More Lowering the Tone
I don’t like Andrew Brown’s tone. I’ve said so before and I say it again. It’s an unpleasant tone – sneering, nose downlooking, insinuating, and sloppy about the facts (or interpretations of the facts). It’s the kind of tone that failure to grovel to religion seems to bring out in a lot of people at this particular historical moment.
The faults are visible right from the beginning.
Hell hath no fury like a philosopher scorned – even one who doesn’t believe in hell. Two of the leading philosophers of evolution have been caught in an email slanging match that has been printed on the blog of their mutual enemy William Dembski, a supporter of the rebranded creationism known as intelligent design.
That’s a snide and not very accurate way of putting it. It’s not a slanging match, it’s Ruse being unaccountably rude to Dennett; ‘caught’ is an odd word to use of both since the bad behavior is all Ruse’s; the email exhange didn’t just happen to be posted on Dembski’s blog, Ruse sent it to Dembski, apparently without permission.
There is a poetic justice to this, since the row started with an argument over how to combat creationism.
No, there is not a poetic justice to this, there is a breach of manners at the least, and the ‘row’ isn’t so much a row as an ambush.
When a long piece about the struggle against creationism in the New York Times Book Review suggested there was some truth to Ruse’s belief that “evolutionism” is being pushed by people like Dennett as a substitute for religion, Dennett was aggrieved, denouncing Ruse’s ideas as “a transparent example of a well-known cheap trick”.
That’s a misleadingly evasive account. Very. This ‘denouncing’ of Ruse’s ideas was in a letter to the Times that the Times did not in fact publish, and at the time Ruse sent the first (according to Brown, ‘teasing’) email to Dennett, it hadn’t been published anywhere. That ought to be relevant in a statement that makes it sound as if Dennett’s ‘denunciation’ of Ruse were public knowledge before the email exchange. (As a matter of fact, the only place Dennett’s letter to the Times has been published is right here at B&W, so that’s where Brown saw it, but he doesn’t mention the fact. Sloppy. The date on it is after Ruse sent the email exchange to Dembski. Sloppy to glide over that.)
Dennett had more cause for complaint when, three weeks later, the NYT Book Review printed a rude review of his book Breaking the Spell. After reading the review, Ruse, sitting in Florida, could not resist sending a jeering email to Dennett. This was not, he now says, a very Christian thing to do. “But it was funny.”
A review so rude, so downright vulgar, as to be somewhat shocking. And – Ruse thinks a jeering email on the subject is funny? He really is more daft than I had realized.
What Dennett thinks of all this I do not know, since he has not replied to my email. Ruse is unrepentant. “Let’s face up to it: all Dan was doing was slagging me off.”
All Dan was doing where? In a letter that the Times declined to publish? In their email exchange? If the latter, so what? If the former, again so what, since it hadn’t been published? In short, what is Ruse’s grievance? That Dennett disagreed with him 1) in a then unpublished letter to the Times and 2) in an email exchange that Ruse instigated? And therefore it’s fine that Ruse sent the exchange to Dembski? Notice that Brown never even mentions how ethically dubious that is, in fact he doesn’t even mention the matter of permission. Notice also the vulgar abuse that Ruse descends to in the rest of Brown’s quotation from his email, drawing level with and then passing Wieseltier.
Not an edifying spectacle.
A civilized, humane religion. Always? In all its manifestations? The Vatican’s condom policy for example? Fred Phelps? ID and the wedge? I think not.
No, not always. Not in all its manifestations. The Vatican’s condom policy is of course crap, see here though I suppose I’m preaching to the converted:
http://www.population-security.org/mumford_bio.html.
Who’s advocating ‘submission to Christian dogma’? Perhaps I just haven’t followed the debate closely enough, sorry. I never heard of Fred Phelps — must google.
As to Dawkins, OK I got carried away — I’m one of his fans but if he would focus his ‘venom’ on Islam he would probably have a far greater number of them.
Conservative post-Christian secularists like myself have quite a difficult choice, actually.
For example, I’m in favour of sexual repression on purely instrumental grounds (no society can survive for more than a couple of generations without it), not because extramarital jiggy-jig get’s up God’s nose.
Where are my allies?
So far, I’m the only member of my own party.
Well, I’m sure Cathal you can approve of “sexual repression” because you;re not one of the persons being oppressed, but others may feel quite a bit differently. Fred Phelps does a nice job of enforcing one element of your blessed repression. I would send him a tithe if I were you. No need to Google, just type “Godhatesfags” into your browser.
‘Sexual repression’ was my somewhat ironic way of expressing ‘sexual restraint’.
Thanks for the Fred Phelps tip. He’s certainly great entertainment — are you sure he isn’t just a spoof, like the Sokal hoax?
The Catholic Church is the largest, most well-funded and organized pedophile group in the history of man! No further proof need be given on the Judgment Day against every single person of authority in that monstrous organization of perverts.
— priestsrapeboys.com
Religion sucks
— dawkinshatesgod.com
Yeah, Phelps isn’t a hoax. His latest form of entertainment is to intervene in funerals of soldiers killed in the war, apparently on the theory that the Feds promote homosexuality, or something.
“Who’s advocating ‘submission to Christian dogma’?”
Submission at least in the sense of silence, of not disagreeing with it – Ruse is.
But, really, Ruse has kind of gone beyond the territory of rational discussion now. There’s no longer any point in arguing with him.
Cathal,
No, Fred’s real and has real pull. Mainstream politicos court him, discreetly. Enjoy the wierdness that is checking him out.
I have to say that I think your key point, which I take to be;
You can be a decent Christian but you CANNOT be a decent Islamist. Modern Christianity is compatible with civilisation and a decent society; modern Islam is not’
is quite flawed. You are equating ordinary (decent) christians with ‘Islamists’ rather than with ordinary moslems who, I assure you, are just trying to make a (decent) life for their families.
Yes. There exists a problem with militant Islam. But to suggest that this represents a triumph for christianity is mere babbling.
You can just as well be a decent moslem as you can a decent anything else.
Other than a loathing for moslems and a confusion about Dawkins, what point are you making?
“Modern Christianity is compatible with civilisation and a decent society; modern Islam is not. You can even believe that the world was created 6000 years ago, i.e. 4000 years after the latest glaciation, and otherwise be quite a rational person, rear a good family, and love your neighbour.”
Actually, you are getting your Christian history almost exactly wrong, Cathal. The most “Modern” elements of Christianity are the rabid fundamentalists, not the love-your-neighbor sorts. Hardcore, absolutist Biblical literalism is largely a 20th century phenomenon, remember. It might be barely possible, in some “logically possible” sense, for an otherwise rational person to be a young Earther. But if we take “otherwise rational” to be a gloss on compatible with a liberal secular society, willing to live and let live, there are few to no biblical literalist/young earth creationist types stamped in that mold. Certainly none I’ve ever encountered or read about.
People who believe that their punishing, bigoted old fart of a God created the Earth 6000 years ago are generally not otherwise rational: They raise warped families where the women are subordinated and children are indoctrinated. And they only love neighbors exactly like themselves – not the lesbian couple down the street, nor the single mom across the hall, nor anyone else who doesn’t fit neatly into their extremely narrow views of righteousness. Christian love has always been more theoretical than actual, of course, but that’s especially true in the most “modern” segments of Christianity.
Worse, all of the fastest-growing Christian denominations in the world today are fundamentalist to one degree or another. They are chock full of hatred and repression – for women, for gays, for critical thinking and science and… well, for the entirety of the Enlightenment, really. Even within non-fundamentalist denominations, conservative elements are growing stronger. Liberal American-style Catholic dioceses are shrinking, and the only increases are in churches characterized by a conservative to ultra-conservative outlook – the Catholicism of der Popenfuhrer and Opus Dei, not the Catholicism of Latin American liberation theology.
These people ALLY with Islamists rather than opposing them. As a sop to their religious right base, the Bush administration has cooperated with Islamic theocracies to undermine reproductive health and other women’s rights/health/welfare U.N. initiatives. The real nutjobs like Pat Robertson and Jerry Fallwell endorse U.S. policy in the Middle East and support Israel because of their end times myths. Some elements of Christianity are every bit as much the enemy of humanity as the Islamists.
Don’t make the mistake of assuming all Christians are alike. Nor all Muslims either.
Cathal isn’t even right in her initial complaint – Dawkins doesn’t have it in for Christianity, he abhors religion in toto. If you watched his programmes he spent quite a lot of time examining religions other than Christianity.
Don writes (in reply to me):
“ Other than a loathing for Moslems and a confusion about Dawkins, what point are you making?
First, I don’t ‘loathe’ Moslems (some of my best friends, etc …) – I loathe Islam, even Islam-lite.
Second, perhaps I am somewhat mistaken about Dawkins – point taken, for though I’ve read most of his books I haven’t read many of his articles in the popular press. OK you win I lose.
The point I’m making is that one cannot put ‘ordinary decent Christians’ on a par even with ‘ordinary decent Muslims’ – even the ‘devout’ Fred Phelps is probably more ‘liberal’ than the most ‘liberal’ ‘devout’ Muslim. How the sneer quotes come rolling to the shore … but how else can one put it?
Now a question: is there ANY Muslim preacher or politician or intellectual you would prefer to run the United States than Fred Phelps? Even Phelps would probably be opposed to stoning adulteresses (though who can tell?)
By ‘Muslim’ I don’t mean cradle Muslims – I mean people who really believe in the holy book with squiggly writing.
The book to read is “While Europe Slept – How Radical Islam is Destroying the West from Within’.
The author is Bruce Bawer – who, as Fred Phelps would say, is one of those faggots God hates.
Bruce Bawer’s website is here:
http://www.brucebawer.com/
Now at least say ‘Thank you, Cathal’ for that tidbit of information.
Otherwise I’m going to sulk and I WON’T COME BACK AND YOU’LL NEVER SEE ME AGAIN AND THEN YOU’LL BE SORRY ETC ETC
“Now a question: is there ANY Muslim preacher or politician or intellectual you would prefer to run the United States than Fred Phelps?”
Irshad Manji, Ishtiaq Ahmed, to name two. By several million miles. I’d prefer them not only to Fred Phelps but to any number of Xian fanatics.
Cathal,
i’m not quite sure what a cradle moslem is. All moslems believe in the book with the squiggly writing. If they stop believing they stop being moslems. It’s kind of a deal-breaker.
Of course, at that point a lot of their former co-religionists would like to see them dead, and frequently contrive that outcome.
‘is there ANY Muslim preacher or politician or intellectual you would prefer to run the United States than Fred Phelps?’
I take it we are forgetting about the whole ‘born in the USA’ thing? OK.
Irshad Manji?
Actually, given that your candidate is Phelps, I don’t really need to reach that high. The last moslem I spoke to (on line) will do.
http://goolmool.blogspot.com/
Now I’m not sure Sid counts as an intellectual, although he thinks he does, and he sometimes talks bollocks, but I’d definitely vote for him over Phelps. Or Bush, come to think of it.
Snicker
We crossed, Don.
Irshad Manji?
A Muslim?
A Muslim recognised as such by ANY offshoot of Islam that represents more than 0.0001% of the world’s Muslim population?
We can all call ourselves what we wish. I can call myself a pair of polka-dot knickers but that does not turn me into a pair of polka-dot knickers.
If I as a cradle Catholic were to declare myself a polygamist could I, in any meaningful sense of the term, be defined as a ‘Catholic’ in terms of belief rather than birth?
To call IM a ‘Muslim’ is to play with words — sounds like a bit of postmodernism creeping in there, n’est ce pas?
Red Queen, Red Queen ….
Do you really, really believe that there does not exist a Muslim “preacher” or intellectual anywhere in the world that would be better than Fred Phelps? Wow. Just wow. What is your definition of “intellectual” anyway? Is a mild mannered advocate of the Koran always, by definition, worse than Fred Phelps.
As for Islam being incompatible with high civillization? Come on. That’s a pretty darn sweeping statement. You really don’t believe that? At least the Islam of the past certainly produced powerful and even beautiful civillization in places like Spain. (Until Los Reyes Catolicos swept in and burned and tortured and forced conversions and expelled much of the country’s minorities)
I’m not defending tday’s Islamists (to a certain extent, I’m sympathetic to Tingley’s Maxims for all religions), but the reverend Phelps is not even as scary as many of the thinkers and leaders who currently have our governments ear. But, then, you’ll probably enjoy a Handmaidens’ Tale world, no? Plenty of sexual control there.
Do you really, really believe that there does not exist a Muslim “preacher” or intellectual anywhere in the world that would be better than Fred Phelps?
Look — just give me a name. Quiet spoken, mild-mannered Tariq Ramadan, perhaps?
OK:
All true Muslims* are worse than Fred Phelps.
X is a true Muslim.
X is worse than Fred Phelps.
Again:
Some people who call themselves Muslims are not actually true Muslims and are not worse than Fred Phelps.
X calls himself a Muslim.
X is not necessarily worse than Fred Phelps.
OK?
*true Muslim — minimum requirement being the belief that the stoning of adultresses is a good thing.
Oh dear,
I’ve had a closer look at Fred Phelps’ website.
Hmmm …. OK let’s put him on the same level as …. AhmadiNejad?
‘*true Muslim — minimum requirement being the belief that the stoning of adultresses is a good thing.’
sorry, did mean to comment. But you are factually incorrect. Look, I’m a fairly rabid atheist and very aware of Islamism (or whatever) but your brush is way too broad and you focus way too narrow. That is not a requirement.
‘We can all call ourselves what we wish. I can call myself a pair of polka-dot knickers but that does not turn me into a pair of polka-dot knickers.’
Perfectly true, but if you call yourself a moslem, and mean it, and have an understanding of what you are saying, then you are a moslem. And no other moslem may deny it. Of course some do, but they shouldn’t.
No doubt some real scholar could blow holes in that, but in general it is the case.
I don’t want to mis-characterise your position, but you do seem to be simply asserting that Islam is inherently worse than Christianity. That this is a fixed truth. It isn’t.
There is nothing, no vile horror, that radical Islamism has committed that exceeds what Christianity has also committed. Currently, the modern christians you seem to be referencing are those for whom religion is a source of satisfying tradition, enriching ritual and social connection. Great. Real believers; they’re the problem. Belief + Power = a bloody shambles. Islam undoubtedly has a problem, some say that we are participants in an Islamic civil war. I can’t say.
But to simply declare a significant part of the world’s population as incompatible with civilisation is quite unreasonable.
1.3 billion seems to be the figure everyone is throwing around, so I’ll go with that. Roughly half of those are women, who are perhaps less than happy with their position, but none the less moslems. A huge proportion are people on the edge of poverty who find salve in their religion but who no more think of stoning than we do. Just trying to survive. And a small number are trying hard to reconcile belief with conviction and good luck to them.
Oh, yeah. And the nutters. And the whole apparatus that has built a power base …
Please. It’s more complicated than ‘Moslems; bad, Christians; a little bit odd and with a dodgy track-record but on the whole good.’
Thank you, Don, for expressing my horror a little bit more clearly. I’m sorry. Call me a pacifist weeny, but I refuse to believe that our only option is some horrific War of Civillizations. That way leads to Madness and probably total destruction. Giving in, joining hte baying hounds, is not the best solution. Sure, fight the Islamists. don’t give into “cultural” demands for Sharia. Throw the bombers in prison. But, the rhetoric of total war against a population that you have basically written off as subhuman-that is a frightening philsophy.
And, you know, it isn’t just “Islamists” who are slavering for Armageddon. The Left Behind series sold MILLIONS of copies of rapture-porn. Today. In the United States. In a Nuclear Armed country led by a man who believes reality is only what he wants it to be.
I meant Cathal in the “you” above, not Don.
Did anyone else use the term “rapture porn”? If not, I copyright it! :)
I know that this is a very wide generalisation, but I do get the impression that many in America think that Europe is burying its collective head in the stand as catastrophe approaches, while many in Europe feel that America is panicking, unwilling to think beyond the simplicities, and possibly making catastrophe more likely.
Cathal’s not an American though, I don’t think. You’re in the UK aren’t you Cathal? Or do I misremember.
Ah, the dangers of generalisations.
Ophelia,
I reside in Luxembourg, where I am president of the Luxembourg branch of the B&W fan club.
President, secretary, treasurer, librarian, cook, and gardener. B&W sends greetings to its fan club!
Thank you. I am also almost certainly the most reactionary supporter of B&W (in case you hadn’t noticed).
More details here
If the tag doesn’t work, copy-paste the following address:
http://www.globalidiot.net/FT01
OMG, I thought Cathal was a woman’s name. LOL.
Yeah, me too. And the worrying thing is I think I moderated my tone accordingly.