Pitchforks
There’s an intense discussion going on at Panda’s Thumb, on a thread of PZ’s that links to the comments by Dawkins and Dennett here – and now a new comment by Paul Kurtz. It’s that ‘should we shut up about religion or not?’ question. No we certainly should not, is my view, you will be calmly unamazed to hear. I tried to say it there only to be told I wasn’t allowed to comment. Because – what? I’ve been banned? I don’t think so, I think it must be a kink of some sort. Anyway I thought I wouldn’t waste my comment, so I’ll put it here. (At least I’m allowed to, here. It’s my Monopoly game and I can put ten hotels on Boardwalk if I want to.)
Well, another way of adding up the score is to point out how much deference to religion and religious beliefs there has been in US public discourse in the past few decades, and then noticing where that has gotten us. The expression ‘give them an inch and they’ll take a mile’ leaps to mind. The more atheists and rationalists and defenders of the Enlightenment defer and bow and keep silent about religion, the more aggressive and truculent and self-pitying religious believers seem to get. Why is that? Could it be, say, a sense of entitlement? If so, could it be time to give up on that approach and get real?
That seems to me to be how it is. We’re always hearing that forthright atheism will frighten a lot of people off, and maybe it will, but what has the opposite done? It seems to me it’s given a hell of a lot of people the idea that there is just no such thing as enough respect for and deference to ‘faith’. If no deference is ever enough (short of actual conversion and joining the godpesterers, and I won’t do it, I won’t I won’t I won’t) then why not give it up and tell what we take to be the truth? At least that way, we get to tell the truth, instead of doing all this creepy smirking tiptoeing around and apologizing for not believing fairy tales.
So good luck to PZ. I’d stand shoulder to shoulder with you, but silly old PT won’t let me.
Where the hell does PZ get the patience for PT from? Just looking at the sheer amount of verbiage wears me out (the slimness of the browser page’s slide bar is already enough to discourage me). There’s too much crap there to think of reacting to. To limit myself to OB’s comment, all I have to say is that if anyone expects anyone else to shut up about the self-evident (as opposed to “revealed”) truth, how about providing a good reason for doing so? I have never yet seen one.
Read Kurtz after that comment. It seems to me that Judge Jones did not make a scientific decision regarding ID. Rather, he made legal one establishing that ID has nothing to do with science. True, he was assisted in this by the scientific expertise of others. I’ve read so much since the decision that it’s starting to blur, but someone, whether here or elsewhere, correctly pointed out how unsurprising the decision should be, considering what legal procedure has in common with the scientific method, i.e. it takes the evidence into account and is not supposed to have anything to do with wishful thinking or personal bias.
You shouldn’t be blacklisted, but Reed has just upgraded the software and there’s some funky stuff that has to be shaken out of its guts right now.
What really galls me about that whole discussion in addition to the usual blithe blindness of the theists is that stupid “atheists are only 10% of the population, so we need to be nice to the theists” argument. It’s a doomed strategy: it’s saying that every minority position must lie down and shut up and surrender to the tyranny of the majority. For all the professed political savvy of the proponents of that line, it’s little more than a resignation to failure.
I know, I know. And it’s such an evasion of the basic question: is there any reason to think it’s true, or not? That way of mashing together political tactics and true-false is – a recipe for confusion, and a cynical recipe for chronic, mandated, tactical lying. It befuddles people into thinking factual truth is something that can be usefully voted on; that if enough people believe X, X becomes true. Or else that if enough people believe X, we’re all required to pretend X is true. It’s hard to tell which is more revolting.
And it’s all nonsense anyway because in other subjects that rule doesn’t apply, and we know it doesn’t. It’s just a custom, tradition, habit to think it does in religion, so it’s perfectly circular. We’ve always deferred to religion in this ‘special’ way, therefore we have to go on doing so, because we always have.
“it’s saying that every minority position must lie down and shut up and surrender to the tyranny of the majority.”
Exactly. So one arms oneself with one’s Tocqueville and Mill and one does battle with that terrible idea.
“someone, whether here or elsewhere, correctly pointed out how unsurprising the decision should be, considering what legal procedure has in common with the scientific method”
It was here. I meant to do a Comment on it, too – because I’m always finding myself making that comparison. We don’t get to cite our ‘faith’ as evidence in a courtroom, so surely that should suggest that ‘faith’ is not a valid argument in public matters.
I’m positive the Funides, YECers and IDCers each represent a minority, but thanks to the noodle-neck theist in the middle, they are afforded a protection when talking about ‘faith’ as if they were in the majority. Yeck.