The rights of man - more Thomas Paine

Last year I wrote about Thomas Paine, the first New Atheist, having just read his book 'The Age of Reason' which was decades ahead of its time when written in the 1790s.  I hadn't followed up the subject very much until this week I heard an interview on The Pod Delusion (episode 193) with actor Ian Ruskin (starting at time stamp 14:32).  Ruskin is putting on a one-man play about the life of Thomas Paine, and if I was in London (and not working that evening) I might have made the journey to Conway Hall.

I have often wondered where the concept of human rights came from.  The very idea that humans had irrevocable rights has only gained much traction in the last hundred years or so, even though there were hints of it in the previous century.  I have even quizzed a visiting human-rights lawyer on the topic - although I didn't actually get any useful information from her.

Hearing more about Paine's work I am beginning to realise that he played a very significant part in the development of human rights thinking.  He might not had been the originator of all the concepts that he wrote about, but by distilling them into a book called 'The Rights of Man' he certainly brought them to the attention of the people.

Ruskin says that Paine deliberately chose not to protect the commercial rights to his work and that by doing so it meant that the books and pamphlets were circulated much more widely than they otherwise would have been.  Although not exactly a pauper at the time of his death, he was certainly not a wealthy man either.

He can also be remembered for a quotation that is still relevant today.

“Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state, an intolerable one.” 

The latter part certainly applies in UK at the moment.

What if you are wrong? (Richard Dawkins with cartoon.)

This is a nicely drawn cartoon version of the famous answer that Richard Dawkins gave to someone who asked "What if you are wrong?".

Unlinking the world's woes from atheism

I have been reading Michel Onfray's Atheist Manifesto, published 2005.  He has been described as "The French Richard Dawkins" but I think that description does justice to neither of the men.  Dawkins may be intolerant of religion, but Onfray attacks it head-on with the rhetoric of a priest giving a sermon. 

I came across this short passage (page 42) which addresses a topic that I covered recently in my series Things Christians Say.  It was a post called Atheists are responsible for all the world's ills,where I argued from the point of view that we atheists don't have time for such a daunting task.

"If the existence of God, independently of its Jewish, Christian, or Muslim form, had given us at least a little forewarning against hatred, lies, murder, rape, pillage, immorality, embezzlement, perjury, violence, contempt, swindling, false witness, depravity, pedophilia, infanticide, drunkenness, and perversion, we might not have seen atheists (since they are intrinsically creatures of vice) but rabbis, priests, imams, and with them their faithful, all their faithful (which amounts to a great many) doing good, excelling in virtue, setting an example, and proving to the godless and perverse that morality is on their side. Let their flocks scrupulously respect the Commandments and obey the dictates of the relevant suras, and thus neither lie nor pillage, neither rob nor rape, neither bear false witness nor murder—and still less plot terrorist attacks in Manhattan, launch punitive raids into the Gaza strip, or cover up the deeds of their pedophile priests. Then we would see the faithful converting their neighbours right, left, and centre through the example of their shining conduct. But instead . . .

"So let's have an end to this linkage of the world's woes to atheism."

Well said Michel Onfray!

Richard Dawkins and Stephen Law - Think Week

On Friday 15th February as part of Oxford Think Week, Richard Dawkins and Stephen Law met on stage in the Sheldonian Theatre.

The discussion was generally an interesting revision of the sorts of things that I hear on scientific and skeptical podcasts, week in and week out, and I write about here.  A few of the audience were a little disappointed that there was nothing very new in it.

However, I can listen to these two men for a very long time without getting bored, and you have to admire their dedication to their cause.  They give up their time (and indeed money by sponsoring the event) in order to be visible to another audience - predominately of young people. 

Getting the message of rationalism and science out to the public takes a lot of effort and they show little sign of tiring.

As usual, the questions asked by the audience varied in quality.  Some were thinly veiled angry responses from a religious world-view that had clearly found itself on the back foot.  Others were more statements than questions in spite of the chair imploring people to keep their questions short.  Also as usual there were questions which were politely answered, but could have be met with simple advice to go and read a book.

Asked about objective morality and how one should address the competing requirements of different moral values we learned that RD claims to be a consequentialist.  SL agreed that he had got the description correct.  I doubt that the questioner felt satisfied with the answer that he got as he was clearly under the impression that he had deal the knock-out blow.

I for one thought it was the best answer available.

When the video of the event is posted I will link to it here.

Monopoly provides the answer to the question "What does a retired pope do next?"

In general terms this is a virtually meaningless question because most popes do not abdicate and retire.  No doubt it will be a while before we hear the real reason for the retirement of Pope Benedict, even if we ever find it out.  The Roman Catholic Church could hardly be say to be famous for its openness.

Like his brother, Pope Benedict has been accused of quite a number of misdemeanours during his professional life.  It is asserted that he has personally been responsible for covering up the nefarious child abuse activities of many Catholic priests.  Although it is not implied that he was actually involved in the rape of children, it would be regarded as a very serious crime in any civilised jurisdiction to take actions intended to impede the police in their investigation of crime.  And yet this is exactly what he has been accused of.  Aiding and abetting one criminal would be serious enough, but it if is true that Ratzinger's Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith activities have been systematically confounding law enforcement then someone should take personal responsibility for it.  That someone should clearly be the head of the organisation.

Now that Ratzinger will no longer be acting as 'The Pope', and therefore no longer the head of state of that 'non-country' called 'The Vatican', one might hope that he is getting rather worried.

Please think about that and feel some satisfaction at my optimism.

His immunity to prosecution must surely have been rescinded along with the other responsibilities of the position.

Surely, just like that other notorious European tyrant Mladic, Ratzinger should be arrested and denied bail while his alleged crimes are thoroughly investigated and he is ultimately brought to trial. 

Therefore the answer to the question of his retirement plans should come directly from the Monopoly board!

Ratzinger - 1st March - Go to Jail. Go Directly.

Go to jail.  Go directly to jail. Do not pass go. Do not collect £200 (or whatever currency or culture you prefer).

After all this is a man who should know more about morality than anyone else on Earth if the claims of his church are true.  If God really set the standards of objective morality, then the Vicar of Christ (and his older brother) should have been able to tell that it is immoral to shelter his fellow priests from justice (or whatever his older brother is accused of).

There is little evidence that they have grasped that concept yet.

Go to jail.


Update: 22:30.  This evening I attended an event in Oxford, where Stephen Law and Richard Dawkins were in discussion as part of 'Think Week'.  One of the questions from the audience was on exactly this topic.  RD has been involved in a previous discussion about an attempt to prosecute the pope and together with Christopher Hitchens had paid a top lawyer to look into the idea.  Sitting in the audience this evening and knowing that this post was scheduled I felt quite amused.

Peter Atkins talks about absolutely nothing

No really . . . he was talking about the absolute nothingness before the beginning of the universe, as part of Think Week in Oxford!  The talk was so popular that people had to be turned away from the door.  This event was held in a teaching room in the famous Ashmolean Museum. 

Atkins is of course a popular speaker and people expect to get good value from any talk that he gives and he did not disappoint.  This time he included a number of his usual (witty and pithy) atheistic comments but he was aiming to explain a possible view of the origin of the universe to a bewildered audience.

The point of the talk was to demonstrate that the creation of the universe from absolute nothingness might be open to scientific elucidation, contrary to the view that religion offers the only answers.  As he said, unlike religions, when different branches of science intermingle there is support rather than conflict.  He also re-stated his assertion (which I find very reasonable) that the 'why' questions should really be rephrased as portmanteaus of 'how' questions that science can answer.  When theologians claim that science can't answer the why questions, his reply is to shrug and say "So what? There is no valid question beginning with 'why'".  By asking how questions, we get rid of the need for omnipotent beings, and the supernatural has no place in science.

He went on to show some different models of families of universes, and mention that our notion of time might be far too naive.  Time might be circular but for today he wanted to assume that there really was an instant in time when the first universe came into being.  Following similar lines to Lawrence Krauss in his book A Universe from Nothing, Atkins went on to explain how the universe might look as though it is full of energy but in fact the positive energy, including that which exists as matter, is exactly balanced by the negative energy associated with gravitational attraction. When questioned about why gravitational energy is negative he used a nice analogy that I had never heard before.  Take two objects.  One distorts space-time to make a gravitational well, and the other rolls into the well to reach a lower energy state.  I like it!

Getting gradually deeper into the science of origins and carefully pointing out that he was not telling us that this is the answer, but only a possible answer, he went on to talk about conservation laws.  Taking as his first example, the law of conservation of energy might be inferred from the observation that the universe has no net energy.  If it came from nothing then the simplest explanation is that 'the nothing' had no energy, and that state has been preserved.  He invoked Noether's (first) theorem which states that any differentiable symmetry of the action of a physical system has a corresponding conservation law. In the case of the conservation of energy, the associated symmetry is the uniformity of time.  Similarly, conservation of momentum is associated with the uniformity of space, and angular momentum with the isotropy of space.  In fact almost all laws of physics probably imply the uniformity of the 'nothing' that was there before the universe, and he gave some examples of how the alternative to the physical laws would lead to virtual anarchy.

Concluding the first part of the talk he pointed out that at the creation almost nothing happened.  There is still nothing here, but it is a much more interesting form of nothing than it was before nothing happened.

The second part of the talk became much more abstract, getting into set theory and some other mathematics and without admitting where I lost the plot I'm not going to describe it in detail.  Someone was recording it, and if it is published on the web I will link to it so that you can listen for yourself.  My short summary of it is that time may be regarded as a dimension, but that it is a very special kind of dimension.  The idea that there is only one dimension of time (when there are three spatial dimensions) implies that you can't turn around in it.  (Eeek!  How?)

He then concluded that the whole point of his talk was to show us that science is not afraid to confront the concept of nothing at all, and that the properties of nothing at all can be discussed quite rationally.

In the Q&A there was a question about how (a) god (the creator) might not have been god at all, but that aliens might have seeded the Earth with life and having realised that it was all going wrong had gone away leaving no sign of their involvement.  Having tried to answer the question politely, the questioner persisted with a little rant about how he wasn't being taken seriously.  He refused to stop even when asked by the chairman. 

In his typical politely assertive way Atkins answered that if there was any evidence at all for that idea then it would definitely be worth considering, but that there isn't any evidence.  The questioner picked up his coat and left, much to the relief of all of us.

All in all, it was an entertaining evening with a great speaker and a great chance to meet some very interesting people, older friends and newer.  I will be attending more Think Week events, (although unfortunately not all of them).

No rational person . . .

I can recommend the following debate, This House Believes that Organised Religion has no place in the 21st Century, although not necessarily for the reasons that you might expect.  You might know that I am a fan of Richard Dawkins, and originally it was the main reason that I watched the following video.  I wish that the proposal was true but didn't believe that they would win, but I was pleasantly surprised by the performance of a number of the other speakers.

The order of speakers was interesting.

Andrew Copson speaks a lot of good sense.  He introduced the debate with what was later described as a presumptuous speech.  I think that might have been a little harsh.

Retiring Archbishop Rowan Williams then gave a very well polished, aspirational sermon.  He is, after all, a professional speaker and I respect his style, even if not his beliefs.  Of the archbishops of the last century he is one of the two stars in my opinion.  William Temple was the other.  Did Williams produce a convincing argument?  I think not.  But did he carry the audience?  Certainly yes.

In response, Professor Richard Dawkins spoke in predictably rational terms and explained why truth matters.  He spoke well, but something about the way that he read his notes was less impressive than his usual performance.  It was rather scripted and didn't really come from the heart on this occasion.  But it was worth listening to his words, and I couldn't disagree with any of them.


Then Tariq Ramadan gave an irrational, taqiyyah-laden, rebuttal.  His message seemed to me to include:

• You need me (is that a threat?)
• You're being dogmatic (so what?)
• We know more about humanity (how?)
• I reject your criticism of my religion's attitude to women (and I reject that!)
• You say religion is backwards looking (and would be right to do so)
• We are better at talking about morality and ethics :)
• And you should welcome me to the discussion.

Well - you should welcome ME to the discussion too, and I have as much right to claim that as you do - but it doesn't get me invited.

After some interesting questions from the audience - mostly non-theistic in their background - Dr Arif Ahmed delivered a crushing conclusion on behalf of the proposal.  (Starts at 1:10:30)  Responding to a question about what he would take as evidence he replied in two parts:

1. A valid argument with true premises, from which the consequences follow, or
2. Empirical evidence

Addressing another well spoken, although pompous heckler, who used the age old argument that correlation does not imply causation, he expertly quipped:

Nobody denies that correlation does not entail causation, but everybody who knows anything about it knows that correlation is evidence for causation, which is what I was claiming.

But in spite of being aspirationally righteous, the debate was always going to go to the opposition.  It might have been framed differently if it referred to the 22nd century instead of the 21st, but it is already too late to claim that religion has no place in the 21st century.  And the final speaker, Douglas Murray won the day.  Murray is an atheist and long-term opponent of the speakers on his own side, but still he joined with them to oppose the motion.

Having rightly dismissed Alain de Botton's ridiculous writings he went on to say about religion:

Is it true?  No!  But truth is like water.  It needs a vessel to carry it.

Like all analogies this it a little deceitful, but metaphorical presentations are always more convincing than things that are merely true.  As he said, no rational person can agree with the proposition - however much they may wish it were true.

And I will be loking out for interviews with Douglas Murray in future.

Stridency is the least you should muster!

Richard Dawkins sometimes seems to rejoice in the way that his critics refer to him as 'strident'.  Shortly before the death of Christopher Hitchins, Dawkins interviewed his fellow 'horseman of the apocalypse'.

He told Dawkins in the interview:

“You have a discipline in which you are very distinguished. You've educated a lot of people; nobody denies that, not even your worst enemies. You see your discipline being attacked and defamed and attempts made to drive it out.

“Stridency is the least you should muster . . . It's the shame of your colleagues that they don't form ranks and say, ‘Listen, we're going to defend our colleagues from these appalling and obfuscating elements.’”

Well said - of course!

One small thing that I can claim is that I frequently defend Dawkins against the way that he is mis-represented.  Religious family members might not like him, but they can't, in all honesty, use stridency as an excuse.

You can read more at this link.

Stephen Law on The Malcontent's Gambit

One of my favourite philosophers was interviewed recently on one of my favourite podcasts.  I don't know how Alan Litchfield pulls it off to get such good guests on his podcast, 'The Malcontent's Gambit', but he seems consistent in that ability.

This podcast features Stephen Law, who is author of a number of books including 'Believing Bullshit' and a former speaker at Oxford Skeptics in the Pub.  Stephen will also be noticeable in the annual Oxford event called Think Week, where he will be in discussion with Richard Dawkins.  Tickets sold out quickly, as is common for these Dawkins events in Oxford!  (Yes - I have got one, thank you.)

Given his track record, being acknowledged as one of the few people who have significantly defeated William Lane Craig in a debate, I think the discussion with Dawkins will be interesting.

Without having to speculate about future events, I highly recommend The Malcontent's Gambit podcast.   In this interview, Law dismissed the Euthyphro Dilemna before going on to talk about the 'evil god hypothesis', which turns out to be difficult to contest.

Apologies for a feast for 5000

In a surprising example of desperate Christian apologetics I was surprised this week to hear an explanation for the miracle of the feeding of the five thousand.

Far from the usual explanation of the story as the miraculous multiplication of a small amount of food into copious quantities, performed by the son of God and demonstrating his power, a much more straight-forward explanation was offered to me.

Apparently at that time in history most people travelled with food in their possession.  The real miracle was that those people could be persuaded to share their precious food with the rest of the crowd.  Shades of Philip Pulman I think.  See below.**

OK - so a wise traveller would have had some food with them.  But surely most of these people were not planning to be travelling at all.  They followed a crowd to see what was happening and found themselves on the side of a mountain with nothing to eat. 

Aside from that, I think it would be only human nature - not miraculous - for people to share some food with needy and hungry folk around them. In other words, when we see need, we often engage in altruism.  That is not the same as the obvious waste that would result from giving all their food without seeing the need.  The biblical account suggests that such waste was the result of the event.

Doesn't this explanation relegate the son of God from a miracle worker to a master rhetorician.  Surely that undermines the whole point of the story.  It is all about the miracle

And on the subject of miracles, I like to quote a famous atheist:

If science and religion really are 'non-overlapping magisteria', then religion must give up miracles to the magisterium of science. -- Richard Dawkins

Small note**:  In Philip Pullmans 'provokingly bold' book "The good man jesus and the scoundrel Christ" a similar theme arises.  I might say more about this when I finish the book.  100 pages into it, I think it seems like a tale for 8 year-olds.  Maybe I will change my views before I get to the end.

Nonsense from C S Lewis

These surprising things come not from a man who is alleged to be a poor thinker, as theists often say of Richard Dawkins - unfairly in my opinion.

No - these surprising words come from C S Lewis.

Life
“You will never know how much you believe something until it is a matter of life and death.” “If you think of this world as a place intended simply for our happiness, you find it quite intolerable: think of it as a place of training and correction and it’s not so bad.” – God in the Dock, page 52.

“One of the things that distinguishes man from the other animals is that he wants to know things, wants to find out what reality is like, simply for the sake of knowing. When that desire is completely quenched in anyone, I think he has become something less than human.” – God in the Dock, page 108.

Try to exclude the possibility of suffering which the order of nature and the existence of free-wills involve, and you find that you have excluded life itself. – The Problem of Pain
 
Atheism
"Atheism turns out to be too simple. If the whole universe has no meaning, we should never have found out that it has no meaning. . ." – Mere Christianity

"Now that I am a Christian I do have moods in which the whole thing looks improbable: but when I was an atheist I had moods in which Christianity looked terribly probable." – Mere Christianity

"A young man who wishes to remain a sound Atheist cannot be too careful of his reading. There are traps everywhere -- 'Bibles laid open, millions of surprises,' as Herbert says, 'fine nets and stratagems.' God is, if I may say it, very unscrupulous." – Surprised by Joy

God
My argument against God was that the universe seemed so cruel and unjust. But how had I got this idea of just and unjust? A man does not call a line crooked unless he has some idea of a straight line. What was I comparing this universe with when I called it unjust? - Mere Christianity

I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: 'I'm ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don't accept His claim to be God.' That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic -- on the level with the man who says he is a poached egg -- or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God: or else a madman or something worse. You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill Him as a demon; or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronising nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to. – Mere Christianity, pages 40-41.

"You must picture me alone in that room in Magdalen, night after night, feeling, whenever my mind lifted even for a second from my work, the steady, unrelenting approach of Him whom I so earnestly desired not to meet. That which I greatly feared had at last come upon me. In the Trinity Term of 1929 I gave in, and admitted that God was God, and knelt and prayed: perhaps, that night, the most dejected and reluctant convert in all England." – Surprised by Joy

I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen. Not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else. – Is Theology Poetry?


Now who is the poor thinker?

A test for your atheism.

I've been wondering for a while whether there is a really good test of one's degree of atheism, and recently a few things had brought me to a tentative conclusion.

I would like to suggest that our attitude to death might be the final give-away.  I don't just mean death in general, but specifically our own mortality.

Of course there is a broad spectrum of hopes and beliefs, and in a short blog post I can only speak in very general terms.  I think is possible to narrow down our attitudes to four main points of view and I'll try to place these on Richard Dawkins' spectrum of beliefs. (From page 50 of The God Delusion; 1 is a strong theist, and 7 is a strong atheist.)

1/  You know that there is a heaven and you are confident that you will get there because even if you are not perfect, you are repentant and you know in your heart that this is true.

3/  You don't think about it often, but when you do you are pretty sure that there is an afterlife and you fear that you might go to hell and suffer eternal torment.  You don't fear this quite enough to change all your life decisions, but it does nag at you.  But still . . . there is always time to mend your ways and to repent later.  (Or is there?)

5/  You don't think about it often, but when you do, you still have a lingering sense that you have a spirit or soul, and you would like it to live on after your mortal life is over.  You want this in some unspecific spiritual sense, since you don't really believe in the gods that others worship.  However, you are still horrified at the concept of your own mortality.

7/  You know that there is no 'hope' of an afterlife and find this viewpoint to be quite soothing - even therapeutic.  After the highs and lows of a life lived well (or badly) you will neither be subjected to the continuous joy of paradise (which must get boring eventually) nor to the eternal torments of hell.  After death there will be perfect peace and your entire being will cease to be.  And you really don't mind!  You think "when I'm gone, don't grieve for me, but look after the people who loved me".

Now I know that the words are slightly skewed towards what I might call 'Christian atheism'.  By that I mean the kind of atheist who has rejected the idea of the Christian God and ignores even the existence of the other options.   However, I think it might work for Muslims if the words were changed a little, and for other religions to varying degrees.  In the case of Buddhists this scale tests something other than atheism, since they are all atheists, but I think a Buddhist apostate could aspire to reach 7, with practice.

Religions clearly foster the human desire for an afterlife.  It is one thing that almost all of them have in common.  Indeed the afterlife might be the carrier of the virus of religion.

If I score 7, does that mean that I'm not enjoying my life enough?  What do you think?

Einstein the agnostic

Should we agree with Einstein's reported words?

"From the viewpoint of a Jesuit priest I am, of course, and have always been an atheist.... I have repeatedly said that in my opinion the idea of a personal God is a childlike one. You may call me an agnostic, but I do not share the crusading spirit of the professional atheist whose fervor is mostly due to a painful act of liberation from the fetters of religious indoctrination received in youth. I prefer an attitude of humility corresponding to the weakness of our intellectual understanding of nature and of our being." **

Clearly he had a view about religions but had much more important things on his mind, and I'm glad that he did.

But whether his opinions about the actions of others as outspoken atheists matter at all is another thing.

Personally I recognise his point of view but do not agree with all of it.  I think people should be more outspoken when faced with supernatural claims.  After all, the religious don't keep quite about their opinions, so why should we?

Christopher Hitchens' interjected cries of "Shame on you" in a debate (I think this one) with a rabbi were much more appropriate than Daniel Dennett's natural politeness.

Sometimes you should not tolerate nonsense!

Small note.  **The context of this fragment of a letter was a letter to Guy H. Raner Jr, July 2, 1945, responding to a rumor that a Jesuit priest had caused Einstein to convert from atheism; quoted by Michael R. Gilmore in Skeptic, Vol. 5, No. 2.

Secularist stars at the NSS conference

As I mentioned earlier, I went to London today for the National Secular Society's conference.  I'll probably write more about it another day, but here's a little comment about each of the speakers.  I should say that the event was attended by nearly 800 people from a range of backgrounds - including at least one gentleman wearing a clerical collar.

Professor Ted Cantle - business-like and well informed.  Being English and male might lead some to wonder how he is qualified to comment about people who are in neither category but I found him convincing.  Multiculturalism is to be replaced by 'interculturalism'. 

Nia Griffith (Member of Parliament), neither English nor male - was an entertaining and informative speaker.  Her best anecdote (of many) was about the Human Embryology and Fertilsation Act.  Constituents were worried that "there'll be centaurs running in the streets".  [Its odd that they will not be cantering or galloping.]

Pragna Patel was more successful than I expected at involving those of us who were not 'Southall Black Sisters'.  [I suppose I'm a little wary of positive discrimination or something - but being white, English and male, I hope you might make allowances for that . . . please?]  Speaking of minority groups who seek favours from the state she said "They use the language of human rights but actually seek to suppress it."  This was echoed by most of the following speakers.  Excellent points throughout the speech and good answers to questions.

Nick Cohen's brilliant speech was one of the highlights of the day.  He acknowledged that journalists and broadcasters were afraid to admit that self-censorship exists.  All like to pose as dissidents in a dictatorship, challenging establishments, transgressing boundaries, but they can't acknowledge that certain topics are just off limits.  He added that 200 years ago you would know that the finest minds in the world also had supernatural beliefs as a broad explanation of the world. Now that is no longer possible.  As soon as you reach some level of knowledge you will know that the greatest minds in the world do not hold supernatural beliefs now.  Religion is no longer able to be involved in high culture.  This makes people defensive and wary of learning.  Religion now knows itself to be intellectually on the back foot.

Maryam Namazie was next but I'll come back to her later.

Peter Tatchell delivered a fine speech as usual.  He emphasised that the enemy was organised faith itself, not necessarily the faithful people.  The clerics are the main threat and it is time we said so.  Afterwards someone commented that he had foundered a little when questioned about the ordinary faithful essentially lending support to the religious leaders, and about funding for improvements to human rights.  I think that was a reasonable assessment.

Richard Dawkins came last - I can listen to him any time.  He was advertised as the keynote speaker for very obvious reasons.  The first half of his talk was excellent, with comments on dealing with potentially violent people "I fear you because you are mad but don't confuse fear with respect."  Actually telling people that they are "behaving like a spoilt brat having a temper tantrum" might not be the best advice.  He spent some time on American politics, obviously with the impending election in mind.  Christian scriptures are genuinely ancient. The Book of Mormon is not ancient but ludicrously anachronistic [and he explained why, in some detail, and with great wit]. Many of the core beliefs are measurably more preposterous than claims of Christianity.  At least it is arguable that Jesus existed. All of that was delivered with his usual verbal dexterity.  The less I say about the second half of the speech, his confusing satire about Tony Blair, the better, but Richard is not a stand-up comedian by profession.

Now back to the real star of the show.  It is clear why Dawkins was the keynote speaker, but the only one of the day to get a standing ovation, along with the longest applause, was Maryam Namazie.  Her speech was exactly what you would expect from her, and on the basis of the four times that I have heard her, she delivers it to the same high standard every time she speaks.  She combines a passion for justice with a deep understanding and knowledge of the subject.  It will be hard to do justice to her but in a few days I will write more about what she said.

Aside from that - it was a great day out and I met a lot of very interesting people who had travelled much further than I had to attend.  Hello to anyone among them who is reading this.  I expect all my readers to try to attend next year if geographically feasible.  Thanks to Terry Sanderson and crew for organising it all at a very reasonable price and reaching out to so many people.

Small note: published hurriedly on the day of the event.  Please forgive the larger number of typos than usual.

Update!  Most of the talks have now appeared on the Pod Delusion Extra site - although at the time of writing (2012-09-30) the best one is still awaiting permission.  Hopefully we can all hear the words of Maryam Namazie soon.

Meeting faith halfway - yeah right!

This week the BBC screened a programme called "Rosh Hashanah", in which the UK's Chief Rabbi, Jonathan Sacks, interviewed three prominent scientists to discuss whether there really has to be antagonism between science and faith.  By the end he claimed that his three victims had met him more than half way.

The views of the scientists on this conclusion were not revealed.  Let's examine why I felt that Sacks was being more than usually - or should I say "much more than usually" - disingenuous.

The whole setting the the 30 minute programme was polished and carefully crafted to show Sacks as a reasonable man who was calm and rational, at peace with his view of the world.  It was equally well crafted to make the three scientists look just slightly uneasy, somewhat flushed and perhaps a little shifty.  That in itself was enough to convince me that the odds were stacked in favour of the rabbi.

Jonathan Sacks, acting like a wolf in sheep's clothing.

Then there was a suggestion of cherry picking from the answers that his interviewees must have given.  I haven't seen any responses from Susan Greenfield, Jim Al-Khalili or Richard Dawkins to claim that they were specifically misrepresented, but somehow I can't imagine that what we saw was exactly what they must have meant.

Taking one example, Sacks asked Dawkins about the 'philosophy of Darwinism' and we heard what appeared to be Dawkins agreeing that it was possible that this could actually lead to Nazism.  Two things were surprising here.  First I know I have heard Dawkins arguing that the two are not causally linked.

Second - what exactly is 'the philosophy of Darwinism'?  Is it implied that scientists or Nazis might be adherents of such a philosophy, even if it existed? Surely it is not a philosophy at all.  Darwin's work has led to a scientific theory and that is all.  There is no way that this implies the requirement for any further human actions.

It seemed to me that Sacks tended to use his language of faith to dress up both sides of the story to make them seem compatible, when we all know that faith only claims that because it recognises the threat from science.  He also used his great rhetorical skill to sidestep the difficult questions like "Do you believe that Abraham literally had Isaac trussed up on an alter?".  Sacks just resorted to typical allegorical answers to avoid answering.  He seemed to claim that the story of Isaac showed that Jewish people care much more for their children much more than anyone else. [Besides that, Jewish parents care so much that they need to cut bits off their precious babies.]  He could only get away with this in any small way by comparing his race with the surrounding races during the bronze age.  I would say that this argument has passed its sell-by date.

Then whenever he admitted that religion had been the cause of suffering in the world he would also point out that science had also caused great problems. 

NO!  This is not the same at all.  Faith has actually CAUSED great evil, very often in its own name.  Science, on the other hand, has only enabled greater evils than previously possible to be committed by people of any faith or none.  His apparently reasonable argument of equality is palpably fallacious.

This programme is just another case of BBC accommodationalism for the usual reasons.

It would be interesting to hear the views of a few people of faith, if they managed to see it. 

One good thing came out of it though.  A Muslim colleague told me today that until he watched this programme he hadn't realised what a reasonable man Richard Dawkins appears to be.

 That's something, at least!

The Watson inconsistency and the real outrage!

(For background, see the links below)

I have little interest in 'the Rebecca Watson/Skepchick controversy', mainly because I don't care much about her personal opinions.  Unfortunately I do care how these opinions divide the so-called 'atheist community' even if I personally think that to call it a community is something of a misnomer.  I also have a particular aversion to the word Skepchick, and the egregious use of a rising tone at the end of every spoken sentence.

Watson is particularly good at sounding off about things without considering whether her public opinions are consistent with her own public behaviour.

For example, she famously complained about being propositioned by a man in an elevator at a conference, but even her own claim never suggested that she was in any danger.  (The man in question has wisely kept out of the argument.)  Richard Dawkins was drawn into this argument after making a parody of her whinging and regrettably has lost some supporters as a result (although not me).

At other times she herself can hardly be accused of being whiter than white.  A seemingly endless stream of suggestive sounding, innuendo-laden comments come from someone sounding just like her on the SGU podcast, and on her own blog and Youtube videos.  And then there was the matter of her provocative appearance in the Skepchick calendar - in the name of art and protest of course.  When it suits her, she flaunts her femininity.

Now I don't disapprove of any of these behaviours individually, nor do I say that provocative behaviour in any way invites unwanted sexual advances, but I have an uneasy feeling that her behaviours are not exactly consistent with each other.  If I spoke to my female colleagues at work in the way that she speaks, there could be a flurry of complaints.  It is a simple matter of professionalism.  Similarly, my most respected professional female colleagues make progress in life in spite of their femininity - in the sense that they would rightly be outraged if I suggested that they had gained some advantage by being female.

The problem is that being white and male, my opinion does not count for much, but after keeping quiet for so long I feel that I have to say what I think, in response to the ridiculous emergence of Atheism+.

Of course it should go without saying that I agree that it is outrageous for women in atheism and skepticism to be targeted and threatened with rape or murder by some tiny minority of lunatic extremists.  But this isn't a matter of personal opinion.  It is unequivocally a matter of law and order!  Those who threaten violence should be dealt with appropriately by the police and the court system.

Nor do I agree with any form of discrimination, positive or negative, for or against any subset of the human race. 

But it is even more outrageous that this small vocal bunch of atheistic zealots who have their heads too far up their own arses effectively accuse the majority of men of being guilty of all the above.

Isn't it?



See also:
Which Atheism plus is the right one?
Not what you say but how you say it!
Atheism is not a religion, but perhaps Atheism+ IS! 

Atheism is not a religion, but perhaps Atheism+ IS!

Following on from yesterday's post about the new vile and divisive Atheist+ movement, someone asked the reasonable question "What is the difference between Atheism+ and Secular Humanism?"  From the definition given yesterday there appears to be no big difference.

The charming, respectful and compassionate Richard Carrier says:

The problem with “Secular Humanism” is that it is an umbrella term that includes more than just “Atheists” in the Atheism+ sense: it also includes humanists of other varieties, whom we do not identify with (see related comment). And Secular Humanism as such does not specifically endorse all the elements of Atheism+ but rather a more vague and ambiguous set of values, which we might all agree with, but we happen to embrace more than that, and are less vague about it. Hence, we are Atheists plus. And we are atheists above all because we are principally (just not only) combating religious belief, identifying it (along with secular irrationality as well) as the primary threat to human happiness the world over. This is something that people who self-identify as “Secular Humanist” often don’t endorse or agree with; and even when they do, as many don’t, the label is unclear when adopted, as to which you are. Atheism+ is clear.

And of course he is right on his last point  Atheism+ is clear enough.  It represents exactly those values that we all associate with religious bigots.  I will just whisper one word . . .

Tolerance

and then shout the words of Richard Carrier himself

Reasonableness, compassion, and integrity

All of these are missing from Atheism+.  It reminds me of a religion!



See also:
Which Atheism plus is the right one?
Not what you say but how you say it!

The Watson inconsistency and the real outrage!

Not what you say but how you say it!

A new movement is appearing in what is sometimes called 'the atheist community' in spite of the fact that it is no more a community than a group of non-stamp-collectors.  Atheism+ is causing quite a stir and it is tempting to wonder what all the fuss is about.

Apparently the movement stands for these values:  

• Care about social justice,
• Support women’s rights,
• Protest racism,
• Fight homophobia and transphobia,
• Use critical thinking and skepticism.

Not many of us would disagree with those, although I would personally change the second to say "Support human rights" which, unless I'm mistaken, includes all women and does not discriminate against the often pilloried white, middle aged male demographic.

Richard Carrier goes on - and believe me he really can go on - in a blog post** at Free Thought Blogs, to expand on those values to include

• Reasonableness, compassion, and integrity

And then in the (frequently offensive and far from compassionate) replies to the comments on that blog post he says:

Do you reject any of the values stated in my article? If so, which ones, and why?
If not, in what way aren’t you a part of Atheism+ movement?
Either you reject some basic human values here, or you are irrationally denying what you are, like someone who said they were sure there was no god but aren’t an atheist. As if they didn’t understand how words work.
So which is it? Are you ... [editorial yawn! I've heard enough.] . . .[basically, with us or against us]
Be honest and say.

OK - I for one will be honest and say.  I don't reject any of those 'basic human values' but I don't want anything to do with Atheism+.

Why not?  You only have to listen to the vituperative outpourings of Richard Carrier and some of his colleagues to realise that compassion is not in their nature at all.

As my mother always told me, "Its not what you say but how you say it!".

More on this topic tomorrow.

See also:
Which Atheism plus is the right one?
Atheism is not a religion, but perhaps Atheism+ IS!
The Watson inconsistency and the real outrage!



Small note:  I was actually planning to buy one of Richard Carrier's books about the Christ Myth theory.  Having read his blog, I have almost been converted back to believing in Jesus!  (Not quite!)

**Smaller note: I refer to http://freethoughtblogs.com/carrier/archives/2207/ but refuse to make this address a hyperlink, as they do not deserve to have their Google ranking increased - however marginally - by my criticism!

Empirical confusion - a lesson about faith based claims

One day recently I was listening to a radio programme where two people were being interviewed.  The subject hardly matters, except that it serves to illustrate a point that applies equally well to the way that people think about faith in god(s).

As it happens, it was about the effects of tobacco advertising.  This is not a subject that I find particularly interesting, but it is one that others have strong feelings about, and I could summarise the two sides of the discussion as follows: 

• One of the protagonists in the debate was arguing that advertising attracts new people into smoking. Her argument was very much faith based.  It was simply obvious to her that this was true, and she found it impossible to accept any aspects of the opposing view.
• Her opponent was making the point that advertising was demonstrably unsuccessful at converting people to smoking, but that it was much more successful at redistributing the market share between different brands of tobacco.  Smokers of one brand could be converted to another brand much more easily than non-smokers.  He said that he based his claim on empirical evidence.

Now I'm not going to try to judge the merits of the two arguments.  I'm not a smoker and never have been.  The point that annoyed me was that the faith-based claim was allowed a lot more air time then the evidence-based claim.  The poor guy only had to start a sentence and the interviewer (John Humphrys I think) would immediately interrupt him with another question.  It annoyed me that we were not able to hear enough about the evidence to enable us to form our own opinions.

A little later I was expressing my opinion - my outrage - about it, as sometimes I do!  I was very surprised by the reaction that I received, although in retrospect I shouldn't have been!

I was told - believe it or not - that the guy with the empirical evidence had come across as arrogant and unyielding.  The reason for this was simply that he had used the expression "empirical evidence".

Now I think you can see the parallel that I am drawing.  Those who believe in gods take the faith-based approach and they are sometimes frightened away from even considering the opposite viewpoint because of empirical evidence.  There are at least two aspects to this.

• First, I have noticed that even intelligent and well qualified people misunderstand the term.  Empirical evidence is not just another faith claim.  It is evidence that has actually been measured, and brings you to a conclusion without having to rely on inference or deduction.  Even if it might later turn out to be wrong, it should not be ignored.  Surely it must at least be useful unless it is shown not to be true by further measurements.
• Second, if you take the attitude in life that all claims are equally valid, as many do, then the presence or absence of evidence is not of much importance.  This is why such a way of thinking is fundamentally flawed.

The net result is that those who argue with the certainty that comes from putting the effort into detailed analysis of a topic are trumped by those who just know the truth in their hearts.  This very effectively demonstrates that rationality is not the primary trait of the human mind, as mentioned last week in my review of Michael Schermer's book, The Believing Brain.

The wisest words from Bertrand Russell

The words of of one of the greatest philosophers of modern times spring to mind (as you can hear at this link)

When you are studying any matter, or considering any philosophy, ask yourself only "what are the facts, and what is the truth that the facts bear out?" Never let yourself be diverted either by what you wish to believe or by what you think would have benificent social effects if it were believed, but look only and solely at what are the facts. -- Bertrand Russell 

Shouldn't this be our crusade as rationalists?

Sunday Selection 8

Continuing a new series where there is little additional content from me, but I simply share a few items, new and old, that have pleased me this week.  As almost every week, I see items on the web that I find interesting, amazing or  or amusing.  This disjointed ramble might be on any of my normal topics - or on other topics entirely.  My thanks go to the friends who helped me to find them.

First: An interview with Bertrand Russell.  It is not very long but it is his message to the people of the future.

Podcast of the week: Skeptics with a K, episode 78.  You might love or hate the style of this podcast, but I'm a keen listener.  The three presenters from the Merseyside Skeptics Society have a certain laddish charm and they have a knack for finding interesting topics.  Sometimes they start into a story that appears somewhat tangential (as in the surprisingly disgusting one about clearing out a cupboard in this episode), but don't give up too early!  They always conclude with an interesting learning point.  In this episode they also celebrate the legal difficulties that are being experienced by homeopaths in UK this year, and I was glad to hear that 2 of the 3 presenters were also not great fans of the Olympics.

Quote of the week: 
“When Muslim parents hate their host culture so much that they will kill a child who seems to embrace it, then they are guilty of intolerance – the kind that non-Muslims are wary of showing, lest they be branded racist, or bigoted.” 
Wow! Something sensible from Cristina Odone, in the Telegraph

Tweet of the week:
If the Bible was a good morality guide, we'd not need the Declaration of Human Rights. Humanity: Higher morals than God since 1948. #Atheism from @CrispySea

Atheist news of the week:  How Christopher Hitchens fell out with Gore Vidal

Exciting science of the week: The landing of Curiosity, the new rover on Mars was much more exciting than anything that the Olympics had to offer.  Amazingly, this picture was snapped by another satellite that was orbiting Mars.

Curiosity snapped on its chute, descending to Mars.

See the pictures that it is collecting every day at this link.  I'm sure that there is a lot of good stuff to come from this amazing project!

And finally . . .

Favourite places: Mars (Is this cheating?) 

This image, from here, shows how Curiosity landed there this week.

Curiosity's surprising landing on Mars (from here).