Both Russell Blackford and Ophelia Benson have expressed some surprise at this statement from the JREF.
we at the JREF do take diversity seriously, and it’s something we strive to achieve at our events. If the skeptics community is going to thrive and grow, it’s essential that no one feel unwelcome or excluded due to race, gender, religion, or sexual orientation.
It’s weird, but what it really is is a historical relic and an issue of scope. The JREF piece makes that clear a little further down.
One other point Christian raises is that atheism and skepticism are often conflated, making religious people feel uncomfortable at TAM and other skeptical events. This is a controversial issue within the skeptical community, and there are many facets to the discussion that are beyond the scope of this post. But one fact is certain: the JREF is not an atheist organization. To be sure, we count many atheists among our allies, but our focus is on science advocacy and education. We regularly work with religious believers of many different stripes to further that cause as well.
There have been some fierce battles fought in the skeptical community over this: people’s feelings have been hurt, they’ve marched out in a snit, they still occasionally snipe and protest. It’s a tricky balancing act, and for many years they could get away with it: you could debunk UFOs and chupacabras and ESP without pissing off the Catholics in the audience, so the community could grow and encompass a wider audience that included some religious people, because their sacred cow wasn’t the one getting gored.
There really are people in the movement who want religion treated with kid gloves. This is an even sharper example of someone who actively wants religion represented positively in skepticism, which is rather wacky.
The irony of an atheist-only panel on “diversity” did not escape me, but I expected it to pass without comment. The sentiment that skepticism is an atheist club is recent, but it has taken root very quickly. As with other sorts of “do-fish-know-they’re-wet?” privilege in other, larger communities, the assumption of default atheism is rarely questioned in the skeptical subculture. Indeed, the panel set out to discuss diversity in gender, sexual orientation, age, race, class, education, and physical ability—but not religion.
This is especially strange when we consider that scientific skepticism was to a large extent founded by people of faith, including Harry Houdini (still arguably the greatest skeptical investigator of all time, and the model for the investigative tradition embodied today by James Randi and Joe Nickell) and Martin Gardner (the model for the modern skeptical literature). At least one speaker at TAM9 was herself religious (Pamela Gay) and there were, as always, members of multiple religious groups and spiritual traditions in the audience. These skeptics often express that anti-theism is a barrier to participation in our science-based events. Whatever your own feelings about religion, this is obviously a topic which fits under the heading of “diversity.”
So you can well imagine that I was surprised into applause when D.J. Grothe raised exactly that topic: religious diversity in the skeptical community. Nor was I the only one clapping. In any given year, the crowd at TAM includes not only pro-science people of faith (despite the chill) and secularists who will go to the wall for them, but also a great many traditional scientific skeptics who see untestable claims as simply off topic.
That’s changing. Skepticism should and must embrace a wider range of socially relevant issues, and I think the leaders in the movement are recognizing that — showing that dowsing doesn’t work is a useful exercise in training critical thinking, but it’s not a big sociopolitical issue, you know? There was a huge fuss raised when Richard Dawkins was invited to speak at TAM a while back, precisely because he wasn’t going to give religion the exemption from criticism it has always demanded and usually gotten.
My position is partial agreement: JREF is not an atheist organization. It’s primary purpose is not overt criticism of religion, and it does not and should not demand perfect ideological purity of all of its members: if somebody wants to believe in UFOs, but is happy to critically analyze Bigfoot claims, they should have a place…it’s just that if they get on the podium to babble about flying saucers, we get to point and laugh and express our disrespect for that credulous foolishness, just as we can maybe show respect for a serious dissection of cryptozoological claims.
Same with religion. Maybe you’re a religious astronomer; you have a place in the skeptical community telling us about the wonders of the cosmos, but the god stuff is not going to play well. And that you think Jesus is real (or that the aliens are visiting us from Beta Reticuli) does not mean you get to demand that no one dare dispute your delusions.
If we had to blacklist every weird belief that someone in the audience at TAM had, nobody would ever be able to talk about anything. Not even dowsing.
That reminds me of IDiot “arguments” that Darwin was wrong about this or that, hence the mislabeled “Darwinism” is wrong. Because surely we believe what the founders of sciences or of skepticism did, don’t we?
Uh, no. We follow the evidence. Gardner was a good skeptic in most areas, but was it the principle he followed where religion was concerned? The evidence is, no.’
‘
It’s the logic and the empiricism that should matter to skeptics, and that means no hands-off areas like religion. Anything else is a serious compromise of skepticism’s claims.
Glen Davidson
No sacred cows. That’s the prime directive here, no?
Except denying the reality of Star Trek, of course.
How can this moderate position be offensive to anyone?
And then maybe some people will “feel unwelcome or excluded” – and I don’t see how that can possibly be ruled out in advance without simply ending all discussion before it starts.
Sounds good.
So, if I make it known that I worship the homeopathic yeti that pilot UFOs*, Randi and the JREF will lay off the dogmatism that masquerades as skepticism?
*We’re in the process of securing a location in which I and my fellow Homeopathic UFO-Piloting yetiïsts may worship in peace, but as you can imagine, we’re stuck in negotiation over signage.
The whole complaint is a classic example of the “but my belief is special” gambit.
*Many believers in religion see homeopathy and cryptozoology as being ill-evidenced nonsense.
*Many believers in homeopathy see religion and cryptozoology as being ill-evidenced nonsense.
*Many believers in cryptozoology see religion and homeopathy as being ill-evidenced nonsense.
Why does the first group get a special pass, but not the other two? If it’s “ironic” for the diversity panel to lack religious members, then why isn’t it ironic for the diversity panel to lack homeopaths and cryptozoologists?
Seriously, what is this difference?
I’d be concerned if the scope and focus of “the skeptical community” was not changing.
Hasn’t this been covered already anyway? We know, we know: politics and religion are off the table at JREF.
This way nobody has to feel uncomfortable while we wait for Sylvia Browne to do something worthy of our righteous skeptical scorn.
Hypocrisy. They can has it.
I’m really starting to get tired of the humanity’s impressive ability to compartmentalize.
YOUR belief in the supernatural is silly, but MY belief in the supernatural is perfectly acceptable.
Ugh.
I’ve always felt it was a little weird that religion is treated the same as race and sexual orientation in these discussions. It seems to me like a near-relic, something that still belongs due to past oppression, but the goal is really to remove it. Racial and cultural backgrounds and sexual orientation are probably aspects that we will always have to make a special effort to recognize, because there will always be minority groups and the tendency of the majority will always be to overrule and ignore and possibly oppress them absent deliberate attempts to recognize their perspectives. But I would really like to see sex and religion disappear from the list someday. Women constitute 50% of our population, give or take, so the fact that they are treated as and referred to as a “minority” who need special attention paid to their issues is preposterous. It should be possible, someday in the future, to arrive at a point where “women’s issues” and perspectives are properly recognized as human issues rather than the special interests of a minority group as they are often treated today. Religious issues should go the opposite way. I believe humanity can rise above treating believers of a different faith with contempt and suspicion, and at that point we should be able to say that religion no longer needs the special attention that racial or orientation issues deserve. Obviously I am talking about a distant future here, and probably much of this is wishful thinking. I just feel like the normal list of “special” interests discussed in this kinds of panels seems odd for placing sex and religion alongside race and gender/orientation.
I want to invade your country and kill everyone there. The UN and I go into negotiations and come out with a moderate position. I will take half your country and kill everyone in that half.
When one position is so freaking wrong it hurts, a “compromise” towards it is just as wrong and is accommodation.
It’s because the culture on some level realizes that the greatest indicator of your religion is which one you were raised in, thus it’s less of an actual philosophical belief and more of an ethnicity.
Yeah, let’s fix that:
The “skeptical” movement in this pathetic yetis-only-please form is way past its sell date and needs to just go away.
Exactly. What Amanda said in Brownian’s link: “If discomfort is to be avoided at all costs, let’s just disband now.”
Exactly. It’s not possible to do both. We can’t both do skepticism and guarantee that no one will ever feel discomfort (or “unwelcome”).
When I went to Skepticon last year, I enjoyed the debunkings from Joe Nickell and James Randi, but I couldn’t help but notice that they were largely talking about events from the 1970s and 1980s. Skepticism needs new blood, and if that comes in the form of these new atheists, then so be it.
I think people are reading this “moderate position” in very different ways. It’s important to note this and to understand exactly what people are objecting to, and why.
If Thomson had written, “it’s essential that no one be excluded due to race, gender, religion, or sexual orientation,” then all of us would agree. We’d find it outrageous that anyone should be told they couldn’t attend the conference for any of those reasons.
But that is not, in fact, what Thomson. He wrote, “it’s essential that no one feel unwelcome or excluded due to race, gender, religion, or sexual orientation.”
That is a very different thing. Like Ophelia Benson, many of us take it to mean that any action—critique, calls for evidence, scoffing—that would cause a religious person to feel uncomfortable (by having their ideas subjected to the same scrutiny other ridiculous ideas are at skeptic conferences) is off-limits. If that’s what Thomson meant to express, that is not a moderate position, and it’s alarming. You can see why people would object to that.
There’s ample evidence that JREF does intend to convey that intellectually irresponsible meaning. At a recent TAM in Vegas JREFer Hal Bidlack (a theist/deist) used his role and MC to lecture people about not making the religious “feel uncomfortable.” There’s been much fuss over theist skeptic Pamela Gay, too—a bunch of people want the mean old atheists to stop making her feel uncomfortable. Because subjecting these peoples’ religious ideas to the same critical scrutiny they themselves bring to other supernatural claims is silencing and discriminatory, you see.
You can see why people would object to this.
Does this strike anyone else as Euro/Christian centric? I don’t think all that many faiths are at a point where they have almost nothing to do with miracles, magic and the supernatural (which I assume are all fair game for the JREF.) Christianity isn’t even all that far removed from miracles and the supernatural especially here in the States.
If there’s anything ‘ironic’ about this, it’s how well this bullshit illustrates PZ’s Gnu Atheist argument that “[r]eligion is granted an unwarranted privilege and authority on far too many aspects of our lives”.
So, to answer your (clearly rhetorical) question, it would seem that the difference is that exactly one of those beliefs gets the magic, unstainable, get-out-of-jail-free (literally, it would seem in many parole hearings) label of ‘religion’.
But I’d like the JREF to explain exactly how it arbitrates which claims are ‘religious’, and therefore hands-off, and which aren’t, and are therefore worthy of scorn. Exactly how many people need to claim that John Edward isn’t a psychic but a prophet for the JREF to decide he’s just alright after all?
Or maybe it’s a long term plan. If skeptics are actively hostile to religious, we’ll turn some people away. But if we are only hostile to the crazy things like dowsing or astrology, we’ll get some religious folk at TAM and other events. And then once they learn to think critically about why astrology and homeopathy don’t make sense, maybe some of them will continue on the path as to why religion doesn’t make sense. I mean, better to try and teach them something rather than push them away completely, right?
I imagine people who believe in astrology are also sometimes uncomfortable at skeptic meetings. In the name of diversity, we should make sure to be more welcoming of them.
Absolutely, PZ.
If I believe in the existence of reptilian overlords a la David Icke I am not excluded from TAM or anything else. Since TAM isn’t explicitly anti-reptilian overlord hypothesis I should be made to feel included in all of the events. What I cannot do is complain that my belief in reptilian overlords should be walled off from skepticism because it is an important part of my identity. If I think that reptilian overlords exist then I should do my own talk about it. The exact same thing goes for religion.
JREF have made exactly the right choice.
skepticism and atheism are fairly inseparable, in my opinion, unless you can show me a religion that is based on verifiable evidence.
And I attended TAM8 SPECIFICALLY because Dawkins was there. I even paid an extra $2000 for my wife & I to have a lunch with him.
If JREF is going to start accommodating religious beliefs in the name of diversity, my wallet is remaining closed.
I WANT people who hold non-skeptical views, especially those whose organizations that are actively fighting skepticism and science, to feel ESPECIALLY uncomfortable and challenged at a skeptical convention.
Just a little pedantic thing here: I think the correct word here is schizophrenic, not schizoid. Schizoid personality disorder involves being unwilling to seek out relationships and living in an introverted fantasy world.
More people are willing to accept the status of the other types of crap as crap.
That, and the fact that religious bigotry is often accompanied by other type of bigotry.
The statement “I dislike Catholicism”, or even “I dislike the Pope” is typically heard as “I dislike Catholics”, even through they are not the same. And the types of people likely to say “I dislike Catholics” are often not the sort a freethinking movement would want to embrace.
It`s amazing how “religion” poisons everything. Someone should write a book……
Most of these blogs, for a start.
First and foremost, we need to agree on the definition of skeptic. Personally, I feel that in order to be a skeptic one must be skeptical about all issues in ones life. Picking and choosing what to be skeptical about seems hypocritical to me.
I joined a local Skeptic organization because I expected that the members would be, uh, skeptical. If people aren’t willing to examine their beliefs in light of evidence, then how do they call themselves skeptics? Ya, this doesn’t make sense to me.
I understand wanting to be inclusive. I’d welcome the religious to come to any event. Just don’t expect me to nod my head at your unexamined and very odd beliefs.
I guess Stephen Hawkings, Helen Keller, and most people with disabilities are not welcome either. Lourdes is accessable, it is too bad atheist don’t view disability rights and integrating people with disabilities as important.
While conservatives have learned not to concentrate the cripples but kill them off quietly at home through lack of medical care, lack of income, lack of family who can remove a wage earner to do home care, lack of someone to cook food.
Liberals don’t talk of reform or equality, it’s give those special people more money and they will go away.
No non believing group and moveon.org will answer an email asking if their event is wheelchair accessible, that is rude not just unwelcoming. It is so nice leftest atheists support my marrying a varity of people, it would be nice if you supported my meeting someone.
The title of this piece, while forgivable just said half the creative minds of this world are not welcome. If this skeptical group has any scientific claim, use diagnosis as a medical condition, not as your worship of Apollo.
Most of you will live with a disability at some point, you can shoot yourself now, or you can support a world were you can operate as long as possible.
Atheist are not special, they are able-bodied and able-minded prejudiced normal people on a major part of life. That said, you are also some of the best people to be in a foxhole with.
When did the definition of a sceptic change? I, for one, was not there when this event happened, because I thought that debunking ghosts was in the same catagory as debunking Bearded Man in the Sky.
Please advise.
How well has that been working since the 1970s? Has it resulted in a huge increase in membership of religious people who then have the scales fall from their eyes? Do I need to point out that’s a rhetorical question?
It’s not a long-term plan, it’s intellectual and political cowardice. And there’s no evidence at all that it will “work” to do anything but keep the skeptic movement stale. As someone noted above, there’s no point in having skeptic organizations if every meeting and publication is a re-run of In Search Of with Leonard Nimoy. Seriously. It’s not the 70s anymore.
That’s fucking stupid.
I just noticed a quick googling of “alternative medicine sales” reveals that alt med is a booming market. Obviously we’re being equally shortsighted to exclude that massive demographic with our skeptical hostility. And astrology may be “crazy”, but there is a shitload of people that buy into that particular brand of “crazy”.
Have you or the JREF run the numbers? Have you actually looked at which group you’ll gain the biggest bang by lying to and pretending their claims aren’t “crazy”?
Or is there some other criterion for discriminating between these groups that you’re not disclosing here?
Vicar – do you have evidence that atheist and skeptic groups do not provide accommodation for people with disabilities?
Wes: all humans are fallible, and have limited cognitive resources. We all have untested beliefs somewhere. Being a skeptic is about doing the hard work to address these, not having a perfectly rational brain.
Just throwing my two bits into the pond…
I agree that it’s curious that a skeptical community would not want religious folks to “feel unwelcome”, to the point where they would advise people to be aware of it. The point has already been brought up, what about astrologers? What about people who believe in ghosts or Bigfoot? It does seem odd, and I do hope that the JREF isn’t trying to make an exclusion towards religion; that would seriously taint my opinion of that organization.
However, if I may muse for a bit, what if we extend the list of “those traits that are held by those whom we do not want to feel unwelcome” to account for everything else that it is worth being skeptical about? What if the JREF doesn’t want people to feel unwelcome based on gender, race, sexual preference, and religion, but also every other characteristic, such as belief in astrology or homeopathy or ghosts or dowsing? Personally, I think that changes the meaning a bit, to be more aligned with Wheaton’s Law: Don’t be a dick. Yes, it’s fine to be skeptical of things, but not everyone is skeptical of everything. Perhaps the JREF just doesn’t want people pointing fingers in laughing; perhaps they’d rather their members educate and discuss, rather than insult an individual because of one of their beliefs.
Everyone, from a religious fundamentalist to a career scientific researcher, is ultimately human. And most humans like their ideas. Yes, scientists will tend to be more open to new ideas than religious folk, but that does not mean a scientist is incapable of feeling unwelcome if his or her idea is being challenged. It happens. It’s not fun. It’s a knee-jerk reaction to say, “No, I’m not wrong!”, especially if you’ve devoted years of your life to something, when someone (or a very organized, very large group of someones) comes along with a new idea. So maybe the JREF is just reminding people to “be nice and educate,” and they left a bunch of people off the list.
Who knows, I might be wrong. I’m just offering an alternative interpretation. I guess only the JREF can answer for their actions.
I suggest they become an atheist society that welcomes believers in extraterrestrials, Bigfoot and dowsing.
But seriously, I’m becoming very annoyed, also by the straw man argument that religious claims are not testable, therefore not part of skepticism. But Bigfoot spotting is? What kind of oversimplistic view of science is that? What’s testable, stuff that’s accessible by gimmicks out of a Mickey Mouse comic magazine?
It’s also worth making the point that atheists taking part in skeptical events or other interactions (like blogging) typically do not expect to be given a free pass in regards to their beliefs. Those that do are disabused of the notion fairly quickly.
I know I hold certain unexamined and/or illogical views for emotional reasons, and do not consider myself substantially hypocritical in doing so. This is (I like to think) because I am aware that the views are illogical, and I try to avoid making decisions based on them. I also would not expect to be ‘called out’ on these views at a skeptical event – unless I were to bring them up.
There are also areas of opinion in which I am at odds with some, many or possibly even most of the skeptical community. Some of these are strictly related to taste (PC vs. Mac, PPG vs. MLP:FiM), others are more substantial (Democrat vs. Green). Knowing this doesn’t make me feel alienated, however, it just lets me know that – claims to the contrary – we’re not a hivemind or an echo chamber.
This is a positive.
It seems to me that anyone is welcome to be a part of the skeptic community – to the exact extent that they are willing to have their beliefs examined skeptically. No-one is forced to accept anything anyone in the skeptical community says, as far as I can see. Any discomfort felt comes from within.
Duh. If one already has an unshakable opinion on something, one cannot be skeptical about it, whatever it is, and whoever it is with that opinion.
And that person should know/understand that that opinion is open to question, contradiction, and yes, even `scoffing’ from others who are not like-minded. No belief or idea is exempt IMV. Argument/discussion is healthy, and can be productive, and works.
It’s the idea/belief, anyway, not the person i.e. each normal person is almost always so chock full of an assortment of all kinds and aspects of ideas and beliefs, especially when one is skeptical, that trying to stuff people into any `label’ is pointless.
Why should it matter if a person chooses to believe in an entity, for whatever reason, but makes no claims of anything supernatural and admits the belief is without scientific merit?
Why does that matter so much to some people?
Skepticism as the Jref sees it is about testing claims. Many “religious” people make no claims about what they choose to believe, I know quite a few that even admit it’s all silly. Why should I care if they have some notion of a comfort story but live in a real world based on evidence.
Who are we serving by excluding those people?
I have an emotional, and partly irrational*, discomfort with genetically engineered good products.
If I went to TAM, there might be speakers there whose statements on the issue I would disagree with, such that I might feel unwelcome.
And guess what? That would be my fucking problem, not theirs.
If you feel unwelcome somewhere, you should examine why you feel that way. One possible explanation is that other people there are being rude or disrespectful to you. But it’s not the only possible explanation.
*The part that’s not irrational is about the economics of farming.
Nobody is advocating excluding those people.
All we’re saying is that if they do make claims, those claims will be examined like any other claim.
And if they don’t make claims, then they have no right whatsoever to get offended if the claims made by other religious people are examined.
Not tiptoeing around religious claims when they’re relevant (and they very often are, but not always) is not equal to “excluding” people. That’s the point many of us are trying to make. We resent being painted as acting inappropriately when we apply exactly the same scrutiny to religious claims that any skeptic would to homeopathy and dowsing. For goodness’ sake, please take the time to read what commenters are saying. We’re not typing for our health, and we’ve already answered these objections with reasonable, easy to understand statements.
Obviously, I meant “food” not “good” above.
Last time I checked, there was already a website dedicated to you folks: Homeopathic UFo-PilOting yetiïSTs
Whatever happened to STRONG OPINIONS, WEAKLY HELD?
By all means, bring your beliefs. Wanna go with jesus, astrology, “earthquake weather” and MLB satellites reading your mind? Bring it!
Just be prepared to defend your position if you’re going to lay it out. If you can’t/won’t and SKEPTICS question your basis for believing whatever you believe, then maybe your position is not valid. Maybe it is time to explore changing your beliefs, like maybe the Sun doesn’t revolve around the Earth, which isn’t flat!
I claim that someone who has “Strong Opinions, Strongly Held” is NOT a Skeptic, because they’ve already decided they’re right, no matter what the evidence says. There might be a name for such people, but I can’t think of it now. Hmmm…..
Note how quickly someone equated refusing to give religious people special treatment with “excluding” them.
I have not attended any conventions, but from what I understand is that they are usually held in convention centers and the like- things that comply with disability building code.
So, vicar, can you let me know what you have experienced? I am not trying to be a dick, but if there is a problem I think it should be addressed.
Note I am not trivializing people with disabilities, I am aware they face day-to-day problems such as not even being able to get into public parks, etc. I just would like to know if there is a problem.
Oh duly noted. Predictable and ubiquitous. If it weren’t so outrageous it would actually be funny how perfectly such commenters illustrate the perverse scenario we point out and that they claim doesn’t exist.
I’m not sure I really see an issue here. Randy has done takedowns of faith healers and other miraculous religious claims before. I don’t think his organization would shy away from testing some outlandish religious miracle claim today, either, if a faith-based miracle worker was willing to undergo it.
So what’s the issue? That they don’t vocally object to claims about Jesus? I don’t think they “do” historical figure claims much at all. Not Buddha, not George Washington, nobody. The organization’s efforts seem much more focused on the claims living people make to be able to do miracles. And as far as I can tell, religious people claiming faith powers are not exempted from that.
Thanks, but those people are heretics. Space debris is something to be revered, not feared.
There was a schism.
scientific skepticism was to a large extent founded by people of faith, including Harry Houdini
I’d like to see the evidence that Houdini was a person of faith. His father was a rabbi but I don’t believe there is evidence that he followed any religion whatsoever. It’s true that after his mother died he desperately wanted Spiritualism to be true, so that he could communicate with the dead, but every medium, psychic, and Spititualist that he could find he showed to be a fraud. Foreshadowing Randi, he offered $10,000 to any psychic that could produce effects that he couldn’t replicate naturally, and, like Randi, he never had to pay. Houdini was all about the evidence. Wanting something to be true doesn’t make him a person of faith.
You’re telling us all of this Eric, but it was Daniel Loxton’s piece decrying “[t]he irony of an atheist-only panel on “diversity” that came first, suggesting that yes, the believers do have an issue.
Tell them that as long as their beliefs stay nebulous, vague, undefinable, and historical, nobody’ll have much to gripe about.
This kind of discussion comes around every so often at the National Secular Society in the UK. The argument goes that a government that allows all citizens a level playing field and does not discriminate against, or give privilage to, anyone on account of their religion or lack of religion, is something that one would expect that religious people would support as much as the non religious. Hence, the NSS should invite religious people to join. Back in the real world, religious leaders continually assert that secularists want to have religion banned. The religious are also quite happy not to have a level playing field provided that it is not level in their favour. They are not too keen to have the NSS continually pointing out that they currently enjoy a great many unearned and undeserved privilages which by rights should be taken away.
A more general sceptical organisation is always going to have problems in recruiting religious people for the simple fact that religion has so much to be sceptical about. Anyone who has yet to work that out can’t be much of a sceptic.
By including religion in with race, gender, and sexual orientation the JREF is buying into the popular religious defense being promoted by people like John Gray: that religion has little or nothing to do with the supernatural beliefs (God, miracles, souls, spirit, etc.) It’s a preference, a practice, a performance, a poetry; a choice, a charity, a community, a celebration. Religion is about one’s identity, not one’s beliefs. Nobody really thinks about the beliefs — it’s all very vague and irrelevant. The hypothesis that God exists is not really a hypothesis; spiritual explanations are not really explanations. It’s art. Believers know that.
No. They. Don’t. They only say stuff like this when they feel they’re being challenged — by others, or by themselves.
A speaker who makes an excellent case against space aliens doesn’t therefore get a free pass on not being made to feel “uncomfortable” about his denial of global warming or his advocacy of alternative medicine. I’ve seen it. Skeptics are perfectly capable of recognizing nuance and contradiction in members, and welcoming people with views of inconsistent merit. Welcoming them through including them in the challenge of rational analysis — not holding back as if they were children for whom we need to “make allowances.”
They will even hide behind the complaint that they are made to feel “unwelcome” at a skeptic event. That is not true. Theists are very welcome at skeptic gatherings — most skeptics are very eager and interested to know WHY they believe what they believe, so that debate may ensue. Whining about not wanting to explore one’s unsupported supernatural views at a skeptic convention is rude.
The psychics are welcome too. On the same terms.
I see many responses about peoples claims but I specifically referred to people who make no claims.
“Indeed, the panel set out to discuss diversity in gender, sexual orientation, age, race, class, education, and physical ability—but not religion. ”
Except one of these things is not like the others. Gender, sexual orientation, age, race, class, education, and physical ability are all innate characteristics. Religion is a choice.
I’m reminded of an interview John Cleese did with the BBC (paraphrasing):
BBC: But don’t you think some people will be offended by Monty Python?
Cleese: Yes, but some people should be offended.
If that were really the case, then they would have no reason to feel unwelcome at skeptical events where religious beliefs are scrutinized.
And yet they do.
PrimevilKneivel – “I see many responses about peoples claims but I specifically referred to people who make no claims.”
By belonging to a religion they are endorsing the claims of that religion. e.g. Do they believe in Jesus? That’s a claim and should be open to a skeptical debate.
And if they’re one of those people who call themselves Christian but don’t believe in Jesus, then they have absolutely no reason to get offended if skeptics examine the evidence for the existence and/or divinity of Jesus.
The Sailor- By belonging to a religion they are endorsing the claims of that religion. e.g. Do they believe in Jesus? That’s a claim and should be open to a skeptical debate.
—
That’s were you and the Jref disagree. They see a difference between “I know this to be true and everyone should be believe” and “this is what I want to believe”.
Especially when most people in the latter category really just say nothing at all, they keep it to themselves.
It sucks to live your life in a closet when there is no practical difference between you and the community you seek other than the beliefs of others.
Randi understands that and the Jref understands that.
As one of the atheists excommunicated from the JREF in the name of making the apologists feel welcome (because you know there’s only one way to make apologists feel welcome – by excluding others), here is my take.
Again, “The JREF is not an atheist organization” is brazenly stated, again specifically selecting one particular group (atheists) for special dissociation at the behest of another specific group (apologists). Not only is the JREF not learning the lesson about segregationist language use, but they continue to express their obliviousness unthinkingly and publicly.
Possible alternate wording: “The JREF welcomes theists and atheists alike.” But getting James Randi to accept the possibility that he might have made an error is like trying to get a brick to sing. It cannot be done, and that is enough to show he is not a skeptic at all.
Richard Dawkins spoke of consciousness raising in the atheist community. Certainly consciousness raising has a forefront history in movements that seek to promote a (currently) minority interest. Of course, consciouness raising is going to be extremely difficult if atheists make excuses for exclusivist language directed at them, like the decree from Randi and the JREF.
There is no legitimate reason for the JREF publicly decreeing that, it is “not an atheist organization.” The unthinking curmudgeon with his one trick gimmick is in Saskatoon soon. I will be putting no money in his pocket, precisely because he let the apologists set the terms of discourse.
Modern “skepticism” made a deal with the devil, apologists, to separate magisteria in order to hold some subject matters immune to skeptical inquiry. This to mitigate conflict. But this hobbling of the scope of skeptical inquiry has had some dramatic and unfortunate results – from Shermer trying to push his radical political an economic ideology on the niche market *as* skepticism to the special efforts “skeptical” organizations, like the JREF, make to distance themselves from atheism, indeed to casting out scientific skepticism’s philosophical brethren in favour of apologists and accommodationists.
Modern “skepticism” needs to get its head screwed on straight. Right now, it is a pathetic pawn of apologist interests determined to undermine the whole exercise.
I’m sure you won’t mind providing an example of where somebody who’s made no claims has had those non-claims challenged and therefore has grounds to complain.
PrimevilKneivel:
You’re dodging the point. How are we EXCLUDING those people?
We’re perceiving a suggestion from some skeptics that religion should be off the table, should not be a topic for criticism at skeptical conferences, because some otherwise skeptical people are religious and might be made uncomfortable.
We’re saying “so frakking what?”
If you honestly expect to be completely comfortable in your own beliefs and opinions at a skeptical conference, you’re a questionable skeptic and a fool.
By that reasoning, as long as Brownian doesn’t try to spread his faith in homeopathic UFO-flying jetis, his belief should go unchallenged. Just to be on the safe side, any talks about UFOs, homeopathy or jetis should be discouraged, lest he is made feel unwelcome.
And yet they’re all sorts of blind to that difference when it comes to ESP, homeopathy, astrology, cryptozoology, and the like.
Where’s the nuanced pragmatism then?
What about those people who just want to believe in Tarot and palm-reading? Don’t they deserve the same consideration?
Exactly. Harmless fun. Except that I’ve felt so alone at TAM.
You can’t even know the pain it comes from having to closet my beliefs when, in every other aspect, I’m just as skeptical as James Randi.
[Sniffs, holding back big,
crocodilebeliever’s tears.]Why must every member of the “skeptical community” have identical beliefs?
Has anyone said they should?
To be fair, proponents of this argument always do.
The argument PrimevilKneivel and others need to make is not why the JREF should remain silent on religious matters so as not to make uncomfortable the vague, ill-defined belief’d theists.
The argument they need to make is why the JREF should continue to not remain silent on matters of psychics, mind-reading, ESP, and communication with ghosts, so as to not make uncomfortable the vague, ill-defined belief’d occultists.
Seems like this topic has come up a lot lately–people angry that “skeptic” has become synonymous with “atheist.” I know several atheists who buy homeopathic medicine and believe in ghosts. I don’t understand these people, nor do I understand those who love to debunk the 70s stuff (UFOs, Nessie) but fully believe God is pulling strings to control us all. If I went to a meeting for “skeptics” and saw attendees in burkas and Roman collars, I’d head for the closest bar and drink heavily.
Why would a religious person want to also be a so-called “skeptic”? Seems that religious people should embrace the idea that anything is possible or even probable. If God is alive and well and watching us from the sky, then who says some lady’s statue of the Blessed Virgin didn’t shed bloody tears? God can do those kinds of tricks. It’s in the Bible. Why would a religious person want to hassle that lady and her statue with “skepticism”?
There are plenty of places for religious people to congregate. They don’t need to shoehorn themselves into skeptical meetings and events. A skeptical organization should focus on evidence-based topics. If there is evidence of God, I haven’t seen it presented in a way that makes any sense at all.
I was at TAM for the first time this year. There were a number of attendees there who I spoke to or I overheard talking that I had to do a double-take with, because the thing they were spouting off on lacked any sort of skeptical basis. None of them had to do with religion.
truthspeaker
It’s just the impression I get from this thread (and others) from everyone who says that someone else is not a real skeptic.
Not all atheists are skeptics, but all reasonable, intellectually honest skeptics should be atheists (or at least agnostics).
Chigau – have you read their posts to understand WHY they’re saying that other people aren’t “true skeptics”?
I think this point’s been made before, but I’ll put my $0.02 worth in.
If I grant religion a free ride so to speak, then where exactly is the cut off point?
Is it questioning the existence of god? Or that the virgin Mary appeared to an illiterate miller’s daughter in France? Or that spirits of fire are the cause of mischief in the world? Or that a galactic tyrant threw political prisoners into a volcano millions of years ago?
All of these individual beliefs are fervently held by millions of people. Most of whom would be skeptical of the other claims. Would a Catholic feel bad about criticizing Islam or Scientology?
If not why should we feel bad about criticizing a Catholic?
Look, astrology isn’t even a belief system, according to this source. (The claim involved a lot of nonsensical waffling about the meaning of ‘belief’, but whatever—if you’re gonna hem and haw and wax idiotic on what you really feel about the world, it sounds like you’re squarely in PrimevilKneivel’s harmlessly “wanting to believe”* camp.)
So, the JREF should shut up about astrology, so as not to alienate the 30+% of Americans who believe it.
*Look, here’s a UFOlogist whose YouTube tag is “I want to believe”. I suppose we’d better cut him and others like him some slack too.
Honestly, I don’t know what anybody’s gonna talk about at the next TAM.
I can think of an example unrelated to religion: Bill Nye. Bill started hawking a woo device a couple years ago, posting an incredibly flawed uncontrolled experiment result as his “proof” for it. But the skeptic community said nothing. Everybody scrambled to make excuses for him. “Oh well he needs the money so it’s okay.” Now it’s true that nobody expresses skepticism 100% of the time on all issues, but isn’t it in the spirit of skepticism to at least ATTEMPT to do so? The whole point of skepticism is to provide yourself a rational means to, among other things, change your mind about something when presented with the evidence. Selectively applying skepticism on purpose is not skepticism. Period.
PrimevilKneivel – “It sucks to live your life in a closet when there is no practical difference between you and the community you seek other than the beliefs of others. ”
Welcome to my world. This is just another attempt by religious people to have a special consideration at the expense of others.
You do know that atheism is not a belief, right?
If the JREF is going to start dedicating itself to not offending and alienating people, it might as well close up shop right now, because they’ll also have to stop criticizing the anti-vaccine movement, 9/11 truthers, astrologers, and cryptozoologists.
I would like a link to Bill Nye’s woo, and proof that he was excused for it by the ‘skeptic community’.
Yes Truthspeaker, I have read their posts.
Apparently I reached a different conclusion.
Imagine that.
@Tulse: Yep, that was the point I was trying to make. I don’t understand why a “skeptic” would fear being confused with an atheist. I do understand why an atheist would not want to be confused with a skeptic. There are lots of unreasonable atheists. I know plenty who buy into the anti-vaccine nonsense, the ghost/”spiritual” stuff, the homeopathy. A true skeptic, in my mind, stands against that stuff, because it is unreasonable and not evidence-based.
The Sailor:
It’s sad, but true.
The Sailor: here’s a blog post by a skeptic criticizing Bill Nye for selling a water purification product: http://misterguch.posterous.com/bill-nye-sells-out
A ton of science/skeptical bloggers criticized Bill Nye’s woo.
Woo-sounding claptrap that Bill Nye shilled
This is just a Google search, I know nothing more, and had never heard of it previous to moralnihilist’s claim. But it does look like execrable nonsense.
Glen Davidson
Funny, chigau, if you had read PZ’s post, you would have seen where he specifically said people with all kinds of beliefs should be welcome at skeptic conventions.
I doubt many people are true skeptics all the time. They apply skepticism to some things and not to others. What those comments are saying is that religious people are not applying skepticism to their beliefs.
I don’t know why we simply don’t discourage atheists from joining the group and being involved with it’s activities… In other words let the babies have their bottle and when Jesus becomes the focus of their meeting we can all sit back and laugh and laugh and laugh.
Note that the very first comment on the JREF site (to the statement on not making people unwelcome due to religion) was:
People made this guy feel ‘unwelcome’ by making fun of creationism. But he thinks he’s a skeptic.
Thread won.
Yetis and Jedi alike ^_^
nigelTheBold, thanks for the link. truthspeaker & LAB, yep it seems from further research that Bill took a big hit over that snake oil.
The Sailor:
Yeah. Some were willing to give him a pass, some were not. I don’t know the situation he was in at the time. If it came down to selling out to save a home, or feed your family, I’d probably sell out.
Hell, often enough I’ve thought of starting my own religion. I understand there’s a lot of money to be made there, doing one of my favorite things: making up stupid shit.
@moralnihilist
“But the skeptic community said nothing. Everybody scrambled to make excuses for him”
Now that you have seen ample links of the skeptic community criticizing Nye, are you willing to retract that assertion?
Over here, most Catholics would.
Of course, they only get away with considering themselves Catholics because they don’t expect the Spanish Inquisition.
NOOOOOOBODY…oh, wait, I bet you expected that.
chigau:
It’s an impression unsupported by evidence. You went wrong when you decided that disagreement over a skeptic’s pet irrationalities is somehow equivalent to saying they aren’t skeptics. If I’ve learned anything over the last few years as a skeptic, it’s that damn near all of us have a few irrational beliefs that we’re uncomfortable confronting. The trick is in accepting that discomfort.
I wonder how it is that we so often magnify disagreement into rejection and ostracism. Has it always been so?
But were the Spanish Real™ Catholics?
No one expects the . . . What? What’s that? Oh, Rey Fox has interupted this needless Monty Python reference for his mental sanity. As you were.
There is one woo belief that is the most common bit of woo woo bullshit on the planet. It is also at the root of many many other woo beliefs for many. It is the first bit of magical thinking people are taught and the one that sets the stage for them accepting other nonsense, and it is religion/theism.
I was big into the paranormal and cryptozoology and the possibility of psionics and ghosts. Needless to say (Actually I may need to say it as it apparently isn’t as obvious to some as it is to me) once I lost the theism and saw the world with a reality and scientific based mindset the rest of the woo feel apart.
You don’t promote skepticism by debunking one thing at a time. You do what Segan did and attack magical thinking itself.
There is only one reason to have something off limits to skepticism/science: You know it won’t hold up and want to keep plausible deniability. If their faith strong enough to be an issue they would run towards skepticism for it confident that it would turn out in their favor.
FTFY. I’ve learned that if there is an issue I have a gut feeling against listening to skepticism talk about it on a podcast or article I NEED to read/listen more than any other subject.
Chigau, could you be a little more specific about exactly what you’re going on about?
Clearly, you think some/all of the commenters on one/both side(s) of this discussion have committed the No True Scotsman™ fallacy. While everyone/some/none have had a wonderful time guessing what the hell you’re referring to, now’s the perfect time to reveal the answer and telling us/some/one/none what they’ve won/lost.
In other news, Christian does not like to answer questions on comment threads.
Too true.
Shermer and Jillette are considered pillars of the Skeptical Movement, but are both religious nutbags when they move out of their comfort zone.
Doesn’t this issue only arise because of the traditional skeptics’ avoidance of religion as an object of their study and criticism? I’d say let anyone who wants to join the movement. The pope can be a paid up member of CFI for all I care (he might learn something useful too), but by the same token no skeptic worthy of the title should refrain from examining anyone’s beliefs and commenting as he/she sees fit.
Sastra:
Yes. The bit PZ quoted in the OP…
…conflates issues of identity over which individuals have no volitional control (gender, sexual orientation, age, race…) and issues of circumstance about which individuals have very little (if any) choice (class, education, and physical ability) with issues of belief (religion) that are entirely volitional. Yes, I understand that cultural and family heritage, along with social/peer pressure, plays a part in religious identification, but it is at least theoretically possible for anyone to simply choose not to believe, where it is not possible to choose not to be disabled or to be a different race.
That said…
…I actually think this is true for a large fraction of professed “believers”… not that I think it’s any sort of excuse: I know too many “believers” who are otherwise sane, rational, and critical-thinking people to think they all really believe what the profess to believe when they recite the creed in church on Sunday. (Note that I’m also sure there are large numbers of true believers: I suspect, but cannot demonstrate, that there’s a significant correlation between the true-versus-professed believer distinction and differences in socioeconomic class, education, and religious denomination. But I digress….) But as I say, I don’t excuse or justify that: I just think going to church like their family and neighbors do is comfortable for them, and looking the irrationality of what they say they believe in the face would be uncomfortable. Hence why hearing skeptics talk honestly about religious belief is also uncomfortable… as it fucking well should be. If they were saying, as some secular/atheist Jews do, “I don’t actually believe any of the theology or supernatural stuff; I just honor the culture and traditions,” that’d be fine (and they’d have no trouble hearing theology criticized at skeptical events)… but I don’t actually hear any Christians or Muslims making that claim (nor do I imagine they admit it to themselves, either).
Way upthread, hyperdeath said…
…but I think the very problem we face, as skeptical atheists trying to deal with (otherwise, allegedly) skeptical theists is that their beliefs really are special, in a particularly confounding way: Unlike dowsing or homeopathy or cryptozoology, religious belief has been consistently normalized in virtually every human society throughout the whole of human history. This is precisely why UFO cults and other fringe whackos seek to portray themselves as religions: Everybody knows belief in UFOs is kooky; belief in religion? Not so much.
Or to put it another way: Even though believing in any theology is irrational, behaving in a way that a large majority of your society considers (and essentially always has considered) normal is not irrational.
This, IMHO, is precisely the mountain we have to climb if we want a more secular world: We have to (somehow) denormalize religious belief as a social behavior. I honestly believe that if it didn’t seem “normal” and “expected” to profess a religious faith, many current believers would be smart enough to see how crazy their professed creed really is. If we can somehow strip away the social “insulation” that perceived normalcy provides, the theology itself cannot stand.
Brownian, I thought that was a throw-away comedy line by Chigau. I could be wrong.
Ing:
Thanks…yeah, I tried adding something more there about “doing something about it” but it seemed too vague and not concise enough. But also I think it’s important to recognize that discomfort is okay, and you don’t actually HAVE to do anything about it. But then it will always be there, and you don’t get to complain.
Well one thing that needs to be done is for those of us who desire such an outcome to refuse to treat religion as a special case.
Chigau, your complaint makes no sense. You’re really teed off (and I’m at a loss as to why) that people are objecting to turning a blind eye to patently non-skeptical behavior. It really bothers you that someone might consider a religious person not a “skeptic” or a “true skeptic.”
But why does that bother you? Words have meanings. Really, they do. If they didn’t, we wouldn’t be able to communicate. There’s a certain point at which a hue is no longer accepted by the vast majority of people as “green” because all the yellow is gone. They agree that it’s now “blue.” This is . . .cripes it’s so basic I don’t know to get any clearer.
But taking your approach, we’d scold everyone who said “it’s not green anymore” with “why does everyone have to recognize the same hues as ‘green?’ Who are you to say that royal blue flag isn’t green?”
See what I mean? I think (and please do consider this, really) you’re unconsciously imputing moral value to the idea that someone is “not a true skeptic.” Instead of just understanding that it’s a matter of definitions, you seem to think we mean to say “that is a lesser person deserving of less inclusion in the moral sphere.”
If that’s not what underlies your problem, I have no clue what your problem is. I don’t mean to insult you, but the question has to be asked: do you have some belief that you know most of us would consider woo? Is that what’s got you defensive?
In reading the comments I wonder to why religious people would want to come to a skeptics convention. I have heard several sermons now where people actively discourage skepticism. Basically the faith is more important than knowledge.
Some religion is specifically the antithesis of skepticism.
moralnihilist (@80):
Well, yes… and no: The thing is, religious belief is functionally different from all those things because it is broadly perceived to be normal (often even by nonbelievers), as compared to the beliefs you mention, which are all broadly considered to be abnormal by pretty much everyone except committed believers. That is, religion has historically been culturally privileged.
And because of its privileged position, religion can function as a sort of “gateway drug” for all sorts of other, less normal kinds of woo. I think that’s what Ing was getting at upthread.
***
Matt Penfold (@110):
Well, of course… except that the very reason it’s so vitally important to “refuse to treat religion as a special case” is that it manifestly is, and pretty much always has been, a special case, in terms of its social context. Kind of a
Zenskeptical koan, eh?Attila:
The key word there is some. Some religious believers think skepticism — the act of doubting — amounts to rebellion against God, and is thus inherently deeply sinful. Others, though, see themselves as essentially rational actors in a world that just happens to have been created by a loving god (whom they often treat as a kind of absentee landlord). And everything in between.
Religious belief comes in many Baskin-Robbins®’s worth of flavors; it follows that any attempts to persuade/deconvert believers or to minimize the sociopolitical impact of their beliefs will have to be similarly diverse.
It’s true that many believers wouldn’t be caught dead among skeptics, or would only go among the “sinners” to give witness… but for those who willing wade into skeptical events, we should do them the great favor (and I say that without snark or irony) of not pretending we agree with them.
Josh
What really bothers me has nothing to do with religion.
It has to do with the lack of a universally accepted definition of “skeptic”.
So, many people use their own personal definitions in order to exclude Others for extremely personal reasons.
dglas @62 was my immediate trigger.
Another irritation is the underlying theme that in order to be a skeptic or even an atheist, I must be part of a “movement” and be a follower of some “leaders”.
to which I reply:
“Nae king! Nae quin! Nae laird! Nae master! We willnae be fooled again!”
—
The only woo I have in my life is the touching faith that when I put a letter in the postbox, it will eventually be delivered.
How often do the speakers at these events get into WHY religious claims are BS? I have never been able to afford to attend one of these, but I have a feeling there aren’t too many a-theologians (is that a word?) like Dan Dennet in there.
It would do people a lot of good if someone who could get right down to the nuts and bolts of epistemology and metaphysics opened their eyes…and, preferably, took some topical examples of abuse of those fields (Plantinga comes to mind…”Warrant and Proper Function” my ass) and tore them apart.
I agree that the JREF is not an overtly atheist organization but I think the significant issue is that some people actively hound the few religious folks with all the fervor of a Jehovah’s Witness. In the scientific conventions I’ve attended hardly anyone speaks of religion while on the floor (though I’ve known a few to praise Mohammed and Allah before giving their talk) but at gatherings the topic will occasionally stray to religion and most people would have a grand time making fun of all the silliness. Those situations may make the few god-botherers at the table uneasy, but that doesn’t stop them from being a scientist or from attending the next conference. I suspect there would be no problem at all if it weren’t for the hounding – if religion comes up at the table then it’s fair game, but chasing people and just chanting “why do you believe that crap” or something similar doesn’t accomplish anything good.
Thanks for clarifying that, chigau.
Gonna head off to the bus now, but I’ll look carefully at what you’ve written when I get home.
“Some religion is specifically the antithesis of skepticism.”
Some!?
Do they? Do you have evidence of this?
“I suspect there would be no problem at all if it weren’t for the hounding”
I’ve never been to a skeptic conference, but seriously, there’s ‘hounding’? How did atheists know to hound those people?
Were they in collars or burqas? Did they espouse unverifiable beliefs? Or did they just feel uncomfortable because some people were overheard to say religion is bullshit.
I’m away from the computer for a few hours but I am interested in MadScientist’s reply to truthspeaker.
It’s a mistake to treat the religious attendees of TAM and other skeptical meetings like pariahs. If they’re at least willing to think critically about such things as ghosts, ufos and psychics, then they’re halfway on the road to recovery. I’m not saying the non-believing community need to bend down and kiss their ass, I’m just saying that the religious need to be tolerated, the same way we would tolerate the ignorant while trying to educate them. I can remain polite but firm in my affirmation that no, Virginia, there is no Santa Claus. No Jesus, no Yaweh, Allah, Zeus, Krishna, Baphomet, Morrigan or Bel. There just isn’t any evidence to prove that any of those were anything more than the construct of a human mind. A fallible, superstitious human mind. [/rant]
Good thing that doesn’t happen and that nobody advocates such a thing.
Which is what we’re already doing.
So I guess we’re on track.
“It’s a mistake to treat the religious attendees of TAM and other skeptical meetings like pariahs.”
Who does this?
How do they know religious attendees are religious?
Assumes facts not in evidence.
[commenting without first reading the thread]
I see religion as a form of superstition, and I figure that JREF is supposedly anti-superstition.
Evidence? I’ve never seen this.
I have never seen an atheist subset of the skeptical community rise up and declare that a popular speaker at a skeptical conference should never be permitted to speak again. I have never seen atheists declare a walk-out at a conference because a speaker is a theist.
I’ve seen theists declare atheist speakers anathema. I’ve also seen them speculate that allowing atheists to publicly criticism religion at a conference puts us on a slippery slope that would lead to witchhunts against theists.
I just don’t get why we should pander to the religious at skeptical conferences. Just how skeptical can they be if the take at face value the fact that a virgin gave birth, or that a cracker and a glass of wine literally becomes flesh and blood? Seriously if you’re a skeptic you can’t just be skeptical of one or two things, you need to apply your critical reasoning to everything you come across.
Truthspeaker @ 124, The Sailor @125:
I’ll revise my remarks, which were a quick off-the-cuff statement, to read: “It would be a mistake to treat the religious attendees of TAM and other skeptical meetings as pariahs.
Thus, I warn against future possibilities, which was my original intent. I was also, in my own way, agreeing with PZ in the OP —
(I include the entire section lest I be accused of quote-mining.)
Here I agree with PZ entirely. None should be excluded because of their odd beliefs, but neither should their beliefs be given the special privilege not to be challenged.
It was Randi that originally got me into skepticism, and I have a great amount of respect for the man, but I fear that we have moved on from ‘Flim Flam’ since then.
I have little tolerance for the apologists. I have, emphatically, fallen out with Phil Plait over this issue, specifically the whole Pamela Gay thing. He’s well-intentioned, but just doesn’t get it. You can’t claim to be a skeptic, but give religion a free pass. Evidence, Phil?
MadScientist #117:
Sorry, but this strawman is only remotely believable in a high school setting. Try again.
Sorry for asking, but have there been any instances where the skeptics organisations have gotten into hot water with any established religions? I mean do they often tackle stuff like the Shroud, or the weeping Madonna or what have you? (I assume that they do not take up the big dogmas like parthanogenesis or resurrection of Jesus, right?)
What’s weird about listening to & including people who may share many but not all of your views?
Don’t those of us who live in families & communities do that every day?
Those who live in like-minded bubbles, be they religious or political, have always sought mental purity among their companions…but that is no way to run a freethinking organisation.
I agree with JREF’s line here.There is nothing wrong with cooperating with believers who are prepared to use the power of critical thinking against psuedoscience or quack medicine.
If the point of this post is that no one’s views should be privileged, well, that’s fine. I agree with that too.
But let’s not get so precious about our atheism that we can’t talk to people about anything else.
Skepticism challenges supernatural thinking but it is not just about atheism. It is about life on earth & the harm supernatural thinking can cause here & now.
It is about pragmatism, about what works, not about the never-ending often tedious metaphysical debate about gods and prophets and holy books and life after life and so on ad nauseum.
Okay, Redhill, how is religion not supernatural thinking? And as for it causing harm, do you live in the USA?
Redhill,
You’ve just admitted that atheism is a form of skepticism.
No. You don’t. Because the entirety of the rest of your post is that, sure, let one view be privileged. It’s for the greater good! What’s the harm? Can’t we all just get along?
Is that what you’re going to do? Just tell the religious believers “yeah, sure, I agree” when in fact, you don’t?
You know, we’re talking about skeptic events here. No one is saying you need to ostracise your neighbours. But we’re not talking about a dinner party, where the ultimate aim is to have a pleasant chit-chat over seared salmon.
No one here defending the JREF’s policy yet has been able to explain why this one subset of beliefs should be sacrosanct for the sake of the conversation without simply privileging it, whether the rationale they give is that it’s so ubiquitous that simply irritating believers will likely cost serious allies, that that the beliefs themselves are so weakly held that they have no serious social impact, and often both simultaneously.
So don’t tell us, “oh, hey I totally get the whole privilege thing, but c’mon“. It’s bullshit.
Nothing. Did anyone say it was weird? Did you read PZ’s post or any of the comments?
“Reason is the greatest enemy faith has”
I’m pretty sure even Martin Luther would have issues with the idea of a religious member of an organization formed specifically for the purpose of reasoned skepticism about all things. I don’t quite understand why there is even an argument here.
Marie #134
Yes, religion is supernatural thinking…but in my experience it is not uncommon for religious people to compartmentalize their religious beliefs & to think quite skeptically about science & medicine. They use skepticism as an intellectual toolkit but just don’t apply it to their religious beliefs. I suspect we all do this about our cherished beliefs to a degree.
I am Australian…perhaps that influences my take on this matter…I have spent time in the US where there do seem to be more believers willing to apply their supernatural thinking to science, medicine, & most alarmingly politics than is the case in Australia. I hope that is not too superficial a judgement.
John Morales #135
Maybe atheism is a form of skepticism, a form that focuses on theism. But that does not mean all skeptics must logically be atheists. It may be that traditional theism does not sit comfortably with a skeptical mindset but I have met a few skeptics who fit forms of Deism or Pantheistic notions like Spinoza’s God into their skeptical mindset.
And of course skeptics are interested in sound thinking and recognize that supernatural beliefs are not the only source of unsound arguments and false premises.
Should a panel on medicine include witch doctors, shamans, and miracle healers alongside the surgeons an nurses and pharmacists, for the sake of diversity? The panel shouldn’t ban them from appearing if they have relevant knowledge, but the chances are that the panel would exclusively have real doctors and medical professionals and not quacks. Same goes for a skeptic’s panel. Religious people aren’t banned, but chances are, a skeptic is going to be an atheist because if you apply skepticism to all things, you’re not religious.
This “controversy” and “lack of diversity” is bollocks. Just a case of a group of people wanting their idea to be privileged simply because they hold it.
truthspeaker #137
On “weird” – I borrowed that word from PZ’s post, a perfectly apt word that carries its own connotations of the supernatural, the bizarre, & of fate.
I am glad you think no one here thinks there is anything “weird” about listening to people you may not agree with.
Redhill, FWIW I’m Aussie too.
Re:
Sure. But you see how what applies to theism also applies to astrology, crystal therapy, spiritism, dowsing etc etc. What is the salient difference?
Would you say “that does not mean all skeptics must logically be
atheistsastrologists/new ageists/spiritualists/dowsers [etc]?”(And surely you’re not erecting the straw dummy that atheists are single-issue people, when it comes to scepticism?)
[erratum]
Would you say “that does not mean all skeptics must not logically be
atheistsastrologists/new ageists/spiritualists/dowsers [etc]?”Well, here’s the thing.
I have spiritual beliefs as a result of a number of personal experiences I’ve had. I am also of the mind that a person’s religious views should be respected (primarily because many things cannot be proven one way or the other). However, I accept that my beliefs are open to criticism and I would expect to be taken to task for them when among skeptics. I would also not hesitate to question religious people if I happened across them at a gathering of skeptics.
Religious claims rely on faith, not evidence. They should, therefore, be the target of skeptical inquiry. A religious person who calls him/herself a skeptic should understand and accept this, not get offended by it. And they should especially not get offended at a conference devoted to skepticism.
If all atheists stopped going to Tam they would be able to hold it at the olive garden.
Anya @144, I respect what you’ve stated there.
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[anecdotal]
My wife is a practicing Catholic, but she disarms my criticism by admitting she can’t justify her beliefs.
How can I not accept that sort of integrity, given she doesn’t pretend to be a rationalist skeptic (unlike me)?
Anya #144
Why should religion be respected any more than ghosts or UFOs? There’s lots of folks who claim to have been abducted by aliens in space ships. Should those views be respected because they “cannot be proven one way or the other”?
If someone makes a positive statement that they believe in god(s) or have been anally probed by aliens, then it’s up to them to give evidence for god(s) or aliens with a fascination for rectums. Otherwise, the null hypothesis should be preferred. Religion doesn’t deserve any more respect than aliens or big foots.
I really don’t see how it is the problem of the skeptical community (or mine) if a person who holds false belief X, goes to a TAM event or any of the other travelling book promos, and has that belief X questioned by someone, you know, skeptic, so as to induce discomfort in this individual.
Maybe JREF is concerned that if we are mean to the religious, they will sell less tickets.
Dowsing is easy, but religious belief is the biggie, and religious folks should be a natural target audience for skeptics !
John Morales #142 & 143
Atheism may be a form of skepticism, focused on theism, when it comes about by the use of reason, logic, evidence – the usual tools of skepticism. I think most visitors to a site like this have arrived at their atheism via a skeptical route…hence the confusion about why all skeptics are not atheists.
Atheism can also be a faith position, a product of some forms of Buddhism for example or some other belief mindset, perhaps inherited from parents or some other powerful authoritative figures. Such atheists may not believe in a theistic god but they may nevertheless have many beliefs not based in reason, evidence & logic – be those beliefs about the healing power of crystals or about the historical inevitability of communism or about reincarnation.
Turning to skeptics & supernatural beliefs, people with any kind of supernatural belief may choose to use the tools of skepticism for limited purposes. The salient difference you ask for I think is just that they rarely apply these tools to their own beliefs & if they do so they commonly apply motivated reasoning to get the answers they want.
I think this is a tricky debate without a simple answer.
Sometimes we confuse wanting people to use reason, evidence & logic with wanting people to believe as we do.
I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again — you can come to skepticism through atheism, and you can come to atheism through skepticism. You probably won’t arrive at both simultaneously. But eventually, if you think through either one, you’ll arrive at the other.
What kills me is this hypersensitivity about only one topic that we’re not allowed to be skeptical about lest we offend some people. I’m sure the Venn diagram overlaps atheism and skepticism significantly more than theism and skepticism. What’s next, will we have to avoid pissing off the transhumanists too?
^^THIS^^… however, [a] this is only possible because religious belief is culturally privileged as normal in a way that other forms of supernatural thinking are not, and [b] this is no reason for the rest of us not to apply our skeptical toolset to religion. It just means our task is defined differently for these people.
Redhill, thanks for the response.
Not that religious people are apparently the only ones for whom JREF not just condones, but prescribes such leeway? :)
It’s a part of skepticism, and even then, no. Atheists deny the existence of supernatural deities. Atheism does not contain any requisite position of skepticism, it only states a position held. It is an a priori stance.
Skepticism is a philosophy of knowledge which, as far as I can tell, is virtually indistinguishable from agnosticism.
Now, to your next question:
Sigh. Scope is the difference. Attitude is the difference. Agnostics, skeptics, secularists(?) may come to the conclusion that no gods exist, so they may be atheists also, but atheism only concerns itself theism, nothing more!
Atheists may be skeptics, freethinkers, etc, but it is not what atheism means.
They are not the same. I’ve met
cuckoosatheists that turn around and talk about universal spirit, guiding consciousness, holding Deepak Chopra in reverence, piloting UFO’s, (insert woo of choice here), and I fucking hate it! Personally, I think they are equivalent to psychotic Xian fundamentalists, but there you go, they are atheists.I 100% agree that most JREF’s, TAM’s, and Carnival of Skeptics/Evolution blah blah are Atheists and skeptics, but they are not equivalent. Most atheists I know just use common sense to realize there is no God damned god.
John Morales,
Sorry I didn’t read close enough. You’d sure think that a critical approach to theism also means the same approach to the others. I agree with you ;o)
And actually, you’re talking to Redhill, sorry for my intrusion.
tushcloots:
Nope. Atheists don’t believe in the existence of deities — some go further and deny such (the gnostic/agnostic axis).
As I clarified above. :)
Nope. It can be either/or an a posteriori or an a priori stance, and it can either be provisional or definitive.
Skepticism (‘doubting’) is a metaphysical epistemological stance, of which rational empiricism is a form.
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[Ah, just refreshed before committing the comment and noted your #154. Appreciated.]
tushcloots #153
I think your post 153 crossed my 149.
Your reference to “common sense” reminded me that most people live as if there was no god & no after life, even those who claim to believe in such things.
“Common sense” is really conventional wisdom or folk religion. It is the wisdom of getting, spending, propagating, doing what works to get on in life, believing as your neighbours believe, accepting a few common superstitions, looking out for your family. It has a touch of religion in it for most people and a bit of skepticism …after all who prays to god to cook dinner or repair the car? And who doesn’t mourn friends & family?
People who call themselves skeptics or atheists or agnostics are a little subversive of the folk religion of common sense…hence they are not usually the most popular or accepted of citizens in their communities.
So we have discussions like this… we want those common sense folk to join us & take that next step…build on the skepticism and just be explicit about living as if there was no god…not such a big deal…but it does alarm the enthusiasts and fanatics…because they are emperors with no clothes.
Redhill:
Wow, you’ve gone ellipses-crazy there!
So, care to clarify who these “fanatics” are?
(Because fanaticism seems incongruous when applied to rational sceptics)
John Morales #157
I had in mind religious fanatics & enthusiasts.
Yes, its hard to see rational skeptics as fanatics…though atheism has had its share of such.
Today’s so-called New Atheists (a most inept term), all things considered, are a pretty mild-mannered bunch.
They don’t have a patch on the old Soviet League of Militant Godless: http://www.laphamsquarterly.org/roundtable/roundtable/riding-the-godless-express.php
This is especially strange when we consider that scientific skepticism was to a large extent founded by people of faith
no, it actually isn’t strange at all.
Hasn’t this person ever heard the expression:
Reading the bible is the quickest way to become an atheist.
seriously, I can easily imagine that those who maintain some faith position with any intellect at all attached must constantly question why they do so.
this would automatically lead to the application of critical thinking skills in other areas of thought.
so what maintains their “faith”?
humans are basically irrational animals with a broad capacity for compartmentalizing radically disparate ideas.
that’s really all there is to it.
Not one person of religious faith has EVER presented a rational evidentiary argument in favor of maintaining that faith.
not one. In fact, not only should it not even be possible for them to do so, by the tenets of many faiths, they should even be trying to do so.
because, of course, for most, they realize the truth once they do.
they should[n’t] even be trying to do so.
fixed.
[meta]
OK. Thanks for that, Redhill.
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As far as the Soviet example goes, its Marxism-Leninism was effectively a non-theistic religion. Hardly rational scepticism.
(I’m not just atheistic, I’m irreligious)
“Common sense” is really conventional wisdom or folk religion. It is the wisdom of getting, spending, propagating, doing what works to get on in life,
not exactly, but rather, it is the reliance on personal experience to guide one’s conclusions, rather than deduction.
example:
if I did not have personal knowledge of the fact that the world is round (I, like most, have seen the sat photos early in life, among many other evidences), then I might conclude, based on common sense, that the world is flat.
functionally, this would work well as an assumption for me for most daily activities, even though it is in fact, quite wrong.
the people who rely on “common sense” rely on a crap shoot. They rely on their own personal experience to make conclusions that may or may not be accurate, but that give them positive feedback in their current situation.
IOW, people who utilize common sense over common knowledge, don’t give a fuck about truth, or anything larger than themselves and getting direct positive feedback for their actions.
it works for THEM, and that makes it “good enough”, and they think you an egghead for knocking something that obviously works.
It’s much like trying to tell a bridgemaker that newtonian mechanics is wrong, and quantum mechanics is actually more accurate.
they simply don’t care.
it’s really got less to do with “folk religion”, than it does with just the application of direct feedback, accuracy of which simply isn’t relevant.
I personally believe this is where much of the anti-science attitude comes from.
most people just can’t grasp the relevance, and when you try to explain it to them, it inevitably deflates their personal triumphs of invoking “common sense” for most of their lives.
again, it’s like trying to explain to someone why it’s important that they understand that the world is really round, when in their daily lives they get perfectly sufficient positive feedback by acting as if it were flat.
Many don’t WANT to know that the world is round, because they feel it interferes with their already well-established “system” for interacting with the world.
Marxism-Leninism
marx never meant for his philosophy and conclusions to be utilized in a dogmatic fashion.
In fact, it was mostly the misinterpretations and publications of his sister that fomented that.
Lenin is a different issue, but again, not so much intention to replace religion with state dogma, as realizing that religion could interfere with the idealistic transition of government.
Now Stallin, OTOH, is the one that took the idea of state dogma replacing religious dogma to the test.
which of course, is exactly why atheism isn’t even relevant to talking about Stallin’s motivations.
it was simply power and how best to establish that power quickly and completely that occupied him most.
it sucks that the grand ideas of Marx were so utterly trashed by people who misinterpreted them so badly for their own ends, but there it is.
Marx’s idealistic communist utopia never got the test it deserved.
for that matter, I doubt since the time of the greeks that a pure democracy has ever gotten the test it deserved, either.
…both probably untested for good reason, I might add, if John Stuart Mill wasn’t completely off base, and I don’t think he was.
[meta + OT]
ichthyic, I can’t dispute you.
Stalin, of course, was a pragmatist at heart; he didn’t care about such trivia as truth or ideology — only about power.
Stalin and the Church
(But then, that’s what the Church has always been: a tool for social control)
ichthyic #162
Yes, agree with most of what you say about common sense. Calling it a folk religion is my way of saying its driven by lively anecdote & lived culture rather than the kind of rigorous examination of evidence rational skeptics are said to rely on. Common sense is about truth only in the extreme pragmatic sense of truth being what works for you on an ordinary daily basis.
You don’t even have to remember the world is round if all you do is drive to the local shopping mall.
But you do need to remember its round if you plan to fly to the other side of it.
For the majority who live as if there was no god but say they believe there is, how do we remind them the chances are no one is watching over them?
Many of the truths skeptics and atheists sweat about are just irrelevant to daily lived “common sense” experience. And so is the debate about skeptics being atheists or not.
I think the task for all of us is to remember reason, remember to apply it to our own lives and beliefs, remember to make it just common sense in the circles we live in.
But we should not expect too much of one another…we are only human.
Calling it a folk religion is my way of saying its driven by lively anecdote & lived culture rather than the kind of rigorous examination of evidence rational skeptics are said to rely on
ah, righto.
But you do need to remember its round if you plan to fly to the other side of it.
it’s even more than that; more than the direct feedback on personal actions; it’s that people need to see how accuracy affects them even indirectly.
this is supposed to be a result of teaching people things like astronomy and biology, but there are still many people whose perception of themselves or their peers they view as being somehow denigrated for relying on “common sense”.
We have to move beyond that level of simple, psychological defense reaction. People should not feel defensive about being ignorant, just FIX IT, and move on already. We no longer can afford to coddle people to whinge about giving up their dreamy ignorance.
We have to treat anti-science as little more than selfish defensive reactions on the part of people who take part in them, and that they shouldn’t feel defensive on realizing that common sense is not even remotely sufficient to really understand how the world works, and for us as a culture to move forward.
tell a child who is learning things that are counter to the “common sense” imparted to them by their parents that it isn’t a poke at their parents, their parents got by on what they knew, but we KNOW so much more, and it’s important for them to know it to.
It’s why popularizers of science like Sagan and Dawkins, Coyne and even PZ are so important.
they don’t just get the science right for the kids they teach… They show WHY it’s important in the larger scheme that the kids actually understand it.
this is something common sense approaches do not allow for, and thus must be simply left behind as archaic and unnecessary.
much like religion itself, for that matter, which brings us right back around to why the JREF should NOT play the accomodationist card.
Diversity has nothing to do with it, and instead they are merely trying to defuse irrational defensive reactions on the part of people that, being self-proclaimed skeptics, should really know better.
atheism and skepticism are often conflated
not by anyone with any understanding of the terms, really.
even excluding various definitions of “atheistic religions”, atheism is a conclusion that results FROM skepticism.
trying to say that the religious should be fully welcomed into a skeptical society is like saying that you’re more than happy to let someone lie to themselves and still be called a skeptic.
Of course, I understand the opposite position, that welcoming the religious into skeptic societies can only “speed them on the to the inevitable conclusion”, but that seem a bit disingenuous to me.
@ichtyyic
“for that matter, I doubt since the time of the greeks that a pure democracy has ever gotten the test it deserved, either.”
Greek democracy was only a “pure democracy” if you were a free greek male. It’s hard to wax too poetic about greek democracy when it excluded well over half of the population.
As an aside, I shudder to think of what the world would look like under a genuine direct democracy.
If I may ask, do scorn and skepticism have to be synonymous? The first is perforce hostile and quite warranted when the target adopts the defensive “but-my-beliefs-are-special” stance. The second isn’t necessarily hostile. Is it possible to maintain the second position until the first becomes necessary.
Of course my question overlooked the fact that to far too many believers scorn and skepticism are synonymous and no amount of claiming otherwise on the part of the skeptics will change their mind.
How is criticizing religion’s flaws criticizing people?
If they feel unwelcome because they don’t want to be skeptical about real-life applications of religion, their faith is misplaced, isn’t it? And they aren’t really allies in a skeptical world.
Listening to stories and engaging in ceremony, in itself, is harmless. But if you aren’t willing to step back and examine those actions skeptically, we’d never have science. Period.
“Indeed, the panel set out to discuss diversity in gender, sexual orientation, age, race, class, education, and physical ability—but not stamp collecting.”
I agree with you that skeptics do not have to refrain from expressing disagreement with religious claims or formally arguing against them when they are forcefully put forth. But that doesn’t mean you get to laugh and snicker. Politeness is a virtue, even when speaking to believers in the Overlords from Beta Reticuli. I believe that skeptics should welcome religious people, and antireligious talk should be avoided at skeptical meetings. If people are into that, they can join an atheist group.
FTFY
Seriously.