Jerry Coyne has a new book out, Faith Versus Fact: Why Science and Religion Are Incompatible
One of those apologists is Sean Illing, writing for Salon.
On Sunday, biologist and blogger Jerry Coyne posted a lengthy response to my piece on his website. Coyne’s critique was echoed on Twitter by several prominent New Atheists, such as Richard Dawkins and Steven Pinker. Dawkins in particular wrote:
“I DON’T give a damn if people find religious belief comfortable or meaningful. I only care whether it’s true.”
I, too, care about the truth, but comments like this are conversation-stoppers. The potential to persuade is immediately lost. If Dawkins has any aspirations beyond preaching to the choir, why would he not care what people find meaningful? The question here is simple: Do the so-called New Atheists want to win an argument, or do they want to make the world less dogmatic? Do they want to preach to the converted, or do they want to reach well-intentioned believers who reject Bronze Age beliefs, yet find something valuable in religion nonetheless?
I question whether Illing is actually interested in the truth, or is more concerned about appearing interested in the truth. Rather than questioning the motives and tactics of atheists, shouldn’t he be instead writing insightful, sensitive, deep critiques of religion? I’m always made suspicious by people who concede that maybe we really should care about the truth of religion, but hey, we need to be even more worried about those damned atheists. I can see right through their guise of thoughtful reasonableness to the actual nonsense they’re supporting. Especially when they pull this move, listing all the wonderful things about religion.
But denying the truth claims of religion won’t suffice, because religion is about much more than truth; it’s about meaning, values, tradition, consolation, community, and transcendence. Dawkins flew right past this point in his response. That’s unfortunate.
You know, you don’t have to believe in gods and ghosts to find meaning, values, tradition, consolation, community, and transcendence
, right? No one is objecting to community or values. We’re objecting to the dishonesty of using community and values as excuses to prop up irrelevant falsehoods. The real problem isn’t that most atheists are ignoring the assorted useful cultural baggage that religion claims to own, but that religion is such an emotional issue that its proponents refuse to distinguish the important core of human values from the gaudy supernatural dressings that faith drapes over them.
As an exercise that might possibly get believers away from their emotional biases, let’s imagine a similar situation. You visit a friend’s house, and there, dominating the living room, is an elaborate gadget. It is beautifully intricate, with cogs spinning smoothly, elaborate cams whirling to move pistons and levers, and mirrored silver balls gliding along bronze trackways, with an occasional ‘ping!’ or ‘click’ from relays and switches.
“That’s amazing!” you say. “It’s an impressive piece of work. What does it do?”
Well,
your friend says, it does quite a lot of things, actually, but mainly I’m using it to explore some possibilities in physics. I’m very interested in science and engineering.
“Possibilities? Like what?”
Like, ummm, you see — I do hope you can keep an open mind here — like…zero point energy.
“Like perpetual motion?” you say, startled.
That is the lay term,
he replies, but the community of scholars that studies these possibilities has a rather more sophisticated and nuanced understanding of the concept, you know.
“But you studied physics in college! You know about the laws of thermodynamics — you must know that the science is clear, that perpetual motion machines are impossible. If you’ve been studying these, you must also know that the empirical evidence is strong — there have been a multitude of weird devices built to generate free energy, and they’ve all been failures, and many have been fakes.”
Of course,
, he says, peevishly, I have nothing but respect for science. But I am sincere — I’m not trying to con anyone! — and it’s just possible we might discover something science doesn’t know about yet.
“But you’re proposing something that contradicts how the universe works, and without evidence…”
Stop. It doesn’t really matter whether we prove that zero point energy is feasible or not, because building this device has taught me a lot about precision machining, and I’ve made such good friends in the quantum vacuum zero-point energy community, and I find it very comforting to spend a few hours every day fine-tuning my machine. This isn’t about perpetual motion. You should be paying more attention to all the virtues on the side.
“Wait. A few hours a day? How long have you been working on this?”
Most of my life.
“So you’ve been pouring all of that time, effort, and skill into this project over all those years, and yet you’re trying to tell me that you don’t care whether it works or not, and the purpose of your device is entirely irrelevant and is minuscule in significance compared to the secondary virtues associated with constructing a giant Rube Goldberg machine in your living room?”
Exactly. Also, it really ties the room together, man.
And that’s how I feel about the finding something valuable in religion nonetheless
argument. It doesn’t hang together. When you find swarms of people investing huge amounts of time and money into a long-term project with dubious premises, it seems profoundly dishonest to pretend that the openly, loudly stated aims of the project are not a major contributor to participation. It’s like saying you’re a devout Catholic because you appreciate the Pope’s stylin’ attire. The clothes are real at least, but it honestly does not address at all why people are committed to such a bizarre and bogus exercise in convoluted metaphysics. That you get your reward not in the promise of a paradisial afterlife, but in the pleasures of getting to light a lot of little candles and eat crackers once a week.
You’ll have to excuse me, but I don’t believe a word of it. Not one word. That’s not a denial of the real pleasures of tall hats or exquisitely delicate machine work, but that anyone would commit themselves to bullshit they don’t believe in when they could get the same pleasures in honest and worthwhile causes.
The belief is real. It’s adherents ought to be a little embarrassed about it, and we ought not to be distracted by these post hoc excuses for it. So our friend has every right, and can believably get enjoyment out of the exercise, to build his perpetual motion machine — and we can even respect the skill going into it — but let’s not lie to each other and pretend that it’s about “community” or “ritual”. It’s about a lie that has sucked a talented human being into a dead end.
“I’ve made such good friends in the quantum vacuum zero-point energy community”
It was a great analogy up until that point. Anyone who can make friends in the quantum vacuum zero point energy community is clearly a gibbering loon who should be locked up for their own safety.
Well, honestly I think Illing is just trying to say that we need to understand why people choose religion, which is not about actual empirical truth.
Which explains why nobody has left religion behind since the popularity of people like Dawkins has taken off.
No. Wait. The other thing.
I mean, I understand the thinking behind “You can’t reason a person out of a position they haven’t reasoned themselves into.” It seems to be generally true. But clearly not always, or not in the long term. In the US at least, the rise of “strident” atheism (although “non apologetic” would be a more accurate term) is at least correlated with a significant increase in “nones”. That’s fairly strong evidence that in fact being quite clear about religion’s uselessness really does convince many people to give it up.
Illing is just making the old framing argument. It convinces me just exactly as much as it did the first time I heard it.
I very much like this little story. PZ, you really have a way with coming up with these very illustrative metaphors.
(It’s a shame that the very mention of Coyne and Dawkins at this point made me sympathize with Illing’s inane objections more than I otherwise would have though)
that argument that we should look at all the other good things that people get out of religion is the argument from the point of view of those who are in control of religion.
It is the same as a con-man saying look at how good that the marks felt before they found out it was a con,
Like Bernard Madoff pleading for mercy because he made his “clients” feel rich and prosperous while he was living the high life off their money and telling them nothing but lies.
uncle frogy
For pendantry’s sake, I feel like saying that there really are a small minority of people who consciously enjoy nonsense for the secondary benefits. I have a friend who is rather into UFO stuff… he posts on message boards, reads books, tries to stay current and is rather knowledge about the deep rabbit hole that is UFO conspiracy theories and abduction lore. He doesn’t believe a word of it, but he finds the stories interesting and enjoys interacting with that community.
The key part is, and this completely negates Illing’s argument, that if he was plainly honest about his skeptiscm he’d lose all those secondary benefits quickly. People like what Illing are describing in religion very likely exist, but can only particpate in those communities by deception. The vast majority of faith communities are held together by a shared lack of concern over whether or not what they are saying every weekend is actually true.
Even super-liberal groups like Unitarians and progressive Quakers rarely have serious discussion on whether “God” and shared religious tenants make sense. A shared lack of critical thinking on particular topics is what keeps these communities going.
And given that the “meaning, values, tradition, consolation, community, and transcendence” provided by religion are largely contingent on the religion itself being true, Illing’s point that the truth of it doesn’t matter would be…?
Religion is about meaning. Mostly by defining the meaning of life in reference to magical things that aren’t true.
Religion is about values. Mostly values that could be obtained through a secular morality, and other additional things that reference things that aren’t true, and are values that arbitrarily restrict and hurt people. (see: homophobia, Biblical views of women)
Religion is about tradition. Specifically, the tradition of doing things just like the religion tells you to them, no matter how disconnected from reality and no matter whether it negatively affects people.
Religion is about consolation. Mostly the consolation of telling them things about death and a Just World that aren’t true.
Religion is about community. Specifically, a community of people who believe the same things and that excludes all people who don’t believe in a set of things that is arbitrarily considered close enough. Also communities often divided along ethnic lines. Also communities that pressure conformity and providing financial support for a class of religious authorities.
Religion is about transcendence. And spirituality. And other vague words with positive connotations that, even when pinned down, are inconsistent with the dogmatic, authoritarian, strict and stifling structure of the vast majority of things considered religions.
Religion: Where cherry picking isn’t just for the holy texts!
@antiprepo 4
Ditto
I have seen more variations of the Courtiers’ Reply that you popularized while the religionists’ are restating their position in anticipation of the book coming out by Jerry Coyne. I for one am looking forward to reading it, and enjoying the various reactions.
Now what to call this argument by Illing, which is that truth does not matter as long as it brings people together and makes them feel good? Whatever one wants to call it, it reminds me of the arguments about why people become Trekkies or join Anime’ clubs. It brings them together, and gives their lives meaning and it makes them feel good. It sure if funny that he does not ask: But is it real? Furthermore, it is too bad that he does not see the real harm that religion has caused.
So does Marvin Gaye, but we don’t worship him.
Though better Marvin Gaye than God, you know?
So religion is still, clearly, the oppressive party worldwide, and the one trying to silence and minimize atheists. And nonreligious people in religious areas need support, and in providing that (through their books and emails), people like Dawkins have preformed a service (though in Dawkins’ case, that’s been somewhat dampened). The percentage of religious in this country is now around 70%; that number should be below 50%.
But (and, going by the prose I’ve just written, there was going to be a but) there’s no contradiction in being a religious scientist, so long as you understand that (say) doing science hasn’t a thing to do with the bible (or what you say in church). And while no one’s arguing that degrees of religious scientists be revoked (or that the work they do is less meaningful than their nonreligious peers), it is condescending to call them “split brained”: doing good work in the lab, then going home to irrationally practice their voodoo (or perpetual motion). Why do they (or, we) always have to seek “The Truth” ™? Can’t they believe something on Friday, and something else on Saturday, without being accused of living a lie (or living in a false, contradictory reality, that they themselves constructed to protect their fragile conscience from the widely known Truth that there’s not a god)?
And when Dawkins say “I only care whether it’s true”, shouldn’t that be dismissed as him doing his usual logic robot shtick?
Marvin Gaye?? BLASPHEMER! The truth is only found through the King (B.B. Upon Him).
Hmmmmm. Actually, Illings makes a reasonable point (or rather, several good points) out of all this later on:
Yes, it does look like a dash of accomodationism is in the mix, but his stance seems pretty damn reasonable on the whole.
(At least in this article. His original article on the subject did seem to descend into typical Sophisticated Theology territory, misrepresenting the average believer. Sure, the average believer isn’t a fundamentalist, but most people aren’t Dostoevsky either. He went too far in the opposite direction)
I think this is clearer if we restate the original claim with a minor modification:
“But denying the truth claims of [tea leaf reading] won’t suffice, because [tea reading] is about much more than truth; it’s about meaning, values, tradition, consolation, community, and transcendence.”
Let him try to say that with a straight face.
The minds of folks like this are able to hold two opposite and contradictory ideas at once and yet not think that each is negating the other. Republicans, of whom most profess to be xians, all think that they are compassionate, forgiving, charitable, and so on, yet they consistently vote to cut the taxes of the rich at the expense of the rest of us, deny spending which benefits the poor, profess to want smaller less intrusive government yet deny women the right to decide the choices for their own health, and so on. The religious folk have the same division in their heads: they can both believe in a fantasy world where a supernatural superpower has complete sway over their lives and yet accept that reality is totally in opposition to that fantasy story.
No, I don’t think this is a good point.
What is Illings’ aim? If it’s also to , I would encourage him to try to do better than Dawkins and Coyne — I would be very happy to see someone promoting alternative strategies. If it’s not to , then he’s advising people on how to do something he’s uninterested in doing himself, making his advice untrustworthy.
WOW! Extraordinary piece!
PZ: Fair enough, that is important hypocrisy to point out. Looking at the contrast between this piece and his previous piece, it is entirely possible that the parts I pointed out as reasonable are fig leaves. His attempt to back pedal from his previous arguments while trying to seem like he hasn’t moved position. Which is a fairly common debating tactic now that I think about it. Sort of like an inverse of the Texas Sharpshooter….
And as I tried to say upthread, we’ve been down this path before. It’s basically the framing argument: Oh, those New Atheists are trying to use logic, and we know religion isn’t about logic. Shouldn’t we try something else, such as [some alternative that is never provided]?
And the answer, as far as I can tell, is, no, using logic and reason seems to be working fairly well, actually. And if you have a better way, or even another way, that might work with a different set of people, knock yourself out. I’m sure there are other methods; let’s use them all. Just please stop telling us poopyheads that they’re not going to convince any religious people to quit religion. The facts strongly suggest that logic and reason has worked for a surprisingly large group of people.
It seems that Illing’s critique is that Coyne didn’t write the book that Illing wanted him to write.
Illing is careful to say that #NotAllGnuAtheists “disregard” the issue that Illing deems so important (why religion persists). But I did find it odd that he tossed nuggets of praise in Harris’ and Hitchens’ directions, but never mentioned that Dan Dennett’s main contribution to the Gnu Atheist canon was Breaking the Spell, which spent a fair bit of time on these issues.
This might be a good time to visit the allegorical tale, “Kissing Hank’s Ass”
http://www.jhuger.com/kissing-hanks-ass
I do think Illing made some good points, as outlined above by antepro.
But it was all undermined by his tossing bits of praise at Harris and Hitchens. The Moral Landscape takes the good idea that science can inform moral decisions, and then defames it with the horribly immoral and historically ignorant justifications of torture and nuclear bombing, and aggressive promotion of the worst Muslim stereotypes, even when it is clear that Christian examples would have better explained Harris’ ideas to his audience. And that’s not all of the faults of that book – it’s only the beginning.
Harris has done more to defame the idea that science could inform morality than anyone since Herbert Spencer.
And Hitchens is really no better.
In the light of Illing’s previous essays – that seems very strange. Why advocate Sam Harris or Hitchens if Illing thinks “… understanding the religious impulse is as important as challenging false beliefs …” ?
That is precisely what Harris and Hitchens are not good at. In fact their failings in that area are very similar to those of Dawkins and Coyne.
Furthermore it is deeply ironic to see yet another person arguing in favor of treating religion as nuanced and complex, while taking a simplistic and stereotype-driven view of atheism.
You know here is the thing that bothers me – everything he lists there as being “much more than truth”?
That’s all the bad stuff about religion.
Meaning, consolation and transcendence all add up to bullshit people say to avoid having to do anything about anything. It is the central fatalism of religion.
Values, tradition, and community – that is the sexism, homophobia, racism and brutal enforcement of conformity that we so object to in religion. Community is a nice word for tribalism, tradition is a nice way of explaining why we screw people over the same way our ancestors did, and values are the excuses we make for that.
Illings’* mistakes, which PZs* ably note, are common ones: they attempt to conflate two distinct claims, namely that religions are useful at all to people and that religions are uniquely useful. These are old hats, and they weren’t even especially impressive when they were new. :-/
*We’re still attempting to use only plural morphemes, including proper nouns; we think we’ve determined some ways to make them plural whether using the nominative or possessive cases.
His avenue of questioning is artificially narrow. FIFY:
P-Zed, thank you for writing this,and for Pharyngula in general. It’s been a major source of “no, you’re not alone and misguided” in my life for some years now.
My atheist view all along: Bible is just a long version of Aesop. Aesop’s tales always end with a moral, to teach us kids how to behave and use nature for our benefit. That is what most Bibble stories are, just lessons teaching morality and societal behavior. Even includes some explicitly labelled as “parables”. Bibble though is limited to lessons about dealing with other people, physics, chemistry, biology, etc. doesn’t come off so well. Ethics comes off, okay, if one doesn’t read all the scolding from that big guy in nowheres/everywheres. Actually, Aesop does a much better job by not including all that “miracle” mumbo-jumbo. I vote for Church of Aesop (to send all those pesky kids to Saturday mornings till they turn double digits (yo>10) )
As long as they don’t tell what they mean with truth I care neither about Illing or about Coyne, because the result invariably will be a word salad. But I don’t care if science and religion are compatible either. It’s not my problem.
What I would like to see addressed is this though.
1. How is an immaterial god (or soul) supposed to interact with our reality? What means does he/she/it use? Which procedures does he/she/it follow?
2. What reliable, objective and well, tested method do apologists use to seperate correct claims about the supernatural from incorrect ones?
Obviously I don’t need to read Coyne for this. Any apologist is invited.
I really like your little parable, PZ. Years ago, when I first heard the silly argument that the Second Law of Thermodynamics invalidates the Theory of Evolution, in the aftermath of the discussion I had the nagging feeling that the other side’s error was much deeper than not understanding that the earth is not a closed system and that the entropy produced by the sun’s fusion eclipses the seeming entropy reversal on our tiny little rock and then some. What I finally realized, and I won’t bore you with all the steps here, was that the Second Law is on OUR side. and is even a partial challenge to those who claim that God cannot be disproved scientifically. After all, God is an eternal producer of infinite power. A perpetual motion “machine”, or source any way. If violating the Second Law is proof that something does not and cannot exist, then it follows … (The response, of course, will be Special Pleading.)
I know this wasn’t at all the point of this well-told story, but now I want to make building a machine like that my hobby. A steampunk contraption of cogs and pistons whirring away uselessly indeed would tie the room together.