How to do dialogue
Chris Mooney is in praise of dialogue again.
The fact is, journalism (and dialogue) about science and religion are pretty difficult to oppose.
Case in point: Last week, here in D.C. (my old, new home), I attended an event at the American Association for the Advancement of Science to reintroduce its Dialogue on Science, Ethics, and Religion…At the close of the session, I rose and posed a question. One can never remember exact words, but in essence, it was this: “I’m glad you’re trying to foster dialogue between scientists and the religious community, and I’m sure you’ll succeed. But here is a harder question–how will you foster dialogue with the New Atheists?”
Oh that dialogue about science and religion – the one where everybody gets together and hates on “the New Atheists.” And if they’re slow to get around to that, fortunately, Chris Mooney is there to remind them to get down to it – Mr Communication, Mr Framing, Mr Can’t We All Get Along himself. Chris Mooney is a friend to everyone – except the evil marginal non-mainstream people he insists on calling “the New Atheists” as if that were a known classified species rather than a sloppy journalistic catch-all pejorative.
Good to have you back Chris. You’re a real piece of work.
Gah! Sorry to lower the discourse, but Chris Mooney is a first-class asshole. He doesn’t even try anymore. It’s deliberate, dishonest baiting to increase his street cred with everyone else who can be counted on to hate the “new atheists.”
Am I missing something here…
…just what kind of “dialogue” is it that is giving Mooney such a woody? What kind of dialogue is even possible if one half of the conversation refuses on principle to change their view and reserves the right to stick their fingers in their ears and go, “la, la, la, la” if the other half dares to be anything other than an obsequious toad?
Were “New Atheists” included in this dialogue? No?
Mooney is a first class wanker, and a hypocrite. And to think I bought one of his books…
Still, surely the health professionals must on some level recognize the critical importance heroin plays in many people’s lives–which implies that we can hardly expect addicts to discard their drugs based on health considerations, no matter how persuasive these may seem to many doctors or public health nurses.
The whole purpose of that post was not to encourage dialogue—indeed, atheists are not merely supposed to refrain from trying to convert the faithful to atheism, but to entirely refrain from criticizing religion. The purpose of that post was simply to encourage more respect for religion.
I beg to differ.
He is a friend to everyone except his critics. He unfriended me, remember?
Or maybe he’s a friend to everyone who can help him sell books…
It seems to me that the entire substance of the ‘science and religion dialogue’ amounts to a discussion between people of both persuasions talking about what shits the New Atheists are.
To get free of this, perhaps Mooney could spend a little time illustrating an ideal “dialogue” between science and religion. At least that way we’d all see what we’re missing out on.
The whole purpose of that post was not to encourage dialogue
Indeed. I’ll go one further: I’ve noticed that the sort of people who frequently use “dialogue” (it’s never “conversation,” “discussion,” or anything so prosaic – heaven forefend it ever be “debate”) are nearly always those who don’t want an actual dialogue. They’re support-group types who care more about fostering feelings of inclusivity, not reaching actual conclusions.
“how will you foster dialogue with the New Atheists?”
Mooney can’t even foster dialogues with them on ‘Point of Inquiry’ – a previously excellent free thinking podcast that’s been turned into ‘The Chris Mooney climate change and science journalism show’.
You mean provide actual concrete advice, supported by empirical evidence? C’mon, you’ve read Mooney before, right?
Actually, nothing quite so demanding. I’d be happy with a simple outline of what he thinks would qualify as good ‘religion/science dialogue’ – what kind of subjects raised, questions posed, possible positions taken and defended and, (ahem…) conclusions reached?
As it stands, apart from shutting up New Atheists, I really can’t see what he’s pushing for.
Sure, Chris, we recognize this. That’s why we’re focused on persuading their children.
Bob, that’s all he is pushing for. As far as I can tell, anyway.
Mooney:
Umm. . . what about Dan Barker, Eric MacDonald, Russell Blackford, all those preachers in the Dennett and Lascala study who lost their faith, etc. etc. etc.? And, of course, there’s always the youth who haven’t yet been brainwashed by faith.
“apart from shutting up New Atheists, I really can’t see what he’s pushing for.”
I used to think he had a longer term objective of creating an alliance between religious leaders and the scientists backing concrete action to tackle climate change – and he wanted atheist scientists to keep quiet in order not to link science with atheism and thus rock the boat on this issue.
Over time however, I’ve changed my mind. Whether he had that as an original objective I think its clear the goal has changed to promoting Project Mooney. There’s clearly a niche in the US religious environment for a ‘pet atheist’ and Chris has jumped (and sit and rolled over) at the opportunity to become the US version of Andrew Brown.
A real dialogue would have to be open to the consideration that some points of view are unreasonable. Mooney wants to rule out the New Atheists without considering what they are really saying. I think both tendencies should be open to discussion, the one that says that New Atheists can’t be talked to and the one that says Mooney is preempting discussion that should be part of the dialogue. This would involve a willingness to allow everyone to have a say wherever the discussions take place.
I’ll grant that there are limits, that some people are too unreasonable or too disruptive to permit a useful exchange, but does this describe the New Atheists? The evidence suggests otherwise.
A few days ago I listened to the debate on the proposition “We’d be better off without religion” with Hitchens, Dawkins, and Grayling arguing for the proposition (it’s on YouTube). I wonder how you can continue to maintain that the New Atheists can’t be allowed in the discussion when they are in fact in it and conducting themselves in an entirely proper manner, as this and many other such discussions shows?
B. – oh yes – now that you mention it I do remember.
Still – it wasn’t his critics he went out of his way to mention and problematize and nudge the dialoguers into othering – it was “””””the New Atheists””””.
Your link to the article has an extra trailing ‘\’ at the end
Oops. Thanks.
(Can’t fix now, am not on own computer. Soon.)
It’s sort of classic really. To enhance solidarity, one needs a scapegoat, a hated other. So demonise the New Atheists, make them the common enemy, so the nice normal religious people and the nice normal scientists can have a group hug. Possibly followed by crumpets and cups of tea. Crumpets and cups of tea are much nicer than New Atheists.
This is bizarre! What is the matter with that man?! He may be an expert at communication, but all he seems able to communicate — and he does it well — is his own lack of understanding, his resolute inability to understand what anyone else is saying.
One of the things that bothers me more than anything in the absurd assumption that is being made when people talk about the compatibility of religion and science is the sheer diversity, and, so often, perversity, of religious belief. Religions come in so many different shapes and sizes, that the claim that religion is consistent with science is almost certainly false for most religions and for most religious beliefs. If the claim is being made that practicing a kind of cumulus shaped spirituality, without any clear ontological commitments, is consistent with doing science, then, of course the answer is, yes, there is no problem. You can even do it and take an interest in collecting match boxes. But if the religious belief happens to be that someone, somewhere, has authority to speak in the name of a transcendent being for which there is no evidence, that this transcendent being speaks to and communes with, human beings, that it has made an appearance in various guises in the world, that it causes miracles to happen and bodies to rise, or brings luck and good fortune to the favoured, punishes the wicked (for any given religious definition of what that word mean ins its various religious iterations) and authorises outrageous immoralities and injustices in its name, then it is not compatible, and it fatuous to suggest otherwise. Nor is there room for dialogue with this sort of thing. Until people start to recognise that when they speak about religion they are not speaking only about the nice people in the church across the street, who seem so culturally warm and fuzzy, and probably pretty fuzzy minded too about what their beliefs imply, they are also speaking of pretty distressing forms of belief and the injustices and inhumanities that flow from then. And just repeating some slogan about the compatibility of religion and science does a great disservice, not only to science, but to the victims of so much religion.
For, religion, despite all the warm and fuzzy notions that it seems to connote for so many people, is not warm and fuzzy. It misleads and misdirects. It abuses children, not only by deforming their lives with physical and emotional and sexual abuse, but by much of the religion that is taught, which is of an incredibly destructive sort, very often indelibly so. It ruins lives and imaginations, it binds them to forms of thinking that are the product of ancient cultures, when people banded together on the side of their god against others on the side of theirs, and while it may have given them protection, it also required their submission and all the hatreds that are born of it. This is still being demanded. There is no other way to teach religion. It is a form of authoritarianism, and even those who attempt to convey a more humane, even secular form of religious thought, will be constantly undermined by people who, in faithfulness to tradition, return people to the faith once delivered to the saints, or whatever group happened to be first and therefore the model of faithfulness.
And it is really tiresome that someone like Chris Mooney, who obviously knows nothing whatsoever about religion and its claims, continues to blight the world with his assinine slurs that he vainly makes about an imagined group of people whom he calls the New Atheists, without any understanding of them either. (He seems a remarkably uninformed person.) I say we adopt the name, because it’s a good way of making a distinction between people who think that religious believers have something to contribute to the future of the world other than theocracy and injustice, and those who think that religion has had its chance, and needs now to be opposed in the name of more effective ways of knowing about and changing the world. The trouble with Chris Mooney is that he really doesn’t know about religion or atheism. And that’s why he can’t have a dialogue, but I have read so much good stuff on Jerry Coyne’s site, here on B&W and on Pharyngula and Dawkins.net, etc., that really is dialogue, and he’s not paying attention. But I suspect that, even if he was, he would not be able to understand. That’s the difference between someone who knows about framing, and those others who know how to put something in the frame.
a kind of cumulus shaped spirituality
Oooh I like that.
Speaking of which, praise is due once again for Seeing and Believing, Jerry’s review of books from Karl Giberson and Ken Miller. It it among the best ever written on the topic of science and religion. It is also wonderfully generous, to the authors and to the many religious people who sincerely struggle with the conflict.
I would guess that the AAAS event was attended by many who have never read the piece, but who assume they know something of its tone. Chris Mooney’s question demonstrates that he is eager to support their ignorance. How will you foster dialogue with the new atheists indeed.
Indeed. I devoured that review. And here’s WEIT doing real education about science and evolution and biology day in and day out, while Mooney does framing and metareporting on climate change – yet he feels called upon to keep scratching away at Coyne et al.
Eric said:
“I say we adopt the name, because it’s a good way of making a distinction between people who think that religious believers have something to contribute to the future of the world other than theocracy and injustice, and those who think that religion has had its chance, and needs now to be opposed in the name of more effective ways of knowing about and changing the world.”
I would much rather be a ‘New Atheist’ like Jerry, Dawkins, Ophelia and PZ rather than an ‘Old Atheist like Pol Pot, Frederich Neitze and Chris Mooney (hey, isn’t framing easy!).
Wow, Eric is on a roll today. Nice comment. I second the support for the cumulus thingie.
That last sentence of Eric’s is good too. Majorly on a roll, dude!
I was thinking about this on the way home today and want to reiterate Eric’s point that no mention is ever made regarding the religious knowledge of the anti-“new atheists”. Their frame has become – if you challenge religion, then you don’t obviously don’t understand religion properly. When the big issue is, which Eric also touched on, whether religious believers past and present have a connection to the divine. Has revelation from a supernatural agency guided the writing of religious texts? Does transcendence involve anything other than the individual mind? Talk of love, art and poetry are not relevant – “new atheists” can enjoy and benefit from a mutual friendships, love affairs, paintings, and poetry readings as much as any religious believer can – maybe more.
Has anyone seen the latest book hawked on Biologos?
Real Scientists, Real Faith
17 Leading Scientists Reveal the Harmony Between Their Science and Their Faith
RJ Berry
The science/faith debate rages on. Yet many leading scientists have an active Christian faith. Here 17 scientists, all esteemed by their peers, tackle two questions: what difference their faith makes to their scientific practice; and, what difference their science makes to their understanding of their faith. Contributors include: Francis Collins, Director, Human Genome Project; Joan Centrella, Chief of the Gravitational Astrophysics Laboratory, NASA; Bob White, Professor of Geophysics, University of Cambridge; Alister McGrath, Professor of Historical Theology, University of Oxford, and molecular biologist; and, Wilson Poon, Professor of Physics, University of Edinburgh.
Maybe we can finally learn what all the “new atheists” don’t understand about religion.
Eric is so good today that the “Christian” half of the troll has devoted an entire post to attacking him. I mention it preemptively and strongly recommend just ignoring it, because he’s doing it out of desperation in order to suck someone into an online slanging match. Read (if you must – I shan’t link) and then consign to deserved oblivion, please.
Just to pick a nice, specific example, perhaps Mr. Mooney or some other dedicated Templeton Foundation lickspittle could explain the compatibility of science’s approach to learning about the world with, say, accusing children of witchcraft and torturing them to exorcise the malign spiritual influences which pollute them?
No takers?
Then perhaps, as a start, we can all admit that at least SOME religion is manifestly NOT compatible with science.
After that, we can start a serious discussion about which religious ideas and traditions are compatible with, or at least not in direct opposition to, a scientific approach to the world. That, however, is exactly the “dialogue” the Templetonian types most specifically want to avoid engaging in at all, or wish to engage in only on their own dishonest terms. If that discussion were engaged in with any level of honesty, there wouldn’t be a whole lot in the box marked “compatible” that was particularly “religious” in character: All we’d have left of religion would be a bunch of vague claims about compassion and awe and humility and the universe being bigger than us, all of which has nothing whatsoever to do with believing in the literal existence of any supernatural beings or powers – in other (very aptly chosen) words, “a kind of cumulus shaped spirituality.” If the only bits of religion compatible with science are the bits that aren’t really very religious in character or content, in what sense are religion and science compatible again?
As the great philosopher Inago Montoya once said, “You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.”
Of course, Chris Mooney is very well aware of all this. He is just convinced that people having the temerity to talk about the incompatibility of science and religion honestly simply must hurt the cause of science and reason, and that deliberately and willfully concealing the evident incompatibility is both possible and somehow or other necessary for the good of science (and sound public policy informed by science, and so on). Unfortunately, he’s never provided any sort of coherent reasoning or remotely convincing body of evidence in support of this position, and has responded with evasion or outright hostility to every suggestion that he is obligated to provide such an argument, and he ignores any and all evidence and reasoning to the contrary, and he goes out of his way to vilify those who disagree with this position he cannot support – which, come to think of it, is a very recognizable pattern of behavior. All of this suggests that Mooney’s commitment to a strictly accommodationist rhetorical/political strategy is an article of faith, and a rather dogmatically embraced article of faith at that. What a peculiar sort of thing to have as a faith conviction!
Why Mooney pisses me off:
When you get right down to it, Chris Mooney is infinitely worse in terms of respect for the religious than the so-called New Atheists are – those labeled New Atheists will generally make their criticisms of religion in public where the religious can answer them, while the “Old Atheists” like Mooney will restrict all dialogue to the “elite” within religion because the non-elites are seen as being too stupid to deal with contrary points of view.
And when we say elite, we do not mean elite as in top scientists even. The threat used by framers is that religious scientists will abandon advocating such positions as evolution simply out of spite at these New Atheists. Essentially what this rounds off to is the idea that religious scientists are in fact, unethical idiots whose science is more a collection of personal opinions than the product of rigorous research.
Compare that to Jerry Coyne, PZ Myers or any of the more vocal “New Atheists” who simply hold that religion and science may contradict, but scientists like everyone else can compartmentalize. In other words their work rests on the evidence, not the personalities, and a theistic scientist can be right on their scientific ideas without being right on their theological ones.
Mooney’s whole framing debate centers not around communicating science, science is primarily a skeptical philosophy where the central tenet is not “do you believe in Evolution” but rather “Is your belief falsifiable, supported by the evidence and the simplest explanation for the available evidence.”
Evolution fulfills the latter position, while creationism does not.
Mooney in other words, is pushing bullshit. Bullshit as defined in that he does not have the concern for the truth that a liar would, his main concern is his agenda.
This basic dishonesty is translated in how he presents his work. He claims for example to champion communicating science to the public – yet when atheists communicate science to the public they must shut up. To Mooney communication is only communication when it is in agreement with Mooney.
His whole rant against PZ Myers is understood on this basis: Myers is fairly successful and well liked, despite or perhaps because of his no-nonsense calling a spade a bloody shovel approach. A success which has thus far evaded accommodationist stances. This is because as offensive as New Atheists may be, we at don’t shine the religious on while snickering at them behind their backs.
In summation:
While there are multiple people arguing the science vs religion debate Mooney’s claim to arguing for “science communication” is nothing of the sort. Communication implies the ability to disagree. What Mooney champions is not dialogue but monologue, where respect is simply another word for “keep quite” as opposed to being about considering ideas.
His stance on how science should be treated in public is in fact anti-scientific. For all that the creationist movement is stupid and sold on the same premise as the tobacco industry used to fight allegations of it causing cancer, to turn respect into a matter of telling people to shut up and sit down when a scientist says something represents every bit as much of a dangerous erosion of scientific principles. Science is not based on authority, it is based on the research.
Mooney it seems, would have us believing relativity because Einstein came up with it, not because it fits the evidence.
/rant.
[…] one-sided “dialogue” A recent post at The Intersection has praised the one-sided dialogue on faith and science recently sponsored by […]
Aw, shucks, folks! What you get when you take your eye off the ball. I wrote that little bit last night when I was ready to drop dead in my tracks, and so am surprised to see the response. Anyway, whatever helps. Reading does take so much time away from blogging, you know, and I had been trying to understand the catholic idea of natural law, and hadn’t had much success, so turned to see what was new in the ionosphere of the blog world (not the Intersection, I need to add, which is nearer to subterranean), and simply detonated.
Chris Mooney is really such a jerk, but I had been thinking a bit about the terms of the compatibility argument, and it’s so obvious the man knows nothing about religion. But neither, really, do the others. Think Francis Collins, for example, or Ayala. Religion is a very nebulous something (couldn’t think of the word ‘nebulous’ so ‘cumulus’ had to make do) in the discussion, but when you read it out in terms of its varieties, and all its distortions of reality, it seems so idiotic to think of it being compatible with a project that is so tied to evidence and multiple confirmation. The religious keep saying how religion is so complex, that there isn’t really a clear definition of religion, even, let alone a clear understanding of any of its varieties. Each, from their own point of view, is saying how, in order to say anything at all about religion, you have to understand it in depth, and in its specific varieties, but the points of view are so many and various that this would be the task of many lifetimes, supposing there is something there to understand. (I wonder if one should set out to risk so many lifetimes on a task so unpromising?) How on earth can something like that (if ‘that’ refers to anything determinate) be compatible with anything? All you have to do is ask yourself, “Is Christianity compatible with Islam?”, and it seems pretty clear that you can’t then say in a general way, “Religion is compatible with science,” taking (conceptual) compatibility as a transitive relation. The whole thing seems quite mad, even if you could give some content to the idea of religion (in general), which I very much doubt.
Stewart talks about a blog that comments on my comment, hoping, perhaps to draw me in. I won’t be drawn in, but I’m not sure where to look. Send me an email, if you know. Thanks.
Thanks for the notification, Stewart – that’s hilarious – because the last I saw, that “blogger” was still insisting that it is entirely different from its parent “blog” and has nothing in common with it at all and discovered it only the other day. But if that’s true, why such a keen interest in me and in B&W?
It’s stuck, the poor thing – it can’t focus on me and B&W without betraying the fact that it is part of the same agenda, but since the agenda is to focus on me and B&W…well you see the problem. Sad.
“But here is a harder question–how will you foster dialogue with the New Atheists?”
Well this might work.
Step 1. Set up an event at the American Association for the Advancement of Science meeting called “Re-envisioning the Science and Religion Dialogue.”
Step 2. Invite only scientists that accept the tenets of at least one of the major abrahamic religions to serve on the panel.
Step 3. Make damn sure atheists are not welcome valued or otherwise necessary to this discussion.
Step 4. As soon as the Q/A starts ask a question about how to include atheists.
Ha! Here’s another thing that’s funny – the Mystery blogger is so focused on me and B&W that nowadays it is willing to do a whole post on a comment I make. Not a post, just a comment. Mystery blogger does the same thing (on Eric’s comment – which is admittedly substantive enough for a post) at blog 2, while still trying to pretend it is nothing to do with Mystery blog 1. Riiiiiiight.
[whispers] Its obsession is showing.
If Eric really wants that link, does Ophelia want to mail it to him, as I don’t have a mail address for him?
I think now that most of the people who count are well and truly onto him and won’t waste more time wondering if he’s in any way for real, the blogger will probably just implode at some point. As I quite agree he shouldn’t be dignified with a name here, I thought to come up with some handy identifying epithet and what popped out was “Atheist sock blog(ger)” and “Christian sock blog(ger).” You’re all welcome to it/them. I figure it’d be nice if a title incorporating his main method of persuasiveness caught on – might help him implode a little sooner.
This is what happens when one wishes to speak but has nothing to say.
Religion has nothing to say about science. Science has something to say about religion.
He must be terrifically frustrated so dialogue turns into diatribe, always the tip-off that the speaker has nothing on topic to say.
Looks like an invitation to talk. Tastes like sour grapes.
Yup, I did, Stewart. That’s why I saw the new, giveaway posts – I dropped by there to collect the URL.
Oh, and Ophelia, as you have surely noticed anyway, of the handful of bloggers this guy hates, it’s funny that he doesn’t try to make his attacks on any of the others that little bit extra vicious by referring to the fact that they’re – wait for it – men.
Well, my comments on this thread don’t rate a whole blog post (for obvious reasons), but I am proud to say Mystery Blogger Number One featured my naughty remark an example of the dread profanity that characterizes the New Atheists. Characterizes them completely, you see, as everyone knows NAs have no substantive objections. We’re all form (and a very profane form it is!) over substance. In case you didn’t know.
Atheist Sock Blog has a pretty choice vocabulary, too, so I guess it dread profanity must also characterise accomodationists.
Stewart – oh yes – I’ve noticed. Given my obscurity relative to the sock blogger’s other targets (and the existence of other weirdly obsessed me-haters, unless of course they are all the same person), I suspect really intense misogyny at the bottom of all this.
Mooney discourses on the single mother who just lost her husband and how science has nothing to offer her, but religion can give her inspiration and comfort.
Reminds me of the time when I was a kid and Duke, our old Irish Setter, ‘went to live on a farm.’ It was intended to comfort, but I didn’t really buy it. It seemed to make my parents feel better so I just let it go.
The trouble is, the way Mooney tells it (reporting the tale told by someone else) she’s just a generic widow with unruly kids. Mooney doesn’t know what will help her and what won’t. He seems to assume he does, but he doesn’t. He seems to assume that any generic Type Of Person is a known quantity – but why would he assume that?
It just isn’t the case that theism is invariably consoling while science is invariably a cold hard stone. And as others have pointed out, it’s both patronizing and anti-intellectual to assume otherwise.
Thank you Ophelia. What a very peculiar chap (or gal, as the case may be). No, I shan’t lower myself by commenting there. All the zoos say it: Thou shalt not feed the animals.
“science has nothing to offer her, but religion can give her inspiration and comfort.”
If, when her husband was dying, some “alternative medicine practitioner” had told them that goat bile enemas would cure his disease I am sure that would have given her inspiration and comfort as well. Yet Mooney would never suggest that we embrace such charlatans. Why? Because in case of medical quackery the cost is clear, immediate and obviously far outweighs the benefit of any temporary comfort. The difference with religion is that the harm is, perhaps, less obvious and less directly linked to the pitiful image of the bereaved single mother.
Unsurprisingly Mooney’s is a glib and superficial argument designed, or perhaps “framed”, to cast those who disagrees with him as heartless ogres insensitive to the grief of a young widow. What a class act he has become.
The idea that a religious message can never be comforting to people is not one advanced by the ‘New Atheists’ – despite what Mooney tries to imply. For example think of a young Somali rape victim. She goes to her village elders to accuse her attacker but, due to Sharia law making her testimony worth half that of the rapist, she is counter-accused and is found guilty of adultery and sentenced to be stoned to death. As she is buried up to her chest and faces an angry mob of zealots intent on pounding the life out of her I put up my hand and freely admit that there is very little that the new atheist message can offer her in her final few minutes. I’ll even go one step further. At present the idea that there is a heaven that she will go to after the stones have flown might even be the most comforting message she can hear in those circumstances.
Should the ‘New Atheists’ desist from criticizing religion in case it takes away this poor girl’s last piece of hope?
And what would an atheist message – new or otherwise – do for the hopes of someone who had been convinced that a literal eternity of torment in hell awaited?
Just what I was thinking – I’m afraid the girl may not have the option even of believing there is a heaven that she will go to after the stones have flown, given that the stone-throwers will have told her she’s not going there. The only hope is that she doesn’t believe them, and it’s a slender hope at best.
Thr argukemnt against illusory consolation from a great christian.
Or, to put it back in phrasing similar to that with which Sigmund just kicked off this bit of the thread, not one of us is denying that some religious messages could comfort people. However, those bringing up examples such as the one that was the catalyst here do not choose to relate to the fact that a great many messages sent by religion are not comforting in the slightest, but are, on the contrary, threatening in the extreme and designed to arouse terror in those reluctant to submit to the authority of whoever happens to be running the religion.
A recent counter-example is the tsunami. Our people were those bringing greater comfort to those who cared to listen, by making it clear that no intentional agent was responsible for what happened, while the representatives of religion were either too tongued-tied to explain away the nastiness, or revelling in pointing fingers of blame.
And we went through another round of that after Katrina – here, at least. I kept seeing people say “God saved me” and I kept wondering aloud how they could. Why be grateful to a capricious god that saves you and drowns people all around you? Not to mention one that five years later won’t lift a finger to stop the damn oil.
Ah, but now you’re being too hasty. Give Him a chance: http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2010/06/louisiana_gives_up_on_the_gulf.php
But that’s not how the sophisticated version of god acts…. You can’t rely on the average believer to understand an effable something or other.
Ah yes, Proof 36:
ARGUMENT FROM INCOMPLETE DEVASTATION (1) A plane crashed killing 143 passengers and crew. (2) But one child survived with only third-degree burns. (3) Therefore, God exists.
So, in the Argument from Complete Devastation, if god had not been so sloppy and let that one child get away with its life, he wouldn’t exist?
Arrrrgh. Breathe calmly. Let it go.
One of the Sock Blogs is now all over Jerry Coyne for his blog post criticizing the AAAS “dialogue.” It criticizes him on ridiculous grounds, claiming Jerry is unable to comprehend what Chris Mooney is saying (pardon me while I snort), by saying things such as, ” That’s not close to what Mooney says, even though we disagree with him.”
Oh, do “we?” I don’t think “we” do. I think “we” actually agree with (or approve of the real goal driving) nearly everything Chris Mooney says. I think “we” affect to be neutral observers, and that “we” pretend to disagree with Mooney strategically in order to give “ourselves” plausible (!) deniability.
And while it’s true that one should evaluate what a blogger or website proprietor actually says, and critique that, not what his or her commenters add, it beggars belief that “we” couldn’t or wouldn’t absorb any of the cogent, well-argued comments on Coyne’s post that highlight the damage done to victims of religious ideology.
I think the Sock Blog lies. And it takes a supreme effort – as I’m a confirmed sufferer of SIWOTI – not to validate it on its own turf. May I please have a cookie?
Have lots of cookies, Josh, but it’s really not worth going there. They can edit you after fact like they did to Dave W. and make you look like a moron using your own (real) i.d. The other reason is that socks eat real people. It’s the nourishment they’re waiting for the whole time. If none come, they’ll starve to death.
Mooney then thinks that the great positive and need to keep christianity, despite its faulty foundation, is to provide a framework in which comforting lies can be visited upon delusional people that are in emotional distress.
I’d like to point out to Mooney that he needn’t erect and or support the parasite industry known as christianity in order to deliver comforting lies to those in emotional distress. Christianity is a facilitator of lies but not a necessary part. Personally I think it is far better to comfort and support using honesty.
Heh – I know, Josh; I saw that. I didn’t read it, mind you, because it’s not worth the tsuris, but I saw it and caught some highlights.
And it’s true in general that one should judge X on what X says rather than what her commenters say, but that is not true of the sock blog, given that the fakeness of the commenters and the blogger itself is so blatant.
“… a great many messages sent by religion are not comforting in the slightest, but are, on the contrary, threatening in the extreme and designed to arouse terror in those reluctant to submit to the authority of whoever happens to be running the religion.”
And this isn’t a “New Atheist” message, but a far older one — in ancient Greece, the philosopher Epicurus recommended non-belief in gods as a useful stance because of the freedom from fear it provided, allowing one to live a happier life.
And the poet Lucretius echoed him in ancient Rome.
Stewart wrote:
As a forum moderator, I’m pretty sure that any forum or blog owner can edit anyone’s comments after-the-fact to say whatever they (the owner) wants. It’s just that owners with integrity don’t do so except to remove spam or fix coding. Never to change the meaning of a post in order to “win” an argument and/or to make your opponent look foolish, since as soon as it gets out that you’re willing to stoop to such levels, you won’t be taken seriously ever again, even if you want to be.
(Yes, this is that Dave W.)
Quite.
Well mostly. I do, rarely, edit comments for reasons other than spam/coding – but when I do I say I’ve done it. The other reasons are: 1) libel concerns – I remove direct accusations of lying. 2) tedious repetition by someone who has been repeatedly requested to stop the tedious repetition. 3) plain abuse by an anonymous commenter or a sock puppet, usually one who has had at least a week to spout unedited anonymous abuse (as in the case of “Kees”/Bernie Ranson).
I think that covers it…except that when I removed some comments by and about an anonymous sock puppet (yes both anonymous and a sock puppet) last week I’m not sure I said I’d done so. I’ll correct that. I consider myself to have integrity. That much, anyway.
That Dave W – this gives me the chance to say how much value I got from your comments at the Intersection. I couldn’t say it there, of course, because I’m banned!
Heh. Actually, I forgot about copyright. We will delete huge copy-and-paste jobs and replace them with links to the originals (Google is our friend). We’ve never thought about libel (and now that I think about it, I’d rather not delete evidence), and tedious repetition after repeated requests to stop will get a person banned (we’ll leave the tedium in place in support of our decision to ban). Abuse cases work that way for us, also. We try to err on the side of allowing far too much abuse/tedium before dropping the ban-hammer.
But really, the integrity question is about editing to change someone’s argument, or to make them look foolish (or wholesale deletion of arguments which are inconvenient to one’s own, as happens regularly at UD, for example). Those are the kinds of things we all can do, but only the unhinged seem to actually do.
On that other note, I think you may have me confused with someone else, also. Unless you really are talking about the two comments that I left on the Intersection that I had to Google to find because I’d forgotten all about them, in which case I’m flattered and in awe of your memory.
Yes to all that. At the old site (this one is only a couple of months old) I couldn’t ban people.
Oh, do I? Huh. No, it was more than two…long informative sciencey comments, lots of them. Maybe there are two Dave Ws. That’s likely, actually, because the other didn’t have a link in his name. Or maybe it wasn’t Dave…
Anyway, you’re swell too! :- )
Well, Google is only turning up a single thread at the Intersection with my abbreviated name in it (and the way I abbreviate it), with just two of my comments in it (the first just a couple comments before you commented, so it must have been pre-ban).
There’s another “Dave W” who seems to have commented a lot at Bad Astronomy, but he doesn’t leave a website (like you noted), but Google suggests that he hasn’t posted at the Intersection at all.
Huh. Well I might look through the few Intersection threads I focused on, to see if I can find what I was thinking of – not just out of idle curiosity, but because the comments were really good value.
Aha! Found it. It was Paul W, not Dave W. Paul, Dave, what’s the difference? :- )
Sample here in case you’re curious.
He’s never commented here either, as far as I know.
Well, now I’ve commented here. Hehehe.
And I remember Paul W. Shame how he stole my initial.
Fresno Bob writes:
Perhaps a dialog on some other topic – one which permits dialog. Gay rights, say, or AGW, or public education, or evolution. Some topic other than whether or not religious faith is irrational.
But some people just don’t see any other topic as worth discussing. Eric MacDonald says regarding “New Atheists”
One might call Eric a “radical” in the sense in which the word is usually understood in politics. Eric, along with those who endorse his views here, thinks that he has identified the *root* of all our problems and thus he understandably has little patience for dialog on any other topic. I think that this may be a major source of the hostility which the “New Athiests” have received from “Accomodationists”. The Accomodationists may simply not accept the radical diagnosis. Or perhaps they accept the diagnosis, but are unconvinced of the efficacy of radical solutions. Is this where the miscommunication arises?
Sorry to bring this up in a thread some 3 weeks old. But I just arrived, hereabouts.
Yes but Mooney has never explained why non-apologetic atheism makes dialogue on other subjects impossible, or even more difficult. He hasn’t explained why there is any tension at all between being an explicit atheist and talking about other subjects. Look around – you will find that there are other subjects discussed here. I don’t see my non-closeted atheism as ruling out my talking about other things too.
Hmmm. You get it why unapologetic atheism might make dialog with “people of faith” difficult when the subject is faith, but you don’t see why it should make dialog on other subjects difficult?
I thought Eric already made that clear. When dialog is attempted, the unapologetic atheist often morphs into a radical atheist and shifts the dialog to “the real problem”.
Double Hmmm. And Chris doesn’t understand why Accommodationism might make dialog with “New Atheists” difficult. But I thought the sock puppets had already made that clear too. When dialog is attempted, the Accommodationist morphs into an NA-critic and shifts dialog to the “real problem with the NAs”.
Boring. I learned back in Kindergarten that you don’t make friends by criticizing them. Or at least you don’t make friends with the folks you are criticizing. Now can we just be friends?
I don’t know that. It doesn’t describe the real life I know at all. In the real life I know, the subject just doesn’t have to come up, and if it does come up it’s not usually a “radical atheist” who brings it up.
The sock puppets’ whole purpose was to pick fights with “new” atheists, so they demonstrate nothing.
Mind you, what you say does describe most accommodationists – they pretend their purpose is unity but in fact it is to pick fights with “new” atheists.
Is it their “purpose” to pick fights, or is fighting just a trap they keep falling into? In keeping with my current slogan of “accommodating the accommodationists”, I prefer not to be too quick in attributing motivation. But, “de gustibus” and all that.
More interesting are your claims about “real life”. I’ll take your word for it as to what subjects do and don’t come up in dialog, and who brings them up. But I stand by my claim that Eric is not anomalous as a “New Atheist” who is also a “radical atheist” in the sense I have described. And while I withdraw my claims about how new/radical atheists behave in “real life” dialogs, I invite you to read what some “real life” atheists immediately think the proposed topic is when the word “dialog” is mentioned.
Jerry Coyne:
Larry Moran
Ophelia Benson
PZ
The excuse of “We are open to dialog on any topic, but those theists and their running dogs keep shifting the topic to our atheism.” just doesn’t ring true to me.
What excuse? And I didn’t say ““We are open to dialog on any topic” – I don’t know what that means, and I wouldn’t say it; I’m not in the least open to dialogue on any topic; I have too much to do. I didn’t make the second claim, either. I don’t seem to be following you at all.
No, you are right. You didn’t say that, exactly. I have been changing your words and ideas slightly (at least it seemed slight to me) so as to make them easier to scorn. Shame on me. Bad coati. Bad.
I am going to bow out of this particular conversation now, before I make more of an ass of myself. I think I have made my main point – that the “new” feature of the “New atheists” is their “radicalism”. Calling them “non-apologetic atheists” just doesn’t suffice. I have never apologized for my atheism either, but that fact doesn’t make me feel like wearing a red script A. I can agree that religion is a problem, but I don’t see how it can be called “the problem”, and I definitely will react negatively to a return of that old 60’s radical slogan “If you are not part of the solution, then you are part of the problem”.
Any secondary points I may have attempted, and in particular any perceived defense of The Intersection, the Templeton Foundation, or Accommodationism – any such arguments, suggestions, or snide remarks are hereby withdrawn. I have no particular desire to conduct a dialog with theists, simply because they happen to be people too. On the other hand, I have no particular wish to sabotage a dialog with people, simply because they happen to be theists.
Ah but I don’t feel like wearing a red script A either. Radical atheist doesn’t seem (to me) to describe me. I’m fond of the word “radical” and have always kind of thought of myself as one, but radical atheist – I dunno – I’m not sure what I would be radical about.
Anyway. Peace. :- )
[…] Here he contributes to the science religion compatibility debate. His was comment #22 at this link http://www.butterfliesandwheels.org/2010/how-to-do-dialogue/ […]