He doubted doubt
So, my curiosity renewed about Vernon’s much-recycled trope that only theists doubt while atheists are full of certainty, I amble over to his blog and find an even more ridiculous example. He’s praising John Cornwell’s book on Dawkins:
It is a gently written, precision riposte to The God Delusion. Cornwell used to be an agnostic and so appreciates the place of doubt in life. He also ‘doubted his doubt’ and returned to the Catholic faith…
Ah – so he’s a doubly wonderful fella because he doubted not once but twice, thus returning to ‘the Catholic faith’ which of course as is well known is all about doubt and always has been. That’s what the pope is for, that’s what the Vatican is for, that’s what encyclicals are for – to reiterate the value and merit of doubt. Returning to the Catholic faith is admirable, while pointing out the flaws in ‘faith’ as a way of thinking is wicked because it fails to appreciate the place of doubt in life.
This stuff is really beginning to get on my nerves. What next? Rapists are admirable because they appreciate the place of women’s rights in life? Corrupt officials are admirable because they appreciate the place of integrity and duty in life? Why does Mark Vernon – an ex-priest – get to pat himself and his theist buddies on the back for being appreciators of doubt while they all get together to distort and swear at the arguments of atheists? Why is faith doubt while lack of faith is certainty? Why doesn’t someone slap them with a wet mackerel every time they try that trick?
I get the feeling Mark Vernon and I don’t define the word “atheist” in the same way. By my definition, an atheist can just believe there’s no god. No claims to know or be certain required. Even Dawkins says he’s just a 6, not a totally confident 7, on the existence of God. So the attacks about over-certainty just perplex me.
I don’t even think theists necessarily suffer from over-certainty. Theists and atheists just believe something, and agnostics are too torn to even have a belief. That’s how I define the terms, anyway.
Maybe it’s Dawkins’ tone that bothers him. If Dawkins were talking to a world of sensible agnostics, maybe he wouldn’t be as charged up. But with the world being what it is, his tone strikes me as just right. No seven deadly sins. Not even one. I can disagree with various things he says, but find him downright reasonable. (Less of a flamethrower than Hitchens, for example…)
Just so. It’s not that there’s nothing to disagree with, it’s that so many people who are yipping about Dawkins do such an abysmal job of it (Eagleton, Cornwell, Bunting, Alibhai-Brown, Theo Hobson, etc etc). The irony is that they thus make Dawkins’s point for him: faith is inimical to clear thinking. You’d think they would want to try hard to be rigorous in order to avoid just that irony, but they simply jump in flailing madly.
I doubted my doubt (being a doubter par excellance), so now I’m convinced that the universe has an overseer composed of three persons, one of which has a virgin mother, and another is some sort of ghost. Makes sense to me.
Why can’t atheists see how uppity and oppressive they are with their insistence on, umm, not making things up?
[Mark Vernon walks into the lion’s den, offering cautious greetings.]
Did I ever say that atheists per se can’t do doubt? It’s the militant sort that apparently find uncertainty so offensive in relation to religion – hence, for example, the argument that a liberal faith is a cover for religious terrorism. But since, obviously, you won’t believe me, try Julian Baggini’s Very Short Introduction for a reference on why this matters to the state of atheism, let alone anything else.
Similarly, the point about Cornwell having doubted his doubt is that it makes him wholly unlike the Pope et al who too apparently feel that certainty on matters theological is best.
And, whilst of course there is no law requiring atheists to read someone before critiquing them – let alone considering them in a generous light – my main point in this debate, for what it’s worth, is that of the agnostic. Cornwell may be a theist, but I most certainly – ho, ho – am not. (Or you may be assuming Cornwell is my ‘buddy’, ‘theist’ in that sentence describing him not me. If so, he ain’t.)
On your previous post: as above, don’t take it from me that Dawkins believes science will one day ask all questions worth asking and provide the best answers, take it from him: apart from much in The God Delusion itself, take a look at just one quick reference, the last paragraph of his essay in Is Nothing Sacred? edited by Ben Rogers.
And sure, I don’t have a poll on how creationists have responded to Dawkins’ book. But I do know some creationists\intelligent designers: they do say, if given the chance, that it is neo-Darwinian nihilism that they worry about, along with other things of course. I suppose I could have put this in the piece.
Or maybe it’s the ‘science as salvation’ bit that is so annoying. If you want to know more of that, Mary Midgley wrote a whole book with the title – hence the quotes.
Welcome Mark,
I wonder how your claim that “Dawkins believes science will one day ask all questions worth asking and provide the best answers”
is compatible with, for instance, Dawkins discussion in The God Delusion of why we should be (rather than are) moral, where he says:
“Moral philosophers are the professionals when it comes to thinking about right and wrong…they agree that ‘moral precepts, while not necessarily constructed by reason, should be defensible by reason’.”
Plenty of us have objected to your sloth accusation, and here would be a good place to spell out what strong theist arguments Dawkins has refused to engage with.
When you say that the Richard Dawkins Foundation is “illiberal” – I wonder what your basis for that claim is – looking at the site the only thing to do with children and religion is “Providing millions of pounds to schools to teach creationism is dangerous, say atheist Richard Dawkins and Richard Harries, the Bishop of Oxford”.
Your “Envy” section is unclear as to the distinction between probability and plausibility and you don’t make clear what you are trying to say with the Russel reference.
I think your “Pride” section deliberately and misleadingly substitutes “science” for “reason” and thus misrepresents Dawkins.
Lots of above from here: http://pyjamasinbananas.blogspot.com/2007/09/mark-vernon.html
“Why doesn’t someone slap them with a wet mackerel every time they try that trick?”
You know, John Cornwell was once placed in a convalescent home for having attacked a nun with a ruler. He also brutally bashed his next door neighbour with a cricket bat and assaulted a young girl. It was to be expected though as his Irish mother as a child was always beating him about the place. Also, neither family nor the nuns, and later priests, charged with his education offered Cornwell the affection and sense of belonging normally associated with healthy psychological and social development.
So be warned as whoever tries to slap him with a wet mackerel should be on the look out. Do not say you have not been forewarned. You might not be as lucky as was the son of Amittai.
I’ve always wondered what it would be like to be publicly sliced and diced. Mark–your review of Dawkins was, um, just a little provocative. You do kind of make it seem like being an atheist vs. agnostic is a question of character, and the virtuous folks must be agnostics.
I agree with you about what the good character traits are (people should be open-minded, respectful, tolerant, thoughtful….) but I just think atheists can have them. I’m not even so sure that Dawkins doesn’t. I’d have to go into more line by line Dawkins exegesis than I can stand to prove it, but he strike me as a guy with a white hat, not a black hat.
How’s that for analysis? Anyhow–your agnosticism articles have given me something to think about. Because of them,I wrote an essay recently called “Why I am not an agnostic” which will maybe see the light of day somewhere soon.
“Ah – so he’s a doubly wonderful fella because he doubted not once but twice, thus returning to ‘the Catholic faith’ which of course as is well known is all about doubt and always has been.”
JOHN Cornwell’s pronouncement to become a priest at the age of 13 followed after a traumatic paedophile attack on his way home from his forays into the museums and theatres of Kensington. Because of this unspeakable experience at this young age, the church establishment figures into Cotton Seminary should never have allowed John Cornwell in my unassuming inference. The Catholic Church by all accounts cleverly subjugated him extremely. This was none other than an alternative form of child abuse. The family who took me out from Goldenbridge, who now reside in Glasgow, have a son who wanted at six years of age to become a priest. He was by someone or other hauled before the local Scottish bishop – who thankfully rightly decided against taking him into the seminary/private school at such a young age. Nevertheless, he later at thirteen years of age went to a private school in Aberdeen [the Granite City] persuadably it was akin to Cotton Seminary where John Cornwell attended. I do not know exactly. He is suffice it to post now a Redemptorist priest and a highly qualified psychologist. As for John Cornwell’s present status it is a pure case of ‘the devil you know is better than the devil you do not know”.”Doubts, and any attempt at independent thought, are dealt with briskly” – when he also points out to one priest that Catholics did their share of martyr-making, he is told, “Oh, burning at the stake is nothing … it only takes a few minutes”. Be happy anyway whether you are in the doubting Thomas mode or whether you are not.
Greetings Mark
“It’s the militant sort that apparently find uncertainty so offensive in relation to religion – hence, for example, the argument that a liberal faith is a cover for religious terrorism. But since, obviously, you won’t believe me, try Julian Baggini’s Very Short Introduction for a reference on why this matters to the state of atheism, let alone anything else.”
Yeah I have tried Julian’s book; I’ve also seen him use that word – ‘militant’ – at least once on ‘Talking Philosophy.’ I think that word is tendentious and misleading – since it’s a common media euphemism for people who set off bombs in crowded places! I told Julian that when we were both at the Center for Inquiry in July – he said okay, and substituted a somewhat less tendentious and misleading modifier. I forget what it was though. Aggressive? Vocal? Something like that.
“don’t take it from me that Dawkins believes science will one day ask all questions worth asking and provide the best answers”
Ah but that’s not what you said and not what I disputed. (I would dispute that that accurately represents Dawkins’s view, because apart from anything else he has explicitly and emphatically said he is “a passionate anti-Darwinian when it comes to politics and how we should conduct our human affairs” – which surely is not compatible with believing that science will some day “provide the best answers” to such questions. It is compatible (I think) with believing that scientific understanding can contribute to the work of providing the best answers, but not with thinking it can directly and straighforwardly provide them. So I think even your altered version is wrong – but the version is altered.) What you said and what I disupted is
“Rather than grappling with the possibility that there are areas of experience on which reason and experiment can throw no or little light, Dawkins marches blindly behind a banner calling blithely for more and more scientific, atheistic light.”
Sorry, but I just find that obscurantist and pre-emptive. Maybe you put it more loosely than you meant to – but that is the way you put it. What ‘areas of experience’ are there on which reason and experiment can throw no or little light? Is that perhaps just an inflated way of making the claim that there are areas of experience that science can’t fully or satisfactorily describe? Is it just a way of saying that we need novels and memoirs and conversation as well as science if we want a rich understanding of experience? But the trouble with that of course is that Dawkins would never disagree with it. Is that why you made a stronger and less reasonable claim?
I don’t have the Ben Rogers book, so I can’t immediately find the paragraph you cite. You wouldn’t like to type it in for us would you? Or cite specific passages from TGD, with page references?
Amazon synopsis, [part of] “I do feel a sense of the sacred in a number of respects and I could quote other scientists who feel the same.’ Richard Dawkins. We call many things sacred, from cows, churches and paintings to flags and burial grounds. Is it still meaningful to talk of things being sacred, or is the idea merely a relic of a bygone religious age? Does everything – and every life -have its price? Is Nothing Sacred?”
Jean k I would be intrested to read that essay,could you post a link?
Surely if he doubted his doubt a third time that would be even better? And in fact since doubt requires something to doubt, the ultimate position of doubt (once one has doubted an infinite number of times) will be atheism. Atheism is therefore infinitely virtuous. QED.
Mark: “don’t take it from me that Dawkins believes science will one day ask all questions worth asking and provide the best answers, take it from him: apart from much in The God Delusion itself”
See the comments to the “Militant Tendency” post above for why this is incorrect.