Signs and portents
Other people have been disputing BioLogos guest poster Loren Wilkinson; I’ll just add a footnote or two.
The BioLogos Foundation, with its commitment to the “integration of science and Christian faith” is one of many signs that the 150-year-old idea of a “warfare” between science and religion is ending.
You wish. It’s actually just a sign that the Templeton Foundation has a lot of money, much of which it spends on a great many organizations and conferences and books devoted to creating “signs” that science and religion are deeply in love. The BioLogos Foundation isn’t some independent phenomenon that just happened without any interested parties helping and funding – it’s the product of a well-funded agenda. It’s disingenuous to look at it all wide-eyed and pretend to think it’s a portent. It’s not a portent, it’s a concerted effort.
The warfare language implies that there were two kinds of knowledge: “religious knowledge”, established only by emotion and authority, and scientific knowledge, established by experience, experiment and testing.
No. No no. No no no no. That’s not the idea at all. The warfare language implies, and often says, that there is knowledge on the one hand, and dogma on the other. That’s pretty much what the warfare is. The two are in tension. The two don’t mix well. When a cleric says women must be subordinate to men because God said so, actual knowledge has nothing to do with it. The cleric doesn’t know what “God” “said” any more than you do or I do; the cleric is just passing on some dogma as a way of backing up a stupid prejudice.
I see part 2 is posted. Dear oh dear, more reading wading to do.
I’d resisted reading Wilkinson’s bit before now.
You know what, pal? Fuck you.
[…] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Skeptic South Africa and Wayne de Villiers, Ophelia Benson. Ophelia Benson said: Signs and portents http://dlvr.it/Dqh94 […]
Wow. Just, wow. I’ve been avoiding addressing anything by BioLogos, but this one is so chock full of abject denial that I might have to. Notice how the “warfare” only goes back 150 years, according to Wilkinson? Curious, that – I bet Bruno and Galileo and so on would get a right chuckle from it. No, actually, considering the senseless persecution that occurred when they simply examined nature and, horror of horrors, told people what they found, I suppose they’d be a bit more forceful in responding to such an insipid declaration.
But it helps to stand back (way back) and look at this for what it is. Religion can no longer deny science, nor claim to provide answers. In order for it to even survive, it has to find a way to ride along on science’s coattails and try to pretend it belongs. BioLogos is a sign of the end of the war, true enough – it’s a frantic dying effort from religion to salvage a last scrap of land. Or if you really like analogies, it’s the last bit of pus from the infection that’s plagued humans for centuries.
Religious people tend to be dualists, living in two worlds by definition. Now we atheists are said to be trying to force believers into living in two worlds. This is crazy! If anything, we’re trying to get believers to live in the real world. It’s simply too dangerous when they don’t.
Ophelia:
May I suggest one small amendment:
‘I see part 2 is posted. Dear oh dear, more wading to do.’
I find myself right now in an analogous situation, as my 50-years-old septic tank has disintegrated and imploded at last, & I have to dig it out & replace it. Reading your hilarious wit is my main relief today from some far more literal muckwading.
Just Al:
“I bet Bruno and Galileo and so on would get a right chuckle from it. ”
And so on and so back in time. Don’t forget old Socrates, sentenced inter alia for offending/ridiculing/whatever the damned Athenian gods.
‘But it would also require folks like Coyne and MacDonald to recognize that the facts of history and human experience, both of which give strong evidence of the reality of a personal and self-revealing God, form “data sets” worthy of being spoken of in the language of science—which should nevertheless always be the humble language of faith seeking understanding.’
Look at the phrase I have italicised. It makes you want to weep because of its foolishness, pig-headedness, irresponsibility, disingenuous assertions (what ‘strong evidence’?) and parochialism (there are religions other than Christianity in the world – lots of them); and then there is that cloying, unctuous sentimentality that surely conceals a fundamental aggressiveness; the whole piece could have been written by Uriah Heep – the character in David Copperfield, not the rock band.
How about the repeated destruction of the library of Alexandria by Christians and Muslims? Or the closing down of the Academy in Athens by Justinian I?
Religion is at war with knowledge and knowledge is at war with religion.
One phrase from their own puff gives the game away: “religious knowledge”, established only by emotion and authority, …
Precisely. Established by emotion? And “authority” – and on what basis does that supposed authority rest?
I think we should be told. (But don’t hold your breath waiting for a reply)
You know what, pal? Fuck you.
Amen brother. No philosophical tract could quite express that truth.
Actually, I regret my crude response. But when I saw how Wilkinson was claiming that Jerry Coyne and Eric MacDonald somehow lack understanding of his made up worldview….disgust is the only thing that comes to mind. So, yeah…
I’d add contempt in there, personally…not because of the religion, just because of the lack of thought. You’d think if they were gonna make a group designed to appear to be combining science and faith, they’d use a mouthpiece with at least the cognitive skills of a ten-year-old – someone who was capable of understanding that they might be wrong. Apparently not; that itself is the best giveaway I’ve seen that they’re still running on faith, the fact that they don’t display doubt about their own conclusions. Ever.
[…] Ophelia Benson says over at Butterflies and Wheels: When a cleric says women must be subordinate to men because God said so, actual knowledge has […]
.disgust is the only thing that comes to mind. So, yeah…
My comment was not snark. Simply there is a time when you need to state something thusly, and it doesn’t or can’t be expressed with a philosophical tract simply because you’re not dealing with reason.
I have a sneaking suspicion that people like Wilkinson and Alexander think they are really doing something important, that they are living at the cutting edge of thought, and that, in some sense, this is the pointed end of history. I can’t think what would justify them in this notion, except that they seem completelly oblivious to the fact that (i) there are other religions and other religious texts, and (ii) that they are not even following the trajectory of contemporary theology.
Biologos and its denizens seem to be hermetically sealed from the any engagement with the rest of the world. In fact, one of the things that alarms me about people like those who have signed on to the Biologos statement of faith is that they seem not to have noticed how religion is playing itself out in the rest of the world. It is almost as though they think they can continue a conversation that was effectively over by the middle of the 20th century.
In order to say anything pointful they have to take into consideration people like Bultmann and Rahner, Kung and Gordon Kaufmann, Maurice Wiles and Don Cupitt, and so on, but they write as if this other part (or these other parts) of the Christian tradition simply do not exist. How can anyone be so insulated from the world in which they live? I simply do not understand. How can they ignore the stupidities of the continued Roman Catholic privileging of men, or the old sectarianism that expresses itself in terms of extra ecclesiam nulla salus and think they are referring to themselves, or the massive ignorance of fundamentalist Christianity of which, whether they choose to recognise it or not, they are actually a part? It’s very frustrating. It’s a bit like shadow boxing. But it’s more dangerous than that, because religion is playing itself out in a world that is simply bursting at the seams with increasingly effective means of destruction. How can anything as solipsistic as religion help in a situation like this?
Eric MacDonald,
Have you ever considered writing an atheist guide to theology? With your experience and knowledge, such a tome would be invaluable for the rest of us. Of course the theologians would hate it, but could not possibly ignore it either.
I second Egbert’s suggestion to Eric!
And I ‘third’ Jerry’s suggestion.
Using terms like “data” and “models” are supposed to lend respectability, but I’m not sure why they have those connotations. Data isn’t evidence; models aren’t laws. In isolation, they’ve been neutered of any ontology.
First they made Eric write a blog, then they made him write a book and when they came for me… no, sorry, wrong quote.
Hahahahaha, Stewart. I fourth the suggestion though – but on the other hand I think Eric has a book in mind already, I think he’s mentioned it at his blog. We don’t want to over-burden him. Still, Eric – it is a thought. You do have this particular combination of qualifications.
Eric is, if not uniquely, then certainly exceptionally well equipped to put the point of view we share with a philosophical sophistication that can’t easily be dismissed by our opponents. He’s spent most of his life behind the enemy’s lines, which gives him expert knowledge of the weaknesses of the position being held. I hope he’s not intimidated by the awesome degree to which he is useful to us.
“religious knowledge”, established only by emotion and authority”
what ophelia says is correct, religion has nothing to do with reason. their emotion is mostly build on fantasy (i am a sinner, god shall dump me in hell) their authority is based on torture and killing. all their dogmas only serve one thing : make their parasitic caste indispensable.
And there’s another element to Eric’s particular combination/exceptionally good equipment, which is his very specifc reason for being angry at the impositions of religion. His reason is decidedly experiential, in a considerably realer sense than the “experience” Wilkinson claims as “evidence” for god. He has up close personal experience of the very real and very serious harm that religion can and does inflict. This is perhaps amplified and/or solidified by the personal direct response of the Archbishop of Canterbury himself – the wholly inadequate response.
They won’t like my post:
How can you reconcile Christianity and science when the science of archeology shows us that the Christian myth, and the myths of its origins, are false? Early Judaism was derived from the Canaanite religion. The Canaanite religion, from which the Religion of Israel emerged had priests, priestesses and prophets. At Ugarit, like later Israelite religion, it viewed the universe as having three levels. The highest celestial realm was the realm of El, the earth was the realm of Baal and other gods; and the depth was the realm of Mot, Resheph and Horon. Canaanite religion concentrated on the middle realm. In Bronze Age Ugarit many gods were worshiped. However, the pattern in Iron Age Phoenicia, and probably in the territories of Israel and Judah, usually was composed of a triad consisting of a protective god of the place, a goddess (Asheroth), often his wife or companion who symbolizes the fertile earth; and a young god somehow connected with the goddess whose resurrection expresses the annual cycle of vegetation. (Bhaal/Baal)” Over time the religion changed. Drastically. Science teaches us this. And lets us know that your religion is no any “truer” than Scientology or any other fable.
Tim @ #6 – I picked out exactly that sentence yesterday, and stared at it in a glazed manner for awhile, wanting to comment on it but also wanting just to make a rude noise at it and go for a walk. I even copied it into the comment box at BioLogos, where there were no comments yet…but I couldn’t summon the energy to say anything but “how dumb,” which I thought not altogether compelling. But it is dumb.
Tim said: ” the whole piece could have been written by Uriah Heep – the character in David Copperfield, not the rock band.”
I dunno, I think it would sound a lot better in flute.
Tim again –
Yes that’s another thing I was fuming about yesterday. BioLogos leans very heavily on sentimental language, and it drives me crazy. It’s a form of bullshitting, and yes, it is inverted aggression. It would be a great deal more “civil” if they simply wrote in plain English – but if they did that the poverty of their “arguments” would stand out too starkly; the unctuous language is a kind of veiling. I saw a sample of it just an hour or two ago in something an atheist philosopher (Georges Rey) quoted from Plantinga – lashings of emotive adjectives. It’s the kind of thing a good English teacher tells a high school kid to remove, because it’s overkill – but theist writers wallow in the stuff.
Ok, I’m nearly clear on this now. The Uriah Heep is not the rock band, but is it David Copperfield the magician?
It’s true that Eric has particularly valid reasons for anger at religion and its impositions, but I can see how some might see that as an argument-weakener, rather than a strengthener, i.e. claim that he wouldn’t be arguing so much against religion if he hadn’t personally had a bad experience of it. I’ve seen this emotional argument used in both directions. Some are accused of clinging to religion for emotional reasons, while others are accused of rejecting it for no better reason.
May I fifth the suggestion for Eric’s proposed (by various commneters + OB) book? But on condition that it has a hefty glossary, so that ignoramuses like me can follow the use of big theological words.
With thanks for all the confidence that people show in me, I’m going to have to bow out of the atheist guide to theology. It would mean re-reading way too much of the stuff! I left this behind. I ripped up my MDiv diploma. I don’t want to go back and visit that dark place.
Good thing I stipulated that we don’t want to overburden you!
Yes, Ophelia, noted and with thanks. I never would have imagined that blogging was such a busy business! I have posted 59 times since 2 December, many of them fairly long essays, which people are kind enough to read. It’s rewarding, but really quite a continuing commitment.
Stewart, my experience of religion was, to a large extent a good one, so that I can understand why Philip Kitcher stands up for faith as an orientation. I’m not sure I agree, but I spent many happy years in the service of the church, even as I began to grow beyond it. And the people in the parish where I worked were incredibly supportive of someone who weekly took Christianity apart, and tried to subsitute precisely the kind of thing that Kitcher refers to as an orientation which is not invested in belief, but thinks of the church as a traditional community with rituals that exemplify justice and community.
Where I found myself on the outside had precisely to do with the church’s stand on assisted dying. Once I had read the ABC’s speech to the House of Lords, “faith” came to an abrupt end — fullstop. But that was an intellectual as much as it was an emotional point of no return. For once, for moral reasons, faith has been overturned, it’s then impossible to go back, because all the other shortcomings of the “believing” community, as a platform for seeking justice, begin to show themselves. It was hard enough to find intellectual purchase before this; after it, it became impossible.
It’s amazing how much you can hide from yourself so long as you remain within the community. It is surprisingly isolated from other aspects of what is going on in the world, which is why, I think, that people are so surprised at the “new” atheist response. They find it shrill and strident, not so much because that’s what it is, but because it draws attention to itself in such a way that the religious can no longer remain in their isolated fastnesses, and it is very threatening to be called out of your private little world.
Religious communities can be incredibly life giving in some ways, and it is useless to deny it. What is objectionable, when you look at them from the outside, is the moral blinders that the religious have on. Many liberal Christians bought into social justice as the main task of the church, and that part was very attractive. However, at the same time that that is happening there are parallel realms within Christianity that are very destructive, both because of their irrationality, but also because morality, instead of being godless, as even Richard Holloway suggested when he was still Primus of the Scottish church, or just after his retirement, retreats into the same kind of irrationality on which faith is based.
I know that’s all in a rush, but it seemed worthwhile saying. But, actually, there are a fair number of religious “believers” who are not really believers, and are teetering on the edge of belief and unbelief. What keeps them going to church is the community, and we should not ignore this aspect of the church’s life. Most people, as people like Holloway point out, do not lead particularly exciting lives. They feel the need to belong to something which takes their own lives and connects it too something larger, something they can see as more important than they are themselves, just by themselves. We should at least honour that, if we cannot honour the beliefs on which, for a few, maybe even a majority, that larger than individual community and purpose rests.
My problem is that I no longer see a way of honouring that without at the same time giving solace to beliefs and their associated moral conclusions which are incredibly dangerous, not only to individuals, but to human life as a whole. I wish I could see religion through Kitcher’s eyes, but I can’t. I am prepared to honour those who turn to religion to have access to an experience of community of of value that in some sense takes them out of themselves, but when that is tied to religious modes of believing, which I am more and more convinced must lead towards cruelty and theocracy, I have to say that, honour the need that people have as much as I will, I cannot see religion as a remotely healthy way of being human.
I hope that’s not too full of contradictions to make, at least, a little sense.
Just what Georges Rey claims, in one of my favorite essays in Philosophers Without Gods. He thinks most people don’t really believe any of the substantive claims, but they hide that fact from themselves.
Thank you, Eric. I appreciate the lengthy reply. To keep my response briefer, no, yours was not full of contradictions, but was enlightening as regards what enables so many to live entire lives either oblivious to or hiding from contradictions that would otherwise be staring them in the face.
As for over-burdened, my reading list and areas of study are growing exponentially. I still have Ophelia’s Why Truth Matters in a pile of books on my floor.
On the one hand, it would appear that your opponents are convinced that they can easily dismiss anything. Alchemists would stand in awe of their ability to transmute reasoned argument to scorn.
On the other, I have to think that it can’t really be all that easy. As most parents are compelled to remind their children, it’s easier to be honest.
Many are well over the edge, and it really pisses them off when they think that new atheists are including them among actual believers, living in a pseudo-reality constructed from dogma and wishful thinking. I’m convinced that this is the source of much of the animosity.
“He thinks most people don’t really believe any of the substantive claims, but they hide that fact from themselves.”
I think these are the people that the billboard being discussed a while back was addressing (You know they are all a scam.) If the people who don’t really believe were to remove themselves from the church membership lists they would be left with a fraction of their purported ‘market share’.
I know it’s an overworked analogy but among the believers I know Santa Clause is about as believable as Noah or Jonah. And belief isn’t required for them to label the gifts they bought for themselves ‘From Santa’. They are the christian equivalent of secular jews, celebrating the culture without the baggage.
Too many are willing to play along with the silly bits (arks and whales and talking bushes) so that they can reap the benefits of belonging to a community. And when the silly bits become dangerous (calling for the death of a mother by denying an abortion in a case where the fetus isn’t viable) they are reluctant to do more than demurely say ‘That’s not my religion.’
Maybe if some of the accommodationists were working on a viable secular christian culture they could lure away literally millions from the congregations without any need to bash their more outspoken allies. Call it an extra-faith outreach and forget all the inter-faith headaches.
Whether it’s overworked or not, I actually think S. Claus is oddly relevant in many ways. I seriously linked the two as a child, and I’m sure I’m not the only one. I “reasoned” that since Santa was real (and everyone absolutely insisted that he was), God must be real too. One result is that I resented the Santa lie later on.
“God” never really meant anything to me though. It was just a word. I think I kind of disliked the idea even then. I know I hated the Lord’s prayer, which when I was very small I recited at bedtime. Eugh.
Eric Macdonald says:
The word orientation perfectly describes why science and religion are incompatible and conflicting. Science is orientated toward truth or reality, while religion is orientated toward myth or purpose.
They are on two different paths, or they pull in different directions. Fundamentally their orientation is oppositional to each other.
Egbert:
Spot on.
I hope I don’t continue to do this when I’m grown up, but like a fool I followed Ophelia’s link to BioLogos (ie http://biologos.org/blog/one-world-science-and-christianity-in-respectful-dialogue-part-ii/) and participated in the discussion there. Last night I was so buggered by all the aforementioned septic tank shovelling (see #5 above) that I abandoned a comment after the first few words and went to bed. This morning I went back there to find a scene of desolation. The comment I was going to respond to is no longer there. Looks to me like someone has been through that site with a front-end loader.
There had been editorial warnings that people were going off-topic in various ways, though ‘One World: Science and Christianity in Respectful Dialogue’ is I think pretty broad. I mean, if it had been ‘One World: Sex, Politics and Religion in Respectful Dialogue’ it couldn’t have been much broader.
For the record, in one of my comments I mentioned that I was writing as an ex-Christian, and a believer-participant (‘Sy’) asked me how I had come to be a Christian and why I had given it up. The second part was easier than the first, but having slept on it (the sleep of exhaustion is best for this, I find) I was ready to go this morning.
Ah well. Now the blogosphere will never know.
The shock of it all has been too much. I’ve got partial amnesia.
What is it that you’ve forgotten, Ian?
:- )
Eek. There’s a really icky comment from Darrell Falk saying no atheism here please. Talk on goddy terms or not at all.
Ah, Ophelia, it’s all coming back to me now.
I spent the first 28 years of my life in Sydney, and started getting taught scripture in kindergarten. So I became a Christian more or less by default.
Back in those days there was fierce interdenominational rivalry in Protestantism, which only eased off when their mutual enemy Catholicism got into the news. For there was only one thing worse than strong drink as far as any good Protestant was concerned, and that was Catholicism; ie the ‘Tykes’ and ‘Micks’. Well, them and gambling.
When I was about 18, the turds really hit the turbine when the Catholic Archdiocese of Sydney was nominated as chief beneficiary in the will of a publican. The Church got his pub. So what did the clerics do? No doubt after much careful consideration and prayers for Divine Guidance, they decided to raffle it. A monster raffle, first prize this pub, run by the Catholic Church. The Catholics generally found the Protestant outrage to be most amusing. I had good cause to join that indignant Protestant chorus, because one of my parents was an alcoholic, and one of my grandfathers an habitual gambler (who needless to add, was kept dirt poor by his habit.) Indirectly, grog and gambling had cost me a lot. But at the same time I saw the humour in the situation as a whole, because at that stage, I was on my way out of Christianity.
So I can’t remember ever deciding to become a Christian, but I can remember that period of growing late-teen dissatisfaction with it, leading me to quit and to become a Marxist instead. That lasted about 20 years. Like Christianity, it tried to explain the world and fell short, but then again, not totally flat on its face.
Any evangelical would tell me that I was never a true Christian, because once you accept Jesus into your heart as your own personal saviour, he is there forever, etc, etc. But my response is that I was never an evangelical. I got bored with the writings of St Paul. The only part of the NT I read was the Gospels. But then again, I was not a fundamentalist either. I realise now that from an early age I was looking beyond mere group identity and thinking for myself, and was ever ready to junk any idea if I found a better one.
I find it encouraging that there is so much of that individualism in thought about these days. In science, a new paradigm generally begins with a single bright idea in someone’s head that starts a whole train of them in motion, but historians of science often find it hard to nail down precisely where it all began. In religion it is easier, because only a relatively few prophets have parted company with the religion of their childhood and have started a new one. Their followers are never encouraged to do the same, but rather to follow like obedient sheep once the new lead has been given. Likewise, generations of piano students have been warned by their teachers against playing by ear, but rather to learn to follow faithfully the score on the page. The irony here is that the composer who wrote the score (eg Mozart, Beethoven, Bach) was very good at playing by ear, at least in every case I can think of.
That anyway is what I would have told Sy over at BioLogos, except that the heavies there decided to wield the bludgeon of censorship, and one too many of my comments got taken down.
And BTW: it’s all your fault, because you put up the link that got me over to that poxy bloody site in the first place.
;-)
At the risk of ruining a joke, you’re probably thinking of Jethro Tull, not Uriah Heep…