Haught finally gave permission to release the video of the Coyne-Haught debate — you can watch it now.
Haught had to get in the last word, though, he released it with a letter. It’s quite a letter, too. He explains that he didn’t withhold the video because he was a coward, oh, no — it’s entirely because Jerry Coyne was such an awful, bad, wicked man.
But let me come to the main reason why I have been reluctant to give permission to release the video. It is not for anything that I said during our encounter, but for a reason that I have never witnessed in public academic discussion before. I’m still in shock at how your presentation ended up. I was so offended both personally and as an academic by the vulgarity of it all that I did not want other people to have to share what I witnessed that night in October. I still don’t.
That makes you want to watch it even more, doesn’t it?
Rather than answering my point that scientism is logically incoherent–which is really the main issue–and instead of addressing my argument that the encounter with religious truth requires personal transformation, or for that matter instead of responding to any of the other points I made, you were content to use most of your time to ridicule several isolated quotes from my books. I was absolutely astounded by your woeful lack of insight into, or willingness to grapple with, the real meaning of these passages. Sophisticated argument requires as an essential condition that you have the good manners to understand before you criticize. Your approach, on the other hand was simply one of “caricature and then crush.”
I’m listening to it right now. So far, I’ve only gotten into Haught’s mealy-mouthed babble, and I don’t have much sympathy for him. What does “encounter with religious truth requires personal transformation” even mean? It’s a bald assertion. He gripes that science couldn’t detect cosmic purpose…why? And why should we believe theology can?
I’ll also add that Haught’s letter is a rather nasty, vicious, personal attack in itself. I’ll report back after I’ve heard Coyne’s part — I’ll be listening to see if it’s quite as cantankerous as Haught makes it out to be.
Yeesh. Haught’s closing statement is to tell us to read our bibles and consider kenosis and revelation — it’s pure theo-babble. Where does Haught get any kind of reputation as anything other than a very silly man? He’s just going on and on with this ridiculous crap.
I’m halfway through Jerry’s talk. No ad hominem so far; he’s arguing that there is a conflict between science and religion, and he quotes a few comments from Haught, but I’m not hearing any insults. Coyne disagrees with Haught, which is the whole reason they’re having the debate…is Haught upset because his opponent dares to present an argument in opposition to his?
I am totally baffled by Haught’s complaints. Coyne’s entire talk is on topic, emphasizing that science assesses reality effectively while religion…doesn’t. He points out that theologians, including Haught, fall back on the claim of the metaphorical interpretation, but that’s not an insult, that’s the simple, obvious truth. Sure, he points out that Catholicism has committed evil acts, but that’s part of the argument — if religion were a true source of great moral knowledge, as the religious claim, then why isn’t it legitimate to show that those claims are patently false?
Coyne’s sin is making his case strongly. Nothing more. It was a good, thorough dissection of Haught’s claims, and I can see why Haught would resent it being made publicly available, since he does a great job of making theology look feeble and ineffective and phony. But Haught’s 3-page open letter is far more defamatory than anything Coyne said.
“encounter with religious truth requires personal transformation”
Well, you do have to transform your personal definition of “truth.”
The ‘I’m only thinking of others’ canard. And it’s true, but he’s protecting himself from others, not the other way around.
You are right, it does make me want to watch it more, ha ha! CUL8R
It’s subtle, you see. Theology is tricky! Making fun of it is just plain rude. If you don’t appreciate the study of the supernatural, you’ll never understand it. Haught even pointed out in his letter that some of his sentences, which Coyne so cruelly deconstructed, actually require “reading and understanding many chapters.” (Succinctness is apparently not a trait of theology. Nor is comprehensibility.)
Next up: Haught defends unicornology.
Instead of responding to me you responded to my book! That’s not enough me. WAAAAHHH!!!
Did he honestly expect Coyne to use his 25 minutes to respond on-the-spot to Haught’s prepared 25 minute presentation?
Haught’s problem seems to be that he was expecting Jerry to simply deal with the issues as framed by Haught. Instead, Jerry debated the specific issue in the debate. He did so amusingly, engagingly and intelligently – quite the opposite of Haught’s boring, insipid, dull drivel. As I’ve remarked before on my blog ( http://answersingenes.blogspot.com if you’re interested), there seems to be this incredible *vanity* in some of a philosophical/theological persuasion that we scientists must formulate our arguments in their lingo – stoop to their level of obscurantist gibberish. When we (scientists, or just sensible people) use normal everyday language, straightforward common sense, logic and clear thinking, they call us “jejune” or “aggressive” or “philosophically illiterate”.
Yes, I sat through the entirety of the video. Jerry Coyne said he would be pugnacious – I thought he was very *gracious*, but simply stuck to his guns and made the point (very well) that he was INVITED ALONG TO MAKE!.
For John Haught to make these claims smacks of being an exceptionally poor loser. Despite having had loads of practice – you’d think he’d be used to it by now.
-@shanemuk
I’m watching it now, 23 minutes into Haught’s ramblings. He just said, “Revelation is primarily the self-communication of the infinite to the finite world.” *eyeroll* And that’s more or less plucked out at random.
If you follow the link you can download the powerpoint slides, and that helps. (Haught’s, btw, are simply execrable–his #7 could serve as a perfect bad example–and Coyne’s could use some design-tweaking as well imo).
Haught brought an imaginary knife to a gunfight. He didn’t stand a chance, but Coyne definitely delivered. That was the first talk I’ve seen him give, and though he wasn’t at all offensive or attacking Haught personally, he didn’t pull any punches. I really liked it.
When Haught is done with his kenosis, he at least ought to have the courtesy to flush. I don’t know if that fails to meet academic standards, but it certainly isn’t the kind of behavior I’d expect from a gentleman and a scholar.
I watched the video last night, immediately after it was released. While it was a bit too late for me to “study it” in detail, it wasn’t too hard to understand the source of Haught’s dismay. He got up and presented the most incoherent babble about how religion and science should get along together and they are really in agreement after all is said and done. It was pure nonsense. Jerry got up and announced that he was going to do what he had been asked to do i.e. debate the issue by presenting a real argument. He then proceeds to rip the compatability argument to shreds, as he should. Haught is upset because Jerry speaks to the issue. Apparently he thought the job was for both of them to “make nice”. If he didn’t want to get ripped, he should have skipped a “debate” in which his position is to “accommodate” and the other side is to “denounce” accommodation. Jerry did an excellent job and apologizes nicely about reaming Haught’s position.
Definitely. For example, Haught wrote “Rather than answering my point that scientism is logically incoherent–which is really the main issue”. No, it’s not. Scientism isn’t anything but a strawman created by religious apologist, so I don’t see why we should discuss it, let alone make it “the main issue”.
Yeah! How DARE that rude Prof. Coyne not acknowledge, admire and praise the Emperor’s new clothes!
And it’s only in Good Old Catholic tradition that what *I* don’t like to see or hear, NOBODY should get to see or hear.
From the link at the end of PZ’s post relating to kenosis;
I now have the image firmly in mind that, underneath his robes, Jebus must have been wearing a Kryptonite locket.
I mean, if we are going to have convenient plot devices revolving around the temporary supression of superpowers, you may as well go with a classic…
Yes. This has been another edition of simple answers to simple questions.
I watched the video yesterday and saw nothing from Coyne that seemed to cross over the line of acceptable academic debate. On the contrary, it was all directly on point. The part that really seemed to get Haught’s undies in a twist were the examples of “why it matters” that faith, unlike science, has no way of cross-checking itself: political and social consequences of moral directives and authority derived from special revelations. Jerry used the Catholic Church to illustrate, since Haught is Catholic. That way, he could avoid the expected charge of taking “fringe” beliefs from some other guy’s religion. Perfectly reasonable.
Haught’s point that scientism is “logically incoherent” seemed to be based on his assertion that science wasn’t wired to detect God, since the lower level of nature and reason wasn’t — by definition — capable of discovering or exploring “higher” dimensions of reality. The only way to detect these divine levels is through a “personal transformation” which gives a person the ability to comprehend the otherwise incomprehensible. This awareness of being grasped by Ultimate Reality is how he defines “faith.”
Jerry did indeed directly attack this point, repeatedly. His basic premise could be summed up by the quote he used from Feynman: “The first rule of science is not to fool yourself — and you are the easiest person to fool.” Feelings or sensations of being connected to some higher Mind have all sorts of rational, natural explanations which don’t require the unnecessary assumption that there is, in fact, some higher Mind settled at the foundation of the cosmos. What Haught calls faith or personal transformation is what scientists would call motivated reasoning or subjective validation.
As Jerry points out, science and religion are in conflict on the basic level because in science faith is a vice — and in religion faith is a virtue.
Haught’s fury seems to be based on the gnu atheists’ refusal to accept the terms of special pleading which surround religion. By definition science and religion can’t conflict? Oh really? Watch how the definition doesn’t work in practice. Take your views apart and see how they were put together. Ask yourself how you — or anyone — could discover they were wrong once they’re in an epistemic system where one must assume they have a special, unverifiable, unquestionable connection to an elite Ultimate Power which the dregs on the “lower” levels won’t be able to understand.
Haught didn’t just wander into this setup. He wrote a book attacking new atheism. He should have expected all the aspects of the talk — including the “vulgarity” of how the presentation ended up. He should have prepared for it: it’s not out of line, it wasn’t personal, it wasn’t uncivil. The fact that he apparently didn’t makes me wonder if he got involved in the ‘dialogue’ with the specific intention of being publicly offended.
Probably not, but it’s not out of the realm of possibility.
kenosis
Isn’t that what Kenny is always being killed by?
I haven’t seen it, but where is the “vulgarity”? Are we talking actual profanity or did someone dare to apply logic, reason, and morality to Haught’s sacred cows?
It’s always entertaining when theists want everyone to read their bibles and consider kenosis and revelation. This of course means only “read your bible and accept that my version is the only “right” version”
Yep, that is how you know you are dealing with a bully (or a cluster B personality disorder). When you confront them directly about a conflict they lie and pretend to be victims. They do what they accuse others of doing and expect sympathy. It is such an abuse of the normal empathic response normal people have, requesting pity while being cruel. The perversity of people who do this makes me fucking sick. I don’t know what to do about people like that except to ignore them and cut off contact.
To a follower of Teh True God an atheist is vulgar by existing. QED.
Someone help me out here:
What is “scientism”?
Yes.
It’s amazing that Christians manage to get through the day with their sanity intact, given all the vicious persecution by ruthless evil atheists like Coyne. Christians should be allowed to bully gay teens to suicide and subvert the Constitution in peace, without all these unfair attacks, you know, like mutually agreed-upon debates. Horrors!
It sounds like Haught is complaining that his goalposts were insufficiently mobile.
I do have some sympathy for Haught, though. In the world of theology and even philosophy (at least the circles he probably moves in), the categorical fallacy is king; words can be fluffed up and tossed around like confetti. He’s probably quite engaging and stimulating as a philosopher-theologian – I once made the mistake of attending a “seminar” with Richard Swinburne in which he READ from a sheet of PAPER all the way through. It was boring, it was turgid, it was composed of fluff, and it was hugely fallacious. Yet Haught is probably under the impression that this is how things should be done. Maybe in theology they are, but this would not pass muster in a *real* academic debate, such as those held between scientists.
FFS, I have been at international conferences where the discussion is FAR more acerbic than this, and despite the plaintive yelps from our humanities pals, this does NOT generate more heat than light – it results in significant honing of scientific concepts (and how they’re presented), and frequently does lead to people changing their minds.
No, Haught was upset because he feels he is equipped to *preach*, not to actually engage with an argument.
Get that man a new set of clutching pearls and a clean fainting couch, stat!
‘Scientism’ is a mouldy strawman that only exists in the minds of religious apologists. Science is a method for gathering data and understanding the world around us. It is no more a religion than atheism is. Can one get prizes for missing the point? If so, I really think that Haught should be nominated. That is an Olympic level effort right there.
Ah, much better.
Because the words Haught wrote in his books naturally don’t hold their usual meanings, oh no, they only mean what Haught wants them to mean, and that meaning can change whenever it is convenient to Haught that they should do so.
Intellectual dishonesty really is a requirement for entry among theologians isn’t it?
Ah, the Courtier’s Reply is alive and well I see. It is funny that Haught should chide Coyne for a lack of understanding before criticising when Haught himself has already wheeled out the tired old ‘scientism’ schtick that is a clear indication that Haught is well into the ‘not even wrong’ column when it comes to understanding both the scientific method and the intellectual position of rationalists.
As for ‘caricature and then crush’, well, that seems a perfectly reasonable response to Haught’s inane blather. If he is going to make such cringe-inducingly stupid statements and then back it up with a healthy second course of outright dishonesty, then what else does he expect? He has said nothing that warrents anything more than mockery.
Wait, he recommends considering kenosis? According to the Wiki entry, that was when Jesus “emptied himself”… “emptied himself” as in he defecated? Is this the sophisticated theology we always hear about? How could we atheists be so theologically ignorant as to not consider the significance of Jebus’ bowel movements…? /snark
Haught’s point is still worthless because he is contradicted in the more important essentials by archaeology and text criticism. That is not science; that is history. It is not theoretical; it is the most practical and deductive process we have at our disposal.
I hope someone like Avalos debates this guy and makes this point.
To be fair, like Po-mo Scientism has a real definition and area where it is useful.
I’ve never fucking seen either of them used properly, but in theory they can be.
@Mogles
If I recall Catholic Ed, the emptying is when the God part of Jesus left, leaving only the human part. Thus he’s able to die and not-die at the same time.
Also, Mogles@25:
Kenosis specifically means the process of Jesus emptying himself of what was Godly to become human, yet somehow still retaining Godly nature. It is an ad-hoc explanation which was invented to cohere to later (late 1st century at the absolute earliest, more likely Nicaean-era) religious ideas of who and what Jesus actually was. See also the adoptionist hypothesis, homoousion vs homoiousion debate, and so forth.
It’s good to know it, but again, irrelevant because the history, texts, and (recently un)buried ruins negate it on an earlier level.
I did once see post-modernism used correctly, but it was in a documentary about C20th architecture when discussing what happened post-Courbousier.
Alverant #15 wrote:
Ok, here it is in all its glory. The following slides are apparently the coup de grace, the part of Jerry’s talk which threw Haught into fits of shock. Brace yourself:
—
Why does it matter?
Because religion is rarely a purely personal matter:
if people didn’t think that religion was a reliable way
to attain truth, they wouldn’t enforce those truths on
others.
Destructive positions of the Catholic Church:
• Opposition to birth control (also to prevent AIDS)
• Total opposition to abortion
• Opposition to divorce
• Opposition to homosexuality
• Control of people’s sex lives
• Making women second-class citizens
• Instillation of fear and guilt in children
• Protection of priests who abuse children
All of these are based on scripture.
—
Haught seems to think it’s critically significant that, as a Catholic, he doesn’t hold to all these views himself and by implying that he does Jerry is trying to discredit him. But come on — that’s not the issue. It doesn’t matter. This isn’t personal. These are official opinions of just one religion which holds its moral views above the scrutiny and correction of the world. This what we get falling out of the warm, wonderful experience of faith which Haught thinks puts believers into a higher category of understanding than nonbelievers.
There. You have now shared what poor John Haught had to witness that dreadful night in October. I hope that you, or anyone else, will recover from the assault on your sensibilities.
d cwilson @ 19;
Scientism is generally used to mean the privileging of scientifically and evidentially verified knowledge over the so-called ‘other ways of knowing’. It is usually employed as a means of trying to dismiss a materialist understanding of the world as somehow unduly narrow or limited, or to imply that accepting scientific evidence and theories (unless superior countervailling evidence comes along) is somehow a ‘faith position’ and thus ‘just another religion’.
It is a term very much favoured among a certain brand of religious apologist who, for some inexplicable reason, consider it a ‘gotcha’ argument when dealing with rationalists and atheists. It is sometimes also wheeled out by other types of kooks who don’t like dealing with certain forms of scientific data and theories, such as climate change denialists and the self-proclaimed vaccination ‘sceptics’.
Religious people often view criticism of their ideas as a personal attack. This is unsurprising; it’s a consequence of the emotive/non-rational way they view the world. The only difference here is that Haught is an ‘academic’, so we naturally expect him not to behave like this. But we shouldn’t be surprised. As I often say, if religious people were capable of responding rationally to rational argument, they wouldn’t be religious.
Sastra:
I have never been subjected to such vulgarity and downright abject baseness as what you just put me through.
Seeing the list of evils perpetrated by the Catholic Church is one of the grossest things I’ve ever seen.
Well, there are, oh so many, cases of drunken conversions. One good place to start reading up on this is wrt Jerry McAuley’s Water Street Mission. He went from criminal to convert through a complete transformation of character.
The mission’s work was a forerunner of the AA. They also worked a lot with criminals and prostitutes, going into the prisons in search of people desperate for changing their ways. (As some medical wag put it back then: “The only radical remedy I know for dipsomania is religiomania.”)
It would not surprise me if rum has put more people on the path to jeebus than a whole generation of god-botherers.
This “truth” is simply giving up completely on the old ways (“being transformed”) but instead of improving their own minds, they give that up and follow jeebus (or whatever holy lie lies to hand). Ok, it cures the original problem, but at what price? Beaten down, they give up trying and just lie down at the feet of their new master.
……………
(I sometimes wonder if the anguish (for example brought on by alcoholism) may not find its Eastern equivalent in a Zen koan. Through constant struggle, the rational mind is broken down to a point where it stops computing and opens the floodgates to the less linear parts. The jeebusgasm would then be the equivalent of Satori. Very “transforming” to say the least.)
Yeah, what the hell is “scientism?” The worship of science? PZ’s cute, but not worship-worthy. Neil DeGrasse Tyson, on the other hand…
I’ve watched it all and if I had any respect for Haught, his pathetic letter would have dissipated it all. First, his presentation was utterly woeful. He talked lots but said nothing. His central premise seems to be that minds cannot know God as they exist on a lower plane in his imagined hierarchy then he proceeds to tell his how we can know god through some sort of emptying… maybe it’s diarrhoea, i’m not sure. He offered not a single argument in defence of his contentions. Not a single reason as to how he knows that god had diarrhoea and gave us Jebus. Not a single shred of evidence for the imaginary ladder on which we and god sit. Of course, he would say that “there are things besides evidence, god-dammit. You need to have a trasformation!” The sad fact is that his presentation just shows how a professional life can be completely wasted in the non-subject that is theology. Coyne, as one would expect, was lucid, concise, thoughtful and, for me at least, utter demolished the notion that science and religion are compatible.
I will now cut ‘n paste the specific quotes used in Jerry’s talk:
—-
On the contrary, religion is about the deepest of all
realities. . . . Religion, to anyone who takes it seriously,
is about what is Most Real.”
—John Haught, Deeper than Darwin
It is the main business of religion to answer the big questions. . .
What’s going on in the universe?
Is there any point to it all?
Why are we here?
How should we live?
Does God exist?
Where did the universe come from?
Why does anything exist at all?
Why is there so much suffering?
Why do we die?
Do we live on after death?
How can we find release from suffering and sadness?
What can we hope for?”
“The transience and expected death of the cosmos defy our attempts to state clearly what the ‘point’ of it all may be.”
—John Haught, Deeper than Darwin
In any case, were I try to try to elicit scientific evidence of immortality I would just be capitulating to the narrower empiricism that underlies
naturalistic belief. What I will say, though, is that the hope for some
form of subjective survival is a favorable disposition for nurturing
trust in the desire to know.
John Haught, The Promise of Nature
It is essential to religious experience, after all, that ultimate reality be beyond our grasp. If we could grasp it, it would not be ultimate.”
–John Haught, Deeper Than Darwin, p. 68).
Nature’s contingencies and evolution’s randomness are not
indicative of a divine impotence, but of a God caring and
self-effacing enough to wait for the genuine emergence of what
is truly other than God, with all the risk, tragedy, and adventure this patience entails.
The idea that secondary causes [evolution], rather than direct
divine intervention, can account for the evolution of life may
even be said to enhance rather than diminish the doctrine of
divine creativity. Isn’t it a tribute to God that the world is not just passive putty in the Creator’s hands but instead an inherently active and self-creative process, one that can evolve and produce new life on its own?
—John Haught, Deeper than Darwin
Without in any way rejecting evolutionary theory, theology may
plausibly claim that biodiversity exists ultimately because of an extravagant divine generosity that provides the enabling
conditions that invite the universe to become as interesting,
various, and hence beautiful as possible.
—John Haught, Making Sense of Evolution
———-
From what I can tell, all these quotes are consistent with what I’ve read from John Haught elsewhere. I strongly suspect that anyone who used these exact same quotations in a pro-science & religion talk — reading them out in an impressed and respectful voice — would NOT have been accused of “taking them out of context.” The real context I think is that these statements are part of a larger, wiser, more thoughtful understanding of God gained through a personal transformation and thus deserve to be treated with the impressed respect one uses in approaching the divine.
Sorry. No. We atheists do not breath well in religion’s rarefied atmosphere of privilege.
Okay, I get it now.
Scientism = The canard that science is somehow a religion.
Once somebody pulls that fallacy out, it should be an automatic disqualification.
We should just own it now and start The First Cosmic Church of Sagan
I also nominate myself as the first Science Pope. I have my pope name picked out. Pope Pious Tesla I
I guess what bothers me is that there are people (I call them “verbal thinkers”) who think what Haught is saying is perfectly reasonable. They are unable to see behind the trash, which is very sad. And they feel that when people laugh at them, we’re just being mean. We’re not. We just think it is *hilarious* that anyone can think this way. The chaps on the Reasonable Doubts podcast discussed this a bit last week. It’s a style of thinking, and a grossly fallacious one at that.
http://answersingenes.blogspot.com/2011/04/what-sort-of-thinker-are-you-visual-or.html
I suppose the charge of “scientism” makes sense when it’s applied to those very few people who try to use scientific or scientific-styled arguments to demonstrate that Mozart is “better” than Bach — or determine other matters of purely personal taste. But yes, from what I’ve seen most of the people who use the term are either trying to discredit atheism through special pleading God into a category in which fact claims are treated like preferences — or they’re trying to separate reason from emotion (“love is irrational”) so they can make some smarmy point about science (and thus scientists) having no heart.
Ing and Hazuki: Thanks for giving the actual meaning of kenosis, however I prefer my “Jebus had IBS hypothesis (TM)” definition of emptying himself. I find that it is theologically sound, as it accurately describes the contents of the Bible quite succinctly: i.e. it is a massive pile of crap :)
I think that’s a result of having an authoritarian mindset. Such a mindest often believes that ideas are true, not because they are supported by the weight of evidence, but because a trusted authority says it is true. Criticism of the idea is therefore regarded as an attack on the authority figure. Conversely, it also preaches that to undermine the authority figure is to discredit the idea.
You see this a lot in the way rightwingers debate. That’s why any discussion about global warming invariable turns to snarky remarks about Al Gore’s weight or the size of his house, as if they have anything to do with the validity of the data. Or how a few comments pulled out of context from hacked emails are considered a “devastating” blow to all the evidence in favor of anthropogenic global warming.
It’s also why creationists are so obsessed with claiming that Darwin “recanted” on his deathbed or with linking him to the Nazis. In their minds, if Darwin either distrusted his own theory or was a bad person, that means evolution is wrong.
Haught can lick my fucking taint and call it ice cream. As an academic he feels it’s his duty to censor information to protect the potentially offendable sensibilities of others because he’s indignant?
Forget that he’s clearly fucking lying to protect his bruised ego, he’s a goddamn censoring clown. So, pay attention, accommodationists, for this is what even the moderates wish: the power to restrict information based on their own personal feelings about it.
Fuck you, Haught. Fuck you, your bullshit fucking church, your bullshit church’s supporters, and your non-existent deities. And fuck all those who think we should approach people like him with reverence and respect.
It’s more than that, though. They think, deep down, everyone thinks like they do. That’s why they keep insisting that science is a religion based on faith instead of evidence. It’s also why they insist on calling evolution “Darwinism”, implying that Darwin is the god of evolutionary biology.
George Will recently wrote a column cricizing one of the republican candidates for relying on “data”. He actually put it that way, scare quotes and all.
Silly candidate. Doesn’t he know that if God wanted us to know something was true, he’d give it to us through divine revelation rather than making us go around gathering satanic “data” about the world around us?
Because of Haught’s attempt at censoring (he had to do it; Coyne was *shock* offensive!), this video is probably going to get a helluva lot more views than it would have otherwise. Another great example of the Streisand effect.
Let me see if I have a grasp of the theo position in this debate:
“Expressing a genuine disagreement is a form of insult. The one who disagrees with me is only doing it to be rude, and it’s twice as rude if he has actual evidence for his position.”
“My position is complex and challenging, which makes it hard to explain clearly, but it’s your fault for being unable to understand what I’m unable to explain.” (See: Scientology.)
Does that pretty much sum it up? Did I leave anything out?
@Mark:
“And therefore God…”
So if Jebus is dead and not dead at the same time, does that make him Schrodinger Jebus?
He’s only MOSTLY dead
Sastra quoted Haught as saying, “Religion, to anyone who takes it seriously, is about what is Most Real.”
I’m sure that’s true for people who “take religion seriously.” But believing that doesn’t make it so. And Haught doesn’t get that.
Watcing the video now. Only two minutes into Haught’s presentation and realize it’s gonna take some effort to make it through the entire thing. “Theo-babble” is right.
Whoo-hoo-hoo, look who knows so much!
Really the question of how Jesus both died and not-died is roughly the same mystery as how the Nysian Auton Rory could become the real Rory by believing it enough.
“This isn’t ‘hanging around with your friends drinking beers’ dead, Jesus, this is ‘being hung up by nails through your hands and slowly bleeding out’ dead, and I don’t think you’re ready for that.”
Sure it could. If the binary expansion of a fundamental mathematical or physical constant is found to spell out a coherent message specifying the cosmic purpose using some simple coding, I’ll willingly concede that there is indeed a cosmic purpose. It still won’t necessarily be my purpose of course.
Kenosis was invented to explain why the plot gets bogged down in the NT bible.
Jesus is god, part of the trinity. Jesus gets killed because the Jews make the Romans kill jesus.
So, why didn’t the all powerful creator of everything just turn a few people into frogs? The last time jesus/god got mildly annoyed with humans he opened to doors to heaven and poured water on us until all but 8 people were dead.
It’s Kenosis. Jesus deliberately made himself forget all his superpowers.
That means he deliberately set out to kill himself, being omniscient at one time. So Judas, Jews, and the Romans should be heroes for all time. If jesus had gotten 3 years with time off for good behavior, where would xianity be?
Of course, Kenosis didn’t keep the xians from demonizing, persecuting, and slaughtering the Jews for 2,000 years for killing jesus/god. In the NT, the Jews freely admit that and accept the blame for the death of jesus for all time.
Kenosis BTW, isn’t really in the bible. It’s something the Catholics made up. They do that a lot. They have a chief magician called the Pope who is supposed to make stuff up every once in a while. This process of Making Stuff Up is called…revelation.
There is another explanation for the crucifixion. Assuming jesus even existed and it happened, the group that Deified him had to explain how god ended up getting executed by a few Roman soldiers.
Or, to put it in personal terms, consider the (not-real) girlfriend I had at a summer camp (I never really attended) with whom I lost my virginity (five years before I actually did):
What is the reason I can’t introduce her to you and have her verify my story? Is it because she lives in another country with her diplomat family or because she goes to a different school? Discuss, using logic, reason, and argument. There’s a PhD in Browniology in it for you.
Looks like Haught hasn’t spent much time out of the Theology bubble universe.
Without agreeing to play Make Believe and Let’s Pretend, it just collapses.
The real enemy of religion isn’t atheism. It’s reality, the real world. And there isn’t much they can do about that.
@ Sastra #13
Again, Satori (DT Suzuki):” Satori is the sudden flashing into consciousness of a new truth hitherto undreamed of. It is a sort of mental catastrophe taking place all at once, after much piling up of matters intellectual and demonstrative. The piling has reached a limit of stability and the whole edifice has come tumbling to the ground, when, behold, a new heaven is open to full survey. … Satori comes upon a man unawares, when he feels that he has exhausted his whole being. Religiously, it is a new birth; intellectually, it is the acquiring of a new viewpoint.”
I can imagine a jeebusite seeking such a goal (and even teh bleeding jesuits have tried this), but then we could point out the obvious… The complete absence of jeebus and skydaddy ™ from the above.
@ Mogles #25 (& CR)
The word “ken(t)osis” originates from Kent Hovind’s appearance on the Ali G show. (Sorry no link, as I have no youtube. It was the one about “Techmollogy”.)
@ Rudi #33
Howzit House!
@ Brownian #46
Oh no he fucking can’t! There’s a queue for that, you know… and tickets and stuff.
@ Mark #49
I’ll be in my bunk.
If I can trust that a particular LSD trip really did open me up to new human experiences instead of just giving me the impression of having new human experiences, then this is exactly correct. Christianity is about giving up on finding meaning in one’s own life and jumping on the Jesus train either because it’s easier that way or because one would end up being a sociopath otherwise. (It’s a surprisingly thin line, which also gave me a sense of why so many Christians think morality comes from religion.)
Sastra:
I’d add that there is a fact of the matter what people’s personal tastes are. Based on empirical evidence, we know they have them, they exist, and could be explained scientifically just like everything else which exists. But one way or another, the religious have this weird impression that everything “subjective,” including all their deep personal relationships with Jesus or cosmic teapots or whatever, are somehow in a separate ontological category from everything else and can’t be explained by anything so crude as mere objective facts.
Haught basically puts facts in a lower category: as plants and minerals are “lower” than intelligent human beings, so are we to “Ultimate Reality.” I think the confusion starts at the bottom, so to speak, with the analogy. It’s not just that God is in its own category where facts don’t apply, but that our minds are essentially the same thing.* Since we supposedly can’t say how opinions or meanings or purposes exist in our own minds, we couldn’t say how these grand Cosmic Purposes exist, just that they must be out there, floating in some infinite, dimensionless nether-realm, deeply concerned with our genitalia.
*To me, it doesn’t seem like a coincidence that Haught takes it personally, or at least pretends to do so, when Coyne points out facts which contradict his absurd opinions. How dare he tell him that his opinions are wrong! That isn’t how it works! How vulgar and unsophisticated, and oh-so-terribly factual!
Go just a bit further, and you may as well be a solipsist and call yourself the deity, not that anyone would be listening to you.
Based on Haught’s letter and comments on Coyne’s blog, I suspect most of what upset him is actually what happened after the talk, i.e. the Q&A, and probably the after dinner reception.
To wit: Haught makes the rather rude (fetch the fainting couch!) reference to jerry’s ‘groupies’, none of which are evidenced in the video. He also makes reference to scientism, which was not even mentioned in any substance in his talk, so I’m not sure how he can claim it was the ‘main point’. If that was his main point, he loses even more credibility for not actually making it.
Jerry notes that many of the young people at the dinner dismantled Haught rather handily, and since I don’t think any of that has been recorded, we will only have to take Jarry’s word for it (which I don’t doubt at this point), and Haught conflated that with the entire rest of the talk as a way of expressing his outrage at not being handled with kid’s gloves.
If Haught feels Coyne misquoted him, I wish he would provide the context of the quotes (I don’t want Haught’s ‘now’ interpretation, I want the words, straight out of the book(s)), and no, I’m not going to buy some god-botherer’s book(s) to get them. Haught is the one making the claim, the onus is on him to back it up. Of course, being a theologian, he’s not used to actually having to do that.
I don’t wonder if a small part of his being miffed is that he expected more of a friendly reception because of his participation in Kitzmiller (a. la. Nick M). As he (and Nick) have discovered, being right in one instance does not put one above criticism in others.
Mogles:
Well, to be fair, it is a bunch of shite. (I see you got to this, @44.)
I sympathize with Haught a bit, honestly. For someone with a mindset or personality like this (and I am one of them; it is hard to admit but I am NOT wired to think logically or scientifically) what he’s saying makes sense and touches you deep down.
He is, however, committing the exact same mistake as almost every other apologist: conflating Yahweh with the Philosophers’ or Deists’ God. You can invoke a God to explain these deep transcendental things, but Yahweh does not qualify. Period.
Of course, this leaves out that he’s mostly arguing from ignorance and taking poorly-formulated presuppositionalist stabs at reality. But I’ve come to realize that it all comes down to that in the end. Why do these people make careers off of this?
“What does “encounter with religious truth requires personal transformation” even mean?”
It means Haught is a presuppositionalist, at least in that moment. If you aren’t already “personally transformed” (converted to wholehearted religious belief) you can’t possibly understand the evidence FOR that belief. In other words, the only way you’ll see his truths as truths is if you carry his biases.
I’m always flabbergasted by the way theologians consistently rediscover that bias influences conclusions…and then decide that’s not a bug, it’s a frakking feature. Disgusting.
I have to say, though, that I think it’s inappropriate that people actually emailed nasty stuff to Haught. I’ll bet it’s small beer to the diatribes PZ and Jerry get from “the Faithful”, but whereas they’re able to deal with that sort of thing, Haught has neither the interpersonal nor the basic survival skills to either let it wash over, or to smite back with something witty and pithy (as his letter so embarrassingly shows).
But it all does boil down to this – he is unable to see the flaws in his thought processes, even when they are pointed out. He actually thinks that “kenosis” (to use but one example) is an *explanation* for something. When I was a Theistic Christian, this sort of stuff used to bug the heck out of me, and I could never understand why it suckered people in. And then when I looked more carefully at my own beliefs, the penny dropped.
Harry Frankfurt wrote a lovely little book (classed under Philosophy, but it’s good) called “On Bullshit”. Bullshit is different from lying, and quite possibly *worse*. Creationists and theologians are probably more guilty of bullshit than lying.
I wrote a review of it once, but danged if I can find it. If you get a chance to find it on Amazon (it’s short and sweet), it gives you some insight into the thinking of people like Haught – their ability to use words far outstrips their ability to think coherently.
It’s funny how theology proceeds uncritically from the classical hierarchical framework devised by Plato. I thought he was just bringing it up as a example but no, he stuck through it all of the way to the end.
That’s it. What Plato devised is the model theologians work with.
Plato, the guy they believe is burning eternally in Hell as a pagan sinner.
Gregory Greenwood @24:
That’s how it is with theology. Every discipline appropriates common words and uses them in specialized ways, often divorced from their usual meaning. In computer science, for example, one can sensibly speak of an ‘atomic bus queue operation’.
Likewise in theology, the words are used in extremely specialized ways. But then they turn around and try to use the common meanings when discussing their conclusions! For example, the doctrine of ‘divine simplicity’. Allegedly, God is ‘simple’… but It’s ‘simple’ in a way that’s entirely different from how anything else is ‘simple’. (As Dawkins put it: “…a God who is capable of sending intelligible signals to millions of people simultaneously, and of receiving messages from all of them simultaneously, cannot be, whatever else he might be, simple. Such bandwidth!”)
Also, yes, the “Satori” experience is completely real. I had one recently, but it came from reading about moral philosophy and meta-ethics. It was atheist Satori.
Suddenly, I understood. I had found the missing pieces as to where morality comes from and how, and everything fell into place. None of this disproves that there is a Deist-type God of course, but all at once I understood almost all of human history…
What the hell is it with Vimeo?
I grabbed the mp4 of the debate and it keeps freezing my 1st Gen Apple TV so hard, I have to unplug it from the power cord in order to reset it.
Secondly, I tried watching it on the Mac, the image quality is appalling, lots of artifacting. I’ve seen cellphone video that is an order of magnitude better in quality.
I might just have to extract the audio and listen, rather than watch.
Hazuki:
I had that kind of epiphany before, too. It’s when a good friend of mine said, “I just realized at work the other day, everybody’s winging it. Some are just better at winging it than others.”
The revelation isn’t that there’s a purpose. The revelation is, “We’re making this shit up as we go along.” And the better we understand reality, the better we are at winging it.
You realize that’s been done, right? And that the answer was found to be 42.
This “truth” is simply giving up completely on the old ways (“being transformed”) but instead of improving their own minds, they give that up and follow jeebus (or whatever holy lie lies to hand). Ok, it cures the original problem, but at what price? Beaten down, they give up trying and just lie down at the feet of their new master.
It’s even worse when heroin addicts go straight via religion. They’re even more obnoxious about their new addiction than the alcoholics could ever be. They cling to it harder because, unlike when they were “bad” addicts, this “good” addiction gives them respectability in the eyes of too much of the world.
As I told one high school old friend who made the transition from junkie to religious nut to no longer my friend, “At least on heroin, you weren’t a smug, self-righteous douchebag. Now you are. I don’t think that’s an improvement.”
I grabbed the mp4 of the debate and it keeps freezing my 1st Gen Apple TV so hard, I have to unplug it from the power cord in order to reset it.
Try converting the video using HandBrake. It has a legacy conversion option for AppleTV.
http://handbrake.fr/
Is there any evidence anyone did?
All of the apologetic bullshit aside, I don’t think that we should lose sight of the fact that Haught’s response was to censor this talk.
Sure, it’s pretty clear that it’s a case of “I didn’t win, so I’m taking my ball and going home”, but what’s worse is that he thinks “I was offended, and so I preemptively decided to deny others access to this content because I think they should/might/will be offended by it too” is a better justification.
I’m glad he finally made the recording available, but his first response was to censor, and even as he relents, he still insists that we’d all be better off if he just burned it instead.
Catholic to the very end, eh Haught?
Brownian @ 46;
Come on. In no way is Haught worthy of anything approaching the awesomeness of any form of ghey secks with Brownian.
Next you’ll be saying he deserves a turn on Janine’s spanking couch and an extra helping of bacon. It’s not fair I tell you!
Haught fails to understand what all religious people fail understand, which is that the atheist understands the theist better then the theist understands themselves.
OK, he *said* he did, and quoted part of one missive. I accept that he *could* have just made this up, but I think he probably didn’t. I don’t think atheists need to behave like theists (but similarly, each to their own :-)
I just don’t think that’s necessary.
Aquaria @76:
I’m currently running the file through Visual Hub, converting the Vimeo MP4 file to an MP4 file specifically for the Apple TV.
It won’t help the quality any, but watching it on the TV from a distance of 7 feet or so, will help make the artifacting less noticeable/irritating.
YouTube videos, downloaded with Download Helper as MP4 files, never trouble the Apple TV.
Handbrake is a great utility, I use it frequently for extracting video from my DVDs to use on the Apple TV. MUCH more convenient to have just the movie on a hard drive and eliminate all that crap one must wade through before the movie or episode menu screen.
That there is some sophistimacated theology.
He quote mines Feynman, for the lose.You know he would not have done that if RPF was in the room or he expected to have to deal with RPF in the afterlife. ;)
You’re right. It’s one thing to call someone a dweeb, a dim bulb, a coward, liar, and fool. But a Republican? That’s way over the line.
“What a pathetic, sociopathic dweeb you are. Hiding behind your sick belief system you call a religion. You are an insult to academia, and a dim bulb for the uninformed masses. You deserve the insults you are getting and should be fired. Coward, liar and fool you are, loser. And no doubt a Republican too!”
How is that any worse than what Haught has vomited up over the past few days?
That spiel is at least true.
“I was so offended both personally and as an academic by the vulgarity of it all that I did not want other people to have to share what I witnessed that night in October. I still don’t.”
Rudy @ 33 – that’s just what I was thinking. What’s amazing is that there wasn’t a single personal attack against him in the whole debate. Religious sensitivity is just another way of not facing up to criticism, and I don’t think you’d get that kind of self-pity in any other subject. The only reason he doesn’t want the debate released is because he made an ass of himself.
Ray Ingles @ 70;
Indeed. Playing shallow semantic games like this (and convincing themselves that it is the height of sophisticated, refined discourse) is the closest theologians ever get to actually forming a cogent argument. it’s sad really.
God as the ultimate celestial broadband server hub? Hmmm… Is that how he downloads revelation malware onto so many cranium mounted wetware CPUs simultaneously?
Other ways of knowing blah blah blah.
I wonder if a lot of religionists take the position “I can’t understand science, therefore it’s false.”
When I browse mathematical articles on Wikipedia I usually haven’t a clue what they’re saying — but I don’t doubt that they accurately represent mathematical (i.e. logical) truth. My lack of understanding does not imply they’re wrong in any way.
Likewise, when the cosmologists start bickering over the details of the Big Bang, they pass beyond my understanding, but I accept that their arguments are (a) made in good faith and (b) as logical as they can be. That there may be different interpretations of the data is only evidence that the data is incomplete, not that reasoning from it is wrong.
By way of contrast, contemplate theology and christolog, As far as I can tell they are little more than word salads devised by self-important omphalosceptics.
It’s no sin not to understand science but don’t use this aspect of your mental organization to attack what people who do understand it have figured out with so much difficulty and effort.
Hey. Sometimes a taint lick is just a taint lick.
All of theology is indeed neatly summed up by this debate, and byHaught’s response to the bitchslapping reality dealt him – thanks Jerry. And of course, he’s blundered badly. Not only can everyone hear him waffle on about nothing, incomprehemsibly, but one can hear Jerry’s lucid takedown of his philosophy and religion as a contrast. (Hey – I bet he believes in Angels)
But best of all, because of his attempt to supress the video he’s drawn attention to the delusional, onanistic nature of his work, and by implication all of “sophisticated” theology.
A theologian I would love to see get a similar net comeuppance is the Thomist/Aristotelian Catholic academic Edward Feser. He’s an unbearably pompous ass, constantly inventing words and arguing over the defintion of common terms (“I have already shown that this is false…see here, here, and here…”) who is also witlessly abusive and pugnacious.The yuck factor is high with this one; for instance he starts his book debunking Dawkins et al by railing against homosexuality.
But beware, his blog is a cesspit of sour commentary entirely devoid of humour; I fear there is nothing for any of us there.
Unless, of course, he decides to comment on the Haught affair….he’s often gone for Jerry in the past.
Re: “encounter with religious truth requires personal transformation.” This is very similar to something a devout fundamentalist once said to me when I pointed out that something he believes doesn’t make sense: “You don’t understand it because you’re using your natural mind. You have to have a spiritual mind to understand these truths.” This is why they are impervious to facts and logic. They will argue facts and logic with people who question their beliefs, but they don’t really care. They have a special, God-given understanding that enables them to know something it true even if it is unsupported by evidence or reason.
Why does belief in God make so many alleged intellectuals feel permitted to be so childish, petty, and daft? When I was a believer, I would never have disgraced my God by behaving so in his name. I hope that moral stance is not one of the reasons I am no longer a believer…
As to Coyne’s alleged “vulgarity”:
Haught may have been complaining, not about naughty words (I didn’t notice any), but about tone. “Vulgar” can mean “lacking in cultivation, perception, or taste,” or “of or relating to the common people.”
Translation:
“Jerry used simple, direct language that everybody could understand, instead of the sophisticated, refined, and pretentious bafflegab in which I am accustomed to cloak myself.”
It is also possible that I am straining too hard to give Haught the benefit of the doubt.
I suspect that what really outraged him was that Coyne rather explicitly reminded the audience of the many evils for which the Roman Catholic Church has to answer. Among such eminent theologians as himself, it is no doubt considered indelicate, impolite, and ungentlemanly to acknowledge such unseemly realities, even if they fit perfectly into a legitimate line of argument.
Shane McKee @ 81:
Really? After what he actually said (accusations of ad hom, insults, calling positive reactions to Coyne’s talk groupies, etc)?
I suspect Haught got some invective laced emails. Welcome to the internet. IMO, he deserved plenty. He also got a lot of well reasoned, quite civil and polite emails, many of which were posted on Coyne’s thread as copies.
In other words, your concern is duly noted.
Oh I see, Haught was just trying to protect us by suppressing the video.
“We are tied up with the cosmos as science is showing more and more.” No example of this? I’d be interested to hear it.
“The lower cannot comprehend the upper.” We won’t know if we don’t try. Why box in human knowledge like this?
Haught’s speech was vacuous, while Coyne’s talk was factual, interesting, salient, and – most appreciated of all – spoken in words designed to make things clearer. Plain and simple: Haught got destroyed.
Putting these two together, Haught evidently thinks only those who have gone through the “personal transformation” – i.e., only the religious – can make sophisticated arguments about religion. So whatever Coyne said, Haught would dismiss it.
Haught’s talk did actually have an interesting point. Much of it was about the classical hierarchical picture of the universe, with layers of matter, plants, animals, people, God, with each successive layer capable of “comprehending” those below it, but not above; he asked, rather plaintively I thought, whether one can transfer the “cosmic purpose” inherent in this top-down picture to the universe as revealed by science. The answer, of course, is “No.” Haught, Biologos, Templeton, and all that crew labour mightily to hide it – from themselves as much as everyone else, just as Teilhard de Chardin did a century ago. Trying to turn the hierarchy into a temporal succession of emergence, as Teilhard did and Haught suggested, clearly won’t do what they want it to – because applying it consistently means God doesn’t yet exist: to get the desired answer means making an unprincipled exception for the final term of the series, saying it was really the first.
As for Jerry Coyne’s final section, Haught chooses to identify himself with the Roman Catholic Church, and claims that its doctrines are a higher truth. But a well-known (though possibly mythical) 1st century rabbi is reported to have said:
Coyne was merely displaying some of the Catholic Church’s fruits.
I have always felt vulnerable to the charge of scientism because, as a non-scientist, I rely on my limited (non-mathematical) understanding of popular expositions of scientific ideas. In other words, I believe something to be true solely on the basis of my trust in the authority of scientists. This seems to be uncomfortably analogous to the mindset of devout religious believers. If I accuse the theistic apologist of presupposing the existence of his god, he can, in turn, accuse me of presupposing the validity of materialism, which I think is what Dr. Haught meant when he referred to the ‘logical incoherence’ of scientism. I don’t know of any slick debate-squad technique to counter this–you just have to be able to present a brief, accurate precis of the reasoning behind any bit of scientific consensus which is challenged on biblical grounds. Sometimes I think of a killer rebuttal the next day.
I watched through the whole thing and I’m still waiting for Haugh to make any observation that’s backed by argument or defensible reasoning. I can definitely see why he didn’t want this released. it’s one of the worse performances I’ve seen in years.
mck9:
Exactly. It’s entirely vulgar to speak of base things like the reality of the Catholic Church, rather than the entirely intellectual and defendable and rational belief system of the Catholic Church. Didn’t Haught go through a lot of trouble demonstrating how mundane reality has nothing to do with the sophisticated theology of the RCC’s particular brand of Christianity? So what was Coyne doing bringing up the inefficacy of that theology with respect to the moral behavior the the real Catholic Church?
It’s like they were having two totally separate discussions!
Tim R. Mortiss:
“Science is based on that which is observable. Religion is based on that which is not. Which is to be believed, that which we observe, or that which we imagine?”
Tim R. Mortiss @ 99;
There is one simple and effective counter to this – science works. Religion offers no explanatory value on any quantifiable topic, whereas the whole business of the scientific method is understanding that which is. As for the reason why a non-scientist rationalist trusts science, well we need only point to the results. All our technology only functions because our scientific understanding of the universe has reached the point where we are able to understand the physical principles that underpin its construction.
Right now, I am typing these thoughts on a keyboard, which is linked to a computer that is connected to the internet that allows you and others to read my inane ramblings. This stuff doesn’t run on fairt dust, wishes or faith. All of this technolgy is dependent on multiple scientific disciplines, and all those disciplines operate on the same basic scientific method.
Science works, and the fact that it works can readily be demonstrated by the existence of our technological society. No flavour of religion or woo can claim the same.
Haughty Dumpty?
It seems like a fitting nickname for him.
d cwilson #45 wrote:
I think it’s also the result of the way they think “having faith” distinguishes them from those who don’t have faith: it shows the virtues of their character.
In normal disagreements on factual matters of the world, both sides are assumed to be more or less equal in not just intelligence, but good will. The problem isn’t that one side is ‘good’ and the other is ‘evil.’ Instead, one side is informed, and the other side isn’t. Evidence and reason are tools capable of persuading the person with whom you disagree. In the world.
Bring in the idea that no, THIS empirical conclusion is a matter of faith in other worlds, and the common ground is lost. It’s not about evidence and reason, and it’s not a dispute between equals. We’re talking about people who have been, according to Haught, “carried away” by Ultimate Value, “grasped” by Ultimate Reality, changed in nature by the transformative power of their chosen act of faith. One side is receptive, and the other side is not. One side is open to the experience of higher dimensions of reality, and the other is not. One side is capable of experiencing the loving purpose of their existence — and the other is not.
One side is saved … and the other is damned. Everyone getting what they deserve.
No offense, of course, to the unenlightened dregs on the lower level. Transcendence is evidently just not in their character. They lack the capacity for the kind of humility that grasps at mystery and pulls out cosmic meaning. Pity the poor atheist, too narrow and cold to connect with God.
Criticizing their religion, therefore, strips away their smug assumption that there is something special about them. We’re trying to bring them back to the common ground of our shared humanity and fallibility — and they want the ability to think of themselves as the kind of person who can, and has, transcended the mundane and meaningless world. They want to think of nonbelievers as abject, low, and just too damn arrogant to humble themselves to the divine Mystery. If we change their minds, that’s where they will fall.
I have never thought it okay if a religious person declines to argue by admitting that their beliefs are “a matter of faith” and they don’t think we’re being unreasonable when we don’t believe in God. That’s not reassuring — that’s worse. They’re granting us the intellectual side of the argument if we just agree to grant them the deep, loving, sensitive character. We get the brain; they get the heart.
Screw that.
I also don’t think this sensitivity to criticism is strictly the result of an authoritarian mindset, because in my experience the biggest weenies you’ll ever find when it comes to disputing religious claims are New Agers and neo-pagans with woo. They’re self-consciously anti-authoritarian AND they go wild with shock and horror at any sort of attempt by anyone to “impose” truth onto someone else. Of course, their mindset is still elitist to the core (those who have experienced higher dimensions of reality cannot be understood or appreciated by those who haven’t) but it’s often framed as stages of development more than in terms of God-made kings and subjects.
@ RFW
There could be something in this. Like the poor kid who struggles to keep up in science class and then just gives up. Xe gets the general idea that whatever is going on is very important but cannot even begin to fathom what it is. Xe cannot lose face either and so starts to copy the mannerisms and appearances of the knowledgeable. Or cling to an authority figure who says it’s ok to stop trying and just start pretending.
@ Rey Fox
Hey. But we are talkin’ Brownian flavour here. And no, I am not falling for that ruse and leaving the queue.
Is it just me, or do theologians use A LOT of words but ultimately say very little?
I suspect this tactic is a smokescreen. If they used concise, clear sentences, then people would be more able to call them on their bullshit.
I had a conversation with a Xian a few months ago. He babbled on for about 10 minutes with another Xian nodding in agreement. At the end of his piece, I had NO idea what he his point was, but he seemed to think he’d made one.
Some time later, I realised that all he’d said was “Christianity must be right because it’s been around a long time” – possibly one of the weakest arguments I’d ever heard, and clearly fallacious.
I said in 11 words what it took him 10 minutes.
Tim R. Mortiss #99 wrote:
No; you do not believe scientific findings on the basis of your trust in the authority of scientists ; you accept scientific findings on the basis of your trust in the scientific system. This is very different, and it’s significant.
The methods of science are self-correcting because everyone is constantly trying to catch everyone else in a mistake. We trust “science” only because we DON’T trust scientists. They personally screw up all the time, and the system is built on that assumption. Over time, public knowledge slowly improves because of the competition and doubt.
Religion and its method of faith are NOT self-correcting. Can’t be. There’s no common ground to arbitrate disputes. Instead, it’s all about putting your trust in people or institutions who claim to have had some magical, mystical insights that nobody can check — your own special experiences included. Revealed truth is not public knowledge, and competition and doubt must be resisted because the system is built on the willingness to give in and accept. Believe.
If you have ever flown a light aircraft through a cloud, you get to appreciate the value of it’s instrumentation. You cannot (if you are not very experienced) rely on your feelings. You cannot see, and you certainly cannot judge, up or down, acceleration or speed.
You do not need to understand how the instruments work. You can just rely on them to get you through. With experience you might learn to “fly by the seat of your pants”, but that is only because long experience has taught you to correlate your feelings with the information about reality presented by the instrumentation. Try doing the same with a babble.
On the issue of trusting science (post 99): The key point is that scientists can show and support their work, while religionists cannot. If someone were really skeptical of a scientific finding, they could read the relevant paper to more thoroughly check the methodology, and evidence/data involved, and challenge the logic of the conclusions based on that closer examination. Contrast with religion, where tracing everything back will ultimately just bring you back to reading the Bible and trusting it based on other apologetic arguments or blind faith. Trusting the scientific process of observing reality and summaries of the results is a whole different kind of “faith” than trusting the words of preachers and theologians, pontificating on their personal set of ideas based on a single book that you are also supposed to trust based on the ill-formed arguments of preachers and theologians. For science, you need to believe that reality can observed, scientists aren’t frauds, and logical induction works. For religion, you need to believe that preachers aren’t frauds, that reality beyond what is readily observable is thoroughly and accurately explained by a single ancient book compiled by several people who were inexplicably affected by supernatural agents to attain such a level of awareness and accuracy, and that religious leaders can be trusted to interpret this book (despite differing interpretations, sects and schisms, etc. etc.). Quite a difference in the quality of assumptions one needs to make to have “faith” in these two enterprises.
As soon as the majority of scientific papers consist of “Science says…,” endlessly citing papers without any link to empirical evidence, we might get somewhere in comparing “faith” in science to religious faith. Until then, you are just trusting the consensus of people using evidence to support their arguments and come to a given conclusion, despite having incentive to come up with good alternative explanations for the same lines of evidence. You are trusting an enterprise based on evidence and finding the best possible explanation for it. And not trusting the consensus of people using blatantly fallacious arguments to continue to believe what they were raised to believe and what most other people believe and what we are culturally expected to believe. The “faith” involved is a justified one, if it can even be called “faith”.
If jesus had gotten 3 years with time off for good behavior, where would xianity be?
Worse yet, what if Jesus had been beheaded? I note that Jesus’s wounds did not heal when he was resurrected. Jesus would be walking around like St. Denis, carrying his head like a football (third from left):
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2589/4225490080_c6a7feebe8_z.jpg
I should have added that it must have been a lively theological discussion to decide whether the halo goes where the head should be, or where it actually is.
Kenosis sounds like something one acquires from playing too much keno.
Maybe a topical steroid would help the itch.
Haven’t finished reading comments yet but just have to say
raven @61
QFFT
And THIS
Brownian @60
is WHY theophontes @62 is correct:
And BTW, I love you guys. I really do.
Haught is obviously too cowardly to admit his previous cowardice.
For my money, Coyne’s part of the presentation contained substantial nutritional content, whereas Haught’s just seemed insipid and about as calorie-free as one can get. Coyne paid Haught the professional courtesy of reading something of Haught’s work in preparing for the debate. It didn’t seem as though that courtesy was reciprocated. To my ear, Coyne didn’t come close to being pugnacious, even though he said he was going to be. Rather, Coyne was pointed and succinct–marks of a good debater.
I don’t know what to make of Haught’s letter accompanying the video, inasmuch as the only “preposterous and logic-offending” parts of the presentation belonged to Haught. Excuse-making and finger-pointing after the fact is just bad form–a transparent attempt to divert the audience from the speaker’s own failure, intellectually speaking, to show up.
Actually, I can see where Haught may have been left with the feeling of having the rug pulled out from under him. Not only was Coyne persuasive in arguing against the supposed compatibility of religion and science, he was so persuasive that the enterprise of theology itself–apart from any real or imagined connection to science–came off as a kind of fool’s errand.
Is kenosis where the term(s) “Holy cr@p” or “Holy shite” would come from?
@66
The money can be good, and the “work” takes no effort? I’d be more interested in How they make careers off of theology but, I suspect, the answer would lower my opinion of the non-skeptical.
He kind of lost my support right at the beginning when he was talking about purpose. He is claiming that if the whole is without purpose, the parts necessarily must be.
It doesn’t take very long to see that this is a school-boy error. For example, if you found a Dyson vacuum cleaner in a tent in the centre of the Sahara desert, you can agree that the Dyson has a purpose (to clean the tent) without needing to conclude that the Sahara has a purpose, or that the purpose of the Dyson to help keep the inside of the tent clean contributes to any purpose for the Sahara.
I found his entire speech to be peppered with things like this. Surely theologists, as distinct from preachers, can do better than this?
I hope it wasn’t coming across that I was defending Haught; I just don’t see the need for anyone to actually email the dude pointing out that he’s a dweeb (although he manifests a lot of the pathognomonic characteristics). It just reinforces his sense of martyrdom (which theists seem to love more than anything else in the whole world). Jerry didn’t insult him in the debate – just laid out the facts, which was far more devastating to Haught’s ill-considered position. I think Jerry was right to be cross with Haught for his initial refusal to release the video.
I have had some dealings with creationists in the past, and in general, they are very very quick to take offence at the slightest wee thing, and then jump up and down and claim you’re making ad hominems at them. They really are tiresome little brats, and Haught is clearly no better.
Is it just me, or do theologians use A LOT of words but ultimately say very little?
In the old days, this was called baffling with bullshit.
I should have added that it must have been a lively theological discussion to decide whether the halo goes where the head should be, or where it actually is.
I like the woman on his right, who’s looking at his head as if to say, “Is that guy carrying his head? Seriously?”
refrained from commenting until i could watch the whole vid, even tho’ I was in here b4 commenting started.
Now that I’ve done so, I’m very disappointed that the questioning is not included. I’m very interested in whether or not Haught said *at the time* that it is unfair to use as evidence that science and religion conflict those choices and actions of religion that are an affront to truth and/or an affront to the stated goals and duties of religion – which would, through contradiction, reveal at least one of either the choices/actions *or* the goals/duties of religion to be further affronts to truth.
Affronts to truth are necessarily conflicts with religion, given that science is a method whose purpose is the detection and revelation of truth and whose philosophical shape and manner of operation are designed so as to promote truth and debunk untruth.
It cannot be that religion is compatible with science if religion regularly savages the truth. Therefore religious savaging of the truth must be relevant to the stated debate. It may have been morbid or even unfair in the mind of Haught, but if so…(spoiler alert) then why wasn’t Haught equally affronted by reading a terribly racist quotation of Darwin and insist that this was “part of the theory of natural selection” about which it was Coyne’s duty to declare Darwin “wrong” or “right”. Clearly, whatever Haught believes about what was to occur that night, it wasn’t idiosyncratic on Coyne’s part to believe that bad actions which might reveal bad faith are relevant to the discussion.
Haught’s portrayal of the evening rings far, far more false after watching the video than it did merely reading the postings of Coyne & PZ, etc.
He says that this stunt had nothing to cowardice b/c he likes having *his* arguments out there.
Well of course! We’re saying you’re a coward because you don’t want your opponents’ arguments out there!
Actually, they seem quite convinced that if they simply apply their will forcefully enough, reality WILL sway under the pressure.
It’s why books like “The Secret” are so fucking popular.
and, while it’s true that reality BEYOND human culture is not affected by the application of their imaginations, it’s quite clear that WITHIN human culture, they are having a vast deleterious effect.
think about all the state laws being passed trying to outlaw abortion, gay marriage, etc. The efforts to defund family planning centers. These things ARE bearing fruit for them, and the “reality” is that many women in essence are now barred from getting family planning services, or abortions, and gays are effectively barred from the rights all deserve.
so, yeah, there ARE parts of reality they CAN affect. This is the problem. If they were totally ineffectual, nobody would fucking care.
Jesus would be walking around like St. Denis, carrying his head like a football (third from left):
What I really found amusing was imagining what the statues to the right and left were pondering…
It almost looks like the one to his left is about to try and shove him and run.
♫♫ Other Waaaaaaaaays of Knooooooowwing ♫♪
I’ve got several people doing captions for St Denis now…
here’s my first entry:
http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6117/6310351799_c5eb96722f_o.jpg
Jerry actually contradicts himself – he says “theological knowledge does not expand”, but then shortly afterward notes the theological tactic of “when you get caught in a tight corner, make stuff up”. Ergo, theological ‘knowledge’ is in fact constantly expanding, ad infinitum, and therefore everything he says is wrong, and Haught wins! Yay!!!
that works, if you define imagination as a form of knowledge.
oh, wait…
I just read Haught’s letter. He claims Coyne’s listing evils of the Catholic Church as a personal attack on his credibility, as he is a Catholic.
In one sense, this is nonsense, as one of the main claims of religion is that it is a force for good, when it quite clearly isn’t. Choosing a denomination as large as the Catholic Church is hardly cherry-picking.
However, it may reveal that Haught is indeed uncomfortable supporting institutionalised child-rape. It’s hard to imagine that anyone could hold Haught’s views without a lot of cognitive dissonance.
It’s hard to imagine that anyone could hold Haught’s views without a lot of cognitive dissonance.
Yup, just ask Andrew Sullivan.
Systematic theology? Haught’s expertise makes him sound like a glorified fan fiction writer, trying to keep the Star Wars canon in order. He starts off from a base of shifting sand – the idea that the universe has a ‘cosmic purpose’ and, presumably, the Abrahamic idea of that cosmic purpose is something good. Yet the Abrahamic idea of cosmic purpose is for the universe to be destroyed when god gets angry enough. What’s the purpose of THAT?
Yet the Abrahamic idea of cosmic purpose is for the universe to be destroyed when god gets angry enough. What’s the purpose of THAT?
I think Job asked that question too…
I think the response was:
“Yooz ‘ll shaddap if yooz noz wut’s gud fer ya.”
Then they wiped out his family and put a horse’s head in his bed.
Or something like that.
#125 Ichthyic,
“Look! I can fuck my own skull!”
@130
Hey, cool to see someone else thinking the same.
I’ve liked the analogy that theology is just fan fiction for a while now.
Kirk vs Picard is a great trekker topic. But the trekkers know the characters are fictional.
Haught: “…so, there is a kind of evidence for faith, but it’s not a controlling scientific type of evidence…”
This man wishes to be taken seriously?
And that’s not the only idiocy he offers.
What bugs me the most is what we’ve all noted frequently before, about how hungrily religion monopolizes every fine thing that HUMAN ingenuity and grace, through considerable tribulation, has ever come up with, particularly with regard to morals. We’ve also seen this propensity escalating and insinuating itself ever more deeply into whatever fruit authentic scientific investigation has revealed of natural reality, like so many maggots, and now we hear from Professor Haught that the tenets of faith are based on “symbol, metaphor and analogy”, as if nothing else in the sphere of human endeavour may utilize them without the expressed approval of a theology that insists these vehicles of the imagination come from a supernatural source. They seek to monopolize our morals, our science, and it is now clear they seek to monopolize our art, our very creativity (yes, even our use of “symbol, metaphor and analogy”). They seek to abscond with anything at all to do with our humanity. EVERYTHING about us must be defined and sanctioned (if not sanctified) by them.
They have at least one giant penance to undertake in the intolerable glare of their beloved god. Jerry Coyne refers to it repeatedly, and it shouldn’t have to be an addendum to a certain commandment already in place, yet it is broken: “Thou shallt not lie” also means “Thou shalt not make things up”…or “symbol, metaphor and analogy” must also be a joke.
BTW: there is a curious EDIT (a break of at least a few seconds) in the video at the 46:03 point…just when Coyne is about to describe the first quote of Haught. I also found it amazing how the moderator gave such a laudable intro for Haught and served up the intro to Coyne with something resembling dismissive contempt. Also, I did not see or hear any evidence whatsoever for Haught’s assertion that there was any super-abundance of Coyne “groupies” in the audience which Haught cited as one of his reasons for witholding the video. If those few very mild and tentative responses of approval in the form of scattered applause is an indicator of premediitated bias in an audience, that man is clearly out of his mind. Shame to the Gaines folks, not only for submitting to the complaint of an intellectual coward, but for not including the question session in the video they released. From what Coyne has written, it seems that much of the juice of the evening transpired during that interval…which makes me think that this was a condition that Haught put the Gaines folks to in order to curtail continuing complaints…of course, they agreed to it. Absolutely pathetic.
“Look! I can fuck my own skull!”
ROFLMAO
that actually is pretty damn good, on several levels.
another one that my partner did:
person to Denis’ right:
“Shit dude! Your head came off!”
to his left:
“That’s just fuckin’ freaky.”
I didn’t find Haught’s presentation incoherent. His reasoning seemed perfectly sound, to me. The problem was his premises, which likely he accepted when he was very young. Given that God exists, why does evolution appear true? Why are there so many innocents suffering? Why is God’s presence not obvious?
He seems like a very intelligent person, and I find it very sad that he is unable to question his assumptions and see beyond them. Maybe he can, a bit, and that is why it upsets him to be questioned this way. I don’t know, but it is very sad.
PZ sez:
“religious truth” is the essence of the arrogance of faith: “I imagine it, so it must be the Truth.” The assertion is not bald or bare — it rests solidly on this foundation of arrogant subjectivity.
Well, science can’t detect ‘cosmic purpose’ because ‘cosmic purpose’ is one of those imaginings that requires arrogance to accept. Theology, with the epistemology of subjective arrogance, can ‘detect’ all manner of nonexistent imaginings, and declare them the Truth. Science, and the scientific epistemology, are founded on the humility that Feynman discussed in his oft-quoted words on not fooling yourself.
He seems like a very intelligent person, and I find it very sad that he is unable to question his assumptions and see beyond them. Maybe he can, a bit, and that is why it upsets him to be questioned this way. I don’t know, but it is very sad.
Indeed.
If you really feel like seeing how cognitive dissonance can make you feel sorry for someone, check out Andrew Sullivan’s religious commentary sometime.
Ichthyic, yes, Sullivan is another excellent example of this phenomenon, though I find him, generally, poor at reasoning. It’s a danger for all of us, though, and I certainly don’t imagine that I don’t have my own blind spots. I was fortunate to have been brought up in an atheist and highly intellectual household, so I can’t know whether I would have found my way out or not, had the situation been different. I admire those who by their own effort made their way through.
One is just being silly to say science (the practice, the method; any endeavor that is intellectually honest and unbiased can employ it and thus be “scientific”) is compatible with religion (as commonly known) and the faith of the religion-ists. No “scientists” if they are true to the label canNOT – that is CAN-NOT put god or any magic or any faith into their craft.
Gods and the attributes assigned to gods as commonly known can have NO place in science.
At the point a “scientist” allows god (ways and means unexplained except to accept magic) to be explanatory then SCIENCE is no longer being practiced. It is as simple as that!
I’ve never heard any argument close to a cogent one dispute what I say.
Yes a scientist in their other life roles can compartmentalize a belief in god and/or be religious. But that is not accepting the premise of god as they do science. They canNOT go to any point in that endeavor and say “ergo: goddidit” without stepping out of science and their role as scientist.
Does anyone who knows science say they can? Can you show me how?
Concerned Joe: It also applies that most religious people don’t want science infringing on their religion. They need NOMA to hold true, and will do so by either throwing science under the bus if it gets too close to undermining their religion, or by handwaving endlessly until they can pretend that the part of their religion that has been undermined was never meant as a factual statement anyway. That’s basically it, the two kinds of believers: Those that respond to evolution by plugging their ears and believing the Bible over the facts, or those that respond to evolution by saying “Well, Genesis was probably just metaphorical anyway, and everybody has always thought so. But God and select parts of the rest of the Bible, now that’s some (mostly) literal shit, right thar”. Ironically, only the latter seems to babble on about other ways of “knowing”. Which I have to assume, at this point, just means that the person forwarding that tripe believes that guesses and hunches qualify as knowledge.
So, in what way can these be considered “compatible”? A science that doesn’t allow religious explanations by definition, and a religion that either rebuffs science or pretends parts of itself doesn’t exist whenever both touch the same territory? In what way is the philosophical use of the scientific method “compatible” with just accepting spoon-fed religious dogma, sans evidence? Ultimately, we are talking about the “compatibility” of logic versus gut feelings. And specifically, gut feelings about supernatural agents. Sure, a person who uses logic could also be superstitious, but someone who is good at using logic and consistent in using it is not someone who could possibly accept making decisions about what is/isn’t real based on “gut feelings”, and someone who does make such ill-justified decisions so regularly is very bad at logic. As it is with science and religion.
Anteprepro: “Ultimately, we are talking about the “compatibility” of logic versus gut feelings.”
I think it is beyond this (and my gut feel :-) is you would agree). That is one can have gut feelings and take action and not be ludicrous. I have experience in a field – let’s say automobiles. I get presented a stalling engine with list of symptoms. Based on what customer says and what I see superficially my quick guess (gut feeling) is the IAC. My customer is in a big rush so I swap out the IAC – without proper and complete diagnostics. Not illogical BUT not proper procedure.
Woops! engine still stalls… my bad!
Now difference between a gut feeler and a scientist, and the difference in my scenario, is I do NOT persist in blaming the IAC contrary to my “lying eyes”. Nope I become more scientific about it and find the real culprit via real testing. I do not stand by my gut feel contrary to reality – or wing it with other gut feels.
I suspect Haught would expect his mechanic to be scientific – and be pissed if she persisted on SWAGing it to the tune of misspent.
I don’t think science, as a method, is incompatible with religion, as an abstract thing. One can’t disprove Deism (and why try to? The Deist God is pretty chill, not doing things like sending nonbelievers to an eternity of pain or approving sex slavery…).
That said, what we know can disprove certain claims. Such as, for example, most of the foundational claims of the Judeo-Christian corpus. I think this is what gets theologians’ goats so much. They’re offended that it’s their conception of God you don’t believe in.
They also don’t seem to get that Yahweh is worse than anything any horror writer has ever come up with. At least Cthulhu will just drive you horribly insane and then eat you, and there, you’re annihilated, gone, finished, disappeared, non-existent. Name me one Lovecraftian horror that keeps its victims subjectively aware and in indescribable pain forever and ever.
According to Coyne, they were suppose to add the Q&A part last night. From the looks of it, they still haven’t done it.
Also:
This has totally backfired on Haught.
I’d have to look at Coyne’s slides again, but it was something like 64% who would do the former, simply ignore or deny the facts if they contradicted their beliefs. That’s fucking sad. The good news, 36% of people at least claim to be sane….
I’m confused. Would Denis be fucking his own skull or sucking his own cock?
Hazuki #166: “I don’t think science, as a method, is incompatible with religion, as an abstract thing.”
Sorry but I may not understand what you are saying – so I will guess and respond.
If by “abstract thing” you mean: existing in thought or as an idea but not having a physical or concrete existence then of course science allows for that. Having a thought – conceptualizing – using higher powers of the brain to imagine and wonder – is not incompatible with the laws of nature.
But the problem is religion is not an abstraction – it DOES exist as an institution; it does via its infrastructure and community try at least to impose itself on the non-abstract real world. The god(s) within religion are portrayed as existing actors in our universe, indeed in the minutia of our lives.
Religion does not confine itself to abstraction. “Star Trek” is confined within the bounds of abstraction and does not thread on the method called science.
Shame on you ConcernedJoe for dismissing the real and measurable effects of Star Trek on reality. How many scientists and engineers have been inspired to try new things and create new devices based on what they saw on Star Trek? I’m sure its safe money to wager that its vastly more then the number inspired by the Babble.
Dave #149 we agree and appreciate your humor in the point!
However seriously Star Trek does not pretend to be other than fantasy with some basis in reality (theoretical or near achieved). It is a concept – perhaps a visionary statement – and at its best philosophically and technically thought provoking.
But it shouts no claim other than to be a TV show. And certainly its institution (say the holder of the copy-write) does not pretend to be judge, jury, executioner, and beyond powerful, etc. – as most religions proclaim their god and institution.
(1) Religion is fantasy imbued with unearned social strength and access for the benefit of the corporate religious institutions and politicians and rulers.
(2) Faith is a serious obvious thinking flaw elevated to unearned promotion and acceptance for the benefit of (1).
(3) Star Trek is a TV program I enjoyed enough to stop working or studying to watch in the 60’s.
The Q&A section has now been posted:
http://www.uky.edu/OtherOrgs/GainesCenter/2011_boone_video.html
LOL! You can get definitely see how Coyne’s presentation pissed off Haught in the Q&A session.
Holy shit listening to this idiot (JH) in the Q&A is so painful.
A 3 year old could see through it. More word salad – useless!
My eyes just glaze over when I hear Haught start spouting his theological nonsense.
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