need for the atonement and how God can be said to be good yet predestine some to eternal hell).
I think you're right about the fundamentalists, but they are in the minority (thankfully). However with moderates I think that when we attack the internal consistency of their theology they can simply do some hand waving and say that we are not to know gods plan, or they can say that the argument doesn't apply to their personal flavour of christianity because they interpret it a little differently. I think that taking the argument to the incompatablity of religion and Science is better because as Science progresses they find it more and more difficult to hold their biblical position. hundreds of years ago biblical creation was easy for anyone to believe, but nowadays religion has had to retreat to a position where even the vast majority of religious leaders have to admit that Science was correct there. I think that adapting your argument to the type of religious believer you are faced with is the best strategy, and sometimes the Science argument is most appropriate.
My main concern is that in throwing out Christianity we replace it with an equally problematic Scientism - i.e. that the personal views (which are usually second order abstractions) of scientists in the fields of morality and politics have more 'truth' to them because that person happened to observe ants performing the same operation again and again, or came up with an equation that solved a mathematic defect in the grand unified theory. OK I am exagerating, but I have encountered many people whose views based on their lab work would look pretty horrific as legislation (of course, I do not accuse you of this).
Of course I agree with you on this (although I dislike the term 'scientism'), but again it is back to divorcing the Science from the Scientist, which we have to always try to do, and importantly the process of Science contains internal checks designed to do just this, such as peer review, etc.
I don't think that just by throwing out Christianity you have to replace it with this 'Scientism' though - I'm not sure why you would need to do that.
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I think that's where the new atheists do people a disservice, the concentration on relatively moderate believers as a target but using the examples of the loons which are really quite irrelevant to the average Christian, Muslim, Jew, Hindu etc.
I don't see the disservice here. I've heard Hitchens on innumerable occasions point out that moderates tend to be quite slippery when it comes to defining their beliefs, so as a policy he tackles beliefs which are nailed down for us all to see. "But I don't believe in that myself", isn't really a good enough response. The deplorable attitude of the Catholic Church to contraception may well be opposed by your average Catholic, but that doesn't mean he shouldn't take any of the flack for it. I think religion still holds a weird status for many people. If you were to treat all the religious issues discussed by Hitchens/Dawkins et al as any other organisation, the members at the bottom would be as legitimate a target as the leaders. If my employer adopted a policy reminiscent of the Catholic approach mentioned above, I would expect to take some stick if I didn't either leave or do my best to toss out those responsible. But with religion we allow the dismissal of any such criticism on the grounds of sacrilege. This is ultimately why modern atheists so vehemently attack religion in the first place. This "special status" grants it permission to affect people without facing consequences. It also allows important questions to be ignored, and in this way, the moderates DO prop up the 'extremists' to an extent by stifling crucial debate.
As for the point about a decline in religious moderates meaning a rise in extremists; there will always be peaks and troughs on a moral landscape, as Sam Harris would put it. The degree by which this is the most informed and socially connected generation is astronomical. There's a first time for everything.
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This is another angle to look at why theres no meaningfull overlap between religion and science. Science doesnt give a shiteeee, or have anything to say about what you do, or choose to do with scientific information, its a set of epistemilogical mechanisms for empirically revealing the workings of the world around us, and in that sense it may well be a fanastic tool for ethical decisions, since it gives the best information about reality that we can use in conjunction with our values to make decisions, but its not in and of itself a moral code. Religion is obsessed with what you do, and happens to have some baggage about the natural world, largely in service of its theologies (like its not nearly as important how god made the world, as that he made it).
You're not talking about the 'non-overlapping magisteria' thing of Stephen J Gould here are you?
Not knowingly. Accidentally perhaps. There is some overlap, I suppose, but I dont mean to confer religion any validity in moral authority and behavioural instruction. I'm just saying that it tries to do that, however badly it does it, and however eager we should be to reject its influence in these things, that is its remit and core, wheras science makes no attempt at either of those things (though scientific information can be used to assist moral decisions, and can be very good at it, it doesnt make them for you).
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This is another angle to look at why theres no meaningfull overlap between religion and science. Science doesnt give a shiteeeee, or have anything to say about what you do, or choose to do with scientific information, its a set of epistemilogical mechanisms for empirically revealing the workings of the world around us, and in that sense it may well be a fanastic tool for ethical decisions, since it gives the best information about reality that we can use in conjunction with our values to make decisions, but its not in and of itself a moral code. Religion is obsessed with what you do, and happens to have some baggage about the natural world, largely in service of its theologies (like its not nearly as important how god made the world, as that he made it).
You're not talking about the 'non-overlapping magisteria' thing of Stephen J Gould here are you?
Not knowingly. Accidentally perhaps. There is some overlap, I suppose, but I dont mean to confer religion any validity in moral authority and behavioural instruction. I'm just saying that it tries to do that, however badly it does it, and however eager we should be to reject its influence in these things, that is its remit and core, wheras science makes no attempt at either of those things (though scientific information can be used to assist moral decisions, and can be very good at it, it doesnt make them for you).
I think I misunderstood your first post, sorry.
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Surely, the 'moral authority and behavioural instruction' is a by-product of religion (especially with it intermixes with a civil state) and not its core. Arguably, the core of religion is to provide the individual with existential certainty in an uncertain world and in so doing to bind such groups of individuals together into a community - which is why, even long into the scientific age, religion still retains its power over individuals and communities.
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I'm not sure the two are mutually exclusive, but thats not what I think is the most important aspect. Youre thinking along similar lines to me, insofar as it seems that organised relgions arose after the agricultural revolution alowed populations far larger and more widespread than egalitarian tribal communities can handle, so a means of centralised authoritarian unification became beneficial. But I think the tribal identity is much more based on ethical code. All beliefs not your own back then (and to a large extent now) come with a tag of 'not right/unethical/cant be trusted'. The label 'christian' or 'muslim' is a quick easy tribal identifier. It says this person thinks and practices as I do, follows the same rules as me, handed down by the same authority, he prays to the same god (the god that becomes the defacto tribal elder and patriach), its cool, we can deal. Handy to a brain thats adapted to only really deal with people you've known most of your life, neurologically equipped to deal with a couple of hundred people in your whole reality but finds itself in a population (and travel) explosion. So, yes, bind into a community, but not by giving answers about the origins or nature of reality.
I mean, whats more important to you in another person, that they understand and accept the copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics or they understand and believe in the importance of freedom of speech?
Remember that for a long time and in many areas, religions were the state as well. Technically this state still is religious.
The musings of religious texts and authors on the nature of reality and matters existential seem to me equally inevitable, as we ask such questions and there was nothing else going to answer them at the time, and incidental.
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FYI, if there are any Kindle owners here, Hitchens' book God is Not Great is currently in the sale for 99p
http://www.amazon.co.uk/God-not-Great-Everything-ebook/dp/B0064M9WHK/ref=sr_1_cc_2?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1324919247&sr=1-2-catcorr
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RIP we will miss you.
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Been a busy bee and wanted to respond to this properly so sorry for delay.
nfe, I dont believe we fundamentally (see what I did there? ho ho ho) disagree.
No I don't think we do. I'm obviously an atheist, my academic study of religion is purely as history and anthropology rather than as pursuit of revelation or whatever, I just don't really see any problem with it as it's understood and applied by the overwhelming majority of religious people. I'd be quite indifferent to the successful "growing out of" religion (though I think it's all but impossible - Hitchens agreed though Dawkins doesn't, surprisingly) provided we could keep all the books and archaeology. I'm equally indifferent to it not happening.
The specific articles of christian belief, or at least biblically justifiable behaviour (very serious statement, words chosen carefully) some of which I was a tad flippant about, are *relatively* unimportant. The point of that part is that most people in the UK dont directly consult the bible for moral guidance or behavioural instruction, and that would be the priciple defining characteristic of a christian (if we assume that perspectives of the nature of reality are not pertinent). I dont really see that thats a contestible point, but would like to see what you say about it.
I'd assert that consulting the Bible for moral and/or behavioural advice or instruction (or indeed for anything) is the defining characteristic of a Christian. Simply believing in Jesus as divine (and is God, you can't believe he's a separate divine being to God or you're polytheistic) is all it takes to be Christian in a religious sense - or at least this is the picture established by the apostles in the Bible texts. As an aside, I'd note that I've met people who called themselves Christian in a philosophical sense, who believe in his teaching but not in him being divine, which I think is a fair enough thing to do really, if confusing.
I suppose in the back of my mind in my private definition of 'strongly religious' is that you will give greater credence to a sciptual instruction than to the ethical climate of your ambient culture or empirical evidence. There is some obvious overlap, but I speak of the people that will argue a biblical statement simply because its in the bible, and follow it to the best of their ability or interpretation, regardless of whatever contradictions or challenges they find from modern secular ethical values (such as free speech or the right to birth control, or lead uranium dating).
"Strongly religious" is a toughie to define. I know many a minister who wouldn't fit that description, for instance. Those that would fall under your (I realise you qualify it with "private" and don't mean to say you're implying it's universal) definition do their fellow Christians a disservice (in my eye at least, I'm not one and can't speak for them obviously, but my understanding of their scripture and their notable theologians is usually significantly more thorough) by trying to adhere to Christian ideas that only really came into being well after a thousand years after Jesus in a specific location and had been abandoned by the majority of Christians who ascribed to those ideas only a few hundred years later.
Those that place the bible as the highest authority and dont then try to water it down or find a way to circumvent its explicitly stated literal reality and permanence of its instruction in order to better operate day to day with a secular culture. Why I semi-humourously said 'consult the bible on what to have for dinner'. I say 'semi' (hehe) because I know some christians that do that, have chosen to intpret the bible that way, but the fact that its an interpretation is irrelevent, same as if you choose a more science-friendly intperpretation of genesis, or an historically contexutal interpretation of the prohibition of women wearing clothes with more than one cloth in them; its the fact of placing the bible as a priciple source of greater authority than anything else possible.
I don't agree the Bible has "explicitly stated literall reality". Regarding it's being held as greater authority than anything else (I'll assume you mean than anything else earthly? Obviously it is not part of The Authority, to suggest so is heretical in Christian eyes) is indeed a problem. Though I'd contend again that this is not the idea of the majority of Christians alive, for whom it is simply one of the mediums through which people experience God - most modern (post-Enlightenment) Christian theology revolves around trying to see, to paraphrase Gilkey (prominent 20thC theologian - one who helped establish the prohibition of creation being taught in science classes in the US) "how God can be known - by rational enquiry of some sort, through, through religious experience, or through a revelation responded to by faith". Now his definition of rational enquiry differs from mine and yours but he is summing up the opinion of most modern theologians - and I believe the vast majority of Christians (and probably the majority of all religious people - that it is the experience of the person that is the source of the religion. The "feeling", to use an insufficient term, that there must be something greater and the "feeling" that Jesus is their saviour rather than scriptural instruction that he is. Quite clearly, the actually deity and saviour in question will differ in most cases primarily because of the locality and family into which they are born.
The same answer can also be applied to your response to my comment on science with respect to religion. There are no real attempts to reconcile science and religion with believers. There are interpretations, that I'm sure the interpreters hold quite sincerely, that are superficially more congenial to scientific enquiry, but the ultimate authority is not observible evidence, its scripture, and science has been done in service of scripture, as a religious quest, albeit a kind of novelty to assist in the glorifying of a god by fleshing out the details of his portfolio.
Whilst not up to date on science further than popular science documentaries and books, I'd presume there definitely have been attempts to reconcile the two, no? Likely borderline comedy efforts, principally from "universities" in the US that don't deserve accreditation but attempts all the same. By credible scientists though - no, I imagine not. But that doesn't make them incompatible. Literal takes on scripture definitely are, but not metaphysical understandings of God.
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You're right nfe that there have been many attempts to reconcile Science and religion, and there have also been attempts to deny that any reconciliation is necessary, but all of these mental gymnastics ultimately fail because religion is fundamentally anti-Science. That is also why I cannot share your indifference to the stasis (or growth) of moderate religious belief - it promotes faith as a virtue (which it most definitely is not) and promotes the idea that there are some things that are supernatural. The scientific literacy of our society in general is very poor, partly due to the continued promotion of these outdated modes of thought (obviously there are other factors too).
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You're right nfe that there have been many attempts to reconcile Science and religion, and there have also been attempts to deny that any reconciliation is necessary, but all of these mental gymnastics ultimately fail because religion is fundamentally anti-Science.
I wouldn't agree. I don't accept that it is fundamentally anti-science anymore than dancing is anti-architecture (to borrow an unrelated idea from Zappa), they're connected only in the very, very broadest sense and not attempts at the same thing at all.
That is also why I cannot share your indifference to the stasis (or growth) of moderate religious belief - it promotes faith as a virtue (which it most definitely is not)
I also don't accept Dawkins' ever-repeated "faith is not a virtue". Faith in certain things isn't. But faith itself? The contention that faith is absolutely always a bad is silly. It is not synonymous with "just believe and it'll be alright" which is how people who argue it's a negative thing often seem to see it.
and promotes the idea that there are some things that are supernatural. The scientific literacy of our society in general is very poor, partly due to the continued promotion of these outdated modes of thought (obviously there are other factors too).
Again, I don't think a belief in the supernatural is automatically a bad thing. Just fairly funny (and again, plenty of religious folks don't believe in the supernatural, but consider a divine being which is outside and unconnected to nature other than as its originator, rather than not subject to it).
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You're right nfe that there have been many attempts to reconcile Science and religion, and there have also been attempts to deny that any reconciliation is necessary, but all of these mental gymnastics ultimately fail because religion is fundamentally anti-Science.
I wouldn't agree. I don't accept that it is fundamentally anti-science anymore than dancing is anti-architecture (to borrow an unrelated idea from Zappa), they're connected only in the very, very broadest sense and not attempts at the same thing at all.
In almost all of it's incarnations it is anti-Science because it is based on faith and not evidence. Science is based on observation and evidence; faith involves the denial of observation in order to preserve belief. Any belief system that is based on faith is anti-Science.
That is also why I cannot share your indifference to the stasis (or growth) of moderate religious belief - it promotes faith as a virtue (which it most definitely is not)
I also don't accept Dawkins' ever-repeated "faith is not a virtue". Faith in certain things isn't. But faith itself? The contention that faith is absolutely always a bad is silly. It is not synonymous with "just believe and it'll be alright" which is how people who argue it's a negative thing often seem to see it.
Faith is defined as a complete confidence in something in the absence of proof or in spite of contrary evidence. I don't understand how anyone could consider that to be virtuous! I consider it to be intellectually lazy and utterly reprehensible.
and promotes the idea that there are some things that are supernatural. The scientific literacy of our society in general is very poor, partly due to the continued promotion of these outdated modes of thought (obviously there are other factors too).
Again, I don't think a belief in the supernatural is automatically a bad thing. Just fairly funny (and again, plenty of religious folks don't believe in the supernatural, but consider a divine being which is outside and unconnected to nature other than as its originator, rather than not subject to it).
I don't think it is funny when it subverts childrens' education (which I see a lot), or when it adds legitimacy to people's belief in prayer, faith healing, and other such nonsense which can damage people's health, etc.
Also, believing in a divine being outside of nature IS a supernatural belief. Supernatural means 'outside of nature' or 'beyond nature'. If those people don't consider their particular version of god to be supernatural then they are mistaken.
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You're right nfe that there have been many attempts to reconcile Science and religion, and there have also been attempts to deny that any reconciliation is necessary, but all of these mental gymnastics ultimately fail because religion is fundamentally anti-Science.
I wouldn't agree. I don't accept that it is fundamentally anti-science anymore than dancing is anti-architecture (to borrow an unrelated idea from Zappa), they're connected only in the very, very broadest sense and not attempts at the same thing at all.
In almost all of it's incarnations it is anti-Science because it is based on faith and not evidence. Science is based on observation and evidence; faith involves the denial of observation in order to preserve belief. Any belief system that is based on faith is anti-Science.
It's only anti-science as seen from the fundamentalist (we know everything because the book says, no research needed) or from the pig-headed scientific (everything that is not empirically testable is anti-science) perspectives.
"Not testable through science" is not synonymous with "anti-science". Presenting a concept which cannot be affirmed by science doesn't mean what you are presenting opposes science. Faith does not automatically involve the denial of observation. That's just nonsense.
Unless of course, you are using anti-science to simply mean non-science or unscientific, rather than in the pejorative, opposing sense it reads to me? In which case yeah, it is, but so what?
That is also why I cannot share your indifference to the stasis (or growth) of moderate religious belief - it promotes faith as a virtue (which it most definitely is not)
I also don't accept Dawkins' ever-repeated "faith is not a virtue". Faith in certain things isn't. But faith itself? The contention that faith is absolutely always a bad is silly. It is not synonymous with "just believe and it'll be alright" which is how people who argue it's a negative thing often seem to see it.
Faith is defined as a complete confidence in something in the absence of proof or in spite of contrary evidence. I don't understand how anyone could consider that to be virtuous! I consider it to be intellectually lazy and utterly reprehensible.[/quote]
And I'd consider that attitude to be utterly condescending and reprehensible. Who cares if some people have confidence in something that hasn't been proven - unless it prevents them from from having confidence in things that have? Again, in some cases that's the case, but in the overwhelming majority of cases it is not.
and promotes the idea that there are some things that are supernatural. The scientific literacy of our society in general is very poor, partly due to the continued promotion of these outdated modes of thought (obviously there are other factors too).
Again, I don't think a belief in the supernatural is automatically a bad thing. Just fairly funny (and again, plenty of religious folks don't believe in the supernatural, but consider a divine being which is outside and unconnected to nature other than as its originator, rather than not subject to it).
I don't think it is funny when it subverts childrens' education (which I see a lot), or when it adds legitimacy to people's belief in prayer, faith healing, and other such nonsense which can damage people's health, etc.[/quote]
Well of course not, (though to what children's education? The (in the grand scheme of things) relatively minor number of children, predominantly in the US and Australia, in schools with "balanced-argument" curriculums? But again this is a rather minor issue. I'd reckon the bad (or deliberately misleading) science of things like the MMR, or the unscientific, though presented as science, activities of homeopathy clowns are far more of concern for the world in terms of people's health. Of course, one thing being worse doesn't make the other better, I'm just trying to get across the real-life scope of the "threats" of religion, which I consider to be very minor but regularly subject to massive overstatement.
Also, believing in a divine being outside of nature IS a supernatural belief. Supernatural means 'outside of nature' or 'beyond nature'. If those people don't consider their particular version of god to be supernatural then they are mistaken.
Poorly phrased on my part. A being totally unrelated in any physical sense to the laws of nature, at least as we understand them; I don't believe the vast majority of people would consider that supernatural in the common sense - ie, active within our level of existence and breaking laws of nature as it sees fit.
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Unless of course, you are using anti-science to simply mean non-science or unscientific, rather than in the pejorative, opposing sense it reads to me? In which case yeah, it is, but so what?
Yes, I am using anti-Science to mean unscientific, so we agree on that point. As far as 'so what?' goes - nothing, I was just saying that attempts to resolve science and religion are doomed because religion is unscientific; the two things are incompatible. That was the original point.
Faith is defined as a complete confidence in something in the absence of proof or in spite of contrary evidence. I don't understand how anyone could consider that to be virtuous! I consider it to be intellectually lazy and utterly reprehensible.
And I'd consider that attitude to be utterly condescending and reprehensible. Who cares if some people have confidence in something that hasn't been proven - unless it prevents them from from having confidence in things that have? Again, in some cases that's the case, but in the overwhelming majority of cases it is not.
I think you have misunderstood my point; that is probably my fault as I've had a lot of wine! It isn't about the fact that it hasn't been proven - lots of things have not been proven that I believe in (the Higgs boson, supersymmetry, etc.) The point is that I believe these things because there is some evidence for them, but if new evidence shows my beliefs to be incorrect, I will adjust my beliefs and not simply deny the evidence. This is the opposite of faith - faith places evidence on a very low pedestal. Religious people have faith in a God, or miracles, or the power of prayer or whatever, despite the evidence against these things. Some of those things have been flat out, definitively disproven (such as the efficacy of prayer), but it doesn't matter - people 'have faith'. This is intellectually lazy.
I don't think it is funny when it subverts childrens' education (which I see a lot), or when it adds legitimacy to people's belief in prayer, faith healing, and other such nonsense which can damage people's health, etc.
Well of course not, (though to what children's education? The (in the grand scheme of things) relatively minor number of children, predominantly in the US and Australia, in schools with "balanced-argument" curriculums? But again this is a rather minor issue. I'd reckon the bad (or deliberately misleading) science of things like the MMR, or the unscientific, though presented as science, activities of homeopathy clowns are far more of concern for the world in terms of people's health. Of course, one thing being worse doesn't make the other better, I'm just trying to get across the real-life scope of the "threats" of religion, which I consider to be very minor but regularly subject to massive overstatement.
It is not a relatively minor number of children in the US and Australia - most teenagers in my classes and even some of my A-level students have trouble with some of the Science they come across because they believe in ghosts, mediums, gods and other supernatural nonsense because it is given a degree of credibility by TV programmes, priests, etc.
Also, you are making a big mistake with the Science examples you give - there was never a scientific view that MMR caused autism. There was one Scientist who wrote a dodgy paper, which didn't even go so far as to claim a link, which every other Scientist then denounced. It never got off the starting blocks precisely because Science has mechanisms to weed out incorrect beliefs. The problem in the MMR case was bad reporting by the media (even worse than usual). This can hardly be called the 'fault' of Science. Also, homeopathic claims are unscientific, as you rightly point out. No Scientist would ever call homeopathy Science, so again you cannot level it's deficiencies against Science.
I do understand your point though, but remember that this point was about supernatural beliefs and not just religion. Where you consider the threats of belief in the supernatural to be very minor but subject to massive overstatement, I consider the threats of belief in the supernatural to be quite major but subject to massive understatement. People are given bogus treatments and become very ill or die because of some supernatural beliefs - that is enough to make it a very pernicious influence in my book.
Also, believing in a divine being outside of nature IS a supernatural belief. Supernatural means 'outside of nature' or 'beyond nature'. If those people don't consider their particular version of god to be supernatural then they are mistaken.
Poorly phrased on my part. A being totally unrelated in any physical sense to the laws of nature, at least as we understand them; I don't believe the vast majority of people would consider that supernatural in the common sense - ie, active within our level of existence and breaking laws of nature as it sees fit.
Whether people would consider that supernatural or not does not alter the fact that by definition it IS supernatural, being completely unrelated to the laws of nature.
If, however they think that this being is within the laws of nature, but beyond our understanding because of our limited understanding of Science and nature, then that is fair enough - that is not supernatural. However it then becomes a Scientifically answerable question; as we learn more about Science we should, in principle, be able to discover this type of god. I am all for this type of god because it actually is part of Science; we can either disprove it, or learn about a whole new exciting part of Science. Win/win!
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Unless of course, you are using anti-science to simply mean non-science or unscientific, rather than in the pejorative, opposing sense it reads to me? In which case yeah, it is, but so what?
Yes, I am using anti-Science to mean unscientific, so we agree on that point. As far as 'so what?' goes - nothing, I was just saying that attempts to resolve science and religion are doomed because religion is unscientific; the two things are incompatible. That was the original point.
Right, okay. I don't think something which is unscientific and something which is scientific can't co-exist perfectly happily, though. Which is really my point.
Faith is defined as a complete confidence in something in the absence of proof or in spite of contrary evidence. I don't understand how anyone could consider that to be virtuous! I consider it to be intellectually lazy and utterly reprehensible.
And I'd consider that attitude to be utterly condescending and reprehensible. Who cares if some people have confidence in something that hasn't been proven - unless it prevents them from from having confidence in things that have? Again, in some cases that's the case, but in the overwhelming majority of cases it is not.
I think you have misunderstood my point; that is probably my fault as I've had a lot of wine! It isn't about the fact that it hasn't been proven - lots of things have not been proven that I believe in (the Higgs boson, supersymmetry, etc.) The point is that I believe these things because there is some evidence for them, but if new evidence shows my beliefs to be incorrect, I will adjust my beliefs and not simply deny the evidence. This is the opposite of faith - faith places evidence on a very low pedestal. Religious people have faith in a God, or miracles, or the power of prayer or whatever, despite the evidence against these things. Some of those things have been flat out, definitively disproven (such as the efficacy of prayer), but it doesn't matter - people 'have faith'. This is intellectually lazy.
I could change my post to "without evidence" instead of "proven" and I'd still believe it to stand. I think faith in something which is provably untrue is very silly (still not necessarily bad, though) but simply something not supported by scientific evidence isn't a concern, again, providing it doesn't stop you believing things which ARE supported by significant evidence.
I don't think it is funny when it subverts childrens' education (which I see a lot), or when it adds legitimacy to people's belief in prayer, faith healing, and other such nonsense which can damage people's health, etc.
Well of course not, (though to what children's education? The (in the grand scheme of things) relatively minor number of children, predominantly in the US and Australia, in schools with "balanced-argument" curriculums? But again this is a rather minor issue. I'd reckon the bad (or deliberately misleading) science of things like the MMR, or the unscientific, though presented as science, activities of homeopathy clowns are far more of concern for the world in terms of people's health. Of course, one thing being worse doesn't make the other better, I'm just trying to get across the real-life scope of the "threats" of religion, which I consider to be very minor but regularly subject to massive overstatement.
It is not a relatively minor number of children in the US and Australia - most teenagers in my classes and even some of my A-level students have trouble with some of the Science they come across because they believe in ghosts, mediums, gods and other supernatural nonsense because it is given a degree of credibility by TV programmes, priests, etc.
What problems do they have in science classes due to these things? With what classroom science do the kids struggle to understand because the think ghosts are real, for instance?
Also, you are making a big mistake with the Science examples you give - there was never a scientific view that MMR caused autism. There was one Scientist who wrote a dodgy paper, which didn't even go so far as to claim a link, which every other Scientist then denounced. It never got off the starting blocks precisely because Science has mechanisms to weed out incorrect beliefs. The problem in the MMR case was bad reporting by the media (even worse than usual). This can hardly be called the 'fault' of Science. Also, homeopathic claims are unscientific, as you rightly point out. No Scientist would ever call homeopathy Science, so again you cannot level it's deficiencies against Science.
I didn't use either as an example to accuse science of anything (the term science is there because it's the reporting of non-science as science which creates/created those problems), just as more significant concerns for the world than religious leanings.
I do understand your point though, but remember that this point was about supernatural beliefs and not just religion. Where you consider the threats of belief in the supernatural to be very minor but subject to massive overstatement, I consider the threats of belief in the supernatural to be quite major but subject to massive understatement. People are given bogus treatments and become very ill or die because of some supernatural beliefs - that is enough to make it a very pernicious influence in my book.
Do you really think people believing in faith healing and prayer as a health cure are significant in number compared to those who harm themselves with homeopathy or stupid diets and the like? Again, the prevalence of one doesn't stop the other being bad, but I think priorities are the key.
Also, believing in a divine being outside of nature IS a supernatural belief. Supernatural means 'outside of nature' or 'beyond nature'. If those people don't consider their particular version of god to be supernatural then they are mistaken.
Poorly phrased on my part. A being totally unrelated in any physical sense to the laws of nature, at least as we understand them; I don't believe the vast majority of people would consider that supernatural in the common sense - ie, active within our level of existence and breaking laws of nature as it sees fit.
Whether people would consider that supernatural or not does not alter the fact that by definition it IS supernatural, being completely unrelated to the laws of nature.
Well yes, in terms of dictionary definition, my point is more philosophical in nature I suppose. Sorry, I'm not communicating it well. Essentially: it does not follow that someone believes in what we (the layperson) generally think of as supernatural because they believe in a divine creator out with nature. It does not follow that someone is likely to believe in ghosts or faith healing just because they do believe in a metaphysical god. So I don't think religion as a whole, or belief in god promotes the belief in the supernatural generally - only in a singular supernatural being which most of those believers don't understand as supernatural. Am I making my point any clearer? :lol:
Indeed, I meet many a disappointing atheist who believes in the power of mediums. Alarmingly.
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I could change my post to "without evidence" instead of "proven" and I'd still believe it to stand. I think faith in something which is provably untrue is very silly (still not necessarily bad, though) but simply something not supported by scientific evidence isn't a concern, again, providing it doesn't stop you believing things which ARE supported by significant evidence.
Could you change your post to "despite evidence" and still stand by it? That's what I'm arguing against - Faith usually 'innoculates' people against the evidence opposing their beliefs, which is why I consider it a vice. I agree that not all things need to be supported by evidence, such as my assertion that cats are better pets than dogs - I have no real evidence of any sensible kind to support that, but I believe it anyway. I don't consider it a point of faith though, because I'd have no problem revising it if some evidence were to surface one way or the other.
What problems do they have in science classes due to these things? With what classroom science do the kids struggle to understand because the think ghosts are real, for instance?
Many kids have problems understanding that conciousness, memory, self, etc. are emergent properties of neural activity in the brain. If the brain dies, and neural activity dies with it, but ghosts are real, then there must be more to a person than their brain activity. That one is relatively easy to correct, but others are harder. I have had kids come in with 'killer arguments' against evolution that their parent or church leader have given them because they don't want their children learning the 'lie of evolution' - this is in the UK, not USA, and I have had three of those in the past two GCSE classes that I have taught. You get less problems at A-level, but still I have had A-level students that I have had to work hard to convince that aliens don't visit earth and that Uri Geller cannot really bend spoons with his mind. These might seem like trivial things, but when you have students with real potential and you have having to spend a lot of time helping them to 'unlearn' stuff, they make a lot less progress than they should - I find it sad.
I do understand your point though, but remember that this point was about supernatural beliefs and not just religion. Where you consider the threats of belief in the supernatural to be very minor but subject to massive overstatement, I consider the threats of belief in the supernatural to be quite major but subject to massive understatement. People are given bogus treatments and become very ill or die because of some supernatural beliefs - that is enough to make it a very pernicious influence in my book.
Do you really think people believing in faith healing and prayer as a health cure are significant in number compared to those who harm themselves with homeopathy or stupid diets and the like? Again, the prevalence of one doesn't stop the other being bad, but I think priorities are the key.
I argue against pseudoscience as much as supernatural belief - I don't think that just because one is more prevalent we should ignore the other. I am an equal opportunities skeptic :-)
Also, believing in a divine being outside of nature IS a supernatural belief. Supernatural means 'outside of nature' or 'beyond nature'. If those people don't consider their particular version of god to be supernatural then they are mistaken.
Poorly phrased on my part. A being totally unrelated in any physical sense to the laws of nature, at least as we understand them; I don't believe the vast majority of people would consider that supernatural in the common sense - ie, active within our level of existence and breaking laws of nature as it sees fit.
Whether people would consider that supernatural or not does not alter the fact that by definition it IS supernatural, being completely unrelated to the laws of nature.
Well yes, in terms of dictionary definition, my point is more philosophical in nature I suppose. Sorry, I'm not communicating it well. Essentially: it does not follow that someone believes in what we (the layperson) generally think of as supernatural because they believe in a divine creator out with nature. It does not follow that someone is likely to believe in ghosts or faith healing just because they do believe in a metaphysical god. So I don't think religion as a whole, or belief in god promotes the belief in the supernatural generally - only in a singular supernatural being which most of those believers don't understand as supernatural. Am I making my point any clearer? :lol:
I understand the point - I agree that a belief in god does not necessarily promote a belief in the supernatural genrally, but it can provide a perception of legitimacy of supernatural belief. What I mean is that I think some people, for example mediums, would have a hard time defending themselves if they were the only kind of supernatural claim. However as it stands they can say "well, yes we do believe in the supernatural, but so do billions of other people who believe in god - billions of people can't all be wrong..." I don't know how much of an effect this is, but I have heard arguments like this before.
Indeed, I meet many a disappointing atheist who believes in the power of mediums. Alarmingly.
I really do despair... :x
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I could change my post to "without evidence" instead of "proven" and I'd still believe it to stand. I think faith in something which is provably untrue is very silly (still not necessarily bad, though) but simply something not supported by scientific evidence isn't a concern, again, providing it doesn't stop you believing things which ARE supported by significant evidence.
Could you change your post to "despite evidence" and still stand by it? That's what I'm arguing against - Faith usually 'innoculates' people against the evidence opposing their beliefs, which is why I consider it a vice.
I believe I could, yeah. But that doesn't come up very often, given most sources of faith for the vast majority are untestable.
What problems do they have in science classes due to these things? With what classroom science do the kids struggle to understand because the think ghosts are real, for instance?
Many kids have problems understanding that conciousness, memory, self, etc. are emergent properties of neural activity in the brain. If the brain dies, and neural activity dies with it, but ghosts are real, then there must be more to a person than their brain activity. That one is relatively easy to correct, but others are harder.
Yes this was thinking, that most issues would be pretty easy to fix.
I have had kids come in with 'killer arguments' against evolution that their parent or church leader have given them because they don't want their children learning the 'lie of evolution' - this is in the UK, not USA, and I have had three of those in the past two GCSE classes that I have taught.
Jehova's Witnesses? Other creationists? This can't be very regular though, surely? Three in two GCSE might seem lots, but in the school I went to for instance, at Standard Grade there were something like 12 classes of 20 pupils between the three sciences and I had two kids that were pulled out of all biology lessons that related to reproduction or macro-evolution and a Jehova's Witness, but never knew another anti-evolutionist through school, so it might be easy for it to seem more common than it was?
You get less problems at A-level, but still I have had A-level students that I have had to work hard to convince that aliens don't visit earth and that Uri Geller cannot really bend spoons with his mind. These might seem like trivial things, but when you have students with real potential and you have having to spend a lot of time helping them to 'unlearn' stuff, they make a lot less progress than they should - I find it sad.
Again, yeah, these things are sad - but I don't know if they're harming society in any real fashion? I mean, I can't imagine that aliens having visited Earth or not has much relevance to anything in A-Level science, does it? Uri Gellar and the spoons might for physics, of course.
I do understand your point though, but remember that this point was about supernatural beliefs and not just religion. Where you consider the threats of belief in the supernatural to be very minor but subject to massive overstatement, I consider the threats of belief in the supernatural to be quite major but subject to massive understatement. People are given bogus treatments and become very ill or die because of some supernatural beliefs - that is enough to make it a very pernicious influence in my book.
Do you really think people believing in faith healing and prayer as a health cure are significant in number compared to those who harm themselves with homeopathy or stupid diets and the like? Again, the prevalence of one doesn't stop the other being bad, but I think priorities are the key.
I argue against pseudoscience as much as supernatural belief - I don't think that just because one is more prevalent we should ignore the other. I am an equal opportunities skeptic :-)
I was sure there used to be a little thumbs up emoticon. But, er, thumbs up. I agree, I just think maybe we need to focus on one rather than the other. Given the way or media promotes pseudoscience almost fanatically.
What I mean is that I think some people, for example mediums, would have a hard time defending themselves if they were the only kind of supernatural claim. However as it stands they can say "well, yes we do believe in the supernatural, but so do billions of other people who believe in god - billions of people can't all be wrong..." I don't know how much of an effect this is, but I have heard arguments like this before.
Yeah ok, I can get on board with that observation. I think these things concern me differently because those that believe in mediums and ghost hunters are, in almost all cases being willfully misled and exploited, where as those who believe in god are in most cases not being. So while perhaps other people's belief in a divine being can allow some justification (perhaps more apologetics) to be announced by others, I don't think it's a precursor or is responsible.
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I could change my post to "without evidence" instead of "proven" and I'd still believe it to stand. I think faith in something which is provably untrue is very silly (still not necessarily bad, though) but simply something not supported by scientific evidence isn't a concern, again, providing it doesn't stop you believing things which ARE supported by significant evidence.
Could you change your post to "despite evidence" and still stand by it? That's what I'm arguing against - Faith usually 'innoculates' people against the evidence opposing their beliefs, which is why I consider it a vice.
I believe I could, yeah. But that doesn't come up very often, given most sources of faith for the vast majority are untestable.
I think we've reached a lot of common ground, but I think this is the only thing I still disagree with - perhaps we will just have to agree to disagree but I personally do think that this happens a lot - things like 'power of prayer', 'origin of man', and a whole load of other faith claims are testable, and are held by a lot of people despite the evidence.
I have had kids come in with 'killer arguments' against evolution that their parent or church leader have given them because they don't want their children learning the 'lie of evolution' - this is in the UK, not USA, and I have had three of those in the past two GCSE classes that I have taught.
Jehova's Witnesses? Other creationists? This can't be very regular though, surely? Three in two GCSE might seem lots, but in the school I went to for instance, at Standard Grade there were something like 12 classes of 20 pupils between the three sciences and I had two kids that were pulled out of all biology lessons that related to reproduction or macro-evolution and a Jehova's Witness, but never knew another anti-evolutionist through school, so it might be easy for it to seem more common than it was?
I had two children from the same family who were born again Christians, and one Jehova's Witness in my classes in the past two years. None of them were pulled out of lessons that related to reproduction or evolution, and the Jehova's Witness didn't really argue with things he was taught, he just refused to accept them. The other two would argue with anything and everything they didn't agree with, and would try to bring in arguments from home too. I also had their parents come to school because they thought I was teaching the kids the wrong stuff. In my current school three kids in two classes is higher than usual, but I taught for one year at a school that had a high proportion of foreign students and it was a lot more prevalent there. Even if it is only a couple of kids per school, that is still thousands of kids in England alone who are getting a bad Science education.
Again, yeah, these things are sad - but I don't know if they're harming society in any real fashion? I mean, I can't imagine that aliens having visited Earth or not has much relevance to anything in A-Level science, does it? Uri Gellar and the spoons might for physics, of course.
Life outside of earth and how we would look for it is part of the GSCE curriculum (OCR), although not part of the IOP A-level Physics specification, but it frequently comes up as part of their case-study investigations that they have to do. As I say though it isn't too bad at A-level Physics.
Yeah ok, I can get on board with that observation. I think these things concern me differently because those that believe in mediums and ghost hunters are, in almost all cases being willfully misled and exploited, where as those who believe in god are in most cases not being. So while perhaps other people's belief in a divine being can allow some justification (perhaps more apologetics) to be announced by others, I don't think it's a precursor or is responsible.
That's a fair point - it does annoy me more when people are misleading and exploiting others (such as the mediums) rather than espousing stuff that they genuinely believe (like most religious people).
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Theres a lot of interesting and quality discussion in the last posts that I want to stick my oar in. Oh will the inuendos dry up? I doubt it. So, apologies for not quoting directly, I'm too damned lazy.
nfe, I think our divergence is in our respective characterisations and perceptions of intensity, for want of a better term, and prevelance of religious belief as opposed to an a priori disgreement in the validity of those perspectives. I mentioned a while back that we have no good reliable way of gauging the religiosity of this ostensibly secular country. We all agree that its secular, because its bloody obvious, but we have by and large personal experience to draw on as to the nature of religious belief here, with a perhaps a handfull of statistics. This is woefully inadequate to draw reliable conclusions. I really dont know how many christians are what I'm going to term 'casual' christians that feel some sympathy with some of the philosphies in the bible and what I'm going to call 'nutters' that think that its true, or more importantly their interpretation is true, and its a far more universally viable guide on life and reality than our best current information suggests.
Im gonna set that aside for a minute and have at some of the evidence/faith and religion as anti-science discussion, because I think its a usefull way of getting a foothold on a more crystalised perepective on what a 'nutter' is, and why its often corrosive to quality of life to be a 'nutter'.
The problem to my mind is not that...I'm gonna have to stop saying nutter, it was funny for a bit but in my own head I'm starting to sound like a 'tw@t', but since terms like 'strongly religious' are in contention (rightly so) and 'extremist' and 'fundamentalist' are equally inflamatory, contentious and potentially subjective I'm gonna go with 'Literalist', which I dont even really mean to be someone that thinks the bible (or other religious text) is literal truth, but someone that will place greater importance on it as an authority and source of information than anything else...Scripturalists, I'm gonna call them scripturalists...where was I? Right, the problem to my mind is not that sripturalists dont agree on the statements, broad or detailed, of science, its that they have a fundamental epistemilogical dissonance with it. They start with their answer. Thats it in a nutshell. Science cant start with an answer. Free enquiry cant start with an answer...but I'm getting ahead of myself there. They may be the more liberal sort that accept pretty much everything that science says happened/happens but always tag on 'Its great that god did it like that, aint he just swell?'. Nice and unfalsifiable, ostensibly innocuous. They might be the sort that throw all modern science and scientific methodology out of the window and scramble desperately with bogus evidence and fatuous analogies to satisfy themselves that the earth is 6000 years old and the only major change its seen in that time involved a global flood and a floating zoo. Doesnt matter.
To frame exactly how much it doesnt matter, I'm just gonna go ahead and say: science, in its curent set of models and statements is wrong. Now I dont know that to be the case, you know I dont know that, thats not the point. The point is that thats a perfectly tenable position in science. The reason being its always open to being proved wrong and will be changed if new evidence comes to light that says a model is inadequate or incorrect. Its happened before, it WILL happen again. 100 years ago we didnt even know that there were other galaxies. We thought they were nebulae, clouds, within a universe that was pretty much homogeneously distributed stars. Oops. Easy proved wrong. That universe dwarfs the geocentric, firmament covered model of ancient times that was, however incredibly poorly to our eyes, quite empirically sensible, or understandable at least, at the time. In 100 more years we may have better substantiation for models that are currently hypothesese that make the expanse of the known cosmos look samller than and as primitive as that poxy little earth and firmament model of the bronze age.
With a religious belief of the 'scripturalist' type, that sort of revision of understanding is impossible. It always gets 'god did it' tacked on at the start, like an extra little self serving post-it note that must be attached to everything for it to have full validity and perspective. Nothing really changes. The important thing, really, is that you can allow what you think you know to change, by giving questions new information and different foundational assumptions and approaches. This cant be the case if you always start with the answer.
I've seen this 'thinking' in one of my more intelligent religious friends. Hes an aerospace engineer. He designs planes. Or helps at least. Hes a bright chap. Hes told me that hes capable of considering a matter based on the evidence and empirical experience alone (when I say empirical by the way, I dont mean measurable, I mean within the bounds of common and reasonably reproducible physical sensory experience). He also told me that when he "catches myself thinking without god" he feels shame. Shame fercryin outloud, that he didnt have 'god' as his answer and prime mover for all considerations at all times. One example is hardly national statistics, but this (anecdotal, inadmissible) report is indicative of the kind of 'god as answer first' thinking as something dissonant with independant thought and corrosive to consideration of the avaiable facts on their own merit.
Now, again, that in and of itself is fairly unthreatening. But. Oh, theres a but: thats symptomatic of an unwillingness to think and consider the world around you as you find it that extents far further than physical models of reality. That sort of unwillingness to question and inability to assimilate new evidence and experience and allow it to change your worldview applies socially and ethically as well.
I mentioned earlier (something I learned quite recently, or at least have been convinced of for the time being, previously thinking that ethical considerations could be entirely rational) that ethical decisions cant be made by rational consideration alone, that we use evidence to inform our most desired outcome and try to bring it about, but doesnt tell you whats desireable. Simplistically at least. Science gives the best information about nature and reality. If you close yourself off to that, then you can risk causing or allowing serious harm. Stem cells come to mind pretty quickly. I dont think thats a point of great contention here, just whos the bigger tosser, the homeopath or the faith healer, lets count the number of people they give shitee information to that are quite probably suffering poorer quality of life as a result. I have no problem with that, since I have massive problems with such new age bunk as well. But what I havent seen is an addressing of the root cause of this resistance to recieving the best information to inform our, quite common, standard issue human compassion - putting a greater, and incontestitble authority before and above the evidence we find around us. The link between how you think, how you derive your view of the world, where from, what baggage it may come with, and getting the best information for your ethical compass is a link too infrequently made. I think its real and very important - how you think, indeed, that you think has a very strong connection with consciencious compassionate action.
Which leads to - we learn new values. All the time. I'd like to think that we, over the last few hudred years, have become less tollerant of violence, have taken great measures to combat disease and poor living conditions. I dont think that science made us do it, I think that its facilitiated it, and by and large our more tollerant and accepting societies can be traced to wider communication and travel, and empathy taking its natural course. Mostly. Consider the objections to things like gay marraige. Now, some secular people have misgivings but by far the more vocal are religious. Objections to family planning and birth control; again, religious. The deriviation of ones beliefs, both in in the nature of reality and in ethical authority from an incontravertable supreme arbiter prevents us learning new values. Or some of us at least. The scripturalist is more likely to hold the precepts he finds in his scripture above the 'evidence' or what he may learn from experience directly and exclusively (in these examples that gay people just find the same sex attractive and love is love, leave them be, its not really any different than you, and overpopulation and mandating bringing children into impoverished and potentially dangerous circumstances (to them and their development) because they have a fully human immortal soul from the moment of conception is basically worsening life for the living for the sake of the not yet living...there are many more similar examples one can think of where a belief in an primary authority from which you derive your answers leads to behaviours and practices that make life worse for many people; one doesnt need to resort to the media-friendly trigger happy bomb making extremists).
So, while the intellectual dishonesty of your average Young Earth Creationist (or indeed crystal healing idiot or medium) infulriates the hell our of me, and they are demonstrably wrong and flagrantly idiotic, that isnt the most pernicious force at work, to my mind. Its the facilitiation of suffering and inequality which is deeply connected to an unwilligness to learn or abandon certain authoritarian starting points in 'inquiry' (if it still deserves the name, which is doesnt). It degrades free enquiry in a very general sense, with very real repurcussions. Kids not believing evolution because their pastor says its a lie is kinda niether here nor there, in the first part; the disbelief in the scientific model. In the second part; because their pastor, in effect conduit and interpretor of Gods authority, said its a lie and they buy that because of the simple fact of it being said by a religious authority and that overrides any further learning. If those same children in 50 years time get cancer and refuse, or worse, campaign against embryonic stem cells being used to grow new organs for transplants, or food for all of us (each quite real possibilities) because they never learned to outgrow that shiteety authoritarian non-thinking then they're going to suffer for it, and quite possibly the rest of us as well.
On reflection I really neednt have chosen a hypothetical futuristic example, but I've gone and typed it now. Could have just gone with the abortion thing, its obvious and easy enough, or religious reasons (biblical or not; the same 'religious authorty comes up with answer before any real questioning, real consideration of the problem circumvented' thing applies with the catholic churches stance on contraception (with respect to birth rate and control of STDs), the attitudes that are fostered between many religious people (I know lots of 'moderate' christians that think that muslims are basically sub-human, animalistic, and, surprisingly they dont know and dont want to get to know any muslims; they actively avoid all members of a group of people they just already know are universally repugnant) and so on and so forth.
Also, its worth noting that 'evidence' doesnt mean the same thing to them as us. To them it often means, if not usually to always means, 'interpretation'. That doesnt mean the same thing to them as us either. I see an anti-clockwise decaying spiral in a detection chambers magnetic field, I interpret that evidence as an electron. Actually it might be a proton, I'm a bit rusty. They leave their car unlocked while shopping, come back to find it still there (and discover its unlocked) and interpret that as god protecting their property, further evidence for His existance. Before anyone calls that as a stupid example, its a real one, from my own experience. They see a schizophrenic and can quite readily (not much in proportion, but many in number) interpret that as demonic possession (Edit: this is not a werid little novelty of religion, or a quaint anacronism; people have been killed in modern times in barbaric rituals trying to drive out demons. Demons for $%&# sake./edit). These interpretations are just more answer-precedes question thought circumvention, so much confirmation bias, and that is 'evidence' to the *ahem* 'strongly religious'. In my experience and observation at least. I know a lot of christians that are much less quick off the mark with their mumbo-jumbo interpretations, but none that dont use them as a cornerstone of their worldview.
This probably gives a better definition of what I think a 'strongly religious' person is, why I dont that that religion should be tolerated as a daft unthreatenting novelty, and why the whole thing is quite utterly egregious.
And I'll lump in all the astologers, mediums, crystal-whatever-the-hell-they-are people, new age mumbo jumbo spouting cretins, homeopathists, and so on and so forth. Imbeciles to the last, often dangerously so.
Recommended reading if this overwritten polemic of a post wasnt enough for you - carl sagan, demon haunted world. Hes cleverer, better informed and nicer than me, and that book is basically on the same subject; critical thinking as a vital and undernourished aspect of modern life.
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Well I am not as lofty as you intellectuals but I did hear a poem about him on Radio 4 "Saturday Live". It was written by Luke Wright:
So Long then Mr Hitchens, your perfect rage still burning bright
Off to meet your maker
Or maybe not if you are right.