Shut up so that you won’t have to shut up
Another thing about Ruse’s claim.
Most of all I detest the New Atheism because I think it is playing into the hands of the Religious Right.
But if you decide it’s Forbidden to say certain things lest you “play into the hands of the Religious Right” then you are already playing into the hands of the Religious Right. If you give up the right to free speech as a precaution against theocracy then you are already in a theocracy. It doesn’t make sense to give up secular rights in order to hang on to secular rights.
I don’t want the religious Right deciding what I can say. I don’t want to defer to their sensitivities or their unreasonable beliefs. I don’t want to check what I say for acceptability to the religious Right before I go public with it.
Ruse is arguing for burning the village to save the village. No thanks; I’d rather just hang on to the village.
Dave Barash made a similar point on Ruse’s post:
The argument that we shouldn’t call out the incompatability between science – any science, including evolutionary biology – and religion for fear that this will compromise our constitutional right to teach the former strikes me as logically fallacious, legally naive, pedagogically vapid and intellectually cowardly.
I couldn’t possibly comment.
The more I hear from Ruse, the more I get the sense that, at least on this specific topic, he plugs his ears and covers his eyes whenever anyone presents a counter-argument, because he already has his answers.
Has Dawkins, or anyone for that matter, ever argued that evolution alone leads to atheism?
It reminds me of the “Freedom of speech comes with certain responsibilities” canard.
I would find it disappointing if no-one had.
Michael,
Far be it for me to speak for them, but I don’t think they have. From memory, Dawkins essentially says that evolution does rule out certain religions, and it creates difficulties for most others, but by itself it doesn’t lead to atheism (and even if it did, that “fact” wouldn’t belong in a biology classroom). My understanding of a classroom exchange:
Student: “But where does that lead god?”
Teacher: “Evolution doesn’t need divine intervention, but some scientists are religious. It’s an interesting topic but we don’t have time to cover that in our course”
Or something like that? I Am Not A Teacher
Dawkins does say in his book The GOD Delusion:
And chapter four in the same book is dedicated to why that is.
Dawkins in The Blind Watchmaker:
This is hard for me, because I have an instinctive dislike/distrust towards philosophers, especially ones who don’t know their place. :)
Anyhoo, I think Ruse’s two main objections that lead him to being such a rude little person are these:
1) Atheism has become “democratized” and anyone can “do it” successfully, from scientists like Dawkins and Harris, to political commentators like Hitchens… and what’s worse, even “regular” people like me and my wife can be atheists too. Atheism isn’t something that is reserved for the hallowed halls of academia anymore, and doesn’t require the sort of “logical forms and rituals to the point of obfuscation” that is what philosophy looks like from the outside to engineering students like me. It sort of makes philosophy look a bit irrelevant to atheism, when any reasonably intelligent and well-read person can come to the same conclusion with much less brain-sweat.
2) The debate about religion atheism in modern discourse is being conducted most frequently and most effectively by non-philosophers. It must really chafe to have spent a career sifting philosophical ideas ever more finely, only to have the Gnu Atheists move a mountain of BS out of the way with bulldozers. If the democratization of atheism has been a slap in the face to philosophers, the success of Gnu Atheism must feel like a knife in the heart… or at least bamboo shoots under the fingernails.
In any case, you know that someone has gone beyond the point of contributing useful ideas when it is more interesting and fruitful to play armchair psychologist than addressing their ideas. In Ruse’s case, there is a heaping serving of pathos, with only a garnish of logos. And having exhausted my entire philosophical bag o’ tricks, I move on.
I don’t see what the problem is in terms of the teaching of evolution. I don’t want science teachers teaching students that evolution is incompatible with theism, and equally I don’t want teachers teaching students that evolution is compatible with theism. I don’t want scientific organization deciding that accommodationism is true, but I don’t want scientific organizations deciding that incompatibilism is true either. Accommodationism has worked its way into classrooms, evolution education groups, and scientific professional organizations and that is what incompatibilists are rightly complaining about. “We take no position on the issue” would have been the right response for organizations to take. And the no-position position isn’t equivalent to the odious NOMA. NOMA says that science can’t answer questions about the religious. The no-position position just says that we choose not to.
The problem is that YHWH, Jesus, Allah, or whatever deity one wishes is entirely unnecessary and, in fact, nearly impossible to fit into any teaching about evolution without being disingenuous, and as we all know, if no deities are involved then the teaching is atheistic (going by the dictionary definition). While in many other fields of science this would not register at all on the religious scare-dar, in this case science is messing with the foundational myth of human creation, which is a big no-no.
Dear Michael:
No, I won’t shut up. Not for you and not for Sarah Palin, either.
How does stating the truth (there are no gods, not even yours) in a straightforward manner possibly “play into the hands” of people who lie about what they had for breakfast? How would my shutting up not count as a victory for them and their lies? “Those atheists have all shut up — I guess that means that we win!” Honestly, what other interpretation could there possibly be?
I’m wondering if you have any actual argument to make with regard to atheism and religion. Frankly, this one-note samba you’ve been playing is droning on just a bit too repetitively.
Is there some actual point you have to make with regard to the evidence (or lack thereof) about the existence of a god? Any god? Karen Amstrong’s god, Rick Warren’s god, John Ratzinger’s god, Mata Amritanandamayi’s gods, Feisal Abdul Rauf’s god … take your pick. Or Spinoza’s god, or Newton’s, or even Einstein’s. Love to hear about it.
But this constant whinging about “tone” is really getting boring. Hurts your book sales, probably.
Might be time to move onto a real idea or two. You know, the substance of the argument?
Kindest regards.
@ Improbable Joe : Yes. And yes.
I’m an infrequent commenter, at best, on this matter, and perhaps not as gnu as the gnu-est gnus (just doing my part to make the word more smurfy), but it drives me nucking futs when self-styled linguistic analysts like mavprof characterize mild rebukes and polemics as ‘abuse’ and ‘intolerance.’ I guess toiling at the Pharyngula quote mines became passe when Mooney, et al. were rightly rebuked for it, but there still must be stuff the upperclass gnus are saying that are The Worst Things Imaginable.
Hasn’t it been shown that education typically diminishes religious belief? Does that mean education is unconstitutional?
@Michael De Dora
Yeah, and plain T-shirts without religious slogans are clearly advocating atheism and can’t be worn by teachers.
@Michael De Dora: so does exposure to people with different religious viewpoints. I guess it must be unconstitutional to not be mainline religious too.
Gentle reminder: of the Four Horsemen, two are trained philosophers, even if one of them was more than a bit sloppy in his latest book.
Russell Blackford is also a philosopher.
I think you are confusing laws with actions. Whether you goal is to educate more people about evolution or to convince more people to abandon religion, there are multiple approaches, all of which are legal, which are effective to varying degrees. For example if your goal is to educate more people about evolution, it certainly is not an unreasonable argument that you will do so more effectively if you do not begin by directly challenging their belief in the existence of god. If your goal is to convince more people to abandon religion, it is also a reasonable argument that you are better off first teaching them about evolution and other scientific fields that make “it possible to be an intellectually fulfilled atheist”. If you believe you are better off directly trying to convince people to give up their belief in god from the start, that is fine, too. Others feel that if you do so, so will harden the stances of more people than you will convince.
Your statements about it being “Forbidden” to say certain things, and about “giving up the right to free speech” are just histrionics. You don’t give up your right to free speech just because you are not talking, and there is no credible threat of being prosecuted for offending the religious right (in the US, which is what this particular discussion is about). If you want to make the argument that one approach to discussions with religious right-ers is better than another, please do. Your fears of the religious right deciding what you can say (in the US) are unfounded.
On the other hand, outside the US, laws against defamation are not that uncommon. In fact, I am sure you are well aware that many countries are continually trying to have the UN Human Rights Council resolve to require states to ban defamation of religion. There is a credible threat that this might occur in any given year. If it does, freedom will be greatly curtailed for billions of people. Are your public arguments against such a resolution something along the lines of “Your god doesn’t exist and you are an idiot for thinking he does” or “History has shown that robust freedom of speech corrects a great many wrongs; and such defamation laws are often abused to silence criticism of abuses by those in power”? Which public argument do you think would be more effective in preventing the passing of such laws?
That’s a silly comment. Of course I’m not confused about laws, and of course it’s not just histrionics. I said what I meant – “If you give up the right to free speech as a precaution against theocracy then you are already in a theocracy.” My whole point is that if you act as if certain kinds of speech are forbidden, then they might as well be forbidden.
Did you simply miss that? I’d have thought it was obvious enough.
Would you be arguing this point if the people you were trying to educate were Pythagoreans and it was a mathematics lesson? Or put it this way, should spelling lessons be tempered to not directly challenge students who think California should be spelled with a “K”? We can’t help it that religions often have a human creation myth or life creation myth at their roots just sitting there waiting to be challenged by scientific facts, and it isn’t right to give religious students (or more likely students of religious parents) a special privilege over anyone else in this society who thinks erroneous thoughts.
Michael De Dora
Not evolution specifically, but science in general.
“Not only is science corrosive to religion, but religion is corrosive to science. It teaches people to be satisfied with trivial non-explanations and blinds them to the wonderful real explanations that we have within our grasp.” — Richard Dawkins “Science shares with religion the claim that it answers deep questions about origins, the nature of life, and the cosmos. But there the resemblance ends. Scientific beliefs are supported by evidence, and they get results. Myths and faiths are not and do not.” — Richard Dawkins, River out of Eden “Although atheism might have been logically tenable before Darwin, Darwin made it possible to be an intellectually fulfilled atheist.” — Richard Dawkins, The Blind Watchmaker
I find it especially ironic that Ruse thinks Gnus are playing into the hands of the Religious Right, since the only other person I have ever making the argument that teaching evolution infringes on religious freedom is Kent Hovind. And I have heard it much more often from Ruse than Hovind.
Oh, man, you don’t get out much. Ruse is right in claiming that this argument is a mainstay of the Intelligent Design movement. They led with it at the 2005 Kansas science “hearings”. Of course, that doesn’t make it more than frivolous.
You might think that if Ruse believes that Coyne and others are causing a bit of a problem with posts on their blogs, then it’s probably not helping much to post the following on your own site:
“Hey! All you New Atheist Haters and Creationists – look at Jerry’s blog – it’s really going to help you!”
Exactly, nor is it helpful to keep boasting about loving to pick fights and all the rest of it. That’s why the whole claim is so very unconvincing. I think he just enjoys being an asshole, and the pretend “strategy” stuff is just a smokescreen.
Improbably Joe, #8 wrote:
Exactly. I’ve said somewhat similar things myself on several occasions; there seems to be this view amongst certain atheist philosophers and philosophy students that the only ‘real’ atheism is one that gives all the credit to philosophy and acknowledges that atheism is only valid if achieved through years of study (study of approved texts, of course), and that the right to call yourself an atheist is something that needs to be earned rather than simply self-applied.
I just don’t get it. I don’t grow my own wheat, either; does that mean I shouldn’t be allowed to eat bread?
@Ken– It seems I do. But if Dover any indication of how well their strategy is doing, I’m not too worried.
@17…why do you assume that philosophy is the correct discipline to discuss such matters?
For every philosopher who says black is white, there’s another who says with equal conviction and equally as valid “arguments” that red is white.
None provides the slightest EVIDENCE that their positions are true. It’s not what they “do”.
Yes, I believe that “thinking” has a place in civilized conversation. But the navel-gazing that is modern philosophy? Blech.
@27 — yes. Exactly.
I came to my atheism quite naturally. At about age 8. I have never understood why people feel the need to go through such a convoluted “process” in order to reach a conclusion that I figured out without the benefit of Hume or Diderot, or even Ruse.
Now, I know what’s coming next — that I’m not intellectually sophisticated enough to REALLY appreciate my atheism.
With all due respect … bullshit. How in the world does it take intellectual sophistication and years of philosophical study to figure out that fairy stories are not real? An 8-year-old can do it.
@Kevin
To be fair, I got a little accidental help from my mom. She told me that stories with talking animals and magic weren’t real, and that’s how I became an atheist. She didn’t mean for me to apply that standard to the Bible, but there you go.
The idea that it requires sophisticated philosophical thinking to not be a theist is laughable indeed. And, as per the norm, I’ll mention that none of these anti-Gnu twits seems willing to insist upon any philosophical sophistication from theists. It is apparently respectable to believe fairy tales without evidence, but worthy of scorn to reject fairy tales because there’s no evidence.
I’d love to see Ruse or any of these other jokers answer that one, but since I’m not even a junior-junior-junior-Gnu, I’ll never get an answer.
Kevin @#29, because among other subdisciplines philosophy contains epistemology, which is the study of what counts as knowledge. Philosophy is how we invented the whole idea of science – Newton still called it “natural philosophy” – and evidence and the idea that to say something is actually knowledge it has to be both true and justified by reference to the world.
Philosophers invented empiricism and science and all this talk about justification; demanding evidence is *presupposing a philosophical position*. You’re doing philosophy right now.
Epistemologists are good folk to talk to if you want to hit on truths about the world. And the question of the evidence for gods is certainly a question about whether or not the world provides any justification for the claim that gods exist.
Philosophy runs on logical argument. So does mathematics, which is true even absent any confirming evidence from the world. And like mathematics, philosophy is nonetheless incredibly useful when we apply it to the world. You *are* going to see them arguing with one another instead of presenting truths from on high. Philosophers ask good questions and argue to figure out the boundaries of what is known and where the problems lie.
There is plenty of good philosophy out there, but I wouldn’t say that understanding it is required to be an atheist. (I’m a third generation atheist who can remember being an atheist long before I read any philosophy.)
Dan Dennett is a peer of Ruse. They are both at the top of the field of philosophers of biology, which is to say epistemologists with a particular specialization. Sam Harris has a degree in philosophy from Stanford. Russell Blackford is a philosophy PhD who *also* specializes in philosophy of biology. The Gnus are hardly isolated from philosophy.
Don’t confuse our goal to promote science education with our other goal of promoting understanding of atheism and ending religious privilege. We can and do walk and chew gum simultaneously. If others need help understanding, there are books and videos and public appearances where a positive and truthful message is provided. Accommodationists undervalue the truth part and overvalue the “shut up and keep your head down” part.
These days atheists don’t just ask humbly be to be included, we demand that religious privilege be ended. That is shaking things up, and gives accommodationists fits. It’s so much harder to blend in with honest discussion ruining everything. If people who don’t even have advanced degrees are allowed to say what they think is true, there won’t be a safe place for prevaricators to hide anywhere!
And that would be a trope of the YNH/accommodationist crowd. I often wonder how many of them actually believe this framing/strategy stuff, and how many of them just use it as a way to make themselves look like they’re the only adults in the room.
Caryn, I don’t agree with some of the comments that disparage the role of philosophers in the atheist discussions. I’m in entire agreement with you on this point. Of the eminent Gnus I’ve read Dan Dennett has influenced me most. But his informal style and jargon free presentation should be a lesson to intellectuals everywhere, that difficult ideas can be discussed lucidly without dumbing them down. My quarrel, to the extent that I have one, is with academics who insist that their credentials entitle them to respect their ideas can’t earn on their own. Furthermore I get a little upset when I read about how poorly Dawkins handled the traditional arguments for a gods existence in TGD. I disagree with that assessment, and that was one of the better chapters in the book. He introduced to a general audience the basic arguments, and did it well. Now I’ll go read Mackie and get super-educated on the subject (well not now, but someday…).
Accommodationists have their own privilege to defend. They see their role as presenting the responsible atheist position, but their own status is threatened by the rise of a generation of authors with various scientific/philosophical backgrounds who have appealed directly to the public with books that have had a considerable impact. Try as they might, the old guard can’t keep their resentment at being undercut out of their analysis. They’ve collectively lost their cool.
Andy Dufresne:
In YNH’s case, the answer is either zero or one.
I’m Canadian, so the legal situation is different, but my organismal biology teacher in high school basically put it this way when it was sort of on topic: how you resolve the material you learn about biology and, in particular, evolution, in your own system of thoughts and ideas, is your own consideration. End of story. He was also one who allowed students who objected morally to dissections to do other activities. That said, this was an optional course – students elected to take it, so I suppose if one had a really big problem with a course mildly centred around evolution and comparitive anatomy, etc. one could just avoid it. In the required human biology course (a few years earlier in the curriculum) the (different) teacher never brought the issue up, nor in a required ecology course.
Ernie, I can’t resist pointing out that the reason people like Dennett – aside from the fact that he’s just a damn good philosopher – is that he’s good the social aspects of epistemology. See http://www.philosophypress.co.uk/?p=104
Philosophy isn’t unique in its use of jargon, and, like science, probably needs better popularizers. Philosophers are often talking to each other, and using jargon speeds things up tremendously. But they are certainly not the only discipline with this issue. (Science writers spend their time translating sentences like “we also find changes in immune-associated signaling pathways, offering a potential upstream explanation for the shallow trophoblast invasion and inadequate uterine remodeling typically observed in pathogenesis of preeclampsia” into “if your blood pressure rises when you’re pregnant, it’s usually because the placenta didn’t develop normally, probably because your immune system wasn’t cooperating with the foreign tissues of the implanting fertilized egg.” Is this really useful to people who aren’t maternal-fetal medicine specialists? Yes. Do scientists get *paid more* to write like that? No)
Michael De Dora,
The statistics aren’t that simple. Education and disbelief are correlated, but so are a lot of other things including socioeconomic background, and these days there are a lot of orthodox Christians with advanced degrees in mostly “applied” and “practical” fields. (E.g., accountants, MBA’s, “education” types, and to some extent, engineers.)
There’s a pretty clear and very strong correlation between levels of specifically scientific and philosophical education and achievement and disbelief, especially if you look at the whole range from people who don’t go to high school through people who get degrees in science all the way to people who become outstanding scientists like NAS or Royal Society members. Then the pattern is amazingly clear. At one end, basically orthodox theists are the large majority, and theists are the overwhelming majority. At the other end, atheists are the large majority, and the orthodox theists are very small minority. (Being an atheist is a much better predictor of being a scientist than being white and male and from the middle class.)
You can always explain such correlations away, though.
Elaine Ecklund tries to do that by saying that people raised less religiously self-select into science, which has interesting implications to the extent that it’s true—it might mean that Jerry Coyne is right that if you want to promote science, the best way to do it is by undermining religiosity first. Of course Ecklund doesn’t mention that obvious plausible inference, because she’s a Templeton shill.
It’s only partly true, though. Ecklund’s own statistics clearly show—though she generally refrains from noticing—that most US scientists start out religious and end up irreligious or much less religious. (Most were raised Christian.) The correlation is clearly not mostly based on the kind of self-selection based on household of origin that she likes to play up
You can always posit a different factor that explains the correlation without one causing the other. My favorite is that actually smart people (not just people who score well on standardized tests) are more likely to be scientifically inclined and able, and also more likely to be atheists. :-)
@Tulse in #7
Thanks. So, then, Dawkins hasn’t said evolution made him an atheist. He’s said evolution fills in some important gaps in knowledge that supports atheism.
I agree with polly-o! -er Improbable Joe.
has anyone else noticed that philosophers (like Ruse) tend to respond to arguments against them with “there are glaring philosophical inconsistencies with your philosophically naive argument; so glaring that I won’t bother to tell you what they are or why they are problems and just smugly assert that I’m right because of it. Let me say philosophically again just for emphasis.”
Also, I know I’ve said something like this elsewhere about other thinkers, but as much as I like the guy, Sam Harris is not a philosopher. He’s not even a self-claimed philosopher.
@32..the minute someone uses the word “epistemology”, you can be sure they are in the process of weaving a fine tapestry made out of the purest, freshest, most highly polished bullshit available.
It’s the language of the priesthood — nothing more. Philosophers invent language so that they can spend a couple of chapters defining the language so that maybe people won’t see that their actual arguments boil down to less than a Cliff’s Notes sized pamphlet.
Don’t get me wrong — this week, I’ve just finished Hume, am in the middle of Grayling and have Dennett up next on my reading list. I GET it. I’ve read it. I’ve studied it. I’m studying it now. (Oh, and yes, I do know what the word epistemology means — and all the other ones that make that tapestry so finely woven.)
I just don’t agree that we need fancy words and volumes of text to answer the simple question — is there a god?
The answer is no. Anyone older than about age 8 should be able to intuit that just by looking around. We make FUN of people who believe in crazy shit like ghosts and demons and angels and Santa Claus. Why in the world do we need to spend this much time on an equally untenable claim?
Because they’re the ones with the money, standing in the halls of power, and all the rest.
But it isn’t nearly has difficult as everyone makes it out to be.
Why do people believe in such stuff? Because they’re afraid of death — and religion provides solace, consolation, and hope. Completely unfounded and illogical solace, consolation and hope.
Once people get over their fear of the after-death, the hold of religion vanishes in a puff of nonexistent smoke.
Now, I could write an entire book about those two topics — god and the reason religion thrives. But I’ve just completed saying everything that needs to be said in a couple of sentences. If I were a philosopher, I’d be on volume 6.
Improbable joe may be correct that it doesn’t require philosophical sophistication to be an atheist, but that doesn’t make philosophy redundant, and anyone who argues in the way Doug describes at #41 is arguing like a shallow theologian. My own favourite kind of shallow argumentation is the “hunt for the reading gap” technique:
Have you read X? Yes. Have you read Y? Yes. Have you read Z? No. Aha, if you had read Z you would find that I am right and it is of course too complex to summarise.
This is great fun when you see it tried on someone well read enough to make the list very long and it mutates into the cheese shop sketch…
Dear Dr Benson,
I believe the flag burning should be legal, yet I have never burned a flag. I think that Koran-desecration, and Catholic cracker desecration should also be legal, yet I have never done either of those. Your statement makes little sense. There are many things we never say or do, but that doesn’t mean they may as well be forbidden. But, I can see how your theory makes life a little easier. You can defend any rudeness by saying “If I weren’t rude, it would be as if rudeness were forbidden.”
Dear Aratina Cage,
I wrote “directly challenging their belief in the existence of god” because I distinguish that from challenging their belief in a particular creation myth. Surely no one would deny that many people simultaneously believe that the theory of evolution is accurate and that god exists, which implies that it is possible to teach evolution (and the falsity of various creation myths) without directly addressing the existence of god. My point is that it is often more effective to convince people piecemeal than wholesale. I can’t break down the spelling of California any farther, so I think that analogy doesn’t apply. I admit I’m not sure what you are driving at with the Pythagoreans.
You have got to be kidding!
delurking – I’m not a Dr.
You didn’t understand my point at all, I’m afraid.
I get worried as soon as I see ‘Biology’. I mean, you just know that you are going to read about “enzymes” and “deoxyribonucleic acid”. It’s all just being smug. I just don’t know why they can’t write ‘stuff about living things’, and ‘magic chemicals’, as then we could all understand. Dawkins is particularly bad with the word “evolution”, when what he really means is “things that happen to different living things over lots and lots of time, so much time it’s gonna blow your mind”.
These ‘intellectuals’ with their ‘words’. Where will it terminate (sorry ‘end’)?
@42
Sam has a B.A. in philosophy from Stanford. Getting pretty ridiculous credentialist when we discount trivial little matters like having a university degree in the subject as insignificant because it’s only an undergrad degree.
Really.
Epistemology is basic. It’s not a fancy-pants trendy word we don’t need; it’s basic. Without it you just get people making shit up and nobody can say why that doesn’t cut it.
I just want to clarify that I meant philosophers like Ruse engage in that kind of intellectual arrogance, not philosophers in general. There are philosophers like Dennet and Blackford that don’t pull that kind of stuff; but those philosophers tend to not think of philosophy as a means in itself. They see it as part of a greater whole that clarifies our thought about the world around us with emphasis on evidence and what is real…. so you know, good philosophers.
Dear Ms. Benson,
I am willing to try if you would be willing to explain further. You did actually start your sentence with “My whole point is…”. I took it at face value.
You have not commented on the final paragraph of my first post, regarding potential UN resolutions forbidding defamation of religion. I am interested in your answer to my question there, because the stakes are a lot higher than in this gnu-atheist/accomodationist screaming match.
The gnus cut through all of the crap and tell the truth. This will always be more effective as a strategy to counter the religious right than attempting to tiptoe around the edges of the real issues. The religious right uses atheism as a symbolic boundary for demonizing people, and it doesn’t matter how “nice” and accomodationist you try to be, they will continue to use it. An honest approach can cut through the language games to reach those who can be reached.
delurking, I made the point as clearly as I could. I don’t have time to explain it further just for you.
About your final para: here’s a suggestion: type “defamation religion UN” into the search box at the top of the page; that should answer your question.
@49, I’m sorry, I just don’t think an undergraduate degree qualifies one as a professional in an area of study. Nor does writing a bit of philosophy qualify one as a philosopher. Otherwise these words are meaningless.
Dear Ms. Benson,
Are you saying that you are incapable of making your point more clearly or that you don’t have time to?
If you post your reply in this thread, then it is not just for me, it is for all of your readers.
I tried the search you recommended. Unfortunately, it was not as enlightening as I had hoped. The results make clear that you and your coauthors oppose criminalization of defamation of religion. I do also. I think reasonable people could disagree on the best approach to counter attempts to limit speech.
@delurking, I think Ophelia’s point is clear. She is talking about peoples reactions to actions rather than advocating carrying out those actions themselves. For instance a lot of the current hysteria about the actions of Terry Jones seems to be based on the premise that he has done something that is illegal or obviously dangerous – rather than a reaction to someone that has done something crass but legal. To say that you think that those actions should remain legal does not mean you advocate carrying out those actions, but it does mean that you should not act as if someone has broken the law if they carry out those actions (one noted commenter suggested Terry Jones should be convicted of murder for his actions – a sentence in Florida that carries the death sentence).
delurking – I said “I don’t have time” – so your follow-up question is simply absurd.
No; if I explained my meaning further it would be just for you, because no one else has reported not understanding it.
You’re bordering on trolling now.
Dear Ms. Benson,
You should not assume that there are no other readers who have the same question or misunderstanding. If you write or speak for a large audience, it is common for a misperception or misunderstanding to be shared by multiple audience members. I note that Sigmund gives a plausible hypothesis for your meaning. I wonder if you have the time to say “Yes, that is what I meant” or “No, that is not what I meant”?
Dear Sigmund,
Thanks. Do you think any of the accused accomodationists have acted as if the new atheists are breaking a law? It looks to me like the linked post (Ruse’s) is making an argument about perception and the likelihood of certain judges ruling certain ways.
@Ken M: It is not that I “may be correct,” I am absolutely correct for any meaningful definition of the term… or you’re claiming that I was capable of sophisticated philosophical reasoning when I still had some baby teeth left. :)
I also accept that my anti-philosopher bias is not entirely rational. I don’t have a problem with philosophy, and I guess you could even say that being against philosophy could be itself considered a philosophy. I’m mostly against the idea of using 100 words when 10 will do a better and clearer job of explaining things. The irrational part is that philosophers are doing something murky and incomprehensible to me, and therefore I assume they’re crafty, shady people who are hiding something nonsensical or untrue inside a maze of language. Might just be too much exposure to William Lane Craig though… :)
I do what I can to proselytize for philosophy these days. If I may, I’d like to advice patience and persistence with philosophy. I have been very lucky to have friends who have started me on the journey of learning philosophy. Starting as a pure scientist with no background in philosophy, it has been one of the most exiting intellectual experiences of my life. I have found philosophy to be hugely more important to me in shaping my views about atheism than science, and I’m now working (as an enthusiastic amateur) on ideas to do with epistemological [yes, sorry] aspects of consciousness, and the nature of free will.
Philosophy is a vital part of reason. Science can get embarassingly silly without it!
Of course, whether or not philosophers are shady is another matter.
delurking, you’re a careless reader. I didn’t assume anything – look at my wording. I said no one else has reported not understanding it.
Your trolling level is going up. Do better.
delurking (#45)
What you’re lacking is insight into why you consider those things rude in the first place. If you can figure that out, you’ll probably be able to grasp what Ophelia is saying. Until then, lurk moar.
@delurking #45
So you were building up a straw-person to burn down? Are there many biology teachers (or any at all) who outright tell their students that evolution precludes the existence of all gods? It just doesn’t make any sense to me to read “directly challenging” in that way, but if that is what you meant then pardon me.
Of course, but which teachers do you know of who are addressing the existence of gods in a biology class? Does this even happen?
I imagined that a Pythagorean, or one who worships some form of mathematics, would have a hissy fit in a modern math class just like a student who learned to spell words incorrectly might have a hissy fit when corrected.
My dear Ophelia:
Epistemology is a word that this particular atheist did without for more than 50 years. I had no need of it. It had no need of me.
Then I started reading philosophy, out of an abiding curiosity to see if there was any “there” there.
And there it was, in all its condescending glory.
Steve: See …. you used the language of the priesthood of biology. Deoxyribonucleic … well … who the hell understands THAT except for a “professional” biologist? Why don’t the rest of you just let us “professional” biologists speak our language and not worry your less-than-adequate brains?
It’s all about setting oneself apart by use of language. Carving out a niche that only select few can access.
And in the context of understanding the arguments for and against the concept of whether or not there is a god, the language of philosophy, theology, religious-philosophy is meant to do one thing — set the writer up on a pedestal so the rest of us poor unwashed can admire their erudition. Never say “knowledge” when “epistemic” will do.
Sorry, I’ll shut up right after this example, which I thought of almost immediately after posting.
Which is better:
A: Science and religion are different ways of knowing.
B: Science and religion use different epistemological approaches.
One is just plain goofy, and the other masks just plain goofy behind obscuration.
And more to the point, which would a “professional” philosopher use to try to get one to agree with his contention that there is more than one way of knowing, and that religion has one of those ways?
It’s easier to hide bald-faced lies when one can trot out polysyllabic words to replace plain, simple, easy-to-understand language.
I just finished Hume and am in the middle of Grayling (yes, I hop around a lot), and am happy to report that clear writing is not a job requirement for professional philosophy.
Kevin:
A and B aren’t saying the same thing. A is goofy because science and religion aren’t ways of knowing. B works just fine because it’s accurate.
I’m not a professional (or “professional”) philosopher by any means, but I still use the word epistemology to talk about how religious “ways of knowing” fail to provide us with genuine knowledge. It’s an absolutely crucial point to make. And while I tend to use the two interchangeably myself, “ways of knowing” isn’t sufficiently synonymous with “epistemology” that philosophers would improve their clarity by abandoning the latter for the former.
@Michael #55, I didn’t actually say that of the Four Horsemen, two were *professional* philosophers. I said they were *trained* philosophers. I was trying to account for the fact that there are many trained philosophers (even many with PhDs) who don’t have tenure-track jobs in philosophy and don’t publish in philosophy journals, and then there are professionals.
Someone with a BA from a top-ten Leiter institution is differently trained from someone with no exposure whatsoever to philosophy, even if that person is not a professional. I’m trying to think of a better way to put that; how else would you make that distinction?
@Kevin #66, as I said earlier, the language is for precision, in the same way that “syncytiotrophoblast” doesn’t quite mean “placenta” but “placenta” can sometimes be used to stand in for it, when you’re not being careful about your precise meaning. I suppose maternal-fetal medicine specialists are up on a pedestal trying to obscure their meaning, too?
[…] have been whining, left, left and center (geddit?) that Rooze is warning for the umpteenth time that if the New Atheists keep presenting […]
Kevin,
“A: Science and religion are different ways of knowing.
B: Science and religion use different epistemological approaches.”
At the risk of deepening your dislike of philosophy, I’d argue that a professional philosopher could and may well use both, because these two statements don’t actually mean the same thing.
The first says that science and religion are, themselves, ways of knowing. The second, however, is compatible with science and religion not actually being themselves ways of knowing, but instead simply using different tools to get knowledge. To translate one to the other, I’d translate A to the terms of B as:
A: Science and religion are different epistemological approaches.
And B in the terms of A as:
B: Science and religion use different ways of knowing.
B is to some extent simply a broader statement than A since the reason science and religion use different ways of knowing might well be because they are both ways of knowing and are distinct ways of knowing.
Now, I know that you’re probably thinking: so what? Why does this distinction matter? And for a lot of purposes, it doesn’t. But it does matter when someone like me enters the debate who, in fact, actually denies that religion is a way of knowing. I consider it a set of theories about a purported facet of the world, and so think it ridiculous to call that a way of knowing or epistemological method. It’s no more a way of knowing than physics is a way of knowing. Yet I would agree that they use different ways of knowing. So if at least one of religion and science are not ways of knowing, A is not a correct statement, while B is. And then we have to figure out what ways of knowing science and religion use. And only then can we judge if those ways of knowing are useful, valid or even ways of knowing themselves and thus to judge incompatibility.
And it’s this sort of concept clarification that philosophy does really well. A lot of the time, it won’t matter. But a lot of the time, understanding this is key to understanding what people are disagreeing about, as oftentimes they are literally not talking about the same thing but don’t realize it. And then that requires using terms that are more “technical” to help avoid leaking in ambiguous common definitions that cause these sorts of problems. Few people have a common, every day idea of what “epistemological method” means, but “way of knowing” brings in more of those sorts of meanings that might cause issues.
Dear Ms. Benson,
I have come to believe you just enjoy insulting me. If you accept that there are other readers who do not understand your point, then if you explain it in this thread you are also explaining it to them.
Also, if you start deleting the comments of those who disagree with you, you effectively concede their point.
Dear A. Noyd,
I don’t consider those things rude. They do not offend me. Other people consider them rude. However, I do consider Ms. Benson’s responses to me to be rude. Yours is rude as well, although less so than the sum of hers. Are you worried that if you are not rude, it is as if rudeness is forbidden? I suspect not.
The postreligionist (comment #53) defends his approach by an appeal to its effectiveness. I said I think that reasonable people can disagree on which approach is most effective. I get the impression that Ms. Benson feels no reasonable person can disagree with her on this topic.
Dear Aratina Cage,
No, biology teachers are not directly challenging students’ belief in the existence of gods. I am sorry, I did not mean to imply they were. However, new atheists are advocating for this approach. This is what at least part of the argument between new atheists and accomodationists is about. I don’t understand why there is so much vitriol. I suspect people on both sides have a lot more confidence in their positions than they should.
I see your point now about the spelling. I agree that students and non-students (especially ignorant politicians) should be challenged about their misconceptions about evolution, the history of the universe, etc. I know that some will throw hissy-fits, but there is no way around that. My point was just that I think it is more effective to do this piecemeal, with the most empirically-supported topics first.
Dear A. Noyd and Aratina Cage,
I apologize if we will not be able to continue this discussion.
It is possible that Ms. Benson will ban this computer as well.
In my understanding, Gnu Atheists are not advocating that approach of teachers telling students that the gods the students worship are fake and the myths they believe are fake, which I would think would be one of the quickest ways for a teacher to get fired at a public primary or secondary school. Even the biggest meanie of them all, PZ, keeps that kind of talk strictly outside the college classroom.
On the other hand, universities (and probably even some high schools) have somehow managed to offer courses that do talk about religions and religious myths and beliefs directly (including those of Christians) without garnering the attention of people with the same worries as you. Ditto for history classes at the secondary and university levels. Why is that?
@delurking/d2
Jesus Fucking Christ, it takes a lot of gall to circumvent a ban so you can squawk about how rude people are being to you. Does the irony of that not even register? When you’re shown the door after making an ass of yourself at someone’s party, do you feel justified in climbing in through the window to further inflict your boorishness upon the host and other guests?
I had written a response to your post before it got deleted for the first time, but I’m not going to continue this because obviously Ophelia doesn’t want you here. Now get a clue and fuck off. End of conversation.
If we take Christians (and many other theists) at their word that religion (or faith) is required for morality then the reasons are apparent. If you really think atheism is a path to nihilistic debauchery then the proper upbringing of children must involve the inculcation of ‘morality’ in the form of religious instruction. In Ireland where I grew up this is entirely openly admitted by those in charge of the education system, over 90% of schools being directed by the Catholic Church (the local parish priest or bishop is usually the head of the education board). In fact you cannot become a primary school teacher in Ireland without getting a qualification in Catholic theology – the teacher training colleges run a course for this certificate in catholicism as part of the standard training program. The amount of time that primary school teacher students spend on religion is five times the amount they spend on science.
Attempts to change this situation are always opposed on moral grounds – instruction in catholicism is seen as an absolute requirements to produce good upstanding members of the community rather than atheists that will go off and barbeque their neighbors or marry a chicken.
Sigmund @71:
I think Aratina’s point was regarding courses *about* religion, not courses *in* religion. Quite reasonably so – religion is important historically and sociologically. Fundagelical and mainline conservative Christians tend to be opposed to courses with this approach that looks at religion as a human construct.
As an example, Centre for Inquiry Ottawa recently had a talk on the writing of the Christian Gospels, presented by an (atheist) professor of religion. He made an amusing observation that his colleagues who study ancient Greek, Roman, or Norse religions are never faced with having their students defend the existence of the deities being studied.
@Theobromine
“I think Aratina’s point was regarding courses *about* religion, not courses *in* religion”
Oops, my mistake then!
I did mean courses about religion or ones that touch on a religious matter, but Sigmund has an excellent point, too. Why aren’t the accommodationists raising a stink over mandated religious indoctrination of students into Christianity when it does occur?
An example of what I was thinking of is how a history course might cover the Protestant Reformation which means you are going to hear about how one version of Christianity was deemed wrong by other newer Christians. Do history teachers coddle the Catholics at this time to protect them from hurt feelings? I don’t think they do. The whole thing is gone over without a fuss, yet how is it really any different than remarking how evolution provides a scientific alternative to religious beliefs (that is, evolution does not corroborate the Christian account of creation of humans or any other mainstream/ancient religious account of that)? And I also wonder why people like delurking don’t seem to be voicing concerns about Catholic students learning how Protestants think Catholicism is wrong. It leads me to suspect that perhaps the only reason there is any hubbub at all over evolution stepping on people’s beliefs is because atheism is despised by the majority.
@70…with all due respect, and recognizing that I’m goring your ox.
Define “a lot of the time.”
To me “a lot of the time” means “damn near all of the time — with not enough time in question between the two finely sliced definitions to have a beer or drink a cup of joe.”
I think you may have a slightly broader — longer, as it were — definition.
No kidding and without trying to appear condescending — it’s this approach to language and trying to redefine language away from clear meaning and clear understanding that is the #1, #2, #3 …. ad infinitum … problem with philosophy.
I’m a journalist by trade. My current job involves translating the language of the priesthood (clinical medicine) into chunks of information that more people can understand (including and perhaps especially, I must aver, the priests themselves).
You’ve only proved my point with your post. The role of modern philosophy appears primarily to be publication via obfuscation.
Kevin:
But “this approach” is not the approach Verbose Stoic is talking about. Rather the opposite. He’s saying technical terms offer more precision in meaning and thus enable people to better understand what’s being talked about. Can you perhaps explain how what Verbose Stoic is saying is wrong?
Did I prove your point as well with post #67? Did Caryn prove your point with posts #38 and #68?
Gee, we’d better stop talking publicly about women’s rights, otherwise we’ll be playing into the hands of those who think feminists are ‘strident’. Much better to stay home and stay quiet… Oops! Maybe I’d better not post this comment at all!
Kevin,
You seem to consider “everyday language” and “clear language” to be the same thing. Amazingly, they aren’t. Common, everyday language is, in fact, often massively ambiguous. Especially English. This ambiguity is one of the biggest problems in linguistics, actually. Here’s the traditional sentence used to demonstrate this:
I’m going down to the bank later today.
Now, this could mean that I’m going to the bank that stores money, or a river bank. But you can’t tell which that is from looking only at that sentence (both interpretations are equally grammatically correct). And there are a lot of these in a lot of languages, basically any language where one word can have different meanings. And that doesn’t even count minor shifts in meaning from the context a word is used in.
Take these debates. Take the word “faith”. What does “I have faith in God” mean? Can someone use the word “faith” there in the same way as they would in the sentence “I have faith in Kevin” or “I have faith in the scientific method”? How can we tell? We certainly can’t tell by looking at the dictionary meaning of the word, since it encompasses both meanings in that context. We need a deeper examination to see what is actually being said, and if we don’t do the risks are either that one side is equivocating or that they really aren’t using the same meaning of the word “faith” in that first sentence.
For me, personally, “belief” is a word just like this. When I say “I believe God exists”, to me that useage is indistinguishable from its use in the sentence “I believe it will rain on Saturday here”. But there is a common meaning of “believe” in the context of religion that is far stronger, more like “know”, which is quite explicitly not what I mean. I, thus, started saying that I mean believe “in the epistemic belief”, which I now shorten to “epistemic belief”. I use the terms not, then, to obfuscate, but clarify and make clear my position to avoid equivocation and obfuscation. Do you have a better suggestion?
See, your main problem isn’t with philosophy. It’s with any intellectual field, or with any field at all. You don’t seem to like fields using their own terms when talking about their own field, at least primarily amongst themselves, because the use of technical terms walls them off from those outside of the field and makes it harder for an outsider to understand what they’re saying. The problem is that for work inside that field, the technical terms make it easier for them to do their work, and so it is irrelevant whether or not it makes it harder for others to follow; these fields write and speak primarily for themselves. When they need to talk to those outside the field, that’s when the translations come in.
For example, I’m working on a software bug that can be described this way:
What they did was use a ThreadPool to handle the requests, and when the maximum number of threads is exceeded they’re supposed to be queued up. But they attached a PriorityBlockingQueue to the ThreadPool, and then tried to stick simple Runnables in it. But Runnables aren’t Comparables, and PriorityBlockingQueues take Comparables. So it tosses an exception out, which causes the connection to go down. But I don’t care about priority, so I can use a LinkedBlockingQueue instead and solve the problem.
Now, that wouldn’t make sense to anyone who didn’t know Java. But it’s the simplest way to explain it to people who do, since I don’t have to translate any of the details of what a thread or a ThreadPool or a Runnable or a Comparable actually are. I would find it quite bemusing to have to avoid writing or talking like that just so people not working on those bugs can understand what I’m saying.
The worst thing about the Religious Right, of course, is that it plays into the hands of the New Atheists.
Dan
[…] have been whining, left, left and center (geddit?) that Rooze is warning for the umpteenth time that if the New Atheists keep presenting […]