I Like M&Ms

Dawkins, Harris and Dennett are changing the landscape of the discourse, forming an environment in which it is possible to talk about atheism and religion on a level field. Without them, we'd be forced to hide our atheism even more than before and allow the fundies to define us as amoral.

Absolutely right! And it's incredibly ironic and frustrating that the E-Team doesn't get this very simple point. They are totally free to engage the public, steeped in religious ignorance, with the sort of conciliatory appeasement strategy they advocate so strongly. Us M&M's are of a different mindset, namely that kowtowing to an ignorant public that considers us (at the very least) morally suspect is piss poor idea. And, furthermore, we generally happen to be of the opinion that appeasing one form of religious ignorance (e.g., the dogmas of Christianity) so that you may possibly be able to get rid of another (e.g., creationism) is a bit incongruous.

Appeasing superstition and ignorance isn't a valid strategy at all. It's a self-defeating pipe dream to think that giving such people the idea that their grievances with us godless folk are legitimate is going to somehow wean America off of it's obsession with anti-scientism, much less advance the position of the godless in society.

Why can Creationists &/or Intelligent Design (ID) advocates solve Sudoku Number Puzzles so quickly?

THEY JUST PUT A G IN ALL THE EMPTY SQUARES.

Its just a matter of faith! Its the same method creationists and now ID specialists resort to in trying to prove their unsustainable intelligent design theory. Creationists can just stop searching for reality by just assuming all gaps in current understanding and/or knowledge of evolution must be filled with a (G=god) solution. As Prof Richard Dawkins explains in chapter four of The GOD Delusion; If an apparent gap is found, it is assumed that God, by default must fill it. Saves them having to think and question I suppose.

Much like the progress one makes by eliminating the possible numbers in each square as a Sudoku puzzle is solved, gaps shrink as science advances and God is threatened with eventually having nothing to do and nowhere to hide. This of course worries thoughtful theologians however the greater worry for scientists (and the rest of us) is that groups through politics or fear will walk away from the essential part of the scientific enterprise [that is] to admit ignorance.

Nothing is more dangerous than a, I have all the answers arrogant preacher followed by a bunch of non-thinking god-botherers driven by blind faith who absolve themselves from their societal responsibilities with the comfort of unquestioning feeble-minds!

Although some see Dawkins as a bit of a raver and less scientific in his arguments than he could (should) be, if you read Pascal Boyer's writings (e.g. "Gods, Spirits and the Mental Instincts that Create Them"), Dawkins 'emotional' approach to battling the ID lobby is also needed. I read recently a quote (cant remember whos or where) that goes along the line of: you cannot logic a man out of a point of view that logic didnt get him to in the first place. Faith is driven by fear, passion, hardwired avoidance mechanisms and emotion and that is exactly what realists need to stimulate to reverse the current worrying trend by the slick religious nutters to sell their unpalatable and dangerous certainties.

Its time to organise, its time to fight I for one dont want to leave this problem for the next generation to solve alone.

By the way a good introduction to Boyer (Henry Luce Professor of Individual and Collective Memory at Washington University in St. Louis), can be found here:
http://artsci.wustl.edu/%7Epboyer/LuceWebSite/LucePeople.html and there are a few notes, quotes and summaries on my own blog.

caliibre

I think this is the best post I have seen on this subject (or at least the one that is closest to my view) and certainly seems less clouded by anger, frustration and irrationality than many of the others.
I said this before, but there is an idea being put forward that atheists should stay in the closet. It's fine for the religious to talk about their faith and their belief that God is somehow responsible, but we have to shut up and keep quiet, appease the bigots in case they won't work with us if they discover we think some of their beliefs foolish. Do the same rules apply to them? Apparently not.

I'm sorry ... I don't remember signing up for a campaign agaisnt religion, much less a political fight.

Or is this one of those "if you ain't fer us, yer agin' us" thingies that PZ says atheists don't engage in?

It is a political fight, wishing it to be so or not.

There is nothing wrong or impolite of saying it is an "us vs. them" fight.

WWII was an "us vs. them" fight. We did not want it, Hitler did. We won by bold unified action.

War on Enlightement is an "us vs. them" fight. We do not want it, Dobson/Falwell/Robertson crowd does. We will win by bold unified action.

Some generals have expertise in particular fights (e.g., against Creationism, or against anti-choice movement, etc.) and do not want to fight all the other battles in the war - this is fine as not everyone has the time or expertise to do everything. But they should not try to silence the generals who do want to fight the whole war. After all, only winning the whole war can help win individual battles. Without the victory over fundamentalists, all the little battles over creationism are for naught, and we'll start loosing those in the future as well.

'Mealy-mouthed' moderates are, for instance, "liberal Christians" who believe in evolution and are generally on right side of issues but do not raise any voices against their fundie brethren and, when push comes to shove, side with them (as they are all Christians) against us.

Question: do such 'liberal Christians' that you describe comprise, in your mind, the set of all 'liberal Christians'? Or are there 'liberal Christians' who 'believe in evolution and are generally on the right side of issue' but do raise voices against their fundie 'brethren', and when push comes to shove, side against them.

It seems to me that a 'liberal Christian' is one who typically sides with the atheists and agnostics against the fundies. And there are plenty of them -- indeed, this sort of 'liberal Christianity' was once the norm, at least to the extent that the rise of fundamentalism in the USA has been seen as a major change.

Women did not gain equality by being quiet and not rocking the boat. African-Amercans did not gain equality by being quiet and not rocking the boat. Gays did not gain equality by being quiet and not rocking the boat.

Nor did women gain equality (to the extent that they have gained it) by eliminating men. Nor did African-Americans gain equality by eliminating whites, or gays by eliminating straights. And none of these groups gained equality by trying to show that it wasn't okay to be otherwise -- gays don't claim that it is foolish or dangerous to be straight. But the rhetoric from the M&M side sounds eliminationist. Even if they disclaim a desire to eliminate believers, they certainly talk about eliminating belief, of any kind. So the analogy to other civil rights struggles is not apt.

War on Enlightement is an "us vs. them" fight. We do not want it, Dobson/Falwell/Robertson crowd does. We will win by bold unified action.

Whatcha mean "we," white eyes?

One of those Enlightenment ideals you are so in favor of was respect for people's religious beliefs as long as they were kept separate from government and weren't imposed by fiat. I'm more than willing to speak out against what people like Dobson, Falwell and Robertson do but I won't lump Ken Miller, Francis Collins, George Coyne, etc., etc. in with them and paint them all with the same broad brush.

One of the reasons I don't like the Dobson/Falwell/Robertson crowd is that to them, everything is black and white. Why would I want to think like them?

First let me thank you for actually having an intelligent description of your position without descending into the nastiness that everyone else has gotten involved in.

That said, I would like you to clarify a small point. You say that your goal is to convince liberal Christians to be more vocal in their opposition to the conservative policies of the religious right. However, you also seem to imply that as long as the liberal Christians remain Christians, they by definition reject reason and are your enemy. If I am correct in my reading (and I by no means am sure that I am) could you state whether you believe that theisism is the "enemy" being fought or whether the "enemy" is not simply creationism, but the conservative agenda.

The enemy is conservative agenda.

As I stated above, I am not interested (and, being realistic, I have no hope for it anyway) in eliminating religion. I am interested in changing the discourse and the environment - making it like one I described in that post I linked to (the "I, Coturnix" one): churches and seminaries are open, people go if they want to, but they keep pretty quiet about it out of fear of ridicule, and certainly do not try to infuse their religion into politics.

There are preciously few atheists in this country. We cannot do it alone. We have to wake-up the liberal Christians and shows them that we are on the same side - for reason and rationality. Some of them need a dose of Ken Miller first to "warm up" to the idea. Others are more "ready" and need to hear the Dawkins/Harris call to action. It is them who need to be most vocal and most active in sending the fundies under the rock. As long as they keep quiet, they enable the fundies to walk over Enlightment. Obviously, there is nothing eliminationist about this, and if I understand M&M correctly, they agree with me on this as well.

While I would like to see a greater spread of atheism in the USA, I am not interested in eliminating the religious, just like women are not interested in eliminating men, just re-educationg them. We cannot start re-educating the liberal Christians as long as the environment is such that they have no idea what atheism means (they think it is a dirty word) and believe that atheists are amoral - ideas they picked up from their fundie brethren.

The fundies already think we are Satan personified and that will not change. But we need to make the liberal religionists (not only Christians) see that we have no horns and tails. That will only happen if there is a vigorous public debate on all types of media. Media will have Dawkins on every day if they think it is a story of the day. It will become the story of the day only if we are vocal and persistent.

It took women decades, it took Blacks decades, gays had only a decade or so so far - such changes do not happen overnight. But, as long as we "respect" the beliefs of others and do not ridicule religion, the fundies will have the upper hand. We need to hammer our message and have our statements out every day for many years before it sinks in and a kid professing belief in God in a classroom is received with sneeres by his peers. This kind of debate will place liberal Christians between the rock and the hard pkace and force them to respond. How? By trying to redefine what religion is and taking the mantle of religion away form the fundies, making religion acceptable again and putting a new, more benevolent face on it.

My My My.

I tend to some other interests for a few days and all Hell breaks lose. Ed Brayton, as usual, is throwing accusations around trying to seem important. One of his more absurd statements is;

But some, like Larry Moran, PZ Myers, Richard Dawkins, Gary Hurd and others, are involved in an entirely different battle. For them, it's not enough to protect science education from the attacks of some religious people; religion itself, in any form, is to be attacked and destroyed by any means necessary.

First, I am flattered to be mentioned together with Moran, Myers and Dawkins, but it is totally inappropriate. I have at best a tiny fraction of the scientific accomplishments of these men, or their public influence. Brayton has never contributed to science or education and has comparatively little influence, so this is clearly a "division by zero" problem.

Nor have I ever considered it necessary to eliminate religion, regardless of means. I don't think that science can do this in any event. The only certain path to atheism I know of is to study theology.

Let me propose a simple analogy; the pro-science education effort is like a dog. There is the wagging tail at one end, and the bark and even teeth at the other. PZ, Dawkins and others are at the front. Pat, Nick and others are the friendly, inclusive wagging tail and Ed Brayton is the little part just below the wag. I'm the little flea whispering that if you don't want to divide forces, then ignore divisive people like Ed who demand that you have to be on "his" side and don't step in the mess he leaves on the floor.

Thank you for pasting this here - I was about to copy your dog metaphor here myself LOL

You're an excellent teacher, I think the best on ScienceBlogs. I have enjoyed, appreciated, and learned from your lucid descriptions of biology.

But now I need to ask you to repeat yourself so that I can be absolutely sure that I'm understanding you. You think it is a good idea that our society be one in which some people "keep pretty quiet about [their views on religion] out of fear," so long as those who creep about silently in fear are not the ones who share your own particular views on religion? You think that a healthy, desireable education is one in which a teacher permits a child expressing his/her opnion in "a classroom is received with sneeres[sic]" from the other children, so long, of course, as the child being so treated hasn't been taught to share your own particular views on religion? This is the future that you want us all to join in working for: the same situation we have now, where some people are constantly afraid because of what they think and where children are mocked in a classroom for speaking their thoughts, just as long as those mocked and afraid are not those who agree with your particular opinions about religion? Will you lead out to this brave new world by going to your family next Thanksgiving and mocking the young children while trying to make the adults afraid to say what they think?

This seems impossible for me to believe, and yet it all seems to be exactly what you just said. As a good educator, you know that it is sometimes necessary to repeat yourself or paraphrase yourself for your audience to understand. If I am not grasping your meaning, I apologize; please help me to understand what you are saying here.

It took women decades, it took Blacks decades, gays had only a decade or so so far - such changes do not happen overnight. But, as long as we "respect" the beliefs of others and do not ridicule religion, the fundies will have the upper hand

But it was not through the ridicule of men in general, but of sexist beliefs, and not the ridicule of whites in general, but of racist beliefs, that sexism and racism were (to some extent) overcome. Yet you, and M&M want ridicule of religion of all stripes, whereas by analogy you should restrict yourself to ridiculing the fundamentalist beliefs.

If the pro-science education effort is like a dog, by the way, there's no question who is at the front -- it's people like Eugenie Scott and Nick Matzke, who are doing the real work out there.

I grew up in such a place and it was great! Believers did not live in fear, except in fear of teasing (if young) or fear of being ignored (if old). That put religion at its natural place - at the margins: an interesting social activity that some percentage of the population will always need for emotional reasons, as well as an activity that produces great art, takes care of the downtrodden, etc.

If you have read the "I, Coturnix" post linked above, you know my atheist Dad and I sang in church! You know a friend of mine was in the seminary (his brother was a cop) - we never teased him, just thought he was weird.

As a teacher I would not like to see any kid sneered at in my classroom and if such a thing happened I would make it clear that the behavior is unacceptable. But kids are mean - they will do it.

I'd rather live in a society in which kids tease their peers who are religious (and get chastized for disrespect by the adults) than in a society in which kids tease (or worse) their peers who are atheist AND the adults go along. Such a society has its priorities straight - rationality is the order of the day and religion is something that a minority of people indulge in for their own personal reasons which, even if psychopathological, should not be disrespected.

But to get to that point, we have to start by ridiculing religion. That will get the liberal religionists out of their deep slumber and fight to reclaim the religion away from the fundies.

And as I stated in the previous post, just below, I made sure that my kids never show disrespect to others who pray etc.

Nobody suggests ridiculing people. Ridiculing silly beliefs is in order, though, and let the people decide for themselves if they want to hold such beliefs any more or not. Without ridiculing, and without information provided by Dawkins et al., many will never self-examine their beliefs in the first place and the fundies will havge an easy time instituting their theocracy.

Thank you for pasting this here - I was about to copy your dog metaphor here myself LOL

Posted by: coturnix |

Glad you liked it. It seems appropriate. C'n'P away. I can't keep up.

I'd rather live in a society in which kids tease their peers who are religious (and get chastized for disrespect by the adults) than in a society in which kids tease (or worse) their peers who are atheist AND the adults go along.

I hope we can agree that it's fortunate that these aren't the only choices for our nation's children's future. We can do better than either. I managed to raise two children who didn't tease, sneer at, or insult other children for expressing honest opinions. If I can do it, certainly there are many others, knowing far more about child-raising techniques than I knew, who can do it too. Obviously you do it, and I respect you for that.

Thank you for your patient clarifications.

It would be nice to expect perfection, and we can do as much as we can to raise our kids well, but in the real world kids tease. Let's use this as a 'canary in the mine' example, something that tells us about the Zeitgeist, not something we actually want to see.

Excellent post.

I wish I had written it. :-)

I have one minor quibble about ....

While Lennonnesque Imaginings of a world without religion are cute fantasies, we are a little bit more realistic. We know that religion is here to stay no matter what we do ...

I think you're being too pessimistic. Many European countries are effectively secular right now (Sweden is the best example). Religion is not a serious force in most of them (e.g. France). The USA is unusual among industrialized nations.

I currently live in a society where religion is not a prominent part of everyday life and I have every reason to believe that it will be a less important in the future. Look to other countries for inspiration. There's hope.

Perhaps I should go back and reread the whole argument carefully. The impression i got, glancing through all the posts over the last few days was that the argument went something like this:

1 Larry Moran: they should expel any kid who doesn't believe in evolution
2 Ed Brayton and several others: that's fuckin' crazy, man. 18 year olds have crazy opinions, you don't cast them into the wilderness.
3 Larry Moran: Oh did I say that? I was just kidding.
4 PZ Myers: (tazmanian devil noises) Brackafrackin Smackablackan Drool Drool! Atheists are great and you cowards are appeasers and Ed Brayton is a mediocre shithead non-professor fatass retard who calls people names! I hate Panda's Thumb!
(and so on, and so forth)

Maybe I should go back and reread everything, but it looks like PZ was confused and lashing out.

Yes, you should re-read the whole thing because the whole school-admissions story is just a small tangent.

But to get to that point, we have to start by ridiculing religion. That will get the liberal religionists out of their deep slumber and fight to reclaim the religion away from the fundies.

[Boggle] We are supposed ridicule all religion (as in Larry saying Ken Miller is as bad or worse for science education as young-Earth creationists) to get liberal theists on our side? In what reality do you find people being attacked and sneered at (even while you are hushing your children for being mean to the poor unfortunates) do they then turn around and lick your hand, thank you for your condescension and support your goals? Do you really think Ken Miller and people like him are so stupid?

I've been following this whole give-and-take, and I've been having a hard time understanding it. I read what Ed and "his team" say, and I basically agree. Then I read PZ and "his team", and I also agree. I think in my mind, I've distilled this down to two different fights. Fight 1 is a battle over science education. What is science? What belongs in the classroom? For this fight, anyone who understands and supports the naturalistic investigation of worldly phenomena is welcome. In my mind, I don't care if they are christian, buddhist, atheist, muslim, or raelian (or liberal or conservative for that matter). If a local school board is attempting to promote ID in high schools, I'll seek support to fight this from anyone who agrees with my point of view.

But then there is fight 2, which is in some ways bigger, more all consuming. This is the fight that Dawkins is fighting, naturalism vs. supernaturalism. Again, I find myself completely in agreement with these arguments. In general political discussions, I find myself using this approach as a guiding principle. Supporting the Dawkins approach as a general philosophy is important to make people realize that a) atheists aren't baby-eating narcissists who are looking for any excuse to act immorally, and b) the naturalistic view of the world works, period. Any time a religious vs. naturalistic argument over a worldly phenomenon has occurred, naturalism has won. And it's important to point that out at every possible turn.

I don't want to choose sides overall, I just want to focus on what is the key battle currently being fought, and use the proper tactics for that battle. I feel that PZ and Ed are arguing about different fights. Clearly, there is no love lost between them, but they're talking past each other, and now are descending into accusations of lying and quote-mining. Both have a point.

I for one am not choosing sides. I agree with Ed. I agree with PZ. It just depends on which battle we are talking about.

A couple of people are saying that these are two different fights. No! One is a subset of the other. One is a battle, the other is the war. While we have been lucky with the battle so far, we'll lose it eventually, unless we win the war.

I agree that one battle is consumed by the second, larger war. And we need to use BOTH perspectives--make alliances with groups that will help us in small battles, but don't become wedded to those groups. There's a distinction there that I think we can make. We can work with theistic evolutionists under some narrow circumstances. That doesn't mean we turn off our criticism of their approach as a larger strategy, just that we will work with them when our goals are the same.

What do you mean, "no one is advocating ridicule"? I advocate ridicule. And sarcasm, and scorn, and mockery, and humor of all types and kinds.

"Power, money, persuasion, supplication, persecution -- these can lift at a colossal humbug -- push it a little -- weaken it a little over the course of a century; but only laughter can blow it to rags and atoms at a blast. Against the assault of laughter nothing can stand."

- Samuel Clemens

We should ridicule irrationality, and encourage others to do so. We should shame the people who say stupid things about stupid beliefs - and we should shame those people who have stupid beliefs whether they try to publically discuss them or not. We should laugh at willful ignorance, propaganda, self-righteousness, and delusion, because laughter is the most (and sometimes only) powerful weapon we have against those things.

Exactly. Ridicule works. If they don't want to be ridiculed they should re-examine their silly beliefs and change them. The high visibility of the debate will also serve a function of readily providing the relevant information they need to re-examine their beliefs. Once they change them, no need to get ridiculed any more, and they are welcome to the sane society again.

As I said in the main body of the post, it is a very American idea that religion should be treated with respect. While I will respect a person, I will tell the person to his/her face why I think his/her beliefs are wrong. That is ridiculing the belief while respecting the person. Persons suffering from mental illness deserve our respect - their mental illness does not.

Unfortunately, it is the deeply religious who get personally offended when someone criticizes their religion. I do not know if this is their game, or if they really feel so personally wedded to their religion. In any way, it is their problem, not ours, and they need to grow up.

"My answer is that the big war is not between evolution and creationism, but between naturalism and supernaturalism."

Perhaps Dawkins is using the words in different ways than I would.... but I would say

The big war is not between naturalism and supernaturalism, but between empiricism and blind faith. Empiricism is winning, and blind faith is resorting, in desperation, to outright lies and ad hominem attacks. Which are pretty effective.

Supernaturalism happens to have been largely discredited by evidence, but that's a side effect. The most fundamental problem is people who believe in things *despite evidence to the contrary*. The "Believe me, not your own lying eyes" thing.

If you dig down, the worst of this anti-empirical behavior is attributable to outright brainwashing techniques, such as are used by many Christian groups.

Interestingly, the attitudes of many literalist fundamentalist Christians lend themselves well in some ways to being "deconverted" by reading aggressive atheist works like Dawkins's. Once you break the very powerful brainwashing cycle, and they notice that neither their holy book nor anyone else's is literally true, they are quite capable of grabbing onto empiricism and rationalism really really tight.

This is because they're not mystics. Mystics require a different, mellower approach. In the case of anti-scientific mystics, the gap isn't lack of empiricism, it's lack of rationalism. I'm not sure how to address this.

"Unfortunately, it is the deeply religious who get personally offended when someone criticizes their religion." It's because of the brainwashing. Seriously. _Leaving the Fold_ covers, not very deeply but quite comprehensively, the brainwashing methods used by most Christian organizations.

Breaking through brainwashing requires fairly aggressive tactics.

What do you mean, "no one is advocating ridicule"? I advocate ridicule. And sarcasm, and scorn, and mockery, and humor of all types and kinds.

"Power, money, persuasion, supplication, persecution -- these can lift at a colossal humbug -- push it a little -- weaken it a little over the course of a century; but only laughter can blow it to rags and atoms at a blast. Against the assault of laughter nothing can stand."
- Samuel Clemens
We should ridicule irrationality, and encourage others to do so. We should shame the people who say stupid things about stupid beliefs - and we should shame those people who have stupid beliefs whether they try to publically discuss them or not. We should laugh at willful ignorance, propaganda, self-righteousness, and delusion, because laughter is the most (and sometimes only) powerful weapon we have against those things.

asdas