Comments on comments on comments
I’m burning up the time reading sapient comments on PZ’s response to “Be” Scofield’s “5 stupid things stupid atheists think” so I might as well recycle one so that I can pretend I’ve accomplished something more than reading sapient comments on a post of PZ’s, not that there’s anything wrong with that.
Sastra quotes a bit from “Be” and annotates it:
Scofield has gone into Therapist Mode (sometimes known as Anthropologist Mode.) If you’re trying to help or understand other people, don’t treat them as equal members of your own group and argue with them over truth or content. Instead, you concern yourself with what works for them. Are they happy? You shouldn’t try to change their minds because that interferes with the natural course of things — which is allowing them to discover and be who they are on their own terms, not yours.
Spot on.
While I was reading, “Be” Scofield commented. He said he has replied (at Tikkun, oh urgh). So now I have to read that. Is there no end to it?
My view on this sort of thing keeps evolving and mutating and evolving some more. My first thought is that the goal was simply to provoke a prominent Gnu into responding negatively in order to say “see, I told you they were strident and militant!” My next thought was that he was hoping that someone like me or Aquaria would use the term “fuckface” in order to make the same claim and add “deplorable” to the charges.
Now, I’m feeling ultra cynical. Now I’m starting to think that this is a malicious ploy for no other reason than to generate attention. Proving a point is secondary than simply drawing page hits. I’m beginning to be convinced that these people have no principles of any sort when it comes to the atheist/theist divide. They are in it for personal gain of one point or another, and don’t care what negative effect their behavior might have to anyone involved.
Well I think they’re “sincere” in the sense that they really do hate argumentative atheism, but yes, I also think most of this stuff is all about comment-whoring.
Will Stedman re-post “Be”‘s reply?
Any bets?
I was going to comment on your comment whoring comment but then I suddenly felt dirty.
Oh gawd. That reply…
Greg, no worries, there’s a prophylaxis station right by the door.
I have a hard time believing people are that stupid, and I tend to attribute malice where I guess I might could simply assume idiocy. ” I mean, come ON! “Religion Requires a Belief in a Supernatural God” is a myth? That’s like claiming that “motorcycles have two wheels” is a myth and criticizing people over it, simply because some tiny amount of bikes are actually trikes. The general form of religion, especially in the Western cultures which produce the people Bean is criticizing, involves a supernatural god. That’s just a fact, and that’s who we’re talking about, and Bezel is being dishonest when he claims that we don’t know about and are also referring to those other religions when we’re speaking generally about religion.
I really meant it when I asked rhetorically in the other thread whether these guys understand the New Age crap on the sitcom Absolutely Fabulous was being lampooned. It’s almost impossible to credit that “Be” is a real person, and not a stock character. I mean-
Bin bags! Bin bags!
Joe – Mmm, I don’t think that’s really stupid. The claim itself is pretty stupid, but I don’t think making it really is, necessarily (though it can be). I think it’s much more that it’s motivated.
Motivated is different from stupid. Just for one thing, it’s not difficult to get through a whole life without ever learning that there is such a thing as motivated beliefs. For another thing, once a motivation is in place, it acts like a filter, and it’s not really stupid to fail to notice things that are caught in the filter, because after all, they’re caught in the filter.
Then again if you have had opportunities to learn what motivated beliefs are, then maybe there’s a case for saying it’s stupid to fail to notice your own. (I hear the stalkers yowling. Yes dears, I know. Calm down.) I used to have this discussion about Bush. I always said he should have known from the outset that he wasn’t qualified to be president and shouldn’t have run. He should have had enough self-knowledge to realize that he wasn’t clever enough or disciplined enough or educated enough – that he basically had nothing to offer. An interlocutor was always saying that wasn’t something to blame him for, it was just how he was. Well yes, I suppose so, ultimately – if he had been different then he would have had enough self-knowledge, but he wasn’t, so he didn’t. But if we talk about everything that “ultimately” then there’s nothing to say, and I like talking, so let’s not do that.
Right. We don’t spend an equal amount of time criticizing religions with no/less supernaturalism, so the author concludes that we’re convinced all religion has a supernatural emphasis. Analogous to the claim that we believe all Catholic Priests are child rapists because we only focus on those that do rape children. “You never mention the Catholic Priests that DON’T rape children or commit/make comparably horrid acts/statements!” No, we don’t.
And accordingly, these religions tend not to receive much criticism from gnus, if any.
Josh – Ha! I know. He really is funny.
Improbable Joe,
Religion does not necessarily require a belief in a supernatural God. Have a look at austere forms of Buddhism or Taoism.
Religion does generally involve supernaturalism of some kind though, if only in the form of implicit and veiled dualistic assumptions. (E.g., that mystic sages or normal people having religious experiences can fairly directly experience The Divine, and get at Spiritual Truth, in some sense that generally turns out to bypass how actual brains work.)
You might be interested in my comments on this sort of thing over at Stedman’s blog. (Or maybe not; they’re too long.) One is in response to Jean Kazez, talking about super-liberal Judaism. It’s not clear to me why nondualist, science-compatible Judaism would count as “religion” in a way that, say, being a hardcore Deadhead or Trekkie would not. It is pretty clear to me that most allegedly science-compatible non-supernaturalist religion exploits dualistic intuitions in practice.
Ophelia, maybe we’re talking about degrees/kinds of stupid. Lack of self-awareness is stupid, but it is definitely a different kind of stupid than just being incapable of being smarter. And certainly I don’t want to fall into the sort of “excluded middle” or “false dichotomy” fallacy of claiming that they are all either evil or stupid. There’s certainly a place for blind spots and ignorance, willful or otherwise.
The problem for me is that it seems so very strongly intentional, and it is a pattern that plays out in an identical way with almost all of these sorts of anti-Gnu folks, that thought-out malice and self-serving attention-seeking behavior is seeming more and more likely.
@Paul W.
You’re repeating what I said. Are you accusing me of not knowing about religions without supernatural gods? This could be a test case of my “evil/stupid/willfully blind” theory, since you showed up to explain to me something I just posted about a few minutes ago.
Ooops, sorry improbable Joe, I was multitasking and didn’t realize I hadn’t fully processed your comment. I completely spaced on the trike bit.
Joe – right. I was probably talking to myself, really…just working out what I thought about that particular thing. Just ignore me.
Now for Paul’s comments on Stedman’s blog…
… or maybe not a good test. Paul, go ahead and respond and ignore what might look like an insinuation. I’m withholding judgment and I apologize for kind of jumping the gun on that one.
It’s disappointing. As a creaky early-middle-aged tarot-readin’ quasi-Buddhist atheist hippie lady myself, I’d say that Scofield’s pretty well letting down Team Hippie. You don’t “pave the groundwork for dialogue” by having a hissy fit about what stupid jackasses the atheists are. You can’t simultaneously build bridges and publicly position yourself against a group of people you’re supposedly building bridges with. It does not work. The nonworkiness of this is so trivially apparent that even (supposedly) trying it is awfully suspicious.
Sigh. I never could get along with guys who are into Women Studies in Religion.
Look, I’d go so far as to agree that there’s no shortage of Cat Piss Man atheists who say idiotic things and make stupidly sweeping HURF DURF statements that they can’t or won’t back up. (Heck, I dated one.) But that’s not even faintly special to atheism and it is outstandingly hostile of him to pretend that it is — arguably it’s hostile to the point of bigotry. There is no shortage of foolish dipshits anywhere. Foolish dipshittery is part of the human condition.
And it’s clear that the breathtaking freedom of being able at last to make taboo statements can make people lose their heads. Thing is, I’m not even willing to declare that this is a bad thing. For instance: certain queer communities circa 1990-93 or so. When I think about all the vicious, brainless bitching about “breeders” I heard back then… yeesh. (And Scofield thinks we’re snarky.) But people needed that. It was a time of fertile sociopolitical ferment, and it’s only natural that some of the ferment went into some pretty stupid territory. (Don’t even make me tell you the story about the lady who used to follow me around yelling at me for “taking wimmin-energy and giving it to men.” That was fun.) It was worth it. It was absolutely worth it. A measure of grar is a normal part of any bubbling sociopolitical movement. If we had all carefully kept our heads and never gotten excited and never said anything that might hurt any heterosexual’s feelings… well, I don’t think we’d have come as far as we have. Every healthy movement for change needs its measure of jackassery.
It would not have killed Be to mention a few cases in which passionate atheists are being completely and utterly reasonable.
This “Be” person particularly annoys me because I get the strong sense that he thinks he is speaking up for people like me. Yeah, I have a meditation practice. (Well, sometimes.) Yeah, I’m something of a weirdo among atheists. But my version of Buddhism (and tarot-reading, for that matter) is so humanistic and nonsupernatural that in the grand scheme of things it is marginal and I know it. Be, darling, please, seriously consider turning it down six or eight notches. It’s embarrassing. And quit publicly armoring yourself against any sympathy or empathy with Gnu Atheists — it’s unseemly.
LOL!
We really need an edit button around here. Or maybe not. Ophelia, I certainly feel like this is an open sort of “thinking aloud in public” sort of thing. It was for me when I posted at the start with the whole “evolving, mutating position” thing. It certainly seems like there’s not much more merit in addressing WHAT the accommodationists do, because they seem to be following a script. It might be more interesting to try to figure out WHY they are doing it, what reasons they might have to do what they do.
It may be easier to deal with them in the future if we stop assuming that their motives are as open and honest as ours are.
From Paul’s comment over there –
Killer point. The “usually” is important, because clearly some people don’t lose interest…but on the other hand I think the New Faitheists* vastly exaggerate their numbers and significance.
For me, thorough atheism simply does make religious practice rebarbative. It comes with baggage, so I can’t think myself into the state of mind that would find it pleasant or rewarding or anything attractive.
*h/t Melody Hensley
Cam winz the intertoobz for today.
I’m going to any second now start referring to “Be Scofield” as “Be Diddy Daddy Buffy”…
And Cam, any white guy who is in “Women’s Studies and counter oppression” sounds like he’s shouldering the “white man’s burden” and is constitutionally incapable of not walking around being condescending to any and all people he encounters in his day-to-day.
Well I’m going to start calling people Cat Piss HURF DURF.
Meanwhile Salil Tripathi made a great comment on Arundhati Roy (and the cult of her) at Facebook and I got his permission to quote him so I’m going to do that. He’s got a review of her new book in the Independent, coming up on Friday. Watch for that.
Jean Kazez had a wonderful post on Stedman’s blog, where she more or less redefined liberal Judaism as heavily-ritualized atheism in order to defend the point about “non-supernatural god” religions. Nope, nothing dishonest about that.
Cat Be Diddy Durfy Burfy? Seriously, unless you’re a successful rappy-type person, just use your damned name.
I know, I saw Kazez’s comment. She wouldn’t know Stedman from a hole in the ground if she didn’t keep following me around in order to suck up to anyone I disagree with. I cannot for the life of me figure out why she is so fascinated by me. I’m not the only SuperObnoxious atheist in the universe.
Ophelia, I’m obnoxious. You’re a kitten wrapped in a puppy wrapped in a baby penguin compared to me. You’re also way more popular than me, which is why they care about you and not me. Michael De Dora, who doesn’t need the attention since he has a high-profile job, can go pick on Aquaria who is nearly as obnoxious as I am (but not nearly as creative) and will do it here instead of the ridiculously popular Pharyngula.
Kazez is probably just a little afraid of The Peez, so she goes after you instead.
My coffee guy gave me an extra shot today and I am all fulla steam.
If Be is like the last three or four Plastic Medicine Men of the Divine Feminine I’ve talked to, there’s a fuzzy gender-politics component to his anger. In and out of too many atheist circles, atheism and rationalism and (often enough) thought itself all get slapped with a masculine gender label. So, moving in hippie circles as I sometimes do, I keep seeing these guys who pick up a form of cultural feminism while they’re exploring novel notions in spirituality, and I see them packing it all together into the belief that rationalism and atheism are the enemy. This is much more convenient and heroic than trying to drop any of their own privilege. Introspection is such a pain, right?
Sooner or later we have The Conversation:
PMMotDF: “Atheists are jackasses! I know all about atheists! I will tell you! I honor the Feminine! They never honor the Feminine! They think they know everything! They’re not so smart! Hah hah hah!”
Cam: “Er, I am an atheist and I think I maybe know something about femininity ’cause, well, you’ve met me, right? And actually I would like to say–”
PMMotDF: “ATHEISTS ARE STUPID BECAUSE THEY ARE SO UNRECEPTIVE!”
Cam: “Have you ever considered maybe some quiet listen–”
PMMotDF: “YOU ARE NOT SUPPORTING MY GROWTH! WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU?!”
Cam: “Yeah, my nurturing pink energy is at the cleaner’s. Look, a more yin approach would not–”
PMMotDF: “MALE-IDENTIFIED!”
Cam: “It’s just that if you’re going to talk about atheists, I think you ought to try to underst–”
PMMotDF: “RICHARD DAWKINS IS A JERK!”
Cam: “You. You are a jerk. You are a big, huge, sexist freak-show jerk and I wash my hands of you and your self-indulgent nonsense.”
PMMotDF: “I KNEW IT! ATHEISTS ARE SUCH JACKASSES!”
Your diatribes about the PMMofTD are piss-your-pants funny, Cam.
They have been honed by much angry muttering to myself.
Yep, Cam won the Internet for the rest of the week.
Crap. My “Be Puffy Buffy Diddy Daddy Pimp Cube” didn’t even come close, and I was so proud of it…
… must NOT sulk. MUST not sulk. Must not SULK…
Nice work Cam!
Uh-oh. Scofield just double-dog dared PZ.
Hissy fits are so not Zen.
Scofield’s program is “Women’s studies in religion and sacred dance with a concentration in buddhism”? Well I guess that qualifies him to know what this atheist thinks of religion.
Listen up Mr Scofield; the reason I know so much about christianity is that it was force fed to me for the first fourteen years of my life at home and at school. I went farther than most religionists because I knew it was a crock and needed to have good reasons for saying so. So I studied christianity, catholicism, the bible, history. I’m still studying. Most atheists are from a similar background. Because the religionists don’t question religion, don’t read scripture (except the fundamentalists) and textural criticism, don’t know the provenance of “scripture” and don’t know much about history they know less about religion than many atheists. It also helped a lot to have a science background – in my case earth sciences (geology, cosmology, climatology) and computer science…..with another degree in history. So go do your sacred, magic dance someplace else and quit telling people what they do or don’t think. And don’t tell me I’m angry either – that really pisses me off!
Thank you, thank you. And I admit, I’m not being entirely fair to Be here — I don’t know him and we haven’t actually had that conversation. It’s just… you know, there’s a type, and it’s one that seems to be particularly difficult for me.
I notice that nobody is flipping me shit about my humanistic tarot-reading. You’re all falling down on the job of being mean, nasty, uncivil Gnu Atheists. It’s like you hardly resemble the kind of people that Be has been complaining about. Heck, PZ recently had some nice words for Alan Moore and his magic sock puppet. What is the world coming to?
Well, I just about to Militantly initiate Violence on you, Cam, for the heresy of the Tarot, then I thought it might be better to Shout Forced Laughter at you. But this is not a conservation event, so that won’t work.
I dunno, that seemed pretty menacing. Cam, are you afraid for your life? Do you feel the need to recount your story to a drooling Chris Mooney?
Well jeez, Cam, you sort of beat us to the punch of taking the wind out of your own sails with the tarot/Buddhism/meditation nonsense that there wasn’t hardly anything left for us to do!
Oh no, I called it nonsense. Maybe De Dora can show up to call me “deplorable”.
Oh, I do, Brownian. In fact, I feel the need to recount a dozen shocking stories to a drooling Chris Mooney, none of them true.
Thanks, Joe, that’s gratifying. I mean, um, deplorable! How dare you! For shame! Shocking! Shocking intolerance!
In all seriousness: I see that religious privilege exists and as a Buddhist I can see ways in which I am the recipient of it. This privilege is not okay with me, so it’s my responsibility to take the wind out of my own sails as best I can. Not always a responsibility I’ve perfectly lived up to, but there it is.
Cam, I think your “privilege debt” as a secular Buddhist is about as minimal as it can be – probably non-existent. And really, who cares if you read tarot cards? You know they’re not supernatural, and I’m guessing you’ve found it a fun/productive way to have certain kinds of conversations with people. It baffles me that people like “Be” think all atheists are going around getting their knickers knotted and being hateful to people like you who use certain religio-cultural practices without investing them with supernatural claims.
The whole thing with Cam brings up a good point that is often missed, which is the conflation of “theism” and “theists” which the anti-Gnus engage in, in order to dishonestly smear us. They never differentiate between the way we deal with the 50-90%(depending on location) of the population that is theist, and the way we heap scorn upon theism itself and the most powerful leaders and spokespersons.
Unlike the anti-Gnus, we kiss down and kick up, we don’t kiss up and kick down. We attack authority figures and those in power, instead of heaping scorn on the oppressed. The anti-Gnus suck up to the people with all the power, and prove their bona fides by attacking Gnu Atheists who have no power or influence in larger society. We get along with our theist friends, co-workers, and family members about as well as anyone gets along with people who disagree with stuff. And unlike the anti-Gnus, we don’t look for people weaker than us to attack in order to make ourselves feel better… and to impress the folks in charge of things so we can build a one-way bridge that only includes ourselves.
I read this several minutes ago and I’m still laughing.
Scofield:
This really shows how little Scofield understands the arguments of both gnu atheism and anarchism. Anarchists – all anarchists, and not just “hardcore,” “militant” ones – reject government. We don’t say it’s “crazy.” This wouldn’t make sense. Greta Christina used “crazy” not as a general insult or synonym for “bad” in whatever way, but in a very specific sense concerning beliefs and epistemology.
There is an end to it. I read Scofield’s “rebuttal”, and made a quick reply at http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2011/06/when_be_gets_an_analogy_in_his.php, but the whole thing was so appallingly stupid and misbegotten and irrational that I have been cured of any further interest in the rambling inanity of Be. I’ll not be making any further comment on Be Scofield — he isn’t even creatively idiotic.
Tch!! Gnasty G-u Atheists dissing the Tarot. Nothing wrong with symbolic routes into the *cough* soul. Why I have my own set. The Dishwasher, The Plant Pot, The Boss, The Alarm Clock, The Broadband Connection etc.
G-u – because atheism is ineffable.
Hey, I really like Alan Moore and his magic sock puppet — it’s honest religion. He comes right out and says that none of it’s real, there is no snake god, but that it’s a useful psychological tool for triggering creativity and imagination. I can respect that.
Oh you mean one way to end it is just to stop talking about it??
Ahhhhhhhhh sweet mystery of life at last I’ve fooooooooound yooooou…
Other useful psychological tools for triggering creativity and imagination are items like fiction, drama, movies, music, dance, sublime landscapes (cf Wordsworth) – and there is no snake god with any of them. Yay all of it. (It was the Puritans who tried to shut down Elizabethan theaters; it was the Taliban wot blew up the Bamyan buddhas. We like art and magic-shows.)
In this case, Moore is using it as the equivalent of a random number generator to trigger novel thoughts. He’s also not committed to the snake god — he uses any number of tricks to shake himself out of a creative rut.
[goes to look up Alan Moore]
Oh, no, I’ve distracted Ophelia again!
Yup – like Wordsworth staring into a mountain landscape.
It’s funny about Wordsworth: he talks a lot of complete nonsense in these moods and yet I buy it. I know what he’s getting at. (But that’s the early stuff, not the later, reactionary, pretty much straight Christian stuff.)
Heavens no I’m not distracted, I’m focused like a laser!
Oh there’s the California quail again…
PZ – Do you keep ferrets too?
Actually, Josh, it’s surprising how much I could probably get away with under cover of Buddhism. It’s wacky. There are all sorts of folks who want to imagine weird, creepily flattering nonsense about Buddhists and Buddhism — very handy for marketing, thus the whole Dharmaburger phenomenon. Btw, my favorite Dharmaburger was the high-fiber cereal formerly known as “Optimum Zen”. Now that it’s been renamed, I miss making jokes about how it enables the direct experience of emptiness.
I suppose I’ve seen the occasional mild knicker-knot. Every once in a while I do get informed that I’m an ignorant nitwit, more or less. Eh. While it’s awkward as all hell, it’s also pretty understandable given the place of Buddhism in American pop culture. All in all, this is a problem that I rank well below such burning issues as accidentally buying clingstone nectarines instead of freestone nectarines. (Grrrrr.)
Ophelia, if the way Alan Moore thinks about his snake god is something you’re interested in, you might see if you can get your hands on old back issues of The Pomegranate. Some years ago — 2001, maybe? — there was an interesting breakdown of three distinct ways that pagans do paganism. Probably by Fritz Muntean. Anyway, among pagans Moore’s style of conscious make-believe is not unique, not by a long shot.
I hate to divert further… but I’ve been a fan of Moore since his run on Swamp Thing. Wow, Wikipedia tells me that was like 1984-1986. Anyhoo, it was very metaphysical and spiritual and stuff, but totally awesome. I can see how his exploration into woo-woo would generate awesome creative ideas.
Not as much of a diversion, I’m a lifelong atheist and a giant fan of fantasy and science fiction. Of course, my enjoyment of fantasy fiction helps inform my atheism in a more intellectually satisfying way. If the claims of religion were true, the world would look like a book or movie involving religious themes. The Exorcist would be a true crime book turned into a documentary film. If the Alan Moore-style mysticism were real, the world would look like a comic book filled with elemental spirits made flesh and attacking humans when we encroach on their demesne. The world doesn’t resemble any of those things, which makes those belief systems inherently unworthy of belief… at least to the pre-teen I was when I discovered Alan Moore.
I honestly think a big part of the problem is that he simply doesn’t understand the realities behind #1, and he thinks its all simplistic and that we’re saying that liberal religionists are secret gay bashers and it pisses him off.
Maybe it’s our fault for not making it clearer. Who knows.
But the reality is that it’s not what he says it is, and it’s more that the problem is the privilege, and liberal religionists are generally pro-privilege and it’s that privilege that the bad people use to hurt people, and the only way to stop them is to take away the gun.
So i posted on the thread. Maybe I’ll get a response. I feel testy today. Also, it pisses me off when people use the “G-word” (God) then complain about not assuming that people have deistic or pantheistic beliefs (something which to me, is “wrong” but harmless and might even be a useful cultural metaphor). IT IS NOT OUR FAULT PEOPLE!!
Of course, it turns out that some liberal religionists are secret-gay bashers, or enablers of gay-bashers at least. Jim Wallis, Sojourners – I’m looking at you.
Very true. Although in the case of Wallis, I still say it’s less about homosexuality in and of itself and more about reinforcing religious moral privilege. He’s just willing to go that far to do it.
Jim Wallis, Sojourners… it is important that everyone is polite to him, and his homophobia-enabling organization. It is just as important to slam people who criticize homophobia-enablers. After all, Jim Wallis is a VERY IMPORTANT PERSON, and people like me and most of you are nobodies who aren’t worth a damn.
Maybe Be’s website will be renamed God Bless the Whole World, but PZ and his Ilk.
PZ’s gotta lotta ilk!
Dammit Mark,
I clicked the link and now I need some eye bleach to restore my nasty, mean-spirited outlook on life.
I’m very ilky.
Ooooh, I made the B&B top page. ‘Cause I pointed out that Scofield thinks the gnu atheists are violating the Prime Directive, or something. Thanky thanky. I’m honestly flushed.
Regarding the atheists-in-religion claim, I had a fascinating experience a couple nights ago. I went to hear a talk at a local church (!) by Rev. Michael Dowd (!) “regarded as “America’s Evolutionary Evangelist (!) and author of Thank God for Evolution (!), on the topic of “Evolutionize Your Life” (!)*
His talk was a basic secular humanist, pro-science, pro-naturalism talk such as might be heard at an atheist conference, with one significant departure: he used all the religious terms. God is a “mythic symbol for reality.” Science has discovered that supernatural beliefs are false: thinking of God as supernatural “demeans” God. The battle between religion and science is over. Religion has to evolve. And so forth.
I went partly because I’d already spoken to Dowd in the Pharyngula comments, when he had ventured in and pretty much gotten savaged as an accomodationist. I hadn’t been so sure — and it turned out that he remembered me, and immediately invited me out for late-night ice cream so that he might make his case to one of the gnus (and a PZ ilk at that, though the “only one who stuck up for me over there,” heh.)
Bottom-line, he hotly denies that he’s an accomodationist. He claims that he’s actually a gnu atheist with a different strategy: seduce moderate and liberal religious people into atheism by “speaking their language.” Secularize faith. When he said that the war between religion and science was over, he meant that science had won … so religion had to rethink everything. But he’s giving the religious hope, with lots of warm fuzzy quotes on beauty of science and reality from Sagan, Tyson, Feynman. PZ’s way is good — but so is his. Different tactics, is all.
Such as, not telling them outright that he’s an atheist. I mean, he doesn’t use that word, it’s too off-putting. He simply says in his introduction that he’s a religious humanist. But he’s very, very sure they all understand what he’s saying,
Umm. I didn’t think so. In fact, I know at least one person didn’t, because an old friend came up to me afterwards and asked me if I understood where this guy was coming from — did I get his point?
His stance then isn’t quite like Scofield’s, though there’s a similar insistence that LOTS of atheists love religion, and should. He even gives us an atheistic God we can love, too. Frankly, I think his strategy is muddled enough that the friendly crowd at the UCC didn’t really understand his main point re God, and I suspect they interpreted his ambiguous statements in their own way (for one thing, I told him it doesn’t mean jack that so many people tell him they don’t believe in “the supernatural” either, because the content of their beliefs is still pure dualistic woo: “natural” = “good.”)
Maybe it works. He had the testimonials — assuming they meant what he thought they meant. If nothing else, he makes a good case for religious humanism. He’s even going to speak at TAM, on “spirituality for the non-religious” or something like that. I’ll see him there.
And hey, he was terribly nice. Frankly I was both bemused and gratified to find an atheist who is “building bridges” but isn’t throwing the gnu atheists under the bus. A welcome change.
*I apologize to the meticulous Ophelia for the many exclamation points, but Dowd is very enthusiastic.**
**In addition to the Gospel of Evolution and the Good News about naturalism and death involving trust in the universe and God being an anthropomorphized Reality, Michael is also very enthusiastic about the gnu atheists: he thinks we’re helping. Plus, of course, he thinks he’s one of us. Curious case.
Ooooh, I also made a typo. Unless B&W is also a B&B, in which case I demand my baked French toast: you’re late.
“God” == Supernatural.
I understand and even can appreciate what he’s trying to do there, but I can’t really see what good creating even more confusion and bad communication about theism can do. I can see how one might think that’s a good thing, (In a lets agree to disagree type way) but all muddying the waters does is allow each individual to apply their theistic viewpoint onto everybody else. Much better off trying to change the common language that people use, I think, to raise the consciousness of what the words they use actually mean. Not a theist? Don’t use the word god. Why?
I actually believe that theism is much more of a minority belief than we think, it’s just that our definitions and traditions obscure this, and give it much more power (which to my mind is a bad thing) than it deserves.
Wow, now I REALLY dislike Michael Dowd. Holy crap, he’s crap for us AND he’s lying to the theists! Not cool.
Improbable Joe #68 wrote:
He doesn’t think he’s lying, though; he thinks he is being very clear, and he is careful to talk about ‘symbols’ and our evolved tendencies towards errors like teleology. I suspect he is underestimating the ability of the ‘spiritual’ to hear what they want/expect to hear once they hear familiar words or phrases; I suspect I picked up on more of what he was really saying, than they did. Or, I could just be underestimating how liberal the group was. They did seem to like him and his humanist message, for the most part.
I had to stick around while Dowd packed up, so got time to chat with others who were lingering. One of the women told me afterwards that she so loved that Dowd was saying the exact same thing as her beloved favorite evolutionary scientist, Teilhard de Chardin. I told her that no, I didn’t get that from the talk at all — so we asked Dowd. He quickly agreed with me:” evolution is not a goal-directed directional ascent towards consciousness or a spiritual unfolding of God, the Omega Point. She misinterpreted; I was not terribly surprised, either that this was wrong, or that she got it wrong.
At any rate, there is no ambiguity in Dowd being a very, very ‘liberal’ Christian indeed (the church’s minister introduced him by mentioning that they’d had a study group on liberal theology and ran across Dowd.) And, of course, a lot of his humanist social message re the environment is being picked up and enthusiastically embraced — which was probably true to begin with, but still.
I wish him well, but am still skeptical.
I didn’t understand Michael Dowd well enough to truly dislike him. So I went a-Googling, and I still don’t understand him well enough to truly dislike him. (This description is hilarious, though.) What is “evolutionizing” supposed to be and how is one supposed to apply it, exactly?
Michael Dowd taking the Unitarians by surprise
Cam #70 wrote:
As I understand it, it means recognizing that it’s time for the religious to get rid of antiquated notions of the supernatural, become rational naturalists, worship reality, and use evolution as our inspiration for recognizing that nature is sacred and we need to save the planet. Sort of Carl Sagan and Richard Dawkins mate and give birth to Gaia.
But I may not understand it. Dowd generously gifted me with 2 books and 2 DVDs, though, so it’s my own fault if I don’t.
Huh. Well, I wish him well with that. It speaks well of his strength of character that he’s not throwing gnus under buses.
Missed this. I only saw the thing on NPS. Frankly after his response post the guy is just a complete loon. Inter-faith bridge-building by calling people hypocrites or anarchists. Well played… really, well played.
INteresting. Must learn more about Michael Dowd.
I have low standards on these things because quite frankly I’m happy with anybody who doesn’t throw atheists, gnu or otherwise, under buses.
I’ll stick up for Michael Dowd too.
His approach is not one I would do myself but it certainly doesn’t involve ‘othering’ gnu atheists and any time I have heard him talk about them he has addressed the actual arguments of the gnus rather than the usual strawman posturing that is the standard approach of accomodationism.
Well good for him then.
This is the thing. I keep seeing people complaining that the gnus claim to be for a multi-pronged approach when in fact they try to silence people who want to do the diplomatic thing. No no no no no no no no no no. We want people to stop throwing us under the bus in the guise of doing the diplomatic thing. If they would just do the diplomatic thing without publishing ten thousand words saying why gnus are evil in the process, we wouldn’t have a word to say against them.
A large part of the problem is that true diplomatic skills are in short supply. Most people, when they set out to do the diplomatic thing, have a very limited repertoire:
1. Flattery (a.k.a. rump osculation).
2. Identify a common enemy, strap on the steel-toed boots, and start kicking.
3. That’s it. Ain’t got nuthin else.
Since flattery by itself is often viewed with suspicion, when you ask these people to give up item 2, you’re basically preventing them from doing the diplomatic thing at all, at least as they conceive it.
Of course, another response to being told item 2 is off the table is to work hard at developing true diplomatic skills. But that’s, um, well, hard work, isn’t it.
Ophelia,
Maybe you should make a post about Michael Dowd to show that you don’t hate people who try different methods. Note, I’m not trying to be sarcastic or anything. I think it would be really cool.
There’s a good interview with Michael Dowd on the ‘For Good Reason’ podcast with DJ Grothe from a few months back.