RIP Chris Hitchens.

[nfe]

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.

[Chris]

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.

[MDV]

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.

[Chris]

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.

[nfe]

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.

[MrBump]

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.

[Chris]

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.

[MrBump]

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!!!

[Chris]

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.

[MDV]

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).

[MDV]

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.

[Elliot]

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.

[MDV]

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.

[Chris]

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.

[Dr. Stein]

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.