A house divided

“A house divided against itself cannot stand” - Abraham Lincoln June 16, 1858 (based on Mark 3:25)

I am sure that I am not the only one who has observed the rifts in the atheist and skeptic community and thought of the above quotation (not only am I sure; I know this for certain, as people have used the quote). I think of it, and think it applies, but I also think of the Danish expression “Lad falde hvad ikke kan stå” (“let fall what can’t stand”), which is originally from a socialist song, Socialisternes March (march of the Socialists), written in 1871 by Ulrich Peter Overby. This expression also applies to the current situation in my opinion.

For those unaware of what the rifts are about, they relate to the sexist atmosphere which exists in the community, especially during conferences. The problems of sexism has been raised by several through the years, but the current crisis is generally considered to have been started by the vile and misogynist reactions to Rebecca Watson making a rather minor point about this in a video about a conference.

Of course, some people will refer to other starting points, but it is really not relevant, since the end result is the same: the atheist and skeptic community is currently divided to a degree which probably hasn’t been seen before. The division is between those who are fighting the sexism and those who are actively fighting the people fighting the sexism (fighting should not be taken literately in either case). There are of course many people involved in neither camp.

The people fighting sexism are working on things such as getting the wider community to acknowledge that there is a problem, getting people to speak out against sexism and misogynist behavior, and getting conferences to create and enforce harassment policies. It should be noted that the people involved in this are not claiming that sexism is worse among atheists and skeptics than among any other group, rather they are saying that it is a problem which should be addressed.

Among the people fighting against sexism are PZ Myers, the pharyngulites (commenters at the Pharyngula blog), Rebecca Watson and the other Skepchicks, most FreeThoughtBlogs bloggers, Amanda Marcotte, and many more. It also seems like most conference organizers including CFI and American Atheists have come down on this side.

Opposing those are prominent people like Abbie Smith/ERV, Paula Kirby, Russell Blackford, a bunch of commentators generally referred to as the slime pitters, thunderf00t, and to a lesser degree Richard Dawkins and DJ Grothe. Given Grothe’s position at JREF and TAM, it should not surprise anyone that TAM is the only prominent conference to not acknowledge the need for a harassment policy which is enforced. This is rather strange, as TAM actually had a harassment policy in place in 2011, but unfortunately enforced it rather badly (part of enforcing is making reports of incidents, which was what TAM failed at – they handled the actual incidents rather well, according to all reports I’ve seen).

It would seem obvious that this is not an ideal situation, and if it continues, it will tear the community apart.

Well, if that’s what’s going to happen, so be it.

I’d rather have two communities than be part of a community which finds sexism and outright misogynistic behavior acceptable.

The two communities can work together on some issues (like fighting anti-vaxxers and creationism) and be on opposite sides when it comes to facing issues related to sexism. Many people in the broader skeptic and atheist movement won’t notice the difference, but those of us who actually care about these issues can choose which side we want to belong to.

There will, of course, be problems involved in this – the rifts are so deep that some of us won’t have anything to do with others. But this is not really an issue for members of the broader movement, who probably won’t notice or care. At most, they will find that some people are no longer invited as speakers at certain conferences, and that certain bloggers either no longer link to each other or write nasty stuff about each other.

So, to sum it up, there are deep rifts in the movement, and I think it is fine. Not only that, I feel more comfortable being in a smaller community within the movement, which doesn’t include people whose opinions and behavior I find repugnant. I can still appreciate the good work done by those people (like I did with e.g. Hitchens) without wanting to be part of the same community.

A note about comments: Currently all comments are moderated. This is due to heavy problems with spam. I will try to publish comments as soon as I become aware of them. Do note that there is zero tolerance for racist, homophobic, misogynist and bigoted comments.

Misleading headlines

I came across this small fluff-piece about Keira Knigthley, which has an incredible misleading headline - it seems to be pure bait to get people to read the piece. So, what's the headline? Keira Knightley wants to become Catholic When seeing that headline, you'd probably think that it is about her wanting to convert to Catholocism, or about her saying how she would like to be a Catholic because of her respect for that particular faith. Well, it is not really.

Keira Knightley has said that she is desperate to become a Catholic because she would “just get to ask for forgiveness.”

The 27-year-old actress, who is an atheist, wished that she believed in God so her sins could be forgiven.

“It sounds much better than having to live with guilt,” a leading daily has quoted her as saying.

“It’s absolutely extraordinary. If only I wasn’t an atheist, I could get away with anything. You’d just ask for forgiveness and then you’d be forgiven,” she added.

So, basically, it is about Knightly saying that it is easier to be religious because you can ask for forgiveness instead of living with the consequences of what you've done. That's something rather different from what the headline indicates, isn't it? Well, on the plus side, my respect for Keira Knightley has gone up.

Are skepticism and atheism non-overlapping magisteria?

Ever so often a fight breaks out among skeptics and/or atheists about how to deal with religious people. This time it was started by Jeff Wagg who is criticizing the skeptic conference Skepticon3 for being too atheistic. The organizer of the conference, JT Eberhard has responded (pretty well in my opinion) as has PZ Myers, who is a speaker on the conference.

Now, I make no bones about being both a skeptic and an atheist, so it is easy for me to just side with Eberhard on this, and dismiss Wagg out of hand. But would it be right? Looking at the comments to Wagg's original post, you'll notice some fairly prominent skeptics siding with him. It might be one thing to dismiss Wagg, a person who has flirted with anthropogenic global warming denial in the past, but I'll be damned if I am going to dismiss Eugenie Scott without serious consideration.

So, is atheism and skepticism non-overlapping magisteria, as Gould famously said about science and religion?

The short answer to that is NO. The longer answer is, on the other hand, more complex. Skepticism can be said to be a method, while atheism is a position related to a specific subject (the belief in the existence of deities). Skeptics are people who apply skepticism to all subjects, while atheists are simply people who don't hold a belief in a deity.

The group of atheists and skeptics are overlapping, but neither is by any means a subset of the other. Many, probably even most, skeptics are also atheists, but there are many skeptics who are still religious - some by not applying skepticism on that particular part of their lives, others by accepting that their faith flies in the face of evidence. Atheists, on the other hand, are often not skeptics.

Personally, I think that atheism is a natural result of skepticism (and it is interesting to note that the skeptics involved in this conversation are, to the best of my knowledge, all atheists).

So, what's my point? Well, what I am getting around to, is that Wagg might be right that a skeptic conference focused overly much on skepticism towards religion might be off-putting to some skeptics. But so what? There are global warming deniers showing up in all skeptic groups that I've come across - should we pretend that they are right? Or should we avoid the subject? Or course not. For skepticism to make sense, we have to apply it to everything.

This doesn't mean that we have to do it all the time, so if Wagg wants a skeptic conference that doesn't touch the subject of religion, that's great - he should go ahead and create it. Then the rest of us will choose whether we want to participate or not. If it is about ghost hunting, UFOs and cryptozoology, I'll personally give it a pass, but if it, on the other hand, is about woo and alternative "medicine", I'd be interested.

What Wagg shouldn't do, however, is to tell other people how to run their conferences, nor should he try to exclude subjects from being covered by skepticism. All subjects must be open to skeptical inquiry. Otherwise, how will we expand out knowledge and understanding of the world?

Why I consider myself a skeptic, rather than atheist, activist

Last weekend, the Danish Atheist Society (Ateistisk Selskab) and Atheist Alliance International hosted an atheist conference, Gods & Politics, in Copenhagen.

I went there, together with a bunch of pharyngulites (people who comment at the Pharyngula blog), and had an informative and all-round great time.

Still, the conference reminded me of why I consider myself a skeptic, rather than an atheist. Or rather, why I focus on skepticism rather than atheism these days.

The reason for this is that being an atheist is not evidence of rationality.

During the conference I ran into both global warming deniers and 9/11-truthers, and even got accused of being dogmatic by the later, when I said that his claims were moronic.

Well, if maintaining a rational view on things is dogmatic, then I'd be happy to be so.

Skepticism on the other hand, requires rationality - otherwise it's denialism (denial of things, in spite of evidence).

As an atheistic skeptic, I will fight many of the same battles as atheist activists, since these battles are also skeptic battles, and I think that skeptics and atheists could and should work together to make the world move towards a more rational place. I just also think that many atheists can be harmful to the skeptical movement (Bill Maher is a good example of this), and I equally consider them a hindrance for a rational world.

In other words, if you're an atheist, I will work together with you, but I don't necessarily think that we're allies, just because we both don't believe in gods.

Lazy linking

I used to do a lot of lazy linking posts, which are posts linking to things I find interesting. The main reason for the decline in these posts, is that I now link to such things from my Twitter account. Still, I'll try to make these posts from time to time, if nothing else then to give some linklove to other people.

First of, a fairly old blogpost about old atomic models in the past: The gallery of failed atomic models, 1903-1913

From the mainstream media, BBC reports on the findings of an rather interesting meteorite: Attic stored meteorite 'four billion years old'

Ed Brayton reports that the Innocence Project Frees 250th Innocent Person

And then there is the news that quack Kevin Trudeau has been hold in content of the court, because he asked his followers to write the judge, resulting in an email deluge.

On the anthropogenic global warming front, Climate Progress reports that Penn State inquiry finds no evidence for allegations against Michael Mann.

Via Sheril Kirshenbaum, I became aware of the Under the Microscope website, dedicated to women in science.

Over at Majikthise, Lindsay Beyerstein takes on the claims that the fathers of modern obstetrics murder more women than Jack the Ripper. Personally I find Lindsay's speculations more convincing than the new claims.

Over at Alternet, Greta Christina writes about Why We Don't Need Religion to Give Life Mystery (also at her own blog)

The stupidity ... it burns!

It's been a long time since I last fisked anything on this blog, but today, I came across something which just begged to be fisked.

It's posted in something called the Christian Post so you just know it gotta be bad.

Is atheism ever morally justified?
By Randal Rauser

The title starts out burning brightly with stupidity. Atheist is simply the lack of belief in a deity, so talking about it being "morally justified" is just nonsense. You could ask if it's justified by the evidence (I think so), or if it's possible for an atheist to be moral (an old discussion, to which the answer is "of course it is"), but the whole idea of justifying lack of belief morally is just plain stupid.

"Tell me about the god you don't believe in because I probably don't believe in him either,"

There is a lot of truth in this old quip. Whenever someone identifies him or herself as an atheist we should always take the time to ask for a definition of the god this person does not believe in. It may just be that we don't believe in this god either.

Someone obviously fail to understand the whole concept of being an atheist. It's not one specific god that atheists don't believe in - it's all gods. No matter what personality your god has, the atheist doesn't see any evidence for his or her existence, and thus doesn't believe in him or her.

I think here of a well known academic who avowed disbelief in the Christian God because he was told -- with a notable absence of pastoral sensitivity -- that a childhood Jewish friend who died in a car accident was burning in hell. As a result this academic came to believe that the Christian God is arbitrary, capricious, and unjust. So when he says that he disbelieves in God, he is saying he disbelieves in a god who is arbitrary, capricious and unjust. But I don't believe in such a god either.

I understand that it might be hard to understand for a person like Rauser, but people usually becomes atheists gradually (unless of course they've always been one). What did incident did, was to lead the future academic in question down the path towards atheism. What happened, was that he started evaluating his belief in the god he was raised believing in, and found out that he didn't believe in him. That process lead on to him realizing that he didn't belief in any god.

Rauser doesn't believe that his god is arbitrary, capricious and unjust (something which he clearly is, if one is to trust his holy book), but this hasn't lead him to question the whole concept of a god.

This does not mean that the atheist friend is exonerated, that his disbelief is wholly without fault. Maybe his disbelief is in part a rationalization for a rebellious human will that refuses to submit to the divine will. (How could I know?) But is it possible that at least in part his disbelief might arise from a refusal to recognize a conception of God which is rightly rejected?

Being religious requires faith, which means belief in something in spite of lack of reliable evidence (otherwise, no faith is required). One cannot be at fault for not believing in something without evidence, so yes, the atheist friend is indeed exonerated.

Here's another example. I was raised on Jack Chick tracts (little cartoon books that convey a hyper-fundamentalist Christian faith). In one of these tracts titled "Somebody Goofed", a young man is tricked into hell. (Read the tract here: http://www.chick.com/reading/tracts/0003/0003_01.asp )

I find this to be a complete distortion of the doctrine of hell, and one which paints God as cruel and capricious. If this is what atheists think of the doctrine of hell then I can understand why they reject the Christian faith.

While Chick tracks are quite extreme, their general message is well supported by the Bible, which is the firmament of the Christian faith. Still, many people, including Rauser apparently reject this particular aspect of the Christian faith. That doesn't mean they are atheists.

Atheists reject the core concept of the Christian faith (and the Muslim faith, the Jewish faith, the Hindu faith etc.) - the existence of a divine being. They don't reject it out of spite, or in the face of overwhelming evidence, rather they reject it, as they find no evidence supporting the existence of such divine beings.

The discussion boils down to this. Perhaps before we judge the disbelief of the atheist, we should judge our own household. To put it bluntly, how often does our witness in the world offer moral justification for atheism?

I find the message interesting. The whole concept seems to be that atheists simply reject religion as a whole because of the mean content of some religions. This is of course nonsense - many atheists are actually fairly well versed in different religions, and understand the different nuances. What they reject is not the different messages in different religions, but instead the very core that those religions are built upon.

Still, I guess that it's likely that fewer people start on the path to atheism, if the are not confronted with the most ugly, base aspects of their religions. This allows them to safely ignore their doubts, and just continue being part of the flock (their word, not mine).

Sunday poetry

This is a video made by YouTube atheist ZOMGitsCriss featuring her own poetry. I thought I'd share it with you all.

Survey for atheists

Jon Lanman, a DPhil student at Oxford University, who I have met a couple of times while he visited Denmark to do field work, is currently doing a survey of atheists.

He would like some more Scandinavian answers, so I thought I'd link to it here from my blog. Don't worry, non-Scandinavians can also answer, Jon would just really like as many answers from Scandinavian atheists as possible.

Anyway, here is what Jon says about the survey.

Hi everyone,

My name is Jon Lanman and I'm a DPhil student at Oxford University studying atheism and humanism. Two of the main goals of my research are to get a better descriptive account of what individual non-theists/humanists think about a variety of topics and also to test a host of hypotheses from psychology and anthropology concerning how different factors of environment and upbringing can affect our beliefs. Towards that end, I have designed an interview/survey for individual non-theists/humanists.

The survey is will ask you about your beliefs and experiences, as well as a variety of background/demographic matters. The survey should take somewhere between 35 minutes and 50 minutes to complete. You can, however, exit the survey and come back to it at a later time if you do not feel like answering the questions all at once.

Here is the link for the survey:

https://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=g0hUnwCEp0EYQMoRMVFK_2bQ_3d_3d


Thanks very much for your participation and feel free to contact me at jonathan.lanman@anthro.ox.ac.uk

Cheers,
Jon

I hope that my readers will help Jon out in his research.

New interesting site

There is a new interesting site up - I don't know how to describe it, but a community blog would probably be the best description - called Edger. It's described thus

Edger presents hard-hitting and reasoned news, views, and event promotion on issues pertaining to secularism, atheism, science, humanism, and the cosmos, and actively promotes and celebrates international freethought activism. Written in a youthful tone, but mature in content, Edger is sure to be a driving force in the new intellectual enlightenment.

I think it's something many of my readers will find interesting. And what's more, one of the contributers is Shalini, who has been sorely missed in the atheist/skeptic blogsphere.

The Atheist Thirteen

I found nullifidian's new blog meme rather good, so I thought I'd steal it.

If you’d like to take part, copy these questions, and answer them in your own words on your own blog.

Q1. How would you define “atheism”?

Lack of belief in any deity.

Q2. Was your upbringing religious? If so, what tradition?

No, my parents were not religious. However, I live in a country with a state church, and had Christianity as a subject in school. Denmark is Lutheran Protestant.

Q3. How would you describe “Intelligent Design”, using only one word?

Neo-creationism

Q4. What scientific endeavour really excites you?

None and all. I find it fascinating how scientists keep expanding our knowledge.

Q5. If you could change one thing about the “atheist community”, what would it be and why?

I would like us to be more open towards agnostics. And I would like everyone to stand up and be counted.

Q6. If your child came up to you and said “I’m joining the clergy”, what would be your first response?

Who are you?

If I was aware that I had a child, I would say something like:
Yes my dear, the last few years you spent on studying theology kinda gave it away (you have to have a theology degree to become a priest here).

Q7. What’s your favorite theistic argument, and how do you usually refute it?

I can't say that I have a favorite theistic argument. But I hate Pascal's Wager with a passion, since it's simplistic and stupid, yet the people who put it forth seems to believe it's clever.

Q8. What’s your most “controversial” (as far as general attitudes amongst other atheists goes) viewpoint?

I think race is a social construct. Quite a few other agrees with this stance, but many don't.

Q9. Of the “Four Horsemen” (Dawkins, Dennett, Hitchens and Harris) who is your favourite, and why?

Dawkins is probably my favorite, due to his overall views. Dennett I haven't yet read. Hitchens I disagree somewhat with politically, and Harris' implicit defense of torture means that I have no respect for him.

Q10. If you could convince just one theistic person to abandon their beliefs, who would it be?

Obama.

Now name three other atheist blogs that you’d like to see take up the Atheist Thirteen gauntlet:

I won't name anyone, but I hope some of my readers might pick it up on their own.

Atheism and Creationism in the news

A couple of atheism-related stories caught my attention, so I thought I'd share them.

In the Chrisitan Post we have this rather interesting headline: Atheist China Vows to Encourage Religion

That sounds interesting, doesn't it? Sounds like that China is making a complete turn-around on the issue of religion.
When reading the article, it becomes clear that this is far from the case.

China has promised to offer religious services to foreigners at the 2008 Olympic Games and to have religion play a positive role in the future of the officially atheist country, the top religious affairs official said Wednesday.

Yes, they say that they won't crack down hard on religion and religious groups in the future, but instead encourage them to "play a positive role 'in promoting economic and social development'". Well, that's not exactly encouraging religion is it? Instead it is encouraging religious people to work with the regime in a way that the regime approves off.

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A different matter, but one which we have seen so many times before, an atheist family is standing up for their religious freedom, and their freedom from religion.

Atheist Family Sues School Over Popular Program

Quite a loaded headline isn't it? 'Popular' is such a positive word, but words like 'unconstitutional' would perhaps have fitted better? That seems to be what one family believes after all.

A popular program in the Cherry Creek School District has come under fire from atheists. The group called the Freedom from Religion Foundation has filed a lawsuit claiming the school district is promoting religion.

A lawsuit, filed in federal court, claims the school district is violating the constitutional separation of church and state.

The Freedom from Religion Foundation and an atheist family claim the program, called 40 Developmental Assets, encourages religion over non-religion.

"A public school system shouldn't be recommending students go to church or not go to church," said Bob Tiernan, attorney for the atheist family. "That's an individual decision made by parents and children."

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I came across a great summary of recent events related to Creationism and neo-Creationism in Europe and the US.

Holding Back The Flood

Currently it looks like there is going to be a new government in Poland after the up-coming elections, and among the reasons for that is the kind of behavior described in the article.

In Poland, Deputy Minister of Education, Miroslaw Orzechowski, a member of the ultra-conservative league of Polish Families dispensed with the notion of evolution by calling it a “lie”.

Hopefully, the rest of the politicians sprouting such nonsense will also get kicked out of their positions, though I must admit that I don't hold high hopes for the US in this regard.

Finally some substantial criticism of atheist books

We all know that there has been a bunch of succesfull so-called "new atheist" books out in recent times. Hitchen's God Is Not Great, Dawkins' The God Delusion, Harris' The End of Faith and Letter to a Christian Nation etc.

There have been numerous criticisms of these books, but so far they've been less than impressive. One insipid type of criticism of Dawkins' book became so widespread that PZ Myers made a counter-example based upon a classic fairy tale by Hans Christian Andersen: The Courtier's Reply.

I've read the books that I've mentioned above, and I do have some problems with parts of them, especially Harris' The End of Faith, which is why I was pleasantly surprised when I came across a substantial criticism of some of the atheist books, that dealt with the actual points in the books.

I have a problem with the title of the article, since this sort of atheism isn't "new" in any meaningful way, especially not outside the US. However, it's still worth reading.

The New Atheism

Note that the author of the article, A. J. Chien, starts off with making clear that the central argument of the books is quite valid, and that most criticism of them is meaningless. The author writes

Harris, Dawkins, and Hitchens have been widely reviewed, but it seems to me these few central points have scarcely been addressed. One common criticism, for instance by Terry Eagleton, is that Dawkins overlooks the many variants of Christian belief. But any variant that maintains an interventionist God is subject to Dawkins’ arguments; if there’s any that doesn’t, then it isn’t what Dawkins is addressing. So the criticism is pointless. Criticism like Tanenbaum’s is likewise typical: simply asserting the existence of moderate believers is easy, but just repeats what has been granted and ignores the argument about them.

I think the points made here are well worth repeating.

Now, on to the criticism. The author, rightfully in my opinion, objects to the attribution of terrorism to Islam, which is made especially by Harris and Dennett (who I haven't read), ignoring the other quite possible reasons, such as wanting revenge. This was something I also felt was lacking in Harris rather simplistic explanation for terrorism. It's true that religious fundamentalism makes terrorism much easier, but an additional motivation would seem necessary to me.

There is also some quite reasonable criticism of Harris' claims of good intentions by the US (and its allies) as something distinguishing from e.g. Islamic countries.

The only thing I feel is missing from the criticism, is a denouncement of Harris' implicit (and nearly explicit) endorsement of torture. Reading that part of The End of Faith nearly made me throw it away in disgust.

All in all, interesting to read a review of atheist books that actually deals with the content.

Townhall can damage your brain

At least, that's the conclusion I reach from this stupidity.

Let's start with the headline.

Atheists Better Pray to God They’re Right

I'm sure that the writer of the piece, Doug Giles, thinks he is being clever, but to everyone else, that headline is moronic. He might have gotten away with the headline if he had left out "to God", but he had to go for full-blown stupidity instead of trivial banality.

The tragic part is, that the headline seems witty and intelligent compared to the rest of the article.

Paul (not the lead singer of the Beatles, but the apostle Paul) states that God has made Himself known, via creation, to all men. According to the apostle, God’s revealed Himself not just to Christians and to Jews, but to every one everywhere (see Romans 1:18-21).

Given the fact that there is no evidence of the involvement of God in the creation of our world, nor of our species, I think it can be safely said that Paul took some liberty with the truth.

This means that from Jo-Jo the Brazilian monkey boy, to the Cameroon pygmies, to the whiny lesbian agnostic smoking clove cigarettes at Starbucks, to the beer swillin’ dillweeds (What’s up, dudes? I’ll see after I pen this column! Keep ‘em cold.), to the brooding British atheists, all people know God exists—even if they can’t really put a finger on some of the finer points of His person.

Yet a majority of the World's population doesn't worship the Christian God. As a matter of fact, a fairly large part of the world's population doesn't believe in any of the versions of God based on the old Testament.

Apart from that, I don't "know God exists" at all - I know that I have seen absolutely no evidence that shows me that there are any supernatural beings at all, and given that I don't think such beings exist. If I could be said to know anything regarding God, or any other supernatural being, it would be that I "know" that there are no such things.
I've stated before that annecdotal evidence is not real evidence, except as counter-evidence to extreme positions, such as Giles' drivel.

Yes, through what has been made, God has plastered on the souls of earth’s citizenry the general revelation that He’s present. In addition, they also know when they’re being a jack ass and when they’re being cool (more on that next week).

I know the above 411 hurts the atheists to hear, seeing that they’ve staked so much of their imago on God’s non-existence. But c’mon, you know there’s Someone “out there,” so cut the crap, shave your goatee and find some other way to pick up chicks—okay, James Dean?

Very few atheists depend on their lack of religion to defined themselves. Without haveing any statistical evidence, I would guess that a larger part of religious people depend on religion to define themselves, than the part of atheists who depend on their lack of religion to define themselves.
Speaking for myself, I don't know that there is someone out there - I suspect that there might be other living creatures out in space, but I certainly don't belive that there are any supernatural beings hiding behind the moon (or some other such notion).

Oh, and cut trying being hip while writing, ok? You just end up looking like a fool.

Look, if Paul’s right and people know that they know Him (even if it’s in some dull sense of the word), why do some trip over themselves and tie their brains in knots in order to curb this knowledge? Why do people go nuts looking for loopholes and supposed contradictions in the scripture, hypocrisies within the church and some shared semblance to an ape in order to convince themselves that God’s not here, there or anywhere and never has been nor ever will be?

Maybe it's because Paul isn't right? Evidence is not exactly on his side - neither for his claim about tehre being a god, nor for his claims that people know.

Is it because . . .

They are Johnny Quest truth seekers looking to answer man’s $64,000 question?

They are evolutionary luminaries uncommonly endowed with more smarts than us poor cattle and are here to help us club foot our way up the Darwinian ladder and away from such primal fairy tales? Or is it simply because . . .

The existence of God, His standards and a day of personal accountability really, really, jacks with their efforts at autonomy and their chances of getting laid tonight?

The apostle Paul states it’s the latter.

Atheists, according to Santo Pablo, have suppressed the truth because God really cramps their style. It’s hard to persistently indulge the appetites of the flesh if there is a holy God to whom you must give account. The truth is that all men, who have not bowed their knee to God and His way, hate Him and are intrinsically geared against God. (I know that’s tight, but it’s right)

If I wrote a piece like the Townhall piece, I would be very careful about using arguments that begs for getting refuted by a reference to Catholic priests and alter boys. Yet, Giles is not stopped by such considerations, and thus he writes the above nonsense.
Now, ignoring the obvious bit, which can easily be addressed with a the above reference, I think I should point out that you don't hate what you don't believe in. Atheists don't hate any gods, though some hates religion, simply because they don't believe in such things. Much like I suspect that Giles don't hate the Fenris Wolf, even though it's said that it will eat the Sun when Ragnarok comes.

I think Giles, and many other religious people, cannot grasp how little god(s) mean to the lives of atheists. Organized religion, especially in the US, is an entirely different matter, since it can influence the daily life of atheists (for example through legistration), but whatever deity others believe in, is irrelevant.

Jesus put it forcefully up fallen humanity’s tailpipe when He exposed why men reject the knowledge of God when He said, “Men love darkness rather than light because their deeds are evil. For everyone who does evils hates the light, and does not come to the light, lest his deeds should be exposed” (Jn. 3.19-20).

This is easy math, folks: A man who has no remorse and thus no desire to repent from his sins is probably not going to be a big advocate for the existence, person and work of God.

Historically evidence would indicate that a belief in a deity is absolutely no guarantee for ethical behaviour. Many religious people have in the past done things which any decent person would consider evil.
I would actually say, that if only the belief in eternal punishment after you die, keeps you from doing "evil" deeds, you are a sociopath, and don't belong in civilized society.

You know that all the various no-God arguments—which, to be sure, are fun to debate and write about and blah, blah, blah—actually stem from the root of the atheist’s refusal to curtsy to what he already internally knows is true. It is this denial and refusal to embrace the general knowledge of God given through creation that officially pisseth off the Lord thy God and puts the atheist in a precarious position. My advice to my atheist buddies is this: you’d better pray to God that you’re right and that He doesn’t exist—because if you’re wrong, eternity is going to be rough.

Pascal's Wager doesn't impress anyone, no matter how it is put. Does Giles also pray to Vishnu that he is right in his choice of deity? I don't think so, yet by his astonishing logic, he should do so.

The first part of the paragraph is pretty much the equivalent to saying "na-na-na I can't hear you".

To be continued . . .

That's the most scary part.

The impact of atheistic books

Via James Hrynyshyn of the Island of Doubt, I became aware of this article in Canada's Maclean's magazine.

Is God poison?

A new movement blames God for every social problem from Darfur to child abuse

A bad start, since most atheists, including those mentioned in that particular article, are well aware that atheists can cause problems as well. What we are just saying, is that there is nothing inheritly moral about religion.

God is a delusion, if his enemies are to be believed: nothing more than the creation of a species with prefrontal lobes too small, and aggressive instincts too strong, for its own good. His worship is poison: his adherents commit child abuse -- metaphoric and actual -- on a daily basis; and the murderous clashes of rival gangs of his followers are the greatest single threat to humanity's future. Whatever else God may be, he is most assuredly not dead. You can take his critics' word, and the depth of their passion, for that.

Does the last two sentences make sense to anyone? I think it might be a way of saying that religion is not irrelevant, even if you don't believe in a god, but I don't think anyone has made that claim. Rather, I think that's what many people find problematic. But it's true that God is not dead, just like Thinkerbell is not dead.

Next month sees the publication of Christopher Hitchens' God is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything, a coruscating moral denunciation by the polemicist tutti polemicists. It will join the steady stream of atheist texts that began five years ago, after 9/11 so brutally demonstrated that religious fanaticism is still a force to be reckoned with. So too is atheism, at least as far as book sales go. Oxford scientist Richard Dawkins' The God Delusion, which combines merciless schoolboy-level mockery of religion with the lessons of evolutionary biology, has been a fixture on bestseller lists since the fall. Letter to a Christian Nation, in which American Sam Harris casually states that raising children to believe they are members of a religious group is a "ludicrous obscenity," nevertheless became a Book-of-the-Month club selection last year. And Michel Onfray's In Defense of Atheism, which drips with Gallic scorn for the feeble-minded faithful, and praises the French Revolution for turning all the churches into hospitals, was a bestseller across Europe and, in translation, now on this side of the Atlantic as well.

I hadn't heard about Onfray's book before. Might need to get hold of that. And neither had I heard about Harris' book becoming a Book-of-the-Month club selection. That's great, since it brings his message out to a wider audience than many would have expected.

"The argument between faith and non-faith is cresting again, in a way that's not been seen since the Scopes monkey trial," Hitchens says over the phone from his Washington home. "Whether we're arguing about intervening in Darfur or about the recognition of gay marriage, underneath we're always arguing about religion." He could easily have added from an endless series of other topics across Europe and North America: hot-button issues in a debate many thought was long over.

Today, 82 years after Scopes, the never-ending struggle between supporters and opponents over inserting Intelligent Design, creationism's latest incarnation, into the nation's schools is a religious fight. (It's one that invokes fierce passions: judges who have ruled ID unconstitutional have received death threats.) Angry debates over the permissibility of abortion, euthanasia, stem-cell research, and the public display of religious symbols and icons are all essentially faith-based. In America many of the devout not only wish to maintain the customary display of Christmas imagery in public places, but add to it, in particular by posting the Ten Commandments in courthouses.

In more secular Canada the now-settled issue of gay marriage rights was fought over scriptural grounds; so is the residual matter of whether marriage commissioners can opt out of officiating gay weddings. As with pursuing conscientious objector status in wartime, only a religious justification will receive even a hearing. A tiny Quebec town's adoption of "standards" for its (non-existent) immigrants is now internationally infamous. Across the country there have been fights over practices associated with the stricter forms of various religions -- wearing facial veils (Islam), carrying even symbolic weapons (Sikhism), gender segregation (Judaism) and the less-than-scientific biology taught in some religious schools (Christianity).

No surprise, then, that what Hitchens calls "the oldest argument in human history" is increasingly engaging the public. In London's Westminster Central Hall on March 27, some 2,000 people turned out to hear Hitchens, Dawkins and philosopher A.C. Grayling debate a trio of religious authorities on the question "We'd be better off without Religion." (The motion carried, 1,205 to 778.) Hitchens is pleased to see the interest. He thinks it's a sign of hope. "We atheists never thought religion would die out," he continues, "because it comes from fear of death, but we did think theocracy would die. Instead, those of us who used to think we'd just live a life free from religion are fed up with insults and threats from believers, with Danish cartoonists who can't work and murdered Dutch filmmakers, with saying getting AIDS is better, more godly, than using condoms. You know who's a neighbour of mine now? Ayaan Hirsi Ali -- America's first refugee from western Europe in living memory."

Hitchen is playing fast and loose with the truth about Hirsi Ali - she left the Netherlands, because she lost her citizenship, when it was found out that she had lied to obtain it. This is not to say that there were not credible threaths on her life, but those were not the reason for her leaving Europe - a job at the AEI might have a lot more to do with it.
Other than that, he is to a large degree right, even if he tries to put it in the most brutal way possible.

As Hitchens suggests, atheists were already uneasy with trends in their own Western societies when they awoke to the rude shock of Islamic terrorism -- the attacks in New York, London and Madrid, the murderous Sunni-Shia civil war in Iraq. The events galvanized them, but not only against militant Islam, as one might expect. The atheist authors all agree a clash of civilizations is under way, but it's not between East and West, or Muslims and Christians, but between rationality and superstition. Onfray, who despises equally what he calls "the fascism of the lion" (the Western side) and the "fascism of the fox" (the Muslim world), refuses to take sides, while Dawkins and Harris are primarily devoted to battling American Christianity.

I think that if the author had done his research a little deeper, he would have found that Dawkins is devoted to fight against all irrational beliefs, though he is primary focused on Christianity right now, since it has the greatest direct influence on his daily life in Britain. So, no he is not "primarily devoted to battling American Christianity" - he is primarily devoted to battling the brand of Christianity that affects his life the most - this would be the fundamentalist brand, that has won some influence through PM Tony Blair, and which affects the world through US foreign policy.

The Oxford professor, in particular, seems genuinely worried over the possible emergence of the ultimate rogue state, a nuclear-armed American Christian fundamentalist theocracy. (Dawkins' anti-religious beliefs are tightly grafted to his anti-Americanism. Especially his anti-Bushism: "I just can't stand the man's style," he told the Times of London, "the way he swaggers and struts and smirks and the way he looks sly and deceitful and the way Americans can't see it.") Like Harris, Dawkins thinks something can and should be done about this -- oddly enough, through ridicule of "dyed-in-the-wool faith-heads."

Dawkins is no more anti-American than I am. I thought we had reached a point where you could be anti-Bush without being considered anti-American. Apparently that is not the case in Canada.
Oh, and laughter has always been the biggest enemy of fear.

Hitchens, on the other hand, is virtually the last leftist supporter remaining for George W. Bush's war in Iraq, and finds himself rather in the position of Churchill making common cause with Stalin. ("If Hitler had invaded hell," the wartime British prime minister remarked, he, Churchill, would at least have made "a favourable reference to the Devil in the House of Commons.") As a British expat and an admirer of Hirsi Ali, who was driven from Holland by Islamic death threats, Hitchens is not inclined to see Europe as the font of all secular virtues, or America as its antithesis. (Not like Harris, an American who constantly exudes the impression his overtly religious countrymen are embarrassing him in front of the Europeans.) And he allows himself to have been a "guarded admirer" of Pope John Paul II's moral and physical courage.

Hitchens is a leftist????? Man, they most smoke some impressive weed in Canada.

From now on, I am leaving out some paragraphs here and there, since it's a quite long article. Instead I am going to c&p those parts of the article that I have comments to. Obviously, I recommend reading the article in full.

Religion kills, Hitchens says, because it is tribal and totalitarian, the most extreme form of in-group/out-group marker ever known. Although some faiths are more pacific than others, that has more to do with their relative powerlessness -- were the Amish, say, to rise to supreme authority over other faiths, they would soon begin to resemble the medieval Catholic Church. Power corrupts religion uniquely; because it considers its doctrines uniquely right, it necessarily seeks to interfere in the lives of non-believers. Thus religion offers a constantly available licence for ordinary people to behave cruelly, sometimes "in ways that would make a brothel-keeper or an ethnic cleanser raise an eyebrow." The entire history of Christian anti-Semitism -- not to mention its racial offspring, the Nazis' Final Solution -- is a case in point. And the cruelty and irrationality is still enacted regularly in less violent ways in the present day.

I find it problematic that Hitchens wants to put the sins of Hitler at the feet of religion. While it is quite true that Nazism was not the atheist ideology that many religious people think it is, the crimes commited by the Nazis were due to the personality cult surrounding Hitler and the national glorification expressed through ideas of racial purity (among other things).
I think it could be more correctly be claimed that Nazism, Communism and fundamentalist religion share certain traits (claims about absolute truths and predefined rights and destinies).

The polemicists' total rejection of faith makes the very existence of religious moderates a puzzle to them. (Dawkins, in particular, seems spiritually deaf to everything from the sense of wonder to the pull of family and community.) Except, perhaps, for Hitchens, who seems to be the only one who admits to having religious friends, the atheists' own dirty little secret -- their contempt for moderates -- is never far from the surface of their books. They assert that moderates enable fanatics by allowing religious arguments a privileged place -- it was a liberal Catholic debating partner who told Hitchens that religious liberty demanded that mohels be allowed to carry out their ancient rite as they saw fit. "In a funny way," Dawkins said in an interview last fall in reference to one devout scientist, "I have more respect for a young creationist," referring to someone who proclaims that life on earth is only 6,000 years old.

Anyone who had read anything that Dawkins have written could not possible write anything like "Dawkins, in particular, seems spiritually deaf to everything from the sense of wonder to the pull of family and community". His books are a constant testimony to his sense of wonder. And why should atheists not feel the pull of family and community? We are all part of both.

That contempt, along with the stridency and a totalitarian disdain for everything to do with religion, is rooted in fear and failure. They think they're losing. The triumph of atheism, so confidently proclaimed by its prophets more than a century ago, now seems as far off as the Second Coming. In 1867, in his landmark poem "Dover Beach," Matthew Arnold could only hear the "melancholy, long, withdrawing roar" of the sea of faith, but the religious tide has turned with a vengeance. "This Letter," Harris concludes his book, "is the product of failure -- the failure of many brilliant attacks upon religion that preceded it, the failure of our schools to announce the death of God in a way that each generation can understand, failures great and small that have kept almost every society on this earth muddling over God and despising those who muddle differently."

No, they don't think they are losing. They think that they are not winning. There is quite a big difference between those two stances. The religious fundamentalists have a great influence, but they have always had that. Now is the first time that atheists are actually being heard in the US, largely due to people like Harris and Dawkins.

The mock humility of this may be worthy of a televangelist -- can't Harris see a single positive reason for religion's ongoing vigour? -- but it is the atheist perspective encapsulated. That makes it an enigma for Christians, particularly those outside robustly religious America. Aren't the ungodly in charge now, the churches empty on Sunday, religious leaders and religious viewpoints shouted out of the political arena? Are not contraception, abortion and, very soon, homosexual marriage the norm across the Western world? Who's winning this war anyway?

Since the rest of the article is mainly dealing with the US, this is a non sequitur. However, let's deal with it anyway - a number of countries, Poland among them, have gone towards a more restrictive abortion policy. In Denmark, a right-winged memeber of Parliament, who happens to be a priest, stated yesterday that the scarf worn by Muslims are equivalent to the swastica worn by Nazis, during a debate in Parliament. Does that sound like religious viewpoints are shouted out of the political arena? And to keep it more local to the author of the article, it's just a couple of weeks ago that I wrote about how religious-based bad science teaching was on the march in Canada.

There is more that I could comment on, but this post is getting overly long anyway. I can't really say that I am too impressed by the article, but at least there are now articles about atheism, and the arguments against the presumed morality of religion, out there. Hopefully they will be better written, and better researched, next time.

Atheism in Australia

The Age has an interesting article about atheism in Australia, where atheism is even more rare than in the US. The article relates the issues with the new "atheist" books coming out in increasing numbers.

Against God

From what the article explains, Australians are more relaxed about religion than Americans, but also less willing to publicly declare themselves atheists. The new books by Dawkins, Harris, Hitchens etc. make more Australians embrace atheism publicly, and increase the debate about religion, but there is still a long way to go before Australia is anywhere close to Europe.

Southern Baptist John Avant on Sam Harris

I came across a column by John Avant in the Baptist Press, that mentions Sam Harris' Letters to a Christian Nation , and thought I'd comment on it.

Our real problem

I just read one of the great evangelistic books of our day -- “Letters to a Christian Nation” by Sam Harris. It is an evangelistic masterpiece. Harris has invested years of his life preparing to write this book. He is so passionate about sharing his faith with others that he took the time to write a defense of his faith and publish it for the whole world to read. They are reading it, and it is becoming a national best-seller. Harris is bold. He realizes that everyone is open to talk about faith these days, and so while most of us stay silent, he speaks loudly and clearly to all of the importance of his faith, which he says is intellectually defensible and exclusive.

Those of you who knows that Harris' is an atheist, are probably seeing a big strawman marching in. Atheism as a faith? And "open to talk about faith"? Given how Dawkins' and Harris' books have been received by many, it would seem that while people might want to talk about faith, they certainly don't want to debate or evaluate the basis of their faith.

Isn’t this wonderful? Well, not really. You see, the faith that Sam Harris is presenting in his book is actually no faith at all. Harris is an atheist. He is one of the leading “evangelistic atheists” of our day. Of course, in the real sense of the word, Harris cannot be an evangelist.

The religious atheist strawman does not seem to make his entrance after all. Avant quite correctly states that an atheist cannot be an evangelist - he is right, because an atheist doesn't have a religious fundament to be evangalistic about. However, it seems that Avant thinks this for a different reason.

As you know by now, if you read my columns, I define evangelism as sharing good news with friends.

The good news being "yay, we're not going to burn in hell"? So, apparently when a friend recently told me that he got a new and better job, it was evangelism in action? I think we need a more precise definition.

Harris doesn’t have any good news to share. He is passionately committed to leading everyone he can to believe that they have no eternal purpose at all. According to him there is no God, no ultimate meaning or purpose in life, no design for the universe, no ultimate justice from the hand of God and no loving plan from the heart of a Redeemer-God. After just a few short years on a small insignificant place in an accidental universe, it will all be over for you. You then will rot in the ground, just like any dead animal you see by the side of the road. Not exactly good news.

Ok, this is where I don't get religious people. What's bad about realizing that you live in the now, and don't have to focus on some weird definition of afterlife (be it heaven, reincarnation or something else)? What's bad in seeing the universe as the marvel it is, without thinking that there is some purpose to it all? What's wrong in not being some kind of pawn in some supreme beings games, subject to his whims and so-called justice?

Personally I think it's healthy to live life as it's the only one, even if you believe in an afterlife. What does it matter if there is something afterwards? You are in the now, after all. But then, I'm the type who are planning on the small details, but impulsive in the big things in life (careers, studies etc.). I am trying to learn to be more impulsive in the small things as well.

Three things jumped out at me as I read Harris’ book. First of all, I admire Sam Harris. I know that may shock you, but how can you not appreciate the passion he has?

But if I really believed what he believed, I would be in despair. I would be living every moment in emptiness and maybe even terror –- the dread that all that matters is ticking away with every passing second. No hope. No future. But he believes it so strongly, he is willing to tell his belief to everyone, to risk ridicule and personal attack, to do anything it takes to get people to hear his message. I admire that. This is the second passionate book written by an atheist that I have read recently. I am beginning to wonder if atheists are becoming more serious about their faith that leads to nothing than Christians are about their faith that leads to everything.

Damn, the religious atheist strawman just showed up again.

And how poor a life do you have, if you have no hope unless you believe in a supreme being who doesn't involve himself in your life? I have many hopes, dreams and even fears - none of which requires a supreme being. And what's more, since I don't believe in such a supreme being, I don't depend on it to make my hopes and dreams come true. Instead I work, some times quite hard, to make it happen, as do many religous people, I'm sure - but why do they then need to believe in a supreme being to have hope?
Oh, and we all have futures. In some cases, those imediate futures invovles becoming part of the eco-cycle, but that's another matter.

The second thought that occurred to me is how much easier it is for us to evangelize than it is for Sam Harris. After all, we actually have good news to share. And yet, the vast majority of believers rarely if ever share their faith. I have to admit that this just amazes me and leaves me scratching my head. I have to ask you if you really believe what you say you do. If so, then why would you miss out on the greatest joy in life -– seeing others embrace the truth that has transformed you? Let’s start. Right now. Today.

What is this good news you will share? That unless people believe the same as you, they are going to be eternally tortured in hell? That they have no real purpose in life other than to serve the whim of a supreme being? How can you consider such messages good?
Oh, and maybe some of these people realize that religion is a private matter. That many of us don't appreciate having other peoples' faith pushed upon us.

Ask God to help you make a friend who needs to know His Son. Open your eyes and watch and pray as you live out this day. He will lead you to that friend and help you to share the good news. And when you get started, it will be hard to remember why you ever lived any other way before. It will be contagious as other believers around you see how full life is when you stop keeping the best thing in your life to yourself.

Is this some kind of code for taking drugs? Sounds like the effect is pretty similar.

The rest of the column is about what Avant sees as the real problem for the Southern Baptists - basicly that they are not converting enough atheists.

Conservative atheists

It sounds like an oxymoron, but they do exist, and they have started making themselves heard.

Coming Out - Skeptical Conservatives, weary of the Theocon’s Disdain, are Emerging from the Closet by Christopher Orlet in New English Review.

For an older article, see Heather Mac Donald's August 28, 2006 piece in The American Conservative.

It would seem to me that these atheist (or agnostic) conservatives are easily as important allies as the moderate Christians in the fight against the fundamentalist Right-winged Christians, trying to impose their doctrine on the US. Yet, they are rarely mentioned (and even less courted by the Democrats), and I think that's a mistake.

Staring into the abyss of stupidity

Once in a while I stumble over an article from one of the far-right websites such as Powerline or Townhall, and they never fail to make me wonder of the sheer stupidity expressed. I came across one such article from Townhall

Atheistic Democracy: An oxymoron

The sheer amount of stupidity and ignorance at display in the article is incredible. I will not go through every piece of tortured logic and moronic statement, but I will make a few remarks. Feel free to make your own in the comments.

In response to the recent assault by “tolerant” atheists, I am going to explain why it is necessary to maintain our Christian heritage in order to sustain our democracy. This is for the benefit of the “scientists” who presume themselves the authorities on everything and who have penned tomes with such ostentatious titles as The God Delusion, Letter to a Christian Nation, God: The Failed Hypothesis, and other works that rehash the arguments from ages past. They all have committed the common error of mistaking the empirical method for the whole of knowledge. It wouldn’t be too bad if they all just went off by themselves into their own little self-created hells where they snarl and snipe (called “free-thinkers meetings”) because a Christian might say “God bless you” or wear a tiny crucifix around her neck. Judging by the comments in reply to my column “Letter to a Stupid Atheist,” I have to conclude that this is one of the most miserable groups of people on earth. And as my adjective for them implies, they are not very smart, for there is no analogy between a female dog and a columnist, a claim they make through the name they call me in their blogs and letters.

First of all, it seems like she is arguing that the reason why you should believe in a Christian god is because it's necessary for democracy. That's a novel argument for belief.

Second of all, I haven't come across secular people complaining about people saying "God bless you", except if it is a official role (for example as the President of the United States), or if it is against our expressed wishes.
On the other hand, you have Christians like Bill O'Reilly who are complaining about people saying "Happy Holidays" instead of "Merry Christmas", and claiming it is part of a "War against Christmas". Seems to me that it's not the secular people who snarl and snipe about such things.

But more importantly, whenever they assault Christianity, we need to remind them of the foundations of their freedoms.

First, the fact that they live in a country founded upon a belief in “inalienable rights” imparted by their Creator should give them a hint. The very notion of democracy is based on Christian principles—a historical fact, though one not really emphasized in our public school system. But I noticed as I was reading an article in 1999 in The Atlantic Monthly by Francis Fukuyama: “In the West, Christianity first established the universality of human dignity. . .” Yes, the Greeks had a democracy, but it was not a democracy for women and slaves. It was the radical Christian notion of equality--that there was neither “Jew nor Gentile,” and that even prostitutes could repent--that forms the basis of our democratic values.

Argh! The stupidity... it hurts!
When democracy was introduced in USA, it was exactly like the original Greek concept. Slaves, women, non-citizens, and people who didn't own property were not allowed to vote. In other words, the "Christian notion of equality" hardly came into play. Not surprising really, since the notion of equality isn't really shown in the Bible (need I go into the parts about slaves and womens' roles?).

The Greek were not the only ancient democracies. The old republic Vajji Sangha, located in current India, was also a democracy long before Christianity arose (before BCE 600), and it's believed that the Sumerian city states had some kind of democracy before becoming monarchies. Scandinavia also had (limited) democracy, where all the free men could vote on important issues (including election of the King) at the ting, before the countries became Christian.

And it's nonsense to talk about Christianity as the root of democracy, even if you ignore the pre-Christian democracies. Renaissance humanism was the true root of democracy (which they copied from the ancient Greek), and they did so in spite of Christianity.

In general, it's not a bad idea to read the Wikipedia entry on democracy, though it's simplistic, and lacking.

This of course presupposes the notion of sin, or if you don’t like that old-fashioned word, imperfection. Christianity acknowledges the universality of human sin in addition to the universality of dignity. Therefore the Christian recognizes the limits of government because of the limitations of the (fallen) people who make up the government. The ultimate arbiter is God, not man the Scientist. Who is the ultimate arbiter for the atheist? Sam Harris? Richard Dawkins? Adolf Hitler? To whom will they appeal when they cannot decide their infernal debates?

Ok, first of all, Adolf Hitler was not an atheist. He made frequent references to God in Mein Kampf and in speeches.
Having said that, she clearly doesn't understand the simple principle of atheism. There is no "ultimate arbiter". You have to live in a society together with other people, and thus to behave in a manner that makes this possible. Or in the words of PZ Myers.

Religion is not a source of moral behavior. It's a source of tribalism and obedience to authority, which sometimes coincides with respectable morality, but isn't necessarily associated with it. We have to find our virtue in one true thing, our common humanity, and these ancient superstitions actually interfere with instruction in how to be good by encrusting it with nonsense.

But back to the article.

The atheist, nonetheless, against all evidence, believes in the “progress” of science. He believes it can replace religion. And he believes that we are marching towards perfection. For the sake of argument, let’s assume that. But what do we do before we reach perfection? Which scientist do we turn to to save us? How do we make decisions now? Or if we mistakenly believe we have arrived at The Answer Through Science do we form our culture to that formula? But how do we know it’s perfect? Doesn’t each generation believe itself the most advanced? Didn’t the flappers? Didn’t the hippies? What do we do about the past generations that made mistakes?

The atheist doesn't "believe" in anything. It's a word used for people who has looked at the evidence for a God, and found it lacking, and thus doesn't believe in one. In other words, it means the lack of belief in God. Other than that, you can't make any general statements about atheists.
Some of them certainly feel that science leads to progress, and history would seem to be on their side. It's not religion that has lead to better medicine or better technology (though some of the people involved have certainly been religious). It's science.

Ok, I give up. I have to break away from the sheer ignorance shown through the article. If nothing else, then because commenting on every stupidity would take up too much space and time. Go read it yourselves and weep.

A bad review of The God Delusion by AiG

There has been a number of reviews of Dawkins, quite a few of them bad, but now comes the objective review we've all waited for. A review by one of the creationists from Answers in Genesis.

Paul Taylor of Answers In Genesis critques[sic] 'The God Delusion'

Why don't I think the headline uses "critiques" (however the spelling) in the meaning of a neutral look, but rather uses it in the every day usage of a negative look?

Have you ever wondered why an atheist believes what he/she does? Richard Dawkins wants you to know why he is an atheist. Dawkins, the Simonyi Professor for the Public Understanding of Science, is arguably the world's best known atheist.

With the publication of his new book, The God Delusion, we now have an expanded version of his atheist manifesto. One would have at least hoped that he would have taken the opportunity to present a more intellectually rigorous case. Indeed, some Christians may have been afraid of opening the book, in case the sheer weight of evidence might have destroyed their faith. For my part, I was looking forward to getting to grips with an intellectual argument. I was to be disappointed.

Given the fact that the sheer evidence of the age of the Earth, the supporting evidence for the Theory of Evolution, and a number of other things, including the self-contradiction of the Bible, haven't been able to convince you that a literate reading of the Bible is nonsense, I don't think it's actually possible to show you anything that might convince you of anything.
And I am not certain that you would recognize an intellectual argument if you saw it.

Dawkins' arguments, far from having intellectual clout, are mostly like this example: "The argument will be so familiar, I needn't document it further."

Dawkin's paucity of argument is best illustrated by his poor use of logic.

Someone from AiG saying that others use poor logic? This gotta be good.

Poor Logic

Examine this extraordinary sentence.

Although Jesus probably existed, reputable biblical scholars do not in general regard the New Testament (and obviously not the Old Testament) as a reliable record of what actually happened in history, and I shall not consider the Bible further as evidence for any kind of deity. (p97)

Look first at the use of the word "probably" in "Although Jesus probably existed". Why is Dawkins doubting this fact? There is no question that Jesus existed. It is illogical to add the word "probably".

Given the fact that there is no other evidence of the existence of Jesus than the books of the New Testament (and the testaments rejected when the New Testament was put together), written decades after the facts that they were supposed to document, I personally find it quite reasonable to use the word "probably" - not only do I find it reasonable, I even find it (dare I say) logical.

Personally, I would used the word "might" instead of "probably", but that would certainly not have be better in the eyes of Taylor.

Look next at the use of the word "reputable". What is a "reputable biblical scholar"? The test of reputation has been left undone by Dawkins. Presumably, a "reputable biblical scholar" is one who agrees with Dawkins' attempts to rubbish the Bible. Such people can be found, though whether the adjective "reputable" is appropriate for such people is a matter of opinion. In the opinion of Answers In Genesis, a "reputable biblical scholar" is one who approaches the Bible with respect, believing it to be the inspired, inerrant and authoritative word of God, from the very first verse.

A reputable biblical scholar is someone who does research on the subject in a scholarly way, ignoring their own feelings, and take historical evidence into account. They then publishes works that are generally accepted in the field, and shows a willingness to correct any mistakes that might come to light.
In other words, they don't let their faith come in the way of facts.

They don't have to agree with Dawkins, and indeed many of them don't, but they are willing to admit when facts are on Dawkins' side.

There is a good reason why AiG isn't the arbitrator of what is good biblical scholarship. They are unwilling to let facts get in the way of their faith.

Thirdly, why is it "obvious" that the Old Testament should not be regarded as reliable? He has clearly not read a detailed apologetics of scriptural inerrancy, such as that provided by Brian Edwards in his masterly book, Nothing But The Truth. That is again down to his presupposition, that evolution is true so Genesis is wrong. Merely making a statement, or using the word "obvious", does not make a statement true, when it is not true. Just from these three points, we see that there is no logical reason given by Dawkins for rejecting the use of the Bible as evidence.

A good example of the Courtier's Reply.
All evidence supports the theory of evolution, the age of the Earth etc., while none supports a literate reading of the creation story in Genesis (which of the two creation stories should we go with BTW?).
The stories in the Bible are not supported by historical evidence, biological evidence or by science in general. The story of the Ark alone, has so many problematic issues that TalkOrigins has an entire page dedicated to them.

Infidels.org has a list of biblical contradicitions and errors, which includes listing bats as a type of bird.

Do you really want to claim this to be the "inerrant and authoritative word of God"?

Articles on the use of logic are easy to find on the website. An important element in the use of logic is to recognise logical fallacies. Dawkins has committed several of these.

So far I haven't been impressed with the quality of Taylor's logic, so it would seem like he should re-read those articles.

Ad Hominem

This sort of fallacy involves attacking the opponent instead of the argument. In the UK, this is referred to as "playing the man instead of the ball" - a soccer reference, implying that the tackler has deliberately aimed to kick his opponent, rather than attempting to kick the ball.

There are several examples of this. There is a particularly nasty attack on a schoolteacher, who happens to be a creationist. Notice, on page 95, how Dawkins describes certain American educational establishments.

He moved up the hierarchy of American universities, from rock bottom at the "Moody Bible Institute", through Wheaton College (a little bit higher on the scale, but still the alma mater of Billy Graham) to Princeton in the world-beating class at the top. (p95)

Why are the three institutions arranged hierarchically? What is the basis for Dawkins assessment of standards at each place? He doesn't say, but we assume that it is to do with belief in the Bible. Why is it implied that, because they number Billy Graham among their alumni, that this is a negative for Wheaton College?

The book is full of such examples.

Interesting that Taylor doesn't actually provide any examples of the ad hominem attacks.
Attacking someone for being a creationist is not an example of ad hominem, unless they were discussing something irrelevant to this (for example his opinion on taxes). For example, to say that a creationist is unqualified to teach biology is not an ad hominem attack, since his stance shows a lack of understanding of the fundamental principles of biology.

Ranking American universities might not be very relevant, but again, it's not an ad hominem attack. Impling that counting Billy Graham as an alumni counts against Wheatin College is more properly called "guilt by association", and has absolutely nothing to do with an adhominen.

Straw Men

The well-known "straw man" logical fallacy occurs when the debater invents their opponent's position for them, then argues against their own invention, rather than the real position of the opponent. An example of this is seen in the mocking tone used, as he attempts to dismiss arguments based on intelligent design.

I [insert own name] am personally unable to think of any way in which [insert biological phenomenon] could have been built up step by step. Therefore it is irreducibly complex. That means it is designed.

Although Dawkins uses this argument frequently, it is a complete misrepresentation of the intelligent design position. A biological mechanism is not labelled as irreducibly complex, because it is complicated and the labeller cannot think how it could have evolved. It is so labelled, because it can be shown that it is not possible for it to have evolved.

Given how often we encounter the argument from incredulity, and that it's basicly what Behe's irreducibly complexity reduces to, I can't see that this is a strawman. A strawman is a position that the opponent doesn't hold after all.

Every biological mechanism labelled "irreducibly complex" so far, has as a matter of fact not been shown impossible to evolve. As a matter of fact, the evolutionary path for all of them have been since been demonstrated. In other words, they were labelled "irreducibly complex" because the labeller couldn't understand how it could have been evovled, and thus decided that it couldn't - the very definition of an argument from incredulity.

Conclusion

The God Delusion is far from being a reasoned argument for atheism, it is a hysterical rant. Maybe there will one day emerge a book that has a little more intellectual rigour. Dawkins' new book is weak, even by atheist standards. We note that Dawkins is now planning to send atheist material to government schools in the UK. That might be a good opportunity for British school pupils to exercise their critical thinking!

Did anyone notice any relevant critique of the content of the book? Taylor attacked Dawkins' logic (rather poorly), but didn't actually address any of the book's points. Not only didn't he do that, his entire critique was based upon the premise that the bible should be read literately - a minority position, even among the religious.

Note on comments: People are very welcome to disagree with me, but personal attacks and comments that just amounts to links to AiG (or similar pages) will get deleted without hesitation.