One more thing about Colin Tudge, because it makes me angry.

He wrote in that non-review “review” (and I quoted him yesterday):

Thus he tells us that “reality is everything that exists” – and “exists”, he makes clear, means whatever we can see or stub our toes on, albeit with the aid of telescopes and seismographs. Everything else – including things we might think exist, like jealousy and love – derive from that material base and are to a large extent illusory. This, he implies, is what emerges from science, and science is true.

Dawkins pointed out what he actually wrote in the book Tudge was “reviewing”:

Does this mean that reality only contains things that can be detected, directly or indirectly, by our senses and by the methods of science? What about things like jealousy and joy, happiness and love? Are these not also real?

Yes, they are real. But they depend for their existence on brains: human brains, certainly, and probably the brains of other advanced animal species, such as chimpanzees, dogs and whales, too. Rocks don’t feel joy or jealousy, and mountains do not love. These emotions are intensely real to those who experience them, but they didn’t exist before brains did. It is possible that emotions like these – and perhaps other emotions that we can’t begin to dream of – could exist on other planets, but only if those planets also contain brains – or something equivalent to brains: for who knows what weird thinking organs or feeling machines may lurk elsewhere in the universe[.]

Look at that. Read the two passages. Compare them. Tudge said that Dawkins said that love and jealousy don’t exist, when Dawkins in fact said the exact opposite of that. Note the first sentence of RD’s second paragraph -

…they depend for their existence on brains…

Meaning they exist.

Note the third sentence of RD’s second paragraph -

These emotions are intensely real to those who experience them, but they didn’t exist before brains did.

Meaning, to those with functioning brains, that they do exist now.  

I suspected yesterday that Tudge was playing games – I suspected that he used the word “exists” instead of “real” on purpose, and that the purpose was to get around the fact that it’s too absurd to say Dawkins says love isn’t real. I suspected it would be too quick and easy to prove Tudge wrong if he used that word, while “exists” would make things easier for him. I was wrong only in that Richard had explicitly said that they exist as well as that they’re real.

It’s shocking, I think, this outright mendacity. It should be put a stop to.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

Sastra has a very illuminating comment* on PZ’s The magic of denying reality.

She quotes Colin Tudge’s bad-faith misreading of Dawkins:

Everything else – including things we might think exist, like jealousy and love – derive from that material base and are to a large extent illusory.

And comments

Supernaturalists seem to have a lot of trouble trying to make sense of abstractions and levels of experience: they want to take everything literally, as irreducible substances. Love is only real to them if it’s a thing, a sort of spiritual-substance which is made of neither matter nor energy because it is the immaterial essence of love. Ironically, that makes them super-materialists — spinning material into finer and finer substances until like only comes from like. Love is derived from love. Otherwise, it can only have the same properties that were there in its origin.

Despite their claims to be so comfortable with “higher levels” of reality, supernaturalists are concrete thinkers. They can only make sense of immaterial abstractions by turning them into spirit-things in a spirit-world.

I don’t think I’d thought of that before, and it’s very damn interesting.

*Nothing unusual there.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

Libby Anne posted on this cartoon:

Shades of The Life of Brian -

I’m not

Brian, talking to a cheering crowd: You’re all individuals.

Crowd, in unison: Yes, we’re all individuals.

Brian: You’re all different.

Crowd, in unison: Yes, we’re all different.

Single voice in crowd: I’m not.

This business of being independent and thinking for yourself…Even for people who really do that to a smaller or greater extent, it’s such a small proportion of everything they do that in a way it’s absurd even to talk about it. The most eccentric of humans are only a tiny bit eccentric. Few humans resemble ants, or grey whales, or stones. Carl Sagan used to like to point out how human most movie and novel extra-terrestrials are, when there’s no reason whatever to think an intelligent agent from another galaxy would look at all humanoid.

We don’t even want to be more than a little weird. I certainly don’t. I don’t want to be weird in the style of Dennis Markuze, for instance. I don’t want to be like the guy I once saw in my neighborhood marching along the street in Nazi regalia, talking rather loudly. I don’t want to be a sentient eggplant or spider web. In many situations my conscious hope is to appear Normal, and I know damn well I’m not the only one.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

What happens.

Jamey Rodemeyer, a 14-year-old boy from Williamsville, NY, took his life Sunday after what his parents claim was years of bullying because of struggles with his sexuality.

His parents, Tracy and Tim Rodemeyer, say that Jamey faced bullies for years, though things intensified in middle school…

According to NBC, the Rodemeyers had gone to the school about the problem in the past. Jamey even sought counseling to learn to deal with the problem, but it seems it wasn’t enough.

While they say their son seemed happy in the days leading up to the tragedy, his “It Gets Better” YouTube posting from May includes details about how intense the bullying was.

The kind of thing that helps to make it happen.

SANTORUM: I would say any type of sexual activity has absolutely no place in the military. The fact they are making a point to include it as a provision within the military that we are going to recognize a group of people and give them a special privilege to, and removing don’t ask don’t tell. I think tries to inject social policy into the military. And the military’s job is to do one thing: to defend our country…

Rick Santorum calls it a “special privilege” to be protected from dismissal on the grounds of sexual orientation, as if dismissal on the grounds of sexual orientation were a perfectly reasonable and acceptable social practice.

Notice the fumble. Notice the midair correction – he was going to say “and give them a special privilege to…fuck each other like the disgusting depraved spawn of Satan they are” but realized that that might get him into deep waters, so he pulled the second cord on his chute. But he’d already said it, anyway. The dog whistle was already out there. He made it sound as if the point of ending DADT were to encourage gay soldiers to have sex while in the military – on duty, presumably, and anywhere and everywhere. He made it sound as if the point were to give gay soldiers “a special privilege” to interrupt doing their jobs in order to hump each other whenever they felt like it.

Millions of high school bullies are indebted to Rick Santorum.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

Really?

Richard Dawkins has no sense of irony. He rails endlessly against
fundamentalists yet he defends old-fashioned, Thomas Gradgrind-style materialism as zealously as the Mid-West Creationists defend the literal truth of Genesis.

Really? Does he, really?

Colin Tudge says he does, but I don’t believe it. That’s because I don’t believe Dawkins is as crude as Gradgrind or as ignorant as fundamentalists. I think Tudge is exaggerating.

He accuses others of misrepresentation yet he seriously misrepresents religion.
Also, which is irony writ large, he misrepresents science, in whose name he is
assumed to speak. He condemns the Catholics for filling the heads of children
with a particular view of life before they have had a chance to think for
themselves – and now, in The Magic of Reality, written for readers as young as
nine, he has done precisely that. As somebody said of Miss Jean Brodie, it’s
time he was put a stop to.

Does he? Is it “a particular view of life” he objects to? Is it not the dogmatic aspect of the view of life that is the problem?

Thus he tells us that “reality is everything that exists” – and “exists”, he makes clear, means whatever we can see or stub our toes on, albeit with the aid of telescopes and seismographs. Everything else – including things we might think exist, like jealousy and love – derive from that material base and are to a large extent illusory. This, he implies, is what emerges from science, and science is true.

Really? He tells us that jealousy and love are to a large extent illusory, meaning, they don’t “exist”? I haven’t read the book, so I don’t know, but I’m skeptical.

Many philosophers have, like Baruch Spinoza, argued that consciousness is not
just the noise that brains make but part of the fabric of the universe. We do
not generate consciousness in our heads: we partake of what is all around us,
just as our eyes partake of light.

Yes, and the hills are alive with the sound of music.

The other clichés turn up too – Dawkins is an unreformed logical positivist, materialist philosophers like Dan Dennett and AC Grayling, zeal for eugenics, religions do not depend upon their myths, any theologian could have put him right on this, Newton and Descartes were devout, to explore the wonders of the world through science was to glorify God, Dawkins’s ultra-materialist view of life is crude by comparison.

Ho hum.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

As we saw, Jordan Sekulow complained that

Whether it’s Governor Rick Perry calling for prayer for our nation, Congresswoman Bachmann discussing her “calling” to run for elected office, or Governor Mitt Romney’s Mormon faith, it is now acceptable for many in the media to ridicule the religious beliefs of one particular group of Americans – conservatives.

Let’s have a look at that first link. It’s Jordan Sekulow himself saying what a good thing prayer is.

Prayer is essential. Faith is powerful. Non-believers and skeptics cannot comprehend the concept of literally asking God for His guidance and blessing. This is not surprising nor is it, in itself, offensive. When the lack of understanding turns into sneers and insults, usually coupled with a lack of basic knowledge about the evangelical Christian faith, we have a duty to respond.

But that’s quite wrong – of course we can comprehend the concept - but we think it’s wrong about reality. We can understand it, but we think it’s as effective and useful as asking a water faucet for its guidance and blessing, or a tree, or a galaxy, or a hurricane. We think it’s based on a fundamental misunderstanding. We think there is no “God” to ask for “His” guidance and blessing.

Many of us also think that adults ought to be able to understand that, and thus at least keep their practice of “asking God for His guidance and blessing” private, in the knowledge that it’s not something that all reasonable grown-ups think is sensible. Adults don’t talk to ghosts or fairies in public, mostly (apart from people like Sylvia Browne, that is), and for the same reasons they ought not to talk to “God” in public either.

That’s how the sneers and insults get in. It would be the same if adults were talking to fairies and ghosts, and Sekulow is wrong to think his “God” is fundamentally different.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

The Massachusetts Republican party wants Harvard to stop paying Elizabeth Warren’s salary while she runs for the Senate. It doesn’t just want Harvard to do that, it’s trying to tell Harvard to do that.

“By restoring her to the faculty, even though she has now formed a federal
election committee and is actively campaigning, the university is establishing a
bad precedent for academic appointments,” Nate Little, executive director of the state GOP, wrote in a letter to Harvard President Drew Gilpin Faust.

As if that’s their business. As if they’re the boss of Harvard. As if Harvard were taxpayer-funded.

The Globe adds later, drily,

During last year’s special election, [Republican Senator Scott] Brown continued to accept his taxpayer financed salary as a state senator. He has not expressed any plans to give up his federal salary while running for reelection to the US Senate.

 

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

The Archbish of C is annoyed because the perceived coolitude of atheism is making it “difficult for the Church to convey its message.”

Well jeez, Rowan, I’m annoyed because the perceived wonderfulness of theism makes it difficult for atheism to convey its message – and your message has had it all its own way for quite a long time, please note.

…the coolness of atheism is very much in evidence. The problem is it’s become a bit of a vicious circle. Atheism is cool, so books about atheism are cool.

They get a high profile, and books that say Richard Dawkins is wrong don’t get the same kind of publicity because atheism is the new cool thing.

It’s difficult to break into that, but plenty of people are trying.

No, it’s not just because atheism is the new cool thing (which is itself highly debatable, given the volume of the backlash); it’s also because so far the books that say Richard Dawkins is wrong are terrible books. (That’s not because it’s impossible to write a good book that says Richard Dawkins is wrong. It’s probably because a whole book devoted to saying that is kind of a silly idea, so people who can write good books don’t write that kind of book.) (There are good books that say Richard Dawkins is wrong along with other things, but I take the Archbish to mean books written especially to say Richard Dawkins is wrong; there are no good ones of those.)

The archbishop said that Christian witness is the strongest argument the Church has to rebut the claims of atheists such as Dawkins. He said the evolutionary biologist would struggle to explain the growth of the Church in Zimbabwe in the face of constant brutality and harassment.

What? No he wouldn’t. Humans can be passionately devoted to beliefs that are mistaken. Opposition often strengthens that devotion – as it does with atheism in the US, for instance. We like a challenge. Devotion is not a marker of truth.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

From David Futrelle at Man Boobz - some guy says feminism causes male violence. (Well sure it does – makes perfect sense if you think about it – if we just do what we’re told what’s there to get violent about?) Guy points out it’s a bad idea, because after all who can hit harder?

In other words, the fact that there are violent men out there is why women shouldn’t complain about violent men. Presumably the only marches women should be organizing would be “No, Go Ahead, You Keep the Night” marches.

Good one.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

Archbishops say the funniest things.

Archbishop Smith said that although Sikhs and Muslims had successfully used the law to uphold a right to manifest their beliefs in such areas as religious attire and jewelry, Christians were denied the same right because the courts had decided that it was not essential to the practice of their faith.

“Why can’t Christians wear the symbol of the cross?” he asked in an interview with the American Catholic News Service.

“It is absolutely part of the Gospel,” he said. “Without the cross there is no salvation. It is at the heart of our faith because it is the symbol and sign of God’s unconditional love.”

That really did make me laugh aloud. A torture device is the symbol and sign of God’s unconditional love. Without the symbol and sign of being tortured to death, there is no salvation. Oooooooooooookay.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

Religion makes people better department.

Let’s say you lived in Giles County, Va., a rural enclave of about 17,000 people in the southwestern portion of the state. Let’s say you were a high school student and you were opposed to the school board’s decision to post the Ten Commandments in your school.

Would you be eager to be public about it?

Nope. I’ve learned too much about how a great many people feel about perceived attacks on their religion.

At AU, we know from experience that plaintiffs in church-state lawsuits can and do experience harassment. When we sued Judge Roy Moore, Alabama’s infamous “Ten Commandments judge,” the plaintiffs were named. That means people could track them down – and some did.

During the litigation, plaintiff Melinda Maddox , who was newly married, returned from her honeymoon to find that the windows of her house had been shot out.

As I noted in a February blog post about plaintiffs in church-state cases, it can take real courage to stand up for church-state separation in court. Consider the case of Joann Bell, a mother in Little Axe, Okla., who protested religious activity in her children’s public schools in 1981. Her home was burned down by an arsonist.

But don’t forget: religion makes people better.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)