Ron Numbers interview at Salon

He must be an appeaser.

I think that one of the side-effects of the academicization, if you will, of religion is that many educated people, surrounded by educated people all day, tend to lose sight of the fact that religion as practiced by normal, everyday folk is much different from what takes place in the ivory towers of academic philosophy. The result is that many such people feel the need to resolve relatively unimportant issues before they go on the attack against religion.

I would feel a lot better if Dawkins' book (and that of Dennett, Harris, and the coming on by Vic Stenger) just got people thinking about religion and got some people to realize that such beliefs are not as concrete and certain as they assume.

When religious people reject evolution because it contradicts the Bible, they are not on the level.

In my youth I read the Bible twice, end to end, not skipping any parts of it (even the dreary 'begats'). Each time it was a horror show.

Claiming the Bible is an authority when you don't know what's in it is a falsehood of the highest order -- an outright shameless lie.

I have learned that Christians prefer not to know what's in the Bible. Why? Because they know better. The bulk of it contradicts their personal preferences ('faith'), and they wildly interpret the few parts they like, which are those that are not obviously in collision with their preferred opinions (also called 'faith').

To see how crazy the Bible is, read Leviticus. It's short enough to read in one sitting, and it's got plenty of shock value. Among God's abominations are eating rabbit meat and snails (Death to the French?), tattoos, weekly payroll, and payroll taxes. It has a section on circumcised fruit (no joke). It gives the death sentence for blasphemy, adultery, and killing any man -- the last of which invites ridicule for the inherent self-contradiction: stone the sinner to death, then stone those stoners, then stone those stoners ... and we end up with who shall stone to death the last stoner standing?

Leviticus is shameful, disgusting, horrid, and insane. Why are religious people who cite the Bible not made to defend its ugliness?

Roy said (in part) ...

When religious people reject evolution because it contradicts the Bible, they are not on the level. ...snip... I have learned that Christians prefer not to know what's in the Bible. ...snip... they wildly interpret the few parts they like, which are those that are not obviously in collision with their preferred opinions (also called 'faith').

It seems to me that this is the type of absolutist & unsupportable statements that Numbers rightly criticizes.

I know a number of Christians who do not fit your wild stereotypes ... I guess you just hadn't met them before you made your unqualified statements.

Ronald Numbers is definitely an appeaser. Here's the proof ...

My sense is that you don't much like the stridency of certain atheists. The most obvious examples would be Richard Dawkins and Daniel Dennett.

Right. I don't know what the figures are right now, but I bet half of the scientists in America believe in some type of God. So I think Dawkins and Dennett are in a minority of evolutionists in saying that evolution is atheistic. I also think it does a terrible disservice to public policy in the United States.

So even if they believe that, you're saying, politically, it's a real mistake for them to link atheism to evolution?

Yes. Because in the United States, our public schools are supposed to be religiously neutral. If evolution is in fact inherently atheistic, we probably shouldn't be teaching it in the schools. And that makes it very difficult when you have some prominent people like Dawkins, who's a well-credentialed biologist, saying, "It really is atheistic." He could undercut -- not because he wants to -- but he could undercut the ability of American schools to teach evolution.

Dawkins himself acknowledges that, politically, this is not the smartest thing to do. But he says there is a higher principle at stake, and it's really the war between supernaturalism and naturalism. He says that's the real fight he's waging.

But you have to be careful. In the United States, the 90 percent who are theists far outnumber the 10 percent who are nontheists. So you want to remember that you are a minority, and that you need to get along, so some compromise might be in order. I'm not suggesting that he should compromise his own views. But by arguing not only that the implications of evolution for him are atheistic but that evolution is inherently atheistic is a risky thing.

So, Brits like Dawkins should be careful what they say about religion because it might make American politics more difficult. I'm sure that argument is going to work. :-)

Yeah, I didn't think much of Numbers after reading that interview. You picked the wrong part, though: being an agnostic is fine, and I don't even have any difficulty with his lingering sentiments for religious belief. It's the stupid futility of continuing to pretend that religion isn't the root of the problem.

Roy,

What planet are you on? You need to do some research. Maybe you'd like to start with someone fairly straightforward, like Matthew Henry's commentary of Leviticus,--although he may prove to difficult, given your comment:

http://www.ccel.org/ccel/henry/mhc1.iii.i.html

If you need more examples of "religious people" who defend Leviticus let me know--although I don't know of any who were "made" to defend it. All the ones I know did it voluntarily.

ASIDE: typos be damned, I want to post just after Bobbsey twins...

Are you an atheist?
I don't think so. I think that's a belief -- that there's no God. I really wanted to have religious beliefs for a long time. I miss not having the certainty of religious knowledge that I grew up with. But after a number of years of trying to resolve these issues, I decided they're not resolvable. So I think the term "agnostic" would be best for me.

Heavy, heavy sigh. Not all of us atheists make the positive assumption that there is no God. I'm an atheist because I haven't seen any evidence to convince me that God is real; that's different than saying I believe that there's no God.

Heavier sigh. I never said all atheists positively assert there is no God, nor does Numbers. But all atheists think there is no God.

I never said all atheists positively assert there is no God, nor does Numbers.

It's hard to read that quote any other way; Numbers certainly implies that atheism asserts that there's no God.

But all atheists think there is no God.

All atheists don't believe in God. I'm an atheist because I think there's no clear evidence for God; that's not the same as thinking there is no God.

I know that to most people this is hair-splitting at its finest, but to me it's a real and substantive point.

The atheism is a belief canard is getting old, well it is old.

At least he doesn't say its a religion.

Not believing in god is a belief just like not collecting stamps is a hobby.