Dawkins’ insistence on fighting a lonely and somewhat ill-defined war against religion
I don't think that's an accurate characterisation. Dawkins isn't anti religion per se; he's pro accuracy, parsimony, skepticism and the pre-eminence of science as a method of understanding the universe.
In a way, he has a stronger position than we who include theistic evolutionists within our sphere. We're only against irrationality; he's actively for rationality.
This of course means that we can accept as allies those whose beliefs are lacking both rational support and rational disproof (for example TEs). This is certainly the more effective approach in the short term, but I can kind of understand Dawkins' position that that's a cop-out.
There are much broader issues at stake. Religion isn't just attacking science education in American schools... it is attacking gay rights, stem cell research, abortion rights, the environment and many other important issues. These fights are taking place in many different countries. Science v.s. creationism is just one battle, and the United States is just one country.
Dawkins has also made the point that the fundies are more accurate in their religion than the more rational godd-botherers (they're more correct in what their religion says, which is completely bonkers). Most people just want the warm fuzzies and potlucks, and are prepared to give aid and comfort to theocrats so they can get it.
That was a wonderful summation. I agree that there is much more to this than meets the eye...
there is a plan by a few 'dinosaurs' to install a theocracy.
In the end it is always about power. The power over others. You have to ask yourself who would ultimately benefit from an American Theocracy and who would suffer. It isn't really personal it is just business.
There is nothing more terrifying than watching religious zealots drool over the prospect of controlling a country and it's arsenal of economic and military weapons.
With all the subtle sneaky cruelty of the boiling frog experiment these zealots had hoped to boil us all.
A few frogs like Dawkins realised that the water was heating up and jumped out.
American theocracy? Sorry, could we focus on something realistic?
And corkscrew, Dawkins IS anti religion per se. He says so himself.
And corkscrew, Dawkins IS anti religion per se. He says so himself.
My point isn't that he's not anti-religion, but that his anti-religiosity is a consequence of his other beliefs rather than an end in itself. He's pro-rationality; being anti-religion is merely a side-effect.
Oh, and I'd tend to agree with you about the "theocracy" bit. It leads too easily to the question "so whose version of religion are we basing this on?"
American theocracy? Don't we have one already?
Check out the number of non-Christians in any public office. Then check out the number of non-Judeo-Christians. (After WWII it has become unwise to bash Jews unless you are quite sure of your audience. Anyone else is still fair game.) It goes far beyond demographics. In spite of the high-sounding principles of the Constitution, this nation is unmistakably ruled by Christians and anyone else is quite aware that they are second-class citizens and they had better not dare to have a contrary opinion in public.
Here's one example.
Defending evolution specifically is all well and good, but it is only treating the symptoms. Without a real end to religious discrimination in this country, evolution will remain one of the zealots' targets - and not the only one.
And most religions can't help discriminating against people that don't belong to them. They basically define good and evil in terms of allegiance to their particular god - so that anyone outside the faith is *by definition* a fundamentally evil person, even if they do some good things now and then. As long as people believe *that*, of course they won't let anyone outside the faith into elected office!
A pluralistic religious society might be able to avoid this hazard (if any candidate has to at least try to appeal to followers of several different religions to get enough votes to get elected, overt sectarianism is less likely), but a society with a clear majority religion manifestly can't. Or at least, hasn't.
I remain mystified why Dawkins believes that the Biblical God--who by definition stands outside space and time--is scientifically testable.
Is his background in basic philosophy really that impoverished? Or is it just that he can't resist clinging to a convenient straw man?
If there is a god who is truely outside of space/time then it follows that one of the following must be true:
1) This 'god' is totally outside of our reality and is unable to influence the real world. (In which case why call him/her/it 'god'?)
or
2) This 'god' does interact with our reality and those interactions should, in principal be empirically detectable.
Don't you just love the sophistry behind Mr. Farrell's post?
The Biblical god is credited with creating the world in six days less than 6,000 years ago. He's also credited with making the sun stand still, causing a worldwide flood and enabling the Israelites to conquer numerous empuires throughout their inglorious history. Of course, all of that is bunk, but let's ignore the fact that all of these claims are certifiable nonsense and instead accuse Professor Dawkins of ad hom argumentation.
Richer than dog shit.
Dawkins is absolutely right to the extent that many unbelievers are engaged in the logic of the enemy of my enemy is my friend. We put up with the cognitive dissonance of "believers" so long as they will stand with us against the true believers, which is no misnomer. I hope I live long enough to see the day that this unholy matrimony is no longer necessary.
And I'm glad that Galileo and other geniuses felt no conflict with religion. Dr. Ken Miller is a brilliant man who also sees no conflict. The difference is, Darwin, Kepler and Galileo weren't around long enough to see other scientists take their discoveries to the place we are today - namely a universe without rhyme or reason given almost completely to chaos. Ken Miller on the other hand simply ignores this unpleasant fact through psychological compartmentalization.
Dawkins doesn't do much for me. I think he is anti-religion from a position of personal faith that he desperately wishes could be something more than just his own faith that there is no supreme being "out there."
Completely apart from my own beliefs (everyone believes in something), as an anthropologist, I have no problem with religion. I view it as an expression of who we are as human beings. It appears that Homo sapiens sapiens is the only creature on this planet to have ever developed the ability to conceptualize something like religious beliefs. As a scientist who has worked with these issues most of his adult life, it seems all rather normal to me.
Dawkins appears to be taking a unique page of his own out of the discredited nonsense that characterized natural science in the late 19th century and earlier 20th century. I am reminded of the term "race," which was predicated on the assumption that there were several different 'types' of human beings on a natural race track through time to see which would eventual sprint faster and win out as the best kind of human---which of course was assumed to be the Englishman with his tea cup in hand and monocle in eye.
Similarly, Dawkins has posited some sort of sociocultural "race" between religion and science in which one will win out and the other will be vanquished forever as the hopeless dark skinned African that he really is. I think this racetrack concept is a false set up that will never pan out culturally in this way. A thousand years from now, there will be science and there will be religion. Science is useful, and in a seemingly infinite universe, there may be an infinity of new things that only science can discover and verify. By the same token, we will still have religion simply because we are human. To be religious is to be Homo s.s. to be Homo s.s is to be religious (or at least be partaker in some kind of metaphysical belief system). The only thing I can see that might change that would be some unusual turn in human evolution itself---down a path where the ability to conceptualize becomes a nonadaptive trait (like down at the Separate Baptist Church) that is selected against. However, my guess would be that any such change like this would also work against the maintenance of sound scentific thinking abilities as well (like at the Discovery Institute).
Pat, I love your blog, but can you please stay away from religious rhetoric the far right usually tries to stick to us? Calling Dawkins an "apostle" only serves to exacerbate their myth of some "Darwinian Priesthood" telling lies and attempting to make prayer illegal, or something crazy to that effect.
Religion is the problem and Dawkins is right to attack it frontally. A good critique of religious moderation and respect for religious belief is given by Sam Harris in "The End of Faith".
A lecture by Harris at a conference known as SALT,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E...related&
search=
A short version,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J...h?
v=J3YOIImOoYM
Also, I feel that the points on Kepler and Galileo are incorrect. They were, like everyone, people who lived in their day and age. How do you expect them to get out of their social framework? Galileo was Catholic and Kepler Lutheran. Those were the societies they lived in. Aristotle and Archemides lived in their world's belief system.
Natural science progress was made in small steps in spite of religious dogma, not because the dogma somehow nurtured it.
For a more complete view of Kepler, see the third episode of Carl Sagan's Cosmos Series,
http://www.cosmos.4x2.net/
As Sagan concludes about Kepler,
"He preferred the hard truth to his dearest illusions. That is the heart of science." Ken Miller could learn from that.
Dawkins doesn't do much for me. I think he is anti-religion from a position of personal faith that he desperately wishes could be something more than just his own faith that there is no supreme being "out there."
My understanding is that he's areligious due to a perceived lack of objective evidence for religion, and antireligious due to a perception that arational beliefs, especially socially glorified ones, are wasteful in the short term and dangerous in the long term.
(For the record, I think he's wrong on point 2. But that's an argument for another day. I would certainly agree with him that lack of religion is the only rational default stance, and hence such a stance can't really be described as "personal faith")
Completely apart from my own beliefs (everyone believes in something), as an anthropologist, I have no problem with religion. I view it as an expression of who we are as human beings.
Firstly, may I note that I disagree with the spirit of your parenthetical comment here. I for one do my utmost not to believe in anything for which the evidence is lacking, and there are many more like me.
I'd tend to agree with your characterisation of religion. The only problem to my mind arises when "faith" is treated as socially-glorified excuse for intellectual laziness. If people want to believe stuff, that's fine by me - but it's not a good way to run a society.
Dawkins goes further than me on this, seeing these "potato chips for the mind" as being inherently a bad thing. I'd strongly disagree with this - there are scenarios in which religious belief can be very handy to an individual (think placebo effect).
I think the placebo effect is outweighed by the substitution effect (failing to seek material remedies because you put your trust in god - and when he doesn't come through, you're hosed).
Believing that your cancer will get better without having to do anything about it (except pray) is far from a harmless belief. And believing that those guys over there should be slaughtered for the greater glory of god, well, that's just vicious and barbaric.
I have no problem with personally expressing your spiritual side. I do have a problem with taking your visions as factually true, and I have a *large* problem with trying to convince other people to do what you believe god wants them to do. Religious coercion is very common and very harmful. Whether it can be separated from religion itself is an interesing question to ponder sometime when there aren't dozens of religious wars and religious corruption of education threatening us.
"Believing that your cancer will get better without having to do anything about it (except pray) is far from a harmless belief."
I thought that praying for a specific outcome wasn't kosher, anyway. Praying for the strength to endure the chemo while seeking the best medical help is a solution that works for some.
"“The perception of a conflict has emerged roughly within the last 130 years or so."
Yea, when religion had complete and utter control over anything it wanted. Once the scientific method started tackling issues that religion saw as it's own, many religous types got testy. It's alwasy been that way, and as long as we have doctrinare religous types around it alwasy will be.
Revealed religion is a threat because no matter how you try and argue the validity of it, it always comes back to 'it's so because I belive it, or I feel it'. When some guy feels that 'god' told him to blow up those who disagree with their interpretation of religion, your ability to convince them otherwise is castrated. As far as Gould goes, Dawkins parried that feble argument quite well last night, and anyone who was there saw how effective his metaphor was.
I personally loved Dawkins talk last night, and I know my friends and I aplauded it widly. I also know that a great many Kansas Citizens for Science wish he had never opened his mouth. He tackled that train of thought full on last night, and I'm glad he did. Sam Harris and Dawkins (among other) relize the problem with the tepid religous out there, in that they make it safe for the nutcases and radicals to proliferate. Perhaps if the moderate religous types would put up the effort and money to curtail the radicals it might be a different matter. I personally am not going to hold my breath waiting for it.
Lastly, there was an opportunity for Dr. Dawkins to meet the people fighting the good fight in Kansas against ID, including several from KCFS. A great many of them declined to have a lunch with him, because (I assume) they thought he was too militant. Their loss. I've met him several times in the past couple of years, and he is a fantastic fellow, and a great human being.
Dave
In another episode of Carl Sagan's Cosmos series, 4 or 5, he says,
"In every time and culture, there are pressures to conform to the prevailing prejudices. But there are also in every time and place those who value the truth, who record evidence faithfully. Future generations are in their debt."
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