You are so right about this. I will often be called an anti-religious / Christian / Catholic bigot whenever I point out that various religion-based truth claims are implausible or likely / almost certainly didn’t happen.

I think a lot of believers really don’t have any idea that when one claims, for instance, that Jesus turned water into wine or that the flood occurred as described in the Old Testament or that the stars aligned for Jesus’ birth or even that Jesus was a historical figure rather than a composite of other characters from religious literature, you are making factual claims that are no different than claiming that Caesar did or did not cross the Rubicon or the sun does or does not revolve around the earth. (Of course, many of them also adopt the pose for political reasons, because it is mighty convenient to label any criticisms of your beliefs as “bigotry”.)

It’s as if there’s one category for “every factual claim that a person can make other than religious ones” and another category for “religiously-based claims”, and the latter are not fact claims but some other sort of belief that can never be criticized or questioned in any way.

You know the one way this nasty confrontation would never come up? If people all kept their religion to their damn selves. I don’t think about religion or god at almost any time during an average day. It just isn’t germane to my everyday life. The only time I’m forced to think about it is if someone brings it up to me.

If you keep your prayer in the closet, like the Bible says to do, the argument or confrontation never happens. I’ll just talk to you about the weather.

If there is a god, there is one and atheists are wrong.  If there’s not, atheists are right.

Cue whining about arrogant atheists who “think they know everything.”

One of the big problems in our national conversation about religion is that people are expected to act as though they don’t believe what they believe.  To some extent, this serves atheists because when you render all religious claims equal, they’re all equally pointless.  You end up with people arguing about their religion as though they’re arguing if Harry Potter or Lord of the Rings is better.

All religious conversations come down to this, at least regarding anyone with a formally chosen organized religion.  And I think this comes from something somebody said here:  nobody fully and faithfully follows and believes every bit of doctrine and dogma from their faith.  Everyone has to chose which moral precepts from the Bible they see as true, and which ones are just , well, whatever.  The necessary result is that people are already substituting their own morality for a religious one, only pretending they’re not.  This of course, doesn’t apply to any religion that doesn’t try to ground its belief in doctrine and dogma.  But while this is often really beneficial (people who chose to emphasize the social justice elements of Christianity), it’s equally likely to be dangerous (people who emphasize the homophobia).

But for some reason, we’re supposed to act as though those choices are innate articles of faith, rather than just choices.

I do have a question. Do any of you “strong atheists” think about there not being a god all of the time, or does it really only come up when the Taliban tries to legislate your morality?

“Wow! Another day on Earth. What a beautiful non-God created sunrise. Science is great. I’ll say a little prayer to humanism before I grab some non-intelligently designed breakfast. I’m so glad I don’t believe in a god!”

I’m not sure I understand your point, Seebach.  Atheists seen the sunrise, and if they think about what caused it, they think of fire and the Big Bang. Gratitude for where our food comes from is centered around the people who actually grew it and transported it.  The assumption that “strong” atheists are negative is just off-base.  They have an understanding of the world; it’s just rooted in a demonstrable material reality.  Believers think more like this than some might admit.

Do any of you “strong atheists” think about there not being a god all of the time, or does it really only come up when the Taliban tries to legislate your morality?

Mostly it comes up when God comes up. You know, any time the TV is on, or I look at a calendar, that kind of thing.

It would be nice to pretend that you live in a world that isn’t dominated by religious mythology, but that’s simply not the world we live in.  So I don’t really get the point of aggressively stating that you never think about it.  The only way I can avoid thinking about religion’s impact on the world is to avoid thinking about the world, and as a political writer, that’s not really an option.

It’s funny how the ass-bags who make the “women are nicer” claim tend to be the ones who also claim that under a female president, we’d have a war every 28 days.

It comes down to respecting the person, not necessarily their beliefs.  If we could manage that, we’d be in fine shape.

I’m not sure I understand your point, Seebach.

Let me see if I can ask this better. Religious fundamentalists assume atheism is a religion in itself, and thus you believe in it. So, the assumption is that it’s a major part of your identity. For me, it’s just not a subject. I will make fun or debate when someone brings their beliefs up to me. But if the Christian right disappeared, and I never saw anyone in religious garb, or a megachurch, I would never think about religion or agnosticism or atheism at all. It would never cross my mind.

I’m just wondering if most “mean atheism” would dry up in the Christian fascists shut up first. In other words, if you would shut up, so would we.

I’m just wondering how popular this sentiment is.

I’m just wondering if most “mean atheism” would dry up in the Christian fascists shut up first. In other words, if you would shut up, so would we.

Probably. Unfortunately the nature of religious belief is such that they can’t shut up, they can’t stop trying to legislate their religious morality on others, they can’t just live their lives and let us live theirs.

Personally, I prefer my breakfast intelligently designed.

My only comment is to say that I hate the word “tolerance.” Fuck tolerance, I want respect.  We do have separation of church and state in this country, so it’s not a matter of tolerating someone’s point of view, it’s about having respect for the law.

BAC

Probably. Unfortunately the nature of religious belief is such that they can’t shut up, they can’t stop trying to legislate their religious morality on others, they can’t just live their lives and let us live theirs.

I know. I just meant in a perfect world. So the next time I get in an argument, I can say “I brought this up at the atheist klaven, and we all agreed if you would shut the fuck up, we’d stop being so mean.”

Just something I was curious about.

I’m not sure how much “mean” atheism---i.e. the kind that actually advances arguments---would dry up if religious fundamentalism did.  If religious people’s beliefs withered down to the level of belief of people who believe in astrology, I’m sure that those beliefs would be treated like astrology.  Mocked, argued against, sure.  But in a big league way?  Probably not.  And atheists would be up against the same thing that skeptics in general are, which is documenting the same ways that irrational beliefs undermine our society that might not initially be evident.  But I don’t think atheism would be such a big deal, of course.

Considering that the name Annie Gaylor can be a dirty word around my neck of the woods (southern Wisconsin), I really don’t understand this notion that only male atheists are vocal about their beliefs.  I’m agnostic myself, but my own mother will often harumph that it’s because of Gaylor that she doesn’t automatically get holidays off at her state office.  But then I always remind her that those days are replaced by an equivalent number of floating holidays that people can apply however they wish.

I think Chet has a point.  The problem with religion is that even if individual believers are happy to sequester themselves from criticism by being quiet about their irrational beliefs, it’s not in the nature of religion to be that way.  Without a sociopolitical purpose, religion sort of shrivels up.

Hitchens may be an asshole, but it was awesome when he said live on CNN the day Falwell died that “Jerry Falwell is so full of crap if you gave his corpse an enema he could be buried in a matchbox” or something like that.

You know, I don’t think about God very often if left alone.  I still curse with religious words b/c I grew up that way, but the further I drift away from the time I was Catholic, the less it ever comes up.  More than that, I cringe now when someone says “Merry Christmas” b/c it’s very doubtful they mean it in a Christian or charitable or even a happy manner.  They mean “Kowtow to my religion, motherfucker!” It’s not a greeting anymore, it’s a threat (of whining at the very least).

The problem is that fundigelicals not only believe what they believe without regard to the fact they they are making factual claims, but then they think it’s perfectly okay to continue to make up “facts” to back up their beliefs.  All this horseshit about the US being founded by Christians as a Christian nation, despite the fact the founding fathers were not Dominionists and not all were even Christian.  They’d lived under government sponsored religion and were quite clear about not wanting that to continue.

If evolution is just a belief and atheism/secular humanism is just a belief and climate change is just a belief, then you don’t have to worry about anything.  Your God will take care of everything b/c your God is the true God and all those infidels with their “facts” are wrong.

It’s a true failure of education.

Just to play devil’s advocate here; I understand his point about Julia Sweeny. Where Hitchens, Harris, and Dawkins can come across as intellectual atheist scolds, Sweeny is more relatable and personable. Her “Letting Go of God"(which I bought and have lent to many friends)tells the story of her own journey to atheism after having been a devoted Catholic.  She doesn’t judge you.  She doesn’t intimidate you with her intellect.  I think Sweeny will do more for atheism as a movement than the other three combined.

Now if you want to disabuse him of the notion that all female atheists are nice, then all you need is three words: Madalyn Murray O’Hair.

Christmas has been so irreligious for me my whole life that I have to remind myself that some people take it so seriously.  I never attended Christmas services at a church prior to high school, and when I was taken to some, I was surprised to see the inside of the church decorated with Christmas decorations.  I had internalized the idea that Christmas is a secular holiday that thoroughly.  The “War on Christmas” and “reason for the season” people are fighting a losing battle, and they know it.  Christmas belongs to Santa Claus, baby.

Honestly, pablo, I think Sweeney may be even more threatening, because she tells the whole story of how she let go.  Nothing she says is one whit different than what Dawkins says, in terms of characterizing belief as coming from a combination of fear, wishful thinking, conformity, and thoughtlessness.  But she’s even scarier, because she’s been on the other side and she can tell you that leaving it behind is not that scary.  She tempts you to atheism; I’d imagine that’s even “meaner” and scarier.

Christmas has been so irreligious for me my whole life that I have to remind myself that some people take it so seriously.

This is what I mean by “I don’t think about religion”. When I hear an era is BC 560, I don’t think of Christ in a religious way. I just think of it as an arbitrary name referencing time. Only when someone goes out of their way to say “BCE”, ironically, I think of religion. Because it’s new, and it’s bullshit (so, now, Christianity is the “common era”?), and made up just to be more secular, and that makes me think of fundamentalists and their whining. BC, AD, The Year of Our Lord, “My God!” “Jesus christ..."… it’s all secular to me.

<i>More than that, I cringe now when someone says “Merry Christmas” b/c it’s very doubtful they mean it in a Christian or charitable or even a happy manner.  They mean “Kowtow to my religion, motherfucker!” It’s not a greeting anymore, it’s a threat (of whining at the very least). </i

And that’s a complete shame that the assholes have ruined Christmas for the rest of us. 

I was raised Catholic (meanie atheist now, and vocal about it) and we did midnight mass and advent and Jesus and the whole thing at church, but Christmas at home was all secular all the way.  I love Christmas.  It’s the only good thing about winter and it’s just so much fun, especially now that I have kids of my own.  But I still get pissed off at the “Jesus is the reason for the season” assholes because they’ve taken my favorite holiday and used it to bludgeon all of us non-believers and not terribly religious believers and just plain not assholes.

I’m just wondering if most “mean atheism” would dry up in the Christian fascists shut up first. In other words, if you would shut up, so would we.

I don’t think that alone would shut up the big bad meanie atheists. I’d be pretty happy if the dominionists would quit trying to fuck around with everyone’s private lives, but you’d still have the catholic church and other mainline faiths preaching bad stuff about the gay and the abortion and the sex and just in general fucking up people’s emotional and psychological and sexual well-being. I’m still pretty fucked up from 18 years of Presbyterian sunday school, even though a lot of the lessons and sermons were generally tame “yay for god & jebus” blather, there still was a “prayer of confession” every service that consisted of 2 to 3 minutes of confessing how much we suck and are bad filthy sinners. And that still pisses me off because it’s still fucking with my head after over a decade away from church.

Yeah, I’m more likely to think of the Roman Empire, which was the most important thing going on at the time.

This incessant whining about how atheists are mean for pointing out that there’s no god always reminds me of the notion that it’s mean to tell kids that there’s no Santa Claus. Believers should grow up. We don’t apply this sort of idea to any other sort of intellectual discourse. No one says that it’s mean to tell flat-earthers that the world is round, or to tell global warming-deniers that global warming is real, or for that matter for conservatives to tell liberals that everything we believe is wrong.

I would like to say I’d be less mean if fewer Christians were obnoxious but I would still be inclined to see religious belief as a sign of moral, intellectual, and emotional weakness.  The topic would probably come up less so maybe I’d seem nicer but I would still be pretty weird around religious people. 

I can be pretty mean for a lady.

The irony is that strident atheism has the effect of lessening strife between the various tribes of believers. We’ve been doing this public service for quite a while now, at least since the end of the Thirty Year’s War, when the terrifying threat didn’t come from Hitchens or Dawkins but from Benedict Spinoza.

There’s something irresistibly comic about the way that Catholics, Protestants, Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Shintoists, Druids, and even witches manage to have something nice to say about each other. “Worship at the church, synagogue, mosque, sacred grove, or pyramid of the Sun of your choice, but worship, damn it!”

Well, at least it keeps some of the guys from burning each other at the stake. Like I said, a public service.

The only thing that brings different religions together as one as well as atheism is feminism.  Many churches are willing to reach across dogmatic divides to join forces against women’s rights.

From the USA TODAY article:

There was much genuflecting to Hitchens, Harris, Dawkins and Dennett as “The Four Horsemen” — a moniker that seems to be sticking despite the allusion to the biblical book of Revelation (not to mention the Catholic backfield of Notre Dame’s 1924 football team).

Despite? Try “because of.” I take it this guy doesn’t do irony.

I treat my atheism the same way I imagine a gay person treats his or her sexuality: I don’t go out of my way to bring it up, but if it comes up, I’m upfront about it and not terribly concerned with whether the other person approves.

MonkeyShines: WTF?!

MonkeyShines: WTF?!

I don’t think either Harris or Hitchens have been shy about how endless war in the Middle East is a grand plan, and Harris is all for torture.

As I recall, Madalyn Murray O’Hare was the original American public atheist (at least of the 20th century) and she was far from gentle and soft-spoken.

The whole concept of the “mean atheist” is ridiculous to begin with. It reminds me of students who whinge that a particular teacher is “mean,” simply because he goes about his daily work in a rigorous and intellectually challenging manner. While not unique to the U.S., it seems more prevalent here than in other industrialised Western states—lots of feigned outrage and outrageous statements to cover for intellectual laziness and insecurity over shaky foundations.

For example, if some creepy dullard argues that Richard Dawkins has explicitly advocated actual genocide against religious believers, he’ll probably think me “mean” for asking: citation, please.

For example, if some creepy dullard argues that Richard Dawkins has explicitly advocated actual genocide against religious believers, he’ll probably think me “mean” for asking: citation, please.

Dawkins has not. But to back every single war Bush thought was a great idea requires a certain thirst for Muslim blood, does it not?

Hitchens and Harris favor war and/or torture in the Middle East.
Hitchens and Harris are atheists.
Therefore: Hitchens’s and Harris’s atheism must motivate their advocacy of war and/or torture.

Sorry, Seebach, that’s not how I learned to put together a syllogism.

Hitchens’s and Harris’s atheism must motivate their advocacy of war and/or torture.

This is not the first time readers of this blog are found lacking reading comprehension and use that as an excuse to attack other regulars of this blog. Hint: regular readers and commenters tend to be “on our side”.

Please, do instruct me on where I claim that their bloodlust is *caused by* their atheism, and not merely state that those two DO in fact support war crimes, while Dawkins, Jacoby, and Sweeney do not.

Most of the conceptions that essentialise identities, including conceptions of ‘meanness’, can be counteracted by viewing these ideas as an attempt to project certain kinds of sensations away from the subject (who has thought them up).  The best tactical approach is to make like a martial artist and assure that whatever energy comes out of person does not leave them, (ie. does not enter you, their opponent) but becomes their problem to deal with.  You just have to refuse the identity, whilst continuing to make them account for their own ideations.  This is where the battle has to be won—not at the level of ideological sparring.

Maybe I haven’t been paying attention but I never thought that most atheists were accusing religious believers of being stupid.  They were merely accusing them of being wrong.  And they usually explain this not as a result of a lack of intelligence but of psychological weakness.  They find a Godless universe to be a scary place. So scary in fact, that they refuse to believe in a Godless universe. 

Prothero’s real argument here seems to be that atheists shouldn’t “proselytize” because to somehow challenge somebody on views that they hold dear is rude or bigoted.  I find it ironic that liberals get so frequently accused of political correctness when the right seem to be the true maestros of PC.  If you challenge someone’s belief in miracles or a fundamentalist literal reading of the Bible, then they try to shut down debate by being deeply offended and accusing you of being an insensitive jerk.

Dawkins has not. But to back every single war Bush thought was a great idea requires a certain thirst for Muslim blood, does it not?

To be clear, Dawkins has no more done that than he has promoted genocide as any sort of solution:

Dear Mr Bush (I’d say President Bush if you had actually been elected),

I’ve been asked to give advice to you on touching down in Britain. It is this. Go home. You aren’t wanted here. You aren’t wanted anywhere else either, but you may have been misunderinformed that Britain was the one place where you would be welcomified. Wrong. Well, presumably your best pal Tony welcomes you. But that’s about it. Your motorcades, your helicopters, your triggerhappy guards will try to protect you from the people of Britain, who would otherwise spoil the photo-ops for the folks back home. But be in no doubt. We despise you here too. After you and Jeb stole the election (by a margin smaller than the number of folks you executed in Texas) you were rightly written off as a one-term president: a fair advertisement for Drunks For Jesus but otherwise an idle nonentity; inarticulate, unintelligent, an ignorant hick. September 11 changed all that. Not that you covered yourself with glory that day. You are said to admire Churchill. Can you imagine Churchill, at such a moment, panicking all around the country from airbase to airbase? Even nasty old Rummy bunkered down where he belonged.

Never mind, your puppeteers from the Project for the New American Century recognised the opportunity they had been waiting for. September 11 was your golden Pearl Harbor. This was how you’d get elected in 2004 (not re-elected, elected). You would announce a War on Terror. American troops would win. And you would be the victorious warlord, swaggering in a flight suit before a Mission Accomplished banner.

It worked in Afghanistan. But then those puppeteers moved on to their long-term project: Iraq. Never mind that you had to lie about weapons of mass destruction. Never mind that Iraq had not the smallest connection with 9/11. The good folks back home would never know the difference between Saddam and Osama. You would ride the paranoid patriotism aroused by 9/11 all the way into Iraq, and hand out oil and reconstruction contracts to Dick Cheney’s boys. That escapade is now backfiring horribly, as many of us said it would. No wonder young American travellers are sewing Canadian flags to their rucksacks. What we in Britain won’t forgive is that you have dragged us down too. Go home.
Richard Dawkins
Scientist

As for Hitchens and Harris:

<blockquote>Please, do instruct me on where I claim that their bloodlust is *caused by* their atheism,<blockquote>

This is a thread the discusses them both as primarily atheists. If their purported bloodlust against Muslims is not motivated by their atheism, why bring it up at all in this context?

http://www.conspiracycafe.net/forum/index.php?/topic/25104-atheist-apocalypse/page__pid__117856__st__

Sing from the rooftops: “Atheism is dead!”

Maybe I haven’t been paying attention but I never thought that most atheists were accusing religious believers of being stupid.  They were merely accusing them of being wrong.  And they usually explain this not as a result of a lack of intelligence but of psychological weakness.

Well said. The fact is, it takes quite a bit of intelligence to construct complex arguments on the fly so as to avoid reaching the inevitable conclusion to any of these debates, viz. “because an invisible man said so.”

Prothero is basing his argument on the category error that atheists accuse religious believers of being stupid, following hot on the heels with the equally spurious claim that atheists think religion is poison (it’s generally the hierarchies that push religious memes for their own ends that are considered poisonous, not religion itself). It’s hard to take the rest of his discussion seriously after that.

Dawkins has not. But to back every single war Bush thought was a great idea requires a certain thirst for Muslim blood, does it not?

I fucking quit. One fucking dangling participle. Hitchens and Harris backed Bush’s every move. Not Dawkins. You people are so eager to attack and assume everyone’s motives are suspect. Do you even read the whole thread before you decide to get all pissed off on a single post?

The blatant insanity and assholery of the left drove me off every blog but this and Balloon Juice. Guess I’ll just read that one blog from now on.

drmabus9,

I’m more partial to Timecube myself.

While I don’t know, not having read sufficient amounts of their statements, I believe the claim was that Hitchens/Harris had themselves said their support of the war was religiously based.
Of course, Richard Dawkins is lumped in with them as ‘mean’, so it does not appear the the original author’s view of their ‘meanness’ was due to their support of the war.

Also, as a question for other atheists - does ‘Merry Christmas’ actually bother a substantial group of people? I say it, despite not being nor ever having been religious, because I grew up celebrating Christmas, so it’s an expression of goodwill that comes naturally to me. If it bothers people, though, I would try and switch it out for something else.

Seebach, I can “instruct” you on this: Anyone who uses the phrase “reading comprehension” in reply to a post is invariably an asshole.

I fucking quit. One fucking dangling participle. Hitchens and Harris backed Bush’s every move. Not Dawkins.

You don’t have to quit—I was trying to help clarify to confirm that you couldn’t possibly be talking about Dawkins. That dangling participle had the potential to de-rail your main point.

So back to Hitchens and Harris: what, if anything, do you think their atheism have to do with their support of Bush’s crusades? Or am I being “mean” for trying to get you stop dancing around that particular ... um ... bush.

The blatant insanity and assholery of the left drove me off every blog but this and Balloon Juice. Guess I’ll just read that one blog from now on.

The violins providing background music for that statement suggest the answer to my second question. Off you go, then.

Dawkins has not. But to back every single war Bush thought was a great idea requires a certain thirst for Muslim blood, does it not?

You do realize that I am another atheist who was simply responding to post 34. MonkeyShines may be a troll, but I did laugh at his point. But no, let’s look for enemies everywhere. Maybe someone here is insufficiently atheist! Let’s hunt them all out.

While I don’t know, not having read sufficient amounts of their statements, I believe the claim was that Hitchens/Harris had themselves said their support of the war was religiously based.

Or more precisely, based in their hatred of fundamentalist religion, of which they claim Islam is the most dangerous current example.

As it happens, I think that Hitchens and Harris use their atheism as a convenient rationale for their support of Bush’s wars and neoCon doctrine (due to slightly different motivations—Hitchens is a showboating extremist, Harris noodles counter-productively on topics outside his ken, and both love the media spotlight too much).

As it happens, I think that Hitchens and Harris use their atheism as a convenient rationale for their support of Bush’s wars and neoCon doctrine (due to slightly different motivations—Hitchens is a showboating extremist, Harris noodles counter-productively on topics outside his ken, and both love the media spotlight too much).

But there’s no anti-Islam bias in there, at all? There’s no trace of racism? Why would you need atheism as an excuse unless your motivation was really disgusting among your fellow travelers on the left?

jalmondale, I want “Merry Christmas” to be a nice greeting.  I want to believe that it’s a happy thought especially since it’s basically just saying have a happy Dec. 25th, and who couldn’t use a happy day?  But it is a matter of privilege since the a majorityof US citizens are Christian. 

I think the ‘nice christians’ who actually try to follow Jesus’ teachings mean it this way: “I’m happy, be happy, happy times, even if you don’t believe what I believe be happy!” They just don’t necessarily even thinnk of someone as not celebrating Christmas, which is the privilege of being a member of the majority religion. 

However, fucking Bill O’Reilly and FOF et. al. with their “War on Christmas” bullshit have created a whole slew of people who demand “Merry Christmas!” and expect a “Merry Christmas” in return or the Baby Jeezus will cry.

I live near Skokie, IL, a highly Jewish area.  My building is over 60% Muslim.  Chicago has lots of people with lots of religions, and most of them have some sort of celebration in the winter, b/c frankly, winter is dark and cold and we can all use some cheer around the shortest day of the year.  It’s why I’m thrilled the city puts up holiday lights right after Thanksgiving and leaves them up through March some years.

“Happy Holidays” is a nice religiously neutral phrase that means cheer to most.  War on Christmas motherfuckers have turned even that into a political statement, but it’s still better than most other phrases, since it generally just offends War On Christmas types.

The majority of people are right-handed, but some are left-handed.  This fact is interesting, but shouldn’t be the source of strife or oppression.

This gave me an instant visual of some Dallas vice squad trying to enforce anti-sodomy laws by putting undercover cops posing as left-handed people in left-handed bars to catch some left-handed person giving a hand job to another left-handed person with their left hand.

You do realize that I am another atheist who was simply responding to post 34.

Clearly a very concerned atheist.

MonkeyShines may be a troll, but I did laugh at his point.

What point did you think he was making?

But there’s no anti-Islam bias in there, at all? There’s no trace of racism?

As far as anti-Islamic bias, I was clear that it’s quite the opposite, especially in Hitchens’ case. I can’t speak to either man’s racism, which is a different matter.

Why would you need atheism as an excuse unless your motivation was really disgusting among your fellow travelers on the left?

Hitchens is a neoCon, Seebach, and has been for almost a decade. He used to be a Marxist, and thinks he’s been all daring and transgressive and original by jumping to an opposite extreme—this despite the fact that Irving Kristol and his fellow erstwhile Trots already did that decades ago. A normal person would have responded to Amis’ Koba the Dread by moving from the extreme left to the moderate centre, but Hitchens ain’t a normal person.

Harris is misguided in regard to this issue on two levels: first that he singles out Islam as the most prominently dangerous religious ideology in the world today (ignoring the fact that the most violent does not necessarily equal the most dangerous); and second that he’s taken on the neoCon lite proposition that one must destroy the village of liberalism to save it—and do so with torture, a demonstrably ineffective “saviour.”

Prothero is a tool, but there is some kind of logic to the idea, in the fact that we do have two fascist-enablers as the public face of atheism. Would it not be better to do better than Harris and Hitchens? Is this controversial?

MonkeyShines brings up a salient point, I hate to admit.  I really hate seeing a gentle soul like Dawkins being compared to Hitchens, a war-hungry monster.  That’s why this New Atheism crap needs to end; it’s a way for people that are made uncomfortable by Dawkins to put him in the same group as people who are genuinely fucked up and racist, which he is not.

Prothero is a tool, but there is some kind of logic to the idea, in the fact that we do have two fascist-enablers as the public face of atheism. Would it not be better to do better than Harris and Hitchens? Is this controversial?

Yes, kind of logic called “pretzel logic” (or a false syllogism, to use Bitter Scribe’s formal terminoloy). Yes, we can d better than Harris and Hitchens—and we do. As others have pointed out, they’re not The public face of atheism. There are many alternatives, from Dawkins to Sweeney to Pullman (who’ll probably have more impact in the long run than the others).

Clearly a very concerned atheist.

Jesus fucking Christ. How long to I have to have been here before I’m no longer suspected of being a right wing plant? I’ve been reading Pandagon since Jesse and Ezra were using the panda from Ranma 1/2 as the logo. Two to three weeks ago, I was in the thread arguing against Austin the troll who thought plants didn’t reproduce sexually!

I’ve met Amanda and Lindsay in person! I was hugely awkward, but I was there!

I’m at work, so my mind is only half here. But my motives are pure.

To add to what Gracchus reprinted @ 43, it’s always been clear to me that Dawkins has focused more of his attention on what U.S. Christian fundamentalism does to the world than the fundamentalism that fuels Muslim terrorist organizations.  And this is in part because the U.S. fundies have more power, though they’d deny it, and they can do a lot more damage.  Look at how they’re making the AIDS crisis worse, for instance.  And their belief that we have some clash of civilizations with Islam is only helping to ratchet up the violence on both sides.

“The problem with religion is that even if individual believers are happy to sequester themselves from criticism by being quiet about their irrational beliefs, it’s not in the nature of religion to be that way. Without a sociopolitical purpose, religion sort of shrivels up.”

That stands true for any belief system. In fact if you change religion to feminism you probably get the worldview of many antifeminist right-wingers, none of whom seem shy about trotting ‘reason’ or ‘science’ out to back up their own spurious claims.

All in all it’s simple, some people are assholes and some aren’t, and that transcends every belief system there is, no matter how reasonable it is in principle. I believe in G-d but that doesn’t mean i can’t respect or understand people who feel differently. But I do take offense when it’s implied, or outright stated, that I have some mental illness because I think differently, or when an acquaintance blithely states that religion can be blamed for every war in the world.

Sure it can be argued that the strength of the fundamentalist movement in the US is what provokes atheist ire but I don’t buy it. Neither Dawkins or Hitchens are American and if anything the fact that religion doesn’t have much of a presence in UK society is what’s empowered them to be so much more forthright/asshole-ish in pressing their beliefs. Just about every belief-based movement in history has used any increases in influence as a lever to try and silence or stamp out opposition to it and there’s no reason to think atheism will be any different. That’s not to say fundamentalist religious figures don’t need to be fought when they favour censorship, discrimination or suppression, just that atheism doesn’t need a powerful counterforce to exhibit assholery.

I think it was mostly a misunderstanding.  A lot of people casting around for arguments against atheism try to invoke “criticizing religion is automatically bigotry”, and so it creates touchiness.  But it is useful, I think, to consider that Hitchens and Harris are problems and public atheists would do well to distance themselves from them.

Stubborn, I think we’ve been over this before.  Sure, people use “reason” to make anti-feminist claims, but when they do so, they have to contend with reason and argument.  Religion is preferred for anti-feminism, because you don’t have to defend yourself.  You can just say godidit.

I’m annoyed at people who tell me Merry Christmas on any day that is not directly adjoining December 25th or at a specific Christmas themed event.

It is not the first day of Christmas on Sept 1st when the first displays go up.  It is not the first day of Christmas on Nov 1st when the rest of the displays are up.  It still isn’t the first day of Christmas on the last Friday of November.  And it certainly isn’t Christmas on the Solstice or New Years.

ARGH.

Ran into a self-satisfied woman who was ‘we say ‘Merry Christmas’!’ and all I could say was IT ISN’T CHRISTMAS YET.

This is what Harris has to say on the controversies this thread has brought up:

http://www.samharris.org/site/full_text/response-to-controversy2/

I wouldn’t put him in the same boat as Hitchens or the neocons.  He addresses his criticism of Islam and position on the Iraq war at the bottom of this page.

A lot of people casting around for arguments against atheism try to invoke “criticizing religion is automatically bigotry”, and so it creates touchiness.

No kidding. Note to self: never agree with a troll, ever, even if one touches on a good point inadvertently. I really regret buying the End of Faith and given Harris a platform.

The Harris Law of Torture: We will never torture anyone under any circumstances unless we are certain, beyond all reasonable doubt, that the person in our custody is Osama bin Laden.

Sam Harris is an idiot. What purpose would torturing bin Laden have? Even on a pragmatic level, this makes no sense.

I have never written or spoken in support of the war in Iraq. The truth is, I have never known what to think about this war

Sam Harris is an idiot.

I know what you mean Amanda, but I was referring to the use of scientific studies as proof of difference between the sexes, which is then used to make a philosophical jump to how people should have to behave. Just because you believe religious anti-feminists are misogynists fishing for something to back them up doesn’t mean that secular misogynsists can’t or don’t make their own arguments using ‘scientific fact’ as their own non-arguable proof.

Like I said above, arseholes in every group.

And, Caren, you probably haven’t heard the worst - now the idiot Christianists are printing lists of retailers who don’t use MC in their advertising, or use other colors than red and green in their displays.  Made me go out and buy blue and turquoise wrapping paper - fuck ‘em.

Seebach, I’ve even heard that Harris supports supernatural claims about mysticism in that book. While one can technically believe in magic but not in gods, I suppose this means he’s a technical atheist, but really, it’s a matter of obeying the letter of the law and not the spirit.  I’ve long been pissed that he and Hitchens get grouped in with intellectually honest, liberal-minded people who are outspoken atheists for all the right reasons.  You know, like Dawkins.  Or PZ, who pisses people off but is a good man whose criticisms of religion fall right in line with humanist values.

But this thread does make me think that the atheist community, while good at promoting humanist values positively, isn’t doing enough to distance ourselves from outspoken atheists who haven’t made the leap to humanist values.

But this thread does make me think that the atheist community, while good at promoting humanist values positively, isn’t doing enough to distance ourselves from outspoken atheists who haven’t made the leap to humanist values.

But do we even get that choice? If the media wants to group everyone together with the least amount of research, as is their wont, how does it get fought? The people with the books that sell big are Harris, Dawkins, and Hitchens. Therefore, they are all the same.

Harris and Hitchens seem to feed into the idea that atheism is just another religion, and that converting or killing members of other religions is the answer. Now, obviously, if you actually read their books, you will get more nuance, but… reading… and books…

“outspoken atheists who haven’t made the leap to humanist values”

This. There are a lot of atheists, ime, who don’t believe in some very particular god or set of gods, and whose values are defined either in consonance with or opposition to the teachings of their (former) creeds. ( should know—I spent a long time very speifically not believing in the god of Dietrich Bonhoeffer and the 1940 episcopal hymnal.) Very different from the kinds of atheist to whom those distinctions are like trying to get a curling fan interested in the infield fly rule.

I guess my attitude is that we can change attitudes by speaking out. Certainly, the blogs have shown that we can dramatically influence the dialogue in a lot of ways.  The very existence of this article really shows that you can exert pressure and change mainstream media coverage.  That “nice” atheists are even being acknowledged---even if only to browbeat the supposedly nasty ones---is a big step forward.  Now they’re conceding that we’re not all commies and villains.

There I am, sitting at the keyboard and drinking some nice Ceylon congou--plenty of stevia before I also workout (How am I going to sleep?  Don’t Know), reading the thread until I hit Gracchus @45 when he sez that:

“Prothero is basing his argument on the category error that atheists accuse religious believers of being stupid, following hot on the heels with the equally spurious claim that atheists think religion is poison (it’s generally the hierarchies that push religious memes for their own ends that are considered poisonous, not religion itself). It’s hard to take the rest of his discussion seriously after that.”

and I put down my mug and go--That’s how I feel about Amanda Marcotte‘s advocacy!  I mean, I’m pretty sure I made a very close statement to the hierarchies aside, and was shot down with well, religion is poison.

A couple more items:
Not all atheism is the same.  Much as there are many kind of infinities, there are many kinds of disbelief.  I, for example, am like many science/math guys who are diversely read who wind up functionally a flavor of pantheist.  Elegance is everything.  Even so, I don’t precisely disbelieve in God so much as I disbelieve in the relevance of God.  Universe is really big, in a way that the vast majority of people who don’t study science and math at a high level fundamentally do not appreciate.  There is more than enough space around for God (and I am specifically not talking about space/time sor of space).  Thing is, I would no more be able to tell God from Cthulhu than a termite out in the shed be able to tell my aunt from my uncle from a star in the sky.  There.is.just.no.point. in believing in God, and I’m better off muching that deliciously yeasty bit of rotten shed-wood.  However, this isn’t the same as an actual *disbelief* in God.

Secondly, if I said it once, I’ve said it a thousand times, Richard Dawkins *suck* as an advocate for atheists, and he’s not even all that great as a scientist--and his field as a groundbreaker (thinking of the work that lead to “Selfish Gene” and “Memes") leads him to a kind of arrogantly ignorant platform--and I despise ignorance with the fury of a thousand nuns, especially *provincial* ignorance and double, triple, and quadruple despise people (like Richard Dawkins) who damned well should know better (and Dawkins has gotten owned before by smart Jesuits--I can’t find the transcript though).  Smart stupid people are the fucking bane of this world.  /Sheldon-fit

“Also, as a question for other atheists - does ‘Merry Christmas’ actually bother a substantial group of people?”

It didn’t until the whackaloons turned it into a war cry.  Now it’s difficult not to take it as anything other than an intrusive political loyalty oath from anyone I don’t know well.

Stubborn,

I was dragged to mass for 18 years.  I can’t count the number of homilies that were predicated on atheists, apostates, or non-catholics being labeled fools.  I have been witnessed to by more people than I can shake an argumentum ad baculum at.  EVERY single one of these episodes included me being threatened with eternal hellfire as a just retribution for unbelief.

This “meanness” of atheists is nothing compared to that.

In my own defense, I’ll quote PZ Myers from the Raimondo article MonkeyShines provides:

The way to win the war is to kill so many Moslems that they begin to question whether they can bear the mounting casualties….

“This was made even more clear in the Q&A;. He was asked to consider the possibility that bombing and killing was only going to accomplish an increase in the number of people opposing us. Hitchens accused the questioner of being incredibly stupid (the question was not well-phrased, I’ll agree, but it was clear what he meant), and said that it was obvious that every Moslem you kill means there is one less Moslem to fight you … which is only true if you assume that every Moslem already wants to kill Americans and is armed and willing to do so.

“Basically, what Hitchens was proposing is genocide. Or, at least, wholesale execution of the population of the Moslem world until they are sufficiently cowed and frightened and depleted that they are unable to resist us in any way, ever again.”

So, yes, Hitchens and Harris are “mean” atheists in that they are pro-genocide or pro-war crime. However, this was not Prothero’s point, so he’s still a dip, but still.

If Gracchus and Bitter Scribe are still willing to stand by Hitchens and Harris and against MonkeyShines, PZ Myers, and myself on this specific issue, more power to them, I suppose.

I do have to agree that Hitchens is an alcohol soaked asshole.  It’s really infuriating how he cheers on anything and everything that will kill arabs.

But practicing tolerance doesn’t mean that you have to pretend that a truth claim isn’t a truth claim.  As believers feel free to make claims about the way the universe works, then they should be challenged on it.  That’s what happens when you make truth claims.  That your claims are hard to back up is unfortunate, but that isn’t the fault of atheists, and calling atheists mean because this is true doesn’t change that.

Well, granting for the sake of argument that the claims in question are really “truth claims,” I think the problem remains that a lot of the most prominent atheists (e.g., Dawkins, Dennett) are no less making claims that are hard to back up.  This is what I’ve learned from some 15 years of reading all sorts of stuff, ranging from Dawkins, Dennett, Popper, Russell, Heidegger, Merleau-Ponty, Wittgenstein, Putnam, Rorty, Bourdieu, Kuhn, Quine, Feyerabend, and a number more.

I’ve said this before, and I’ll say it again: there’s a strident, caricaturesque pop atheism + scientism movement that’s intellectually not much above a well-educated religious folk.  And Dawkins is one of the kings of it.  For all of their talk about skepticism, they fail to be skeptical about the philosophical underpinnings they routinely claim for their worldview.  The world is just more complex than their simplistic, incomplete pictures of it.

Comment #11: Seebach on 12/08 at 06:41 PM

I’m just wondering if most “mean atheism” would dry up in the Christian fascists shut up first. In other words, if you would shut up, so would we.

I figure what would happen is they would spend the time doing “mean scientism” instead, and calling folks like me wooly irrational postmodernists who think we can walk through walls if we think we can walk through walls because we’re secretly too scared to admit that we’re just mechanically determined aggregates of elementary physical particles.

I’ve said this before, and I’ll say it again: there’s a strident, caricaturesque pop atheism + scientism movement that’s intellectually not much above a well-educated religious folk.  And Dawkins is one of the kings of it.  For all of their talk about skepticism, they fail to be skeptical about the philosophical underpinnings they routinely claim for their worldview.  The world is just more complex than their simplistic, incomplete pictures of it.
Comment #84: sacundim on 12/08 at 11:53 PM

And your attempt at proof for any of the “more” that you think needs inclusion is?

I think atheists should be nicer to theists, except this Prothero asshole.

Forget it, phylosopher. Sacundim’s just making the Courtier’s Reply: you are too unrefined to be able to see the Emperor’s new clothes.

Well, sacundim, one of the reasons I can get into a fit about this stuff is that Dawkins, Myers, and others do not care about the philosophical underpinnings of their claims.  They think they don’t have to--all they think is necessary is to point out errors and very unlikely events in religious doctrines, all in the major monotheist religions.  Yes the Bible doesn’t get the value of pi correctly and yes it’s really damned unlikely the Mohammed got to Jerusalem and ascended off the Dome of the Rock in a night or whatever, but <i>scepticism was not born yesterday!<i> All religions to some degree or another live with the contradictions because the point of the spiritual practice typically does not depend on material correctness.

Not necessarily bad Jim he could be making the “Scientists don’t know everything so they shouldn’t say anything argument.”

And bad Jim?

Here’s the rebuttal of The Courtier’s Reply…

http://voyagesextraordinaires.blogspot.com/2009/08/courtiers-reply-reply-and-other-atheist.html

shah8 @89: Indeed.  I mean, back when I was 17-21 I totally thought the same way as Dawkins et al.  Then I spent the next 5 years of my life being exposed to all sorts of excellent, not-particularly-theistic thinkers, who are regularly at odds with each other, working hard to understand their often obscure arguments about things that the Dawkinses of the world simply assume to their convenience.

All that, of course, only earns me “Courtier’s Reply!”

That’s sort of the thing…

You have to read all sorts of stuff by people who aren’t always necessarily talking about atheism or not--I remember one fascinating book about the history of transcription errors in the bible, and there was a discussion at the end how the author became atheist because he was so fascinated with the idea of understanding the bible.  There are all sorts of biographies, scientists or not, that talks about how someone became theist or atheist.  Really grasping an understanding of what religion means to people and understanding how someone decides to be an atheist--like Sweeney, for example, requires an indirect empathy.

Shah8,

In regards to the rebuttal of the Courtier’s Reply,

1) In regards to the statement that it’s an argument from incredulity is wrong.  If you take the position that X exists you need to provide proof that X exists before it can be accepted as a fact. 

2) Labeling the requirement for proof as begging the question is also incorrect.  It’s relabeling a materialistic explanation as no more real than a bunch of hand waving woo.  We define an object by it’s boundaries.  A rock has dimensions and it’s composed of minerals.  The minerals are composed of combinations of elements, etc.  If Yahweh is a real entity he has boundaries.  Define them.

3) It is a very valid point, that many liberal christians are tacitly supporting the theocrats.  The catholic church wouldn’t have nearly the wealth it does to support anti-gay bigotry if liberal catholics didn’t donate to the church.  However this is not an argument for or against the existence of any deities.  It is however an argument that religions are social clubs for many of the laity and not theological institutions.  This is a strawman argument.  The author is setting up an unsupported position and knocking it down with ease.

4) The argument of evil is a very valid criticism.  A god that is all good, all powerful, and is posited to have created the very system that allows evil to propagate cannot by definition be all good and/or all powerful.  If he allows evil to propagate he is not good, if he cannot prevent evil he is not all powerful.  Thus the boundaries defined are not valid and need to be reevaluated.

5) This rebuttal in general is poorly thought out.  It presupposes that atheists in general do not understand religion and theology.  Which is exactly what the courtier’s reply is addressing.  I grew up catholic, I’ve accepted 4 of the 7 sacraments, I took 12 years of CCD, I was an altar boy every week for 6 years, my first comic book was the John Paul II comic book biography, I enjoyed speaking with my priest(s) about theology, I understand catholicism as much (if not more) than the rest of the laity.  Much the same is true of other strong atheists.  But after all of that I still haven’t seen any evidence of the existence of Yahweh.

If you have evidence of the existence of Yahweh, Apollo, Odin, or any other deity then by all means present it.

Okay, sacundim, if you don’t like “Courtier’s Reply” how about “Russell’s Teapot”?  The theist argument never gets to the fiddly bits of theology because the initial claim, “There is at least one spiritual entity that might fairly be called god...” doesn’t get off the ground in the first place.  That’s why there’s so little patience for the courtier’s reply.

Sorry, sacundim. I didn’t find the linked article particularly enlightening. There is a reason scientists don’t tend to spend much time on philosophy; that sort of speculation rarely if ever produces results as useful as the discovery that neutrinos have mass, say. You might label this attitude scientism or crude pragmatism, but in the last few centuries it’s been wildly successful on its own terms.

Lawrence Krauss once said something like, “theologians need to know something about astrophysics, but astrophysicists don’t need to know anything about theology.” Laplace, of course, remarked concerning God and orbitial mechanics, “I had no need of that hypothesis” and we find that to be the case in general.

You evidently find this level of thinking rather crude. We find the subtler refinements of philosophy less than compelling, but more to the point they never seem to make any practical difference. They don’t get the job done. But, “each to his own,” said Katy as she kissed the cow.

@Jim There is a reason scientists don’t tend to spend much time on philosophy; that sort of speculation rarely if ever produces results as useful as the discovery that neutrinos have mass, say.

Oh Jim.  “Philosophy is teh dumb!” is a bad response.  “Scientists don’t think about philosophy” is a worse one.

I mean, Newton?  ARISTOTLE?

How’d we come up with this idea of materialism in the first place?

Lawrence Krauss once said something like, “theologians need to know something about astrophysics, but astrophysicists don’t need to know anything about theology.”

If astrophysicists are trying to make arguments about theology, shouldn’t they know at least a little theology?  Otherwise, you’re advocating that your astrophysicist argue from a position of ignorance.

I’ve even heard that Harris supports supernatural claims about mysticism in that book. While one can technically believe in magic but not in gods, I suppose this means he’s a technical atheist, but really, it’s a matter of obeying the letter of the law and not the spirit.

Less than twenty pages into The End of Faith, Harris states with all credulity that ESP, psychokinesis, and some sort of half-assed new-age transcendentalist understanding of mysteries unknown to science exist and can be verified. I shut the book at that point, as there seemed to be no point in reading further. I guess one doesn’t need to be a rationalist to technically be an atheist, but the two seem so intertwined to me that I don’t know how you could pull it off.

There probably isn’t a whole lot we can do about who gets to be the public face of atheism--since for obvious reasons we’re never going to elect an atheist Pope--but Amanda’s comment about the rising power of blogs is spot on. It’s the new visibility. I have the Scarlet A on my blog even though I only write about music. The more of us they see, the more chances they have to realize that we’re not fire breathing fundamentalists.

Of course, since most of them think that even simply stating that you’re an atheist makes you “mean”, you might as well toss in some good invective anyway.

How’d we come up with this idea of materialism in the first place?

It’s materialism all the way down, motherfuckers!

If astrophysicists are trying to make arguments about theology, shouldn’t they know at least a little theology?  Otherwise, you’re advocating that your astrophysicist argue from a position of ignorance.

Ignorance of what, exactly? You really don’t need to know any more than that someone is making an incredible truth claim without a shred of evidence. If you’re going to chop down a tree, you aim for the trunk. There’s no point spending time pruning berries.

Bad Jim--Russell’s Teapot is a skeptic defense tactic.  It in no way proves the absence of God or atheism or anything like that.  It simply stop theists from playing hide’nseek/Monty Hall games with an implicit threat or reward.

Well, Commissar Claw, let’s hash this out a bit.

1) Let’s make this clear, this is about Dawkins‘ craptacular mentality.  I think it’s important because, among other things, his sort of attitude is fundamentally anti-pluralist, and when Amanda complains about how sexist some atheist can be, *this* refusal to engage seriously is a primary source.  At the end of the day, Dawkins is actually arguing from incredualty, and does claim that *every* kind of monotheist gives aid and comfort to the crazies.  Not only that, he dismisses non-monotheistic religions as of little interest to superstitious foreigners, for all intents and purposes.  Lastly, he doesn’t particularly care *how* someone believes in god, even if that belief has zero contradictions with science.  Before you say it, God itself, is not up for scientific scrutiny--if you think so, then you don’t understand science.  You can’t actually prove whether God exists one way or another, and making a demand that someone actually show you God inherently means that you have to engage in heavy duty epistemology and metaphysics to the exclusion of empiricism (but not necessarily rationalism).

2) The above goes for you second comment, which is fucking stupid because you apparently don’t know what “begging the question” actually means.  There are many abstractions that do not have boundaries by definition.  Some abstractions are pretty *real*, which is why we have concepts like inertia and gravity and moment forces.  Assuming that God is a material quantity without establishing that such *is* material and then stating that God lacks material and “boundaries” is pretty much the definition of the fallacy!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Begging_the_question

3) Is Steven Jay Gould (or Darwin for that matter) responsible for Steve Sailer or the general pop evo-psych crowd?  They certainly enabled such people.  Hey Darwin even spoke out against Social Darwinism.  It’s easy to poke holes the Sailer’s craptacular arguments!  Thing is, you can do the exact same thing with the fundies--and ooooohhh boy are the fundies *really* wrong in ways that does not permit rebuttal.  Plenty of intellectual and empathetic religious leaders have spoken out against fundies, over and over again.  Do they really deserve to be lumped in with the crazies?

4) Theodicy has a long, and rich intellectual history.  Sample wikipedia for a brief overview.  Do not pass Go, do not collect Self Congratulations.

5) You obviously did not read or understand the essay, which was targeted at Dawkins and other atheists who think it’s okay to be Know-Nothing so long as it’s something they hate.  I, as well as the author for his own reasons, think that is an unsound and extraordinarily petty perspective.  I also think it’s using the Enemy’s weapons, as the author has stated in comparing Dawkins to fundies that think Muslims worship the Moon, to fight the Enemy.  When the Enemy is a love of self-worship, there is no way we atheists are going to come out winners in a struggle to make a better world.

This just isn’t about proving God.  It’s about having respect for people.  Yes, humans can be stupid, but people aren’t the same thing as Person.

I really think expecting any atheist to have to defend statements made by Sam Harris or Christopher Hitchens just because they’re both atheists shows a fundamental misunderstanding of what atheism is. I don’t have anything in common with Richard Dawkins other than neither of us believes in a god. Might as well ask George Bush to defend Osama Bin Laden’s views because they’re both theists.

If astrophysicists are trying to make arguments about theology, shouldn’t they know at least a little theology?

No, because theology is indistinguishable from fiction. Until it is, there’s nothing that can be shown to be true about it.

1) I would not say that the astrophysicist has to know a little bit of theology, but the astrophysicist, at a minimum, must know epistemology, rhetoric, and be skilled at listening in order to make arguments without knowing any theology at all.

2) Nobody, but no-one, is asking for a doctorate in Theology before anyone listens to you.  It just helps to actually know basics that one can pull up from wiki!

Jim, I think you’re wrong about one thing. Most pagans , imo and experience, are far more comfortable with atheists than with established religions. Theocracy is scary, a secular society is a tolerant society, and it’s better to be laughed at for goofy beliefs than outlawed.

Ignorance of what, exactly? You really don’t need to know any more than that someone is making an incredible truth claim without a shred of evidence.

Please explain what evidence there is that Descartes was either right or wrong when he said, “cogito ergo sum.”

If astrophysicists are trying to make arguments about theology, shouldn’t they know at least a little theology?

Of course not. You don’t need a degree in Textile Science to see that the Emperor has no clothes.

Mnemosyne, astrophysicists don’t do theology, for the most part. That was the point, I think. Je n’ avais pas besoin de cette hypothese-la, doncha know.

Just to be clear to everyone, even we fundamentalist atheists don’t assert the non-existence of any god. We can’t, since we don’t do theology. Pointing out our theological or philosophical shortcomings completely misses the point, because we aren’t arguing on those grounds. We merely note that the existence of gods is a hypothesis as bereft of evidence as that of invisible pink unicorns. Yeti and sasquatch or Nessie are more plausible but likewise fall short of compelling our belief.

In terms of rendering a verdict, God would lose a civil case, lacking a preponderance of evidence, but might have a chance in criminal court, where his nonexistence could not be proved beyond a reasonable doubt.

4) Theodicy has a long, and rich intellectual history.  Sample wikipedia for a brief overview.  Do not pass Go, do not collect Self Congratulations.

BZZZT! So does Astrology.

Less than twenty pages into The End of Faith, Harris states with all credulity that ESP, psychokinesis, and some sort of half-assed new-age transcendentalist understanding of mysteries unknown to science exist and can be verified.

Wow, I think you completely misunderstood Harris. He’s not a believer in any kind of supernaturalism.

By the way of giving context to a perhaps unnecessarily inflammatory remark, Krauss has consulted with the Vatican on astronomical research, a field in which the Catholic Church has been active for hundreds of years. The possibility of life on other planets has profound theological implications, which is why astrophysics is important to theologists. The hypothesis of god has yet to return the favor to stargazers.

Please explain what evidence there is that Descartes was either right or wrong when he said, “cogito ergo sum.”

The evidence is that he was wrong since the statement is a non-sequitur In fact the only thing he can say is that he has evidence of his thinking, so it is highly likely that he exists.

Samantha, I’m not sure which Jim you’re addressing, but I don’t think atheists generally have a problem with pagans. In fact, according to some of my dictionaries, I’m not an atheist and possibly not even an agnostic but definitely a pagan. So there! I justify celebrating Christmas by nodding at Scandinavian and Irish traditions that most likely predated Christianity, and I’ve reassured fellow Unitarians that lighting candles is an acceptable pagan practice. (I still wonder why that argument worked.)

I think we the godless celebrate Christmas for the same reason that Shiite Persians still celebrate the Zoroastrian festival of Yalda: it’s a good time of year to party, and who doesn’t want to party?

Once one grants that religious people’s beliefs make those beliefs true for them, objections to people’s imposing their religious values on others - e.g., on children in abusive ways, on non-believers through attempts to legislate and sway democratic deliberation - are seriously undermined:

You can’t then argue that the faith-based values used to justify indoctrination or terrifying children and others with superstition, or to coerce others with laws, are unjustifiable and not grounded in good reasons, because such criticisms are now mean and impolite(!). And in any case, you are already conceding that someone’s mere faith is a good enough grounds for their belief to be true and the justificatory reasons someone gives, when the reasons come from their faith, to be valid.

And what deleterious effect must that have on democratic deliberation, when coming up with laws, and when giving reasons why the state ought to be able (or unable) to coerce people to do/refrain from doing certain things? Every participant gets to have whatever reasons he or she wants, with no need to justify them, and then the majority votes: The result of this is unjustifiable laws.

Wow, I think you completely misunderstood Harris. He’s not a believer in any kind of supernaturalism.

From page 40 of The End of Faith:

A variety of techniques ranging from the practice of meditation to the use of psychedelic drugs, attest to the scope and plasticity of human experience. For millennia, contemplatives have known that ordinary people can divest themselves of the feeling that they call “I” and thereby relinquish the sense that they are separate from the rest of the universe. This phenomenon, which has been reported by practitioners in many spiritual traditions, is supported by a wealth of evidence--neuroscientific, philosophic and introspective. Such experiences are “spiritual” or “mystical”, for want of better words, in that they are relatively rare (unnecessarily so), significant (in that they uncover genuine facts about the world), and personally transformative. They also reveal a far deeper connection between ourselves and the rest of the universe than is suggested by the ordinary confines of our subjectivity.

I’ll grant that he’s only skirting supernaturalism, but to say that drug trips and meditation reveal genuine facts about the nature of the universe seems too far into woo territory.

From page 41:

There also seems to be a body of data attesting to the reality of psychic phenomena, much of which has been ignored by mainstream science.

I’m sorry, but no. No there isn’t. Again, ESP may not technically be supernatural, but it’s still a bunch of pseudoscientific bunk. He seems to be saying that religious and extra-bodily phenomena and experiences exist, but, like there’s totally a scientific explanation for it.

Please explain what evidence there is that Descartes was either right or wrong when he said, “cogito ergo sum.”

Not quite equivalents. The only comparable part of the two propositions is the actual question of existence. I have evidence Descartes existed (outside of his own mind). I have none that a god does.

Bertrand Russell wrote that he had a letter from someone who thought that solipsism was so obviously true that it was astonishing that everyone didn’t believe in it.

The thing you have to remember about Hitchens is that he’s famous primarily for being an racist warmongering asshole, and only secondarily for being an atheist.

I’ll grant that he’s only skirting supernaturalism, but to say that drug trips and meditation reveal genuine facts about the nature of the universe seems too far into woo territory.

They can reveal genuine facts about the nature (and fallibility) of human cognition, which is part of the universe…

People have to call atheists “mean” because if they said “uppity” they would have a much harder time not noticing what it is they’re doing.

This has probably been said above, but I can’t really go through all 100+ comments.  For a lot of non-believers, myself included, there comes a point where you realize there is little to no point in arguing with believers about the existence of god.  No matter how many times I tell someone they’re wrong, they’re not going to change their mind.  In that case, it’s irrational and frustrating to try to keep convincing them. 

I actually think HItchens, Dawkins, and Harris’s efforts are both unproductive and not helpful.  They are more likely to piss people off than to change minds.  In Hitchens’ case specifically, he has a tendency to blame religion for everything that has ever gone wrong in the world and that shows a powerful ignorance of history.  I personally find it interesting that pretty much every person who started a major religion argued for upsetting existing power structures and for social justice.

I don’t really imagine that the world would be a better place if all the believers disappeared or changed their minds.  At the very least, it would be a lot less interesting and certainly a lot more homogeneous. 

In any case, I think most of us have to decide to be Prothero’s “good atheists” in our personal lives.  I don’t see any upside to spending my life arguing with every believer about the existence of god.  I did that in high school and it sure was fun to piss off the evangelicals.  But I don’t get anything out of it anymore.  I don’t enjoy pissing people off--such enjoyment is often identified, even recently by this blog, as a feature of the right wing--and I rarely get the at-best marginal enjoyment of being right about something. 

In the end, this is how I work on a day-to-day level, but at the level of social discourse, I wish we had better representatives than Hitchens, Harris, and Dawkins.  None of them are effective ambassadors for people who don’t believe. because, again, they seem to enjoy pissing people off.

Let me say that yes, I have been particular here to not call myself an atheist.  I’m not an atheist.  I am a materialist.  I believe the universe is composed of the physical materials identified by scientists, is composed of only those things that are measurable, and does not include the supernatural, i.e. un-measurable, elements.  It is my assumption that this forecloses the possibility of the gods identified by religion, but that is not my primary intellectual commitment. 

I personally think we would be better off if more people thought this way rather than getting trapped in the god/no god dichotomy.

Asceticism becomes organized social cruelty when an ascetic religion becomes part of the on-going, secular social structure. In this, Christianity is the prime example.
Johan M.G. van der Dennen, The Evil Mind

Not reading the whole thread this time, sorry: but it was Julia Sweeney who tipped me over the edge from vaguely postmodern to full-on atheist. It was probably a year or two between the time that I heard her read from “Leaving God” on NPR, and the time that I decided the morally best course was to acknowledge that existence was an accident devoid of any external plan, design, or sense of justice. The funny thing is, before that I would have said I didn’t believe in God, but I definitely went in for Theism Light, the whole new-agey set of beliefs that, for instance, the body won’t screw up if you don’t make mistakes because nature “designed” it to work properly, or that the universe has a plan for us, blah blah blah.

My main problem with atheism now is that it’s full of Objectivists.

The “truth claims” thing isn’t really working for me.  The debate between atheists and religious people over whether there really is a god isn’t any different then the debate between Christians and Hindus over who is really going to hell.  For a civil society to work, we need to reach the point where we tolerate each other’s existence.  All of the assholes, on every side, think, “Hey, I’m just telling the truth.  It’s your problem if you can’t deal with it.” Jerry Falwell thought he was dropping a truth bomb when he said gays caused 9/11.

Wallace:

All of the assholes, on every side, think, “Hey, I’m just telling the truth.  It’s your problem if you can’t deal with it.” </blockquote:

Meet DaveL:

<blockquote>People have to call atheists “mean” because if they said “uppity” they would have a much harder time not noticing what it is they’re doing.

Wallace, do you truly not understand to asymmetry between the treatment of (coddled, privileged) religious ideas and of atheism in this society? Or are YOU just being an asshole? I wouldn’t give a rat’s about religion, and nor would somebody like Dawkins, if only it didn’t occupy a position of privilege and power from where it can fuck up everyone’s lives.

think the problem remains that a lot of the most prominent atheists (e.g., Dawkins, Dennett) are no less making claims that are hard to back up.

I honestly disbelieve you’ve read it, or grappled with the arguments.  It’s not hard to back up.  The obviousness of the arguments only proves that religion is sewn together out of a lot of denial and wishful thinking, though I admire the human mind’s ability to block even the most obvious objections.

If astrophysicists are trying to make arguments about theology, shouldn’t they know at least a little theology?

Well, if they are making arguments about magic within the world of magic, sure.  I wouldn’t suggest, for instance, that one play the game Magic without knowing the rules.  But what the astrophysicist in this case is doing is pointing out that Magic is a game.  Magic is, from what I understand, a very complicated game.  But no matter how complicated it is, I think that I can safely say that you are not actually fighting elves and demons with super powers, and I can make this statement with assurance, even if I don’t know the rules.

http://www.jesusandmo.net/2009/12/08/crowd/

“Please explain what evidence there is that Descartes was either right or wrong when he said, “cogito ergo sum.” “

This question will be useful when people start strapping bombs to themselves to blow up school children over who’s the REAL chosen people of Descartes.  Or when Descartes Devotee Group A starts mass killing Descartes Devotee Group B for wearing blue hats, not green ones like his The Lord Descartes commanded.  Or when the Descartes Devotee Lobby poisons a government enough to influence laws that affect everyone else.

There is not a single shred of evidence for any god humans have ever believed.  Including the current reigning Prom King of the Skies.

I’m with Amanda - it’s sexist and insulting to pull the “sugar and spice” crap.  I’m an atheist.  I’m not silent about it.  I’m also not very concerned with being insulting about it, because denting unearned, undeserved and dangerous privilege should be the goal of all feminists/progressives/etc.

“All of the assholes, on every side, think, “Hey, I’m just telling the truth.  It’s your problem if you can’t deal with it.” Jerry Falwell thought he was dropping a truth bomb when he said gays caused 9/11. “

Absolutely not.  As the near-cliche goes “You are entitled to you own beliefs, not your own facts”.  Religion has no facts.  None.  It has claims, it has rewards and punishments, it has a hell of a lot of dangerous privilege, but no facts.

Falwell thought he was “dropping a truth bomb” only because his delusion and bigotry were entirely self-serving - none of it was based on any sort of fact.  Atheism isn’t a positive claim.  It’s simply the logical assumption based on the total lack of evidence for deities of any kind.

To equate the two is erroneous and deliberately insulting.

Please explain what evidence there is that Descartes was either right or wrong when he said, “cogito ergo sum.”

Well since the Meditations are supposed to be a set of deductive arguments, we need to attack them as such.  The sentence “I think therefore I am” is, strictly speaking, true, but it’s also circular because it assumes the existence of an “I” who is doing the thinking.

If you’d like to claim that one deductive argument or another shows that God exists, we can talk about that too. It’s worth noting that one of the people we are discussing (Dawkins) devoted a chapter to these, and so it’s not quite accurate to say that he was ignoring them.

And, I’m sorry, but did somebody above try to claim that Daniel Dennett, of all people, does not care about the philosophical basis of his claims?  Does that person know what Dennett did for a living?

“did somebody above try to claim that Daniel Dennett, of all people, does not care about the philosophical basis of his claims?  Does that person know what Dennett did for a living? “

Lol. Srsly.  Even aside from that, he certainly does not deserve to be put in the same company as pighitchens or Harris.  I mean, read Breaking the Spell or Demon Haunted Word - Dennet does impressive back flips trying to be tolerant and accommodating to theists.

Alex, you’re missing the point of the cogito.  It is irrelevant to Descartes’s point whether there is an “I” or not.  His point is that his existence cannot be doubted.  Even if he is part of some larger collective that does the thinking, he still exists.  You can say “Something thinks, therefore it exists” and get to the same point--the fact of thinking proves existence of whatever it is that is doing the thinking.

People seemed to get confused about what Descartes was saying with the cogito.  He was trying to find an absolutely indisputable truth.  I think he succeeded.  That doesn’t mean that his subsequent deductions were accurate.

He was trying to find an absolutely indisputable truth.  I think he succeeded.  That doesn’t mean that his subsequent deductions were accurate.

It HAS been strongly disputed (in fact there are good reasons for thinking it false- the existence of an “I” does not follow merely from the fact that thinking is occurring) but if true it is true only in the trivial way of being tautological. Either way, trying to deduce any further propositions from it is pure fail. (To be fair, Descartes didn’t really use it that way, but more as an example of what a clear self-evident proposition looks like, by way of establishing those alleged properties as the criteria for a good argument.)

I’m an atheist.  I just think to say that Dawkins “just tells the truth about things you’re supposed to treat delicately” is exactly what religious people think about Falwell.  Dawkins doesn’t just say “god doesn’t exist”.  He says indoctrinating your kids with your own religious beliefs is child abuse, and that the more reasonable religious people are to blame for the excesses of the radical fringe, and that religion is inherently bad.  I think he’s entitled to make his arguments, and people who want to engage in the discussion are welcome to consider his ideas.  I read The God Delusion, and liked it.  I just think in terms of the original article’s claim that we need a society where we tolerate each other’s existence, and the response that this is really a truth debate and, therefore, that kind of civility isn’t required – every side thinks they have the truth.

This is off topic, but I don’t like these conversations where people say what atheism is.  Atheism is different things for different people.  Atheism, for me, was the realization that I don’t believe there’s a god.  It’s not an assumption, or the product of a rational process.  If I ask myself, “Do I believe there is a god?”, the answer is no.  That’s what my atheism is.

Re: #46:, Seebach, “The blatant insanity of the left drove me to balloon juice”, etc.

Don’t let the door hit you on the ass, etc. etc.

From #135

Thanks Wallace, that is a point which I feel is seldom made. In fact, there really are many different strains and types of atheists, just as there are many different types of religions, and different beliefs within a religion. No, I don’t think atheism “is a religion”. But I honestly think we do atheism, and doubt in general, a disservice, if we refuse to see all of its textured, smelly, technicolor hues, that make it, if anything, even more vibrant and strange than religion.

He says indoctrinating your kids with your own religious beliefs is child abuse, and that the more reasonable religious people are to blame for the excesses of the radical fringe, and that religion is inherently bad.  I think he’s entitled to make his arguments, and people who want to engage in the discussion are welcome to consider his ideas.

And can one agree with those claims (as I do) and not want to do something about it? That would seem rather irresponsible.

And let’s get clear about that first point, by the way, which is inevitably cited by concern trolls like you. What Dawkins (quite correctly) objects to is NOT teaching one’s children about ones religious beliefs, but the authoritarian insistence that they must never be questioned combined with obsessive control of the child’s environment to insure that questions are never encountered. That is a form of intellectual stunting analogous to the physical stunting that would be produced by deliberate malnourishment, and thus I fail to see why ‘child abuse” isn’t a perfectly apt description.

All this arguing is just so much philosophical masturbation.

We’re all really living in gelatin-filled pods, wired to provide power to a huge electronic artificial intelligence that maintains a shared artificial reality to make us believe we’re not living our lives in gelatin-filled pods.

I mean, come on!  It’s all so obvious, isn’t it?…

MikeEss, yeah, but my gelatin-filled pod is much deeper, more rational and also more spiritual than your gelatin-filled pod.

“...my gelatin-filled pod is much deeper, more rational and also more spiritual than your gelatin-filled pod.”

I guess I can’t argue with that…

“just think to say that Dawkins “just tells the truth about things you’re supposed to treat delicately” is exactly what religious people think about Falwell

We’re all well aware that they are delusional bigots that believe what they are saying. So what.  This has no bearing on whether there’s evidence or truth behind it.  Falwell et al deliberately incite baseless hatred and violence by extension.  This is not what Dawkins does. Or Dennett. Or Myers.  equating them is simply not accurate.

<snip slightly off base Dawkins stuff>

“I just think in terms of the original article’s claim that we need a society where we tolerate each other’s existence, and the response that this is really a truth debate and, therefore, that kind of civility isn’t required – every side thinks they have the truth.”

I disagree.  One side’s spokespeople think they have the truth, but nothing of substance to back it up and a total unwillingness to examine anything or change their minds if proven wrong.  The other side’s spokespeople routinely say show us evidence, show us anything.  Minds and theories change with discovery and evidence. NOT. THE. SAME. THING.

And NO ONE has said that civility isn’t required.  The simple truth is that that ANYTHING an atheist says will be twisted to prove how “mean” we are. 

Atheism is a lack of belief in deities.  That’s it.  Who said anything about what atheism is for all people?

Gypsy, at 130, you say “Atheism isn’t a positive claim.  It’s simply the logical assumption based on the total lack of evidence for deities of any kind.” Bad Jim, at 108, says “We merely note that the existence of gods is a hypothesis as bereft of evidence as that of invisible pink unicorns. Yeti and sasquatch or Nessie are more plausible but likewise fall short of compelling our belief.”

My atheism is a positive claim.  There isn’t a god.  It’s not some hedged statement that leaves open the possibility that it’s simply undemonstrated.  I don’t believe there is a god.

And on the Dawkins/child abuse thing – I’ll tell you, unequivocally, that I plan to tell my kids there isn’t a god.  I’ll let them go to church with their friends, when invited.  But when it comes to discussing the subject, I’m going to flat out tell them there is no god.  Dawkins wouldn’t approve.  He’d have me tell them “Mom and Dad don’t believe there’s a god.” They’re welcome to believe in god if they’d like, and I wouldn’t have a problem with that.  But when we talk about it, I’m not going to be as passive as Dawkins would have us be about whether they should be inclined to believe what we believe.

Dawkins wouldn’t approve.

I doubt that very much. You either don’t have a very firm grasp of what “indoctrination” means, or you’re pretending not to.

Hmmm, I find Amanda‘s comment at 127 really interesting… I mean, there are many minor or dead religions where games are said to hold spiritual and divination powers.  Pointing out that someone’s tarot deck is just a game would miss the vital point.  Not to mention the spin-the-dreidel sort of cultural artifacts.

Now, I know that she’s talking about Magic The Gathering, but I also think that nobody but the poor folks who go around creating Klingon language and Jedi religions would ever suggest that they are fighting wizards and elves and pocket monsters with their cards--even if the media tie-ins make these sorts of claim all the time in fictional cartoons.  I would say that’s a straw-man.

Furthermore, I just want to say this:  Science and logic can contradict claims made by various religions, but that usually doesn’t affect the premise of a religion since they are usually based on something nonmaterial, and science just doesn’t do nonmaterial.  That’s in the realm of Logic or Aesthetics, or whathaveyou.

“My atheism is a positive claim.  There isn’t a god.  It’s not some hedged statement that leaves open the possibility that it’s simply undemonstrated.  I don’t believe there is a god. “

So. What.  Your choice to adhere to atheism for totally unexamined reasons is completely irrelevant. Atheism is not a positive claim.  It’s merely the lack of belief in deities.  If you are seriously saying that nothing would change your mind on your decision than YOU are just like the other side, not the whole of atheists and not atheism itself.  You cannot honestly and logically equate us to the likes of Falwell, etc.

but that usually doesn’t affect the premise of a religion since they are usually based on something nonmaterial

Not when you look at them closely they aren’t. The claim that a superpowerful noncorporeal being exists is an eminently empirical claim and can be investigated by the methods of science (which render it highly implausible to say the least.)

Whatever has observable effects is within the domain of science. You can try, as many have, to claim that “supernatural” phenomena exist but are, even in principle, unobservable; but such a concept of “existence” is incoherent.

“Science and logic can contradict claims made by various religions, but that usually doesn’t affect the premise of a religion since they are usually based on something nonmaterial, and science just doesn’t do nonmaterial. “

Some atheists would disagree.  To claim there is a god and this god does whatever to act upon human lives makes it a truth claim.  To claim that god made the world, answers prayers, whathaveyou, is to claim that god acts upon the natural world, which makes it material. 

Which is where the whole thing goes off the rails.  Theists always say things like god is supernatural therefore science can’t affect him, but they still make positive claims about his actions upon the natural world.

Jesus Christ, did I see this right? Mabus found this blog? Goddammit. I thought I could go on ONE atheist-friendly place without seeing his crazy ass Nostradamus bullshit.

I’m not saying you couldn’t change my mind.  You could change my mind whether it really is the case that Columbus sailed in 1492.  I’m just saying, it’s among the things I believe to be true that I don’t need to hedge on when presenting it as a fact.  Dawkins, in particular, has given us this construct that “what the atheist can really say is that it’s unproven, and in the absence of evidence it’s assumed to be false.” And it’s one of the things about Dawkins I don’t agree with.  I don’t feel the need to hedge.  And I bristle when people say this is what atheism really is.  My atheism is a firm, positive belief that there isn’t a god.  When I consider my own feelings, that’s what I believe.

They also reveal a far deeper connection between ourselves and the rest of the universe than is suggested by the ordinary confines of our subjectivity.

Well, look. You’ll have to do far better than the same “we are all connected” stuff I can read in books by Sagan or Dawkins.

I’m sorry, but no. No there isn’t.

I’m curious what your explanation for the ganzfeld effect is, then. I don’t think it’s “psi” or mental powers, myself, but given that the experiments have not to my knowledge been scientifically debunked - just ignored - it’s not clear that what Harris is saying is wrong. And I hardly see where he’s resorted to supernaturalism in a question about data that has been largely ignored.

given that the experiments have not to my knowledge been scientifically debunked - just ignored

Your knowledge is quite insufficient, then. Methodological flaws in the experiments that purported to demonstrate a significant “psi” effect have been very extensively discussed, and meta-analysis (when correctly performed, i.e. without cherry-picking) of all the experiments thus far published fails to show statistical significance. That’s hardly what I’d call “ignoring”.

Methodological flaws in the experiments that purported to demonstrate a significant “psi” effect have been very extensively discussed, and meta-analysis (when correctly performed, i.e. without cherry-picking) of all the experiments thus far published fails to show statistical significance.

Links? My understanding was that these objections have been responded to and found to be spurious.

Furthermore, I just want to say this:  Science and logic can contradict claims made by various religions, but that usually doesn’t affect the premise of a religion since they are usually based on something nonmaterial, and science just doesn’t do nonmaterial.  That’s in the realm of Logic or Aesthetics, or whathaveyou.

What, exactly, is the point of positing a supernatural realm that doesn’t interact at all with the universe and that we can’t detect? Since there would be absolutely no difference between a universe in which there is a supernatural realm that doesn’t interact with us and that we can’t know anything about and a universe in which there is no supernatural realm, what the fuck is the point?

Replace the word “found” with “alleged” (and alleged, moreover, by people who were caught in experimental irregularities), and you’ll have made a true statement. I’m not interested in going into it further, because frankly weak, equivocal experiments of this kind can never come remotely close to meeting the very sound test that Hume laid out in “On Miracles” for evaluating deeply implausible claims.  This stuff is not worth the time of serious people.

If something is noncorporeal, how would you analyze it?  More importantly, how *far* can you analyze it?  Most important, on what basis would you analyze it?  There are plenty of noncorporeal things in the world, like ohhh, the relationship you have with a particular Goya painting.  There are plenty even in the sciences because we know them mathematically, or/and we know them by their repeated, consistent actions.  However, we don’t know a thing about the *nature* of gravity and we certainly don’t know the process of “spooky action at a distance”.  However, we know them because we can repeat experiments and the proof will happen every time.  A noncorporeal agency with “free will” is just another thing alltogether.  We can’t analyze anything but its will as it is transmitted to us--hopefully.  Someone with free will is going to do random stuff that we cannot always anticipate and thus be able to test for it.  Pretty much by definition, we aren’t able to test for any noncorporeal agency, let alone anything that claims to be a god or The God.

People abuse that fact--a lot.  However, I think it’s more important to stop or get a consensus about the nature of the abuse and public recognition of the abuse than to argue that there is no God.  Almost certainly there is no God in the way people want there to be God, but knowing the extent of what I don’t know, I really wouldn’t put it past existence that we’re some higher-order being’s science experiment a ‘la The Far Side.  Reality most certainly does have a sense of humor, and I dare anyone to contest my understanding!

Best I can figure, Entomologista, is that it makes people feel better somehow.

Chet, go to randi.org and educate yourself.

If something is noncorporeal, how would you analyze it?

By its effects. (How do we know about electrons?) If it’s incapable of producing effects that are at least in principle observable, it doesn’t exist. Sorry, this line of defense for woo will not hold.

Entomologista, what’s the point of admiring a tiger butterfly?  Or enjoying the blossoms of night-jasmine?  Or reading sci-fi until you gibber something with too many apostrophes?

No, there is no point.

Oddly enough, that’s why I’m a certain kind of atheist.

Steve, you should read the rest of the paragraph, geez!

No, YOU should read it. What I was pointing out is that you’re refusing to draw the obvious conclusions from your own discussion. A “noncorporeal” whatever is not “another thing altogether”, that’s plain bullshit. Gravity is not in any meaningful way “corporeal”.

If “noncorpreal” “wills” exist, they must affect the universe in ways that can in principle be detected (nobody is saying the detection has to be easy.) Period. Denial of this is merely incoherent.

There are plenty even in the sciences because we know them mathematically, or/and we know them by their repeated, consistent actions.  However, we don’t know a thing about the *nature* of gravity

Math is not a being, incorporeal or otherwise. We do not pluck mathematical objects from some Platonic Library of Babel in the sky. Math is a tool which is used to model the universe. I’m also not really sure how you can claim that we don’t know anything about the nature of gravity. That’s just a weird thing to say.

A noncorporeal agency with “free will” is just another thing alltogether.  We can’t analyze anything but its will as it is transmitted to us--hopefully.

If some being is transmitting information to us, there should be some evidence of it besides your say-so.

By the way, this is also a red herring, since what 99% of humanity would regard as recognizable manifestations of religious belief have nothing whatsoever in common with such airy sophistries (a point always stressed by Dawkins).

I’m not interested in going into it further, because frankly weak, equivocal experiments of this kind can never come remotely close to meeting the very sound test that Hume laid out in “On Miracles” for evaluating deeply implausible claims.

That’s still a far cry from “no evidence; none whatsoever”, and an even farther cry from the kind of supernaturalism that Harris has been accused of on this thread.

Sorry, but I need more than a single statement - taken completely out of intelligible context - that might plausibly not even be wrong before I’m prepared to cancel Harris membership in the Good Guys’ Rational Atheist Club. Like Dawkins, Harris is a figure about whom the debate is poisoned by a significant number of positions attributed to him that he does not actually hold.

Entomologista, what’s the point of admiring a tiger butterfly?  Or enjoying the blossoms of night-jasmine?  Or reading sci-fi until you gibber something with too many apostrophes?

But those things exist, at least, and to my knowledge - which is comprehensive - Ento isn’t trying to legislate according to the Prime and Omega Directives, Niven’s Laws, or the Three Laws of Robotics. Moreover - those experiences are positive influences in her life. The experience of religion, on the other hand, is more frequently negative (sexual shaming, guilt, fear of persecution in the afterlife) - not just for the religious person, but for everyone around them.

Pretty much by definition, we aren’t able to test for any noncorporeal agency, let alone anything that claims to be a god or The God.

No believer believes that God acts at random. Indeed, that’s the whole point - God acts according to a plan. A critical feature of God is that he reduces the amount of randomness in the universe - ideally, to zero ("God does not play dice with the universe.")

So, no. Pretty much by definition we are able to test for any noncorporeal agency that is actually agency; that is, ready and willing to take actions in the universe, to make things happen that wouldn’t have happened anyway. (If God only does what would have happened anyway, you might as well argue that it’s not gravity but “intelligent pushing” that holds you in your seat.)

<blockquote>That’s still a far cry from “no evidence; none whatsoever”, and an even farther cry from the kind of supernaturalism that Harris has been accused of on this thread.<.blockquote>

On the contrary, given everything we know about science “psi” is most definitely a “supernatural” phenomenon that would require extraordinary evidence to be considered seriously.  Whereas, not even very weak evidence has actually been established. To think that every possibly (or then again maybe not) significant deviation from randomness requires the serious consideration of ideas that are quite incompatible with well-tested science is the height of credulity and (speaking as a trained scientist) represents serious ignorance of how science works.

On the contrary, given everything we know about science “psi” is most definitely a “supernatural” phenomenon that would require extraordinary evidence to be considered seriously.

Agreed, but Harris doesn’t say “psi” and neither do I. I’m simply saying, a recognition of hints of tantalizing possibilities as yet unrecognized by the scientific mainstream is hardly a sweeping endorsement of woo. It hardly makes any sense to summarily dismiss all mind-reading as supernatural hokum when <a href=http://www.sharperimage.com/Toys+Leisure/Star+Wars+The+Force+Trainer.axd?gclid=CMbSwpP1yZ4CFRlcagodCz3ppg">mind-reading toys</a> are on the shelves for Christmas. (And no, before you try to misrepresent me, I don’t think they work on “psi.")

“Since there would be absolutely no difference between a universe in which there is a supernatural realm that doesn’t interact with us and that we can’t know anything about and a universe in which there is no supernatural realm, what the fuck is the point? “

The holier-than-thou factor.  It’s pretty easy to claim that the supernatural can’t be dealt with scientifically, but magically, people still know that what god wants and who god approves of - because of the tangible, material presence of holy books.

Funny how that works, huh.

If astrophysicists are trying to make arguments about theology, shouldn’t they know at least a little theology?

It is impossible to reach adulthood in this world without knowing at least a little theology.

The opposite is not true, obviously—plenty of people reach adulthood and beyond without knowing the slightest damn thing about atheism or the scientific method.

Demonstrating once again that the group in power needs to know pretty much zilch about the underdog (I’m not sure I feel comfortable saying “oppressed” in this context) and the underdog can’t avoid knowing all about what makes the group in power tick.

Ug, I matched your html fail with my own.

I’m simply saying, a recognition of hints of tantalizing possibilities as yet unrecognized by the scientific mainstream is hardly a sweeping endorsement of woo.

Wrong, because we’re talking “radically incompatible with”, not “as yet unrecognized by”. The bar for that sort of thing must be set very high on pain of abandoning scientific modes of thought altogether. You’re in danger of slipping into the childish “every crank is the new Galileo” delusion.

“Demonstrating once again that the group in power needs to know pretty much zilch about the underdog (I’m not sure I feel comfortable saying “oppressed” in this context) and the underdog can’t avoid knowing all about what makes the group in power tick. “

Oppressed is not exactly out of bounds though.  Over at Pharyngula, there’s story about an elected official who may be removed from his position because he’s an out atheist and that state’s constitution does not allow atheists to hold office.  Sounds like oppression to me.

BUt, in this case, I think the word privileged is much more accurate.  The privileged group doesn’t need to know anything about atheists - and it’s pretty damn clear that they don’t and don’t care what’s lies and what’s true - but we have no choice but to know all about them.

ganzfeld effect: People who stare at uniform color fields sometimes experience a “blanking out” of vision followed by hallucinations.

I fail to see how this has fuck all to do with psychic phenomena. It sounds like any sort of sensory deprivation experience. Our brains are wired to make connections and see patterns even where none exist. When we’re denied stimulus, or are overwhelmed by a single stimulus, we simply make up a reaction. It’s like making a chicken pass out by drawing a line in front of it. There’s nothing mysterious about it.

Gypsy Lee@171, yeah, AFTER I posted that I read a comment where someone said “privileged” and I realized I should have used that word, duh.

And! I think it’s fairly self-evident that the deeper this state of affairs gets (the more ignorant the privileged group is allowed/able to be of the unprivileged) the more oppression is enabled. If you know very little about a group, don’t care to know anything about them, and don’t feel like they’re relevant to your world, why then they’re not real people to you, are they? (See: wingnuts and women who need lifesaving late-term abortions, for a stellar example.)

“Our brains are wired to make connections and see patterns even where none exist. When we’re denied stimulus, or are overwhelmed by a single stimulus, we simply make up a reaction.”

That’s what I thought as well.  To assume there is a supernatural effect going on when you subject your brain to odd circumstances and you see things is kind of nuts.  You might as well argue that dreams really are god’s way of revealing things to us…

Comment #126: Amanda Marcotte on 12/09 at 09:03 AM

I honestly disbelieve you’ve read it, or grappled with the arguments.  It’s not hard to back up.  The obviousness of the arguments only proves that religion is sewn together out of a lot of denial and wishful thinking, though I admire the human mind’s ability to block even the most obvious objections.

I’ve most certainly read Dawkins and Dennett.  Their writings were formative experiences for me—and I still very much like some of Dennett’s work (particularly Consciousness Explained, though I totally don’t agree with it).  Dawkins’ best stuff is fun too—I actually like most of The Selfish Gene (though again, I have my share of problems with it).

But I’ve read enough other stuff to be certain that in their worst moments their arguments are by no means “obvious,” and seen enough ignorance in Dawkins’ part about things like epistemology and the philosophy of science, repeated over and over through decades, that I can’t help but conclude that the denial and wishful thinking has gotten the best of him too.  Trying to talk with somebody like him about science is like being sent into a time warp where 20th century philosophy never happened.  Dennett’s certainly better in that regard, though, particularly when he chooses to be.

However, it’s very telling what the structure of your reply is.  Basically, you’re replying by demanding that I read the arguments in Dawkins’ and Dennett’s books “correctly,” because if I don’t see their “obviousness” I must have not understood them (or perhaps not even read them!).  But the entire point of my objection is that to evaluate those arguments critically you need a much broader background than what pop atheism/scientism books will give you.  It makes no more sense to tell me to read Dawkins again to see the truth in his words than it would to tell me to read the Bible again to see the truth in its own.  I’m trying to broaden the debate, to bring in other secular viewpoints that, once understood, should at the very least make Dawkins’ arguments stop looking “obvious.”

Wrong, because we’re talking “radically incompatible with”, not “as yet unrecognized by”

I fail to perceive where you’re getting “radically incompatible with” in a world of PE tomography, transcranial stimulation, and functional cybernetics. What’s radically incompatible with science is your view, apparently, that the world of the mind is forever off-limits to anything but itself.

The bar for that sort of thing must be set very high on pain of abandoning scientific modes of thought altogether.

And precisely which statement of Harris’ has not met that bar?

I fail to see how this has fuck all to do with psychic phenomena.

In multiple experiments, people in the ganzfeld state are able to identify images being viewed by others (whom they cannot see, hear, or interact with in any way) at a rate somewhat higher than would be expected by chance. Not much higher. Maybe not higher at all, depending on whose statistics you trust.

sacundim,

The most obvious argument is “where is the proof?”. Until theists can answer that, there isn’t any need for further, nuanced study.

Trying to talk with somebody like him about science is like being sent into a time warp where 20th century philosophy never happened.

But that’s just part of the nonsense of philosophy - you can pretend like it never happened, because the field has no rigor, and therefore its arguments no power to convince. It’s entirely dismissable. Dawkins may very well dismiss the entire nonsense edifice of philosophy, as I do; so the fuck what? It doesn’t make his arguments wrong, because philosophical arguments can never be meaningfully correct.

The most obvious argument is “where is the proof?”.

Scanduim thinks that, somehow, 20th-century philosophy has “proven” that “where’s the proof?” is itself an invalid question, or at the very least one that is irrelevant to assessing a truth claim. Your stubborn insistence that we not believe things on the basis of no good evidence (and mine) is what he’s talking about when he refers to it being like “20th century philosophy never happened.”

Frankly that says far more about the uselessness of philosophy than anything else.

Okay, Steve, you obviously suck at reading comprehension, and I don’t think you add much at all to the discussion, so I’ll just ignore you (and of course, good ol’ Chet).

Entomologista, I agree with you that math is not a being, corporeal or otherwise.  I just mean that we use mathematics as a tool to handle nonrational concepts like {sqr -1}, moment forces, and things that we only understand the effects of, like gravity or quantum information.

http://www.ted.com/talks/jonathan_drori_on_what_we_think_we_know.html

encapsulates much of my attitude (12.5minutes).  It’s just important to have a clarity and humility in our approach to things, even to concepts that we are pretty sure are wrong.  I read books that have ideas that I think are completely wrong all the time.  I read them to challenge my own concepts and my own models of what I think is happening.  I...fiddle with things.

Okay, Steve, you obviously suck at reading comprehension, and I don’t think you add much at all to the discussion, so I’ll just ignore you (and of course, good ol’ Chet).

By all means, allow my rebuttals of your arguments to go unanswered.

It’s just important to have a clarity and humility in our approach to things, even to concepts that we are pretty sure are wrong.

I’m all for humility. It strikes me, though, that there’s nothing at all humble about even entertaining the possibility that the universe was created solely for our benefit, as a backdrop for petty human dramas, and that the creator of this realm - vast beyond comprehension, intelligent beyond measure, powerful beyond all limitation - not only has any attention to spare for such insignificant motes as us, but we are quite nearly his sole concern, to the point where he’s prepared to violate the laws of physics just so that we can win a basketball game, or get a job promotion, or get good grades for the term.

Whatever arrogance atheists are accused of, it pales in comparison to the absolutely breathtaking arrogance of those who would entertain even the possibility of the God described by any religion.

In multiple experiments, people in the ganzfeld state are able to identify images being viewed by others (whom they cannot see, hear, or interact with in any way) at a rate somewhat higher than would be expected by chance. Not much higher. Maybe not higher at all, depending on whose statistics you trust.

Which again, even on the most charitable reading (which is what you’re giving it), is no excuse at all for entertaining the idea of some mysterious mode of information transfer between brains that simply doesn’t accord with well-established physics and neurobiology. And if you seriously think PET scans or whatever have anything at all to do with this, I truly don’t know what to say to you.

Which again, even on the most charitable reading (which is what you’re giving it), is no excuse at all for entertaining the idea of some mysterious mode of information transfer between brains that simply doesn’t accord with well-established physics and neurobiology.

Again, how so? There’s enough actual examples of information transfer into brains beyond the traditional compliment of sensory organs that I don’t see how you can make the claims your making. If what you say was true PET would be impossible, transcranial stimulation would never work, eyes and limbs could not be emulated by cybernetics, and so on. Yet all those things happen.

Nobody’s talking about “psi”. But your sweeping dismissal of alternate paths of information into and out of brains is not in any sense scientific. If it violated the laws of physics it wouldn’t be possible, yet it demonstratively is.

Functional MRI is what I was thinking of, not PET. Sorry.

There’s enough actual examples of information transfer into brains beyond the traditional compliment of sensory organs that I don’t see how you can make the claims your making. If what you say was true PET would be impossible, transcranial stimulation would never work, eyes and limbs could not be emulated by cybernetics, and so on. Yet all those things happen.

WTF? None of these examples have anything about them that in any way is difficult to explain scientifically and none bears the slightest resemblance to the supposed transfer of pattern information between people who are not physically coupled in any way (which is a condition emphatically NOT met by your examples.)

It’s a minor nitpick, but shouldn’t we be asking “Where’s the EVIDENCE” instead of “where’s the proof”? Because let’s face it, religion fails at producing any evidence at all, let alone conclusive evidence or positive proof.

It’s a minor nitpick, but shouldn’t we be asking “Where’s the EVIDENCE” instead of “where’s the proof”?

Yes indeed, adding that “proof” is a mathematical concept not a scientific one. Actually a significant nitpick and thanks for raising it.

None of these examples have anything about them that in any way is difficult to explain scientifically and none bears the slightest resemblance to the supposed transfer of pattern information between people who are not physically coupled in any way (which is a condition emphatically NOT met by your examples.)

Nonsense. If I read the fMRI scans from a subject over the internet, I’m certainly not “physical coupled” in any way to that individual. I don’t even know who they are! Nonetheless, information about their mental state has certainly been transmitted into my brain (commensurate with my ability to interpret such a scan, which is basically nonexistent. But were I a neurobiologist I would be no more “physically coupled” to the individual.)

And what does the difficulty of explanation have to do with anything? Your objection is entirely incoherent.

If I read the fMRI scans from a subject over the internet, I’m certainly not “physical coupled” in any way to that individual.

Yes you are, just not in only one step. The patient was physically coupled to the MRI machine via a magnetic field, and you in turn are coupled to the printout of its scan via photons impinging on you retina- both very well-understood phenomena. You’ll have to do a lot better than that.

The patient was physically coupled to the MRI machine via a magnetic field, and you in turn are coupled to the printout of its scan via photons impinging on you retina- both very well-understood phenomena.

Oh, I see. You have a substantially broader definition of “physical coupling”, then. That’s fine; you’ve given up the game. If there is anything to the ganzfeld effect, then the individuals are also physically coupled, perhaps by electrical fields or magnetic fields, which we know brains are sensitive to. If there’s anything to the ganzfeld effect, that is. Nobody’s talking about “psi”, remember? You seem to keep forgetting that.

You’ll have to do a lot better than that.

To do what? You’ve already admitted everything I needed you to admit. And I’m not arguing in support of “psi”, remember?

You have a substantially broader definition of “physical coupling”, then.

I have the correct definition, I’m afraid. In the fMRI case, information is being physically transmitted by well-understood processes at each step.

If there is anything to the ganzfeld effect, then the individuals are also physically coupled, perhaps by electrical fields or magnetic fields

We know more than enough about neurobiology to know that there is no such mechanism for information transfer directly between brains at a distance. Nether are such fields being emitted (you do understand how MRI actually works, right? It’s not the brain that’s producing the variable magnetic field, it’s the machine; and EEG requires actual electrical contact with the scalp) nor are there any receptors to detect them.

I don’t know why you insist on being so credulous about this; it’s kind of sad coming from someone who prides himself on skepticism in other domains. Oh well, human nature is a funny thing.

“However, we don’t know a thing about the *nature* of gravity”

This is not true; Newton didn’t know a thing about the nature of gravity, and just described how it worked mostly accurately, but physicists have known quite a bit about its nature ever since Einstein published General Relativity in 1915, and it was experimentally confirmed in 1919.  Not all the details are known, now, but we know a lot.

I have the correct definition, I’m afraid.

Oh, doubtless. I imagine when you use a word it means what you want it to mean, no more, no less.

We know more than enough about neurobiology to know that there is no such mechanism for information transfer directly between brains at a distance.

Citations? References? “We know” is a pretty sweeping statement, particularly when used to sweepingly dismiss a fairly innocuous line of speculation on the basis of absolutely nothing but your say-so.

Nether are such fields being emitted (you do understand how MRI actually works, right? It’s not the brain that’s producing the variable magnetic field, it’s the machine...nor are there any receptors to detect them.

I actually do know how fMRI works, yes; do you know how transcranial magnetic stimulation works? Did you even know that there was such a thing, or that it shows promise as a treatment for a substantial number of neurological disorders as disparate as hallucinations or depression? Apparently not. Suffice to say that the brain does not need “magnetic receptors” to be affected by magnetic/electrical stimulation.

I don’t know why you insist on being so credulous about this

Credulous, how? Credulous about what? How many times do I have to say it - nobody’s talking about “psi”, nobody’s talking about psychic powers, nobody’s talking about CIA remote viewing or other such nonsense. I’m simply trying to disabuse you of your fantastic and delusional notion that the only way to interact with a mind is through its senses, and that information transfer between two individuals must always be a function of “physical coupling”, as though you didn’t live in a world where cell phones existed. Where you could turn on a radio or browse the internet or basically absorb information from millions of human beings you, in fact, have never had any sort of physical contact with. What on Earth is wrong with you?

When people tell me “Merry Christmas” I like to say “Happy Hanukkah” back. Especially when it actually IS Hanukkah and isn’t Christmas yet.

Wishing me merry or happy anything won’t offend me, but it does offend me when I say “happy holidays” to someone and they scream at me, “No, it’s MERRY CHRISTMAS”!

Comment #186: kristin on 12/09 at 02:02 PM

It’s a minor nitpick, but shouldn’t we be asking “Where’s the EVIDENCE” instead of “where’s the proof”? Because let’s face it, religion fails at producing any evidence at all, let alone conclusive evidence or positive proof.

The thing that scientistic atheists fail to understand is that when if you dig seriously into the question of what “evidence” is, you find yourself in trouble quite quickly.  Under what conditions can an observation be said to lend or deny support to a hypothesis?  That’s a major philosophical controversy.

There’s a double standard at play here: scientistic atheists don’t demand nearly as much justification for their own philosophical stances as they do for theists’.  Chet and his ilk demand that theists produce undeniable proof that a deity exists; at the same time, they don’t think that we should correspondingly demand that they produce a proof that observation can lend evidence to hypotheses (a demand that, for the record, I don’t make).  In fact, they tend to act as if it is an absurd question.

Comment #192: JMPEsq on 12/09 at 05:27 PM

Newton didn’t know a thing about the nature of gravity, and just described how it worked mostly accurately, but physicists have known quite a bit about its nature ever since Einstein published General Relativity in 1915, and it was experimentally confirmed in 1919.  Not all the details are known, now, but we know a lot.

Let’s see how that quote works out in a hypothetical future 200 years from now, where physics has gone through a paradigm shift that displaces General Relativity:

“Einstein didn’t know a thing about the nature of gravity, and just described how it worked mostly accurately, but physicists have known quite a bit about its nature ever since Martínez Peña published Unspecific Interflow in 2115, and it was experimentally confirmed in 2119.  Not all the details are known, now, but we know a lot.”

Science doesn’t deal with “natures” of things.  It deals with theories, which we may summarize as “predictive stories.” Einstein can have a superior predictive theory; he can’t have superior insight into the true nature of the thing-in-itself.

There’s a double standard at play here: scientistic atheists don’t demand nearly as much justification for their own philosophical stances as they do for theists’.

Baloney. Both evolutionary biology and neurobiology provide exceedingly strong arguments for the utter implausibility of any of the sorts of “supernatural” beings postulated by various religions. Substance dualism is virtually required for anything recognizable as a religion, but scientifically and philosophically it has been a complete non-starter for quite a long time now.

sacundim, why are you wasting your time arguing with these people?  Much as it might be amusing to muck with people who sez stuff like “Substance dualism is virtually required fo anything recognizable as a religion, but scientifically and philosophically it has been a complete non-starter for quite a long time now” and thinks he just made an intellegent statement, but isn’t this tedious?  Why not write another Wikipedia page, or talk with your mom or something like that when only the choads are left in this thread?

fwiw, I used gravity because we only know the force, and not anything about what generates that force, beyond mass.  Electrons are measurable as particles, waves, and the various phenomenon that occurs when they are around.  We’re not talking about changing theories from Newton to Einstein, which was why I didn’t respond to that statement at all.  The discovery of a graviton would probably be considered the biggest discovery since the initial construction of the Standard Theory, and would be among the all time biggest discoveries ever.

Oh and yeah, to the rest of y’all, I included that TEDtalk because there was a tendency to confuse knowing a bunch of facts with knowlege.  Knowlege, in the sense of comprehension and utility, involves a bit more than regurgitation--which was what that teacher was really trying to get across.  We know a bunch of unexamined facts which leads us not to place knowlege in context, thus having wrong knowlege even with right facts.

It’s my understanding that Einstein was actually pretty explicit about the nature of gravity, that it results from masses warping the geometry of space-time. General relativity may turn out to be wrong or wrong-headed, or at least need to be tuned, but it isn’t quite as mysterious as Newton’s gravity.

Let me reiterate that science has progressed as rapidly as it has because of its resolutely practical approach to phenomena. Its epistemology may appear crude from some perspectives, but it’s demonstrably productive and robust.

FWIW, I’ve had friends who rejected the idea that space could have a particular geometry. I never did find a good way to put that idea across.

Shah8,

1) Before an argument can be the fallacy of the argument from incredulity there has to be evidence to be incredulous of.  What you failed to notice in all of your wikipedia linking is there is a burden of proof that must be met.  There is absolutely no evidence of the existence for any deities and the existence of truth statements about deities is up for scientific scrutiny. 

2) We have never had any evidence of non-material entities.  Besides the Yahweh of the bible was very much a material entity.  Lightning, earthquakes, floods, unexplained pregnancies, and many other natural events were attributed to supernatural explanations in the past.  Booming voices from the heavens, disembodied hands, and other similar events let us know that these were the will of Yahweh.  But that appears to have disappeared in the modern age.  The god of the gaps has few places to hide in the modern age, apparently not even matter or energy anymore.

3) Except that very few people have stood up to oppose the evil committed in the name of their religion.  The vast majority of the laity are content to pay their fee to the social club as long as the ire of the club doesn’t fall on them. 

Gould, Dawkins, PZ, and many other atheists argue against many forms of woo, including the ones you listed.

4) I’m not a stranger to theology or apologetics.  I’m also not a stranger to many other kinds of fiction.  Just because something is old and or popular doesn’t make it true, logically consistent, or rich. 

5) Modern theology is an empty box with a pretty wrapping of social work.  Many religious institutions do good things but that is wholly separate from the dogma.  The religion and theology that Dawkins has been arguing against is the type of religion that’s actually practiced in the western world.  The vast majority of theists are wholly ignorant of the history of religion.  If Dawkins spent time arguing against the theology of the jesuits all he would have done is confuse his audience, including the vast majority of his critics.

That respect you’re looking for is completely absent on the side of the theists.  Religious institutions in the western world have been slowly decaying for the past 300 years.  These vast majority of these institutions are authoritarian and thus react very poorly to any challenge to their wealth or power.  It is impossible to be a polite enough atheist to these institutions.  Merely holding a contrary opinion is enough to garner their ire.

you’re free to believe there is no God...but that doesn’t make you RIGHT!

LIBERATION!

Sing from the rooftops:

“Atheism is dead!”

http://www.conspiracycafe.net/forum/index.php?/topic/25104-atheist-apocalypse/page__pid__117856_

Much as it might be amusing to muck with people who sez stuff like “Substance dualism is virtually required fo anything recognizable as a religion, but scientifically and philosophically it has been a complete non-starter for quite a long time now” and thinks he just made an intellegent statement…

I take this as a declaration of intellectual bankruptcy on your part (since you don’t appear even to understand that statement well enough to attempt to argue), so taking your ball and going home would indeed be a good move at this point.

I’ll use small words to make this easier:

1) All the minds we know of have evolved, and everything we know tells us this is the only way they could arise (unless the strong AI types can succeed in designing one). How did gods evolve?
2) All the minds we know of require physical brains (and are altered if those brains are physically altered) and everything we know (and know at the most mundane level familiar to everyone- think head injuries or strokes) tells us that the presence of a mind depends on the operation of an exceedingly complex physical mechanism (I put it that way rather than repeating the word “brain” just in case the strong AI types turn out to be correct). How can some incorporeal substance (ignoring for the moment that this phrase itself is a contradiction) be organized to the extraordinary extent of a human brain (or even moreso given the powers attributed to gods)?

The entities posited by theists are completely incompatible with </i>all</i> of our large body of scientific knowledge- not just incompatible with a fact here or there, but with the most basic root level of scientific thinking. The fact that theists and their fellow travelers either are too ignorant to understand this problem, or are aware of it but just choose to tolerate the resulting cognitive dissonance, does not make it go away.

Chet and his ilk demand that theists produce undeniable proof that a deity exists;

No we don’t. You made that completely fucking up.

at the same time, they don’t think that we should correspondingly demand that they produce a proof that observation can lend evidence to hypotheses

What are you rabbiting on about? Can you even read what you’re typing? “Gosh, they won’t prove that when I can see or measure something, it tells us more about how something else we can see or measure is affecting yet another thing I can see or measure?” What other method of understanding the world around us do we have? Other than the “make shit up” method, which, y’know, didn’t work out so well what with the whole “getting it completely fucking wrong” problem.

Look, you can philosophically wankicize all you want about the nature of reality and whether observation lends evidence to hypotheses but the fact of the matter is that if we want to actually get things done, actually understand the world around us and not just our philosophically-wankicizing navels, we have to use the scientific method. (And no fair being perfectly happy with the scientific method when it brings you electricity and the Interwebs, space travel, penicillin, and the prevention of Bubonic plague, but not when it gets in the way of your personal favorite fairy tales about magic.)

In fact, they tend to act as if it is an absurd question.

There is a very, very simple reason for this, but I assure you I’m not holding my breath for you to figure it out.

I do not believe at all in the supernatural. This universe did not come into being, it does not continue to be, except by the operation of natural and immutable laws. And I mean immutable, gentlemen. Everything that has ever happened, that is happening now, or that ever is to happen was, is, and will statistically connected with its predecessor event and with its successor event. If I did not believe that implicitly, I would lose all faith in the scientific method. For if one single ‘supernatural’ event or thing had ever occured or existed it would have constituted an entirely unpredictable even and would have initiated a series--a succession--of such events; a state of things no scientist will or can believe possible in an orderly universe.

E. E. (Doc) Smith, First Lensman

The problem with visualizing the effect of gravity on 4-dimensional space time is that you have to start out with a 3 -dimensional cube and then have a string of them to represent time, then you demonstrate the effect of stars and other gravitation fields by having the space ‘rubberized’ so as to be a cone of attraction that change the straight-line path of planets.

See illustration 3-7 here.

I’m simply trying to disabuse you of your fantastic and delusional notion that the only way to interact with a mind is through its senses, and that information transfer between two individuals must always be a function of “physical coupling”, as though you didn’t live in a world where cell phones existed. Where you could turn on a radio or browse the internet or basically absorb information from millions of human beings you, in fact, have never had any sort of physical contact with. What on Earth is wrong with you?

Chet, please clarify?  You appear to be arguing above that cell phones and radios do not operate on the basis of well understood, predictable and easily detectable physical mechanisms that are in fact physically connecting people to each other.  I’m damned sure that as I sit here at my computer typing these words on my keyboard, words that will eventually appear in your own computer screen, that I can describe a long chain of totally physical connections between us that make that happen (solid state electronic circuits, binary data streams, electricity, GUIs, optical fibre cables, satellite transmitters) and crucially, not a single non-physical gap, right down to the photons emitted by my monitor that are bouncing off my retinas right now. 

There is a physical connection between us even though we may be many thousands of miles apart, because we are both hooked in to a technology that relies entirely on physical network connections.  That I can’t see most waves of the electromagnetic spectrum doesn’t make them non-physical, it just makes them non-visible.

It ought to be unnecessary to do this, however:

Over and beyond the absence of any experimental evidence for ESP, the fact that there are no brain structure to support such an ability is a decisive reason to reject its reality. There are animals that have senses lacking in human beings, but the brains of these creatures have areas that process the information from these senses. Bats use sonar and certain fish use electric fields to navigate; the brains of these animals are organized accordingly. No ESP lobe has ever been discovered in our brains, however.  Its various parts have known functions; there is no room for ESP.

It says something about the idiocy of our age that one finds oneself have to come up with new arguments in favor of the thesis that anvils don’t float.

Chet, please clarify?

I guess I don’t understand what’s to clarify. Two people talking on a cell phone or chatting on the internet aren’t physically “coupled”; indeed, the power and utility of these devices is that they permit communication between two individuals who aren’t anywhere close to physical proximity. To say that people never communicate except by physical “coupling” - to say so on the internet - is just stupidly ridiculous.

You appear to be arguing above that cell phones and radios do not operate on the basis of well understood, predictable and easily detectable physical mechanisms that are in fact physically connecting people to each other.

I’m saying absolutely nothing of the kind. Don’t be ridiculous. Cell phones don’t work by magic, they work by transmissions of electromagnetic signals.