Promoting a comment of general interest

Since it will be otherwise buried in the endless thread, I thought it might be a good idea to put this plea for help from someone calling themselves “EvolutionSkeptic” up top.

Hey, so some of you may remember me (one can hope). I found this thread that some people told me last time to find when I wanted to ask a question. Since I have one, I thought I’d check in. Hope everyone is doing well.

All right. I read “Why Evolution is True” and “The Greatest Show on Earth,” as recommended by several of you. After that, I also started reading some of the stuff on Dawkins’ site, because I really liked his calm approach to the subject.

After reading there and a good bit here, I’m actually getting a little afraid, and this is where my question comes in … I can recognize the validity of evolution and that it’s true. This began to make an impact on my belief in God, but I still felt like he could have set the whole thing in motion.

But the more I read there and here, the more I’m questioning that, the more I worry that my faith may be in danger. Since you guys were so helpful the first time, I thought maybe I could come to you to ask a couple of questions again …

  1. I truly don’t mean this to be insulting, so please don’t take it that way, but what is your motivation to live a moral, upstanding life without the guidance of the rules of God and the Bible? I know you guys do this, but I’m not sure I understand how it works without concrete guidance.

  2. For those of you who were once Christians (I’m guessing there are some), how did you reconcile your atheism/agnosticism with your relationship with your Christian family/friends? How do you tell them? Do you still go to church for the fellowship but just don’t pray/participate? Did you lose friends/family in your process of change?

I hope I’m not interrupting a conversation here, but any help would be greatly appreciated. Thank you for reading, if you actually got this far.

I’ll give a quickie version of my answers, but this is one probably better answered by the diverse views of the hivemind.

The first question is backwards. There’s nothing especially moral about the guidance of priests; you might as well put all your trust in the guidance of boy scout troop leaders and Republican congressmen, that is, don’t. We should aways be skeptical of authority. At least most boy scout leaders don’t start out by claiming the imaginary mantle of divine will. But otherwise, I live a moral life for the simple reason that I empathize with my fellow human beings and have a desire to avoid doing them harm that’s almost as strong as my desire that they avoid harming me.

Answers to the second question will vary a lot. I grew up in a very casual religious tradition, and leaving was completely painless, and no, I have no interest in going back to church ever. Other people will have far more stressful stories to tell. I was one of the lucky ones.

Dawkins’ online debate

Some good news: the online ‘debate’ between Dawkins and the religion editors of the Times can be read for free. It’s a terrible format: it’s just a chat window with people throwing questions at Dawkins, which he deftly slices out of the air with a samurai sword of reason. Here’s one of the more coherent questions the pro-faith gummi bears tossed at him, which will give you an idea of the quality of the interrogation.

I just interviewed David Wilkinson, principal of St John’s Durham and astrophysicist, and this is what he said (full interview at my Times blog Articles of Faith):
The science Stephen Hawking uses raises a number of questions which for many opens the door to the possibility of an existence of a creator and for many points to the existence of a creator.

‘One would be the the purpose of the universe. Although science might discover the mechanism, we are still left with the question of what is the purpose.

‘Second is where the laws of physics come from. Science subsumes the laws but we are still left with the question of where the laws come from.

‘Third is the intelligibility of the universe. It strikes me as interesting that Stephen Hawking can make it intelligible. Albert Einstein once said that the most incomprehensible thing about the universe is that it is comprehensible. For many of us who are struck by the intelligibility of the physical laws, the explanation is that the creator is the force of rationality both for the universe and for our minds.

To summarize Dawkins’ three answers: Why even propose a cosmic purpose? That question isn’t answered by postulating a mysterious intelligent being, either. Why assume a godless universe would have to be unintelligible?

Stupid questions do not warrant our concern or need to answer. Questions that do not bring us closer to understanding are nothing but the posturings of people who substitute noise for reason.

Je n’avais pas besoin de cette hypothese-la

Laplace, Hawking, same difference. In a completely unsurprising move, Stephen Hawking has made it clear that we have no need for the god hypothesis.

Modern physics leaves no place for God in the creation of the Universe, Stephen Hawking has concluded. Just as Darwinism removed the need for a creator in the sphere of biology, Britain’s most eminent scientist argues that a new series of theories have rendered redundant the role of a creator for the Universe. In his forthcoming book, an extract from which is published exclusively in Eureka, published today with The Times, Professor Hawking sets out to answer the question: “Did the Universe need a creator?” The answer he gives is a resounding “no”. Far from being a once-in-a-million event that could only be accounted for by extraordinary serendipity or a divine hand, the Big Bang was an inevitable consequence of the laws of physics, Hawking says. “Because there is a law such as gravity, the Universe can and will create itself from nothing.

Cue condemnations and histrionics, stage left. Fulminations and denial, stage right.

Like it says, this is from an upcoming book, so I haven’t read it yet, and The Times seems to have moved everything behind a paywall, so I can’t even read the full article or any of the associated content, but the story itself sounds a bit banal. The theists have never offered a single credible, logical reason to incorporate a cosmic intelligence into the history of the universe, and it’s about time they were flatly rebuffed and told their contributions are unnecessary.

Besides the annoying paywall, though, I have to point out another nasty element of the reporting — they must really hate Richard Dawkins at The Times.

When it comes to religion, Stephen Hawking is the voice of reason. Not for him the polemical style that has propelled Richard Dawkins to the fore of national consciousness in the God debates. His argument is likely in the long term to be more dangerous to religion because it is more measured than The God Delusion.

The God Delusion was a calm and measured book, and Richard Dawkins’ talks are polite, rational events. Have these people even read the book? It looks to me as if they are trying to mollify their readers by setting up a Saint Hawking while reassuring everyone that they can still beat up on Devil Dawkins.

“to qualify young men for the gallows, and young women for the brothel”

A reader, Sam, sent some fascinating excerpts from a court decision in 1824, Updegraph v. Commonwealth. It was a small case that prompted the judge to write a seventeen page furious rant, and reading it will make you realize what Glenn Beck’s America would like to return to — no, thanks, I wouldn’t like it.

This was a blasphemy trial. The guilty party (and yes, he was found guilty), had said this one terrible, awful, horrifying sentence:

“That the Holy Scriptures were a mere fable: That they were a contradiction, and that, although they contained a number of good things, yet they contained a great many lies.

Mild stuff, I know; much ruder things are said about the Bible here every day. Yet here in the judge’s summary is the context: this was a point made in a debating society, where I’d think such a discussion would be fair game, but here the judge rants that not only were such words far beyond the pale of civilized discussion, but that the purpose of such a group was “to qualify young men for the gallows, and young women for the brothel”.

This verdict excludes every thing like innocence of intention; it finds a malicious intention in the speaker to vilify the Christian Religion, and the Scriptures, and this court cannot look beyond the record… that the words were uttered by the defendant, a member of a debating association, which convened weekly for discussion and mutual information, and that the expressions were used in the course of argument on a religious question. That there is an association in which so serious a subject is treated with so much levity, indecency, and scurrility, existing in this city, I am sorry to hear, for it would prove a nursery of vice, a school of preparation to qualify young men for the gallows, and young women for the brothel, and there is not a skeptic of decent manners and good morals, who would not consider such debating clubs as a common nuisance and disgrace to the city. From the tenor of the words, it is impossible that they could be spoken seriously and conscientiously, in the discussion of a religious or theological topic; there is nothing of argument in the language; it was the out-pouring of an invective so vulgarly shocking and insulting, that the lowest grade of civil authority ought not to be subject to it, but when spoken in a Christian land, and to a Christian audience, the highest offence [harmful to the moral welfare of society]…

I feel sad that the judge is not alive today to witness the internet. I’m also curious about the circumstances of the arrest — did some Christian prig attend the debating society meeting and rush out in horror to call the police?

The judge had to act to prevent the erosion of moral restraints.

It is sometimes asked with a sneer, Why not leave it to Almighty God to revenge his own cause? Temporal courts do so leave it. ‘Bold and presumptuous would be the man who would attempt to arrest the thunder of heaven from the hand of God, and direct the bolts of vengeance where to fall.’ It is not on this principle courts act, but on the dangerous temporal consequences likely to proceed from the removal of religious and moral restraints…

And here’s a part that hasn’t changed a bit in 186 years:

…it is the purest system of morality, the firmest auxiliary, and only stable support of all human laws. It is impossible to administer the laws without taking the religion which the [defendant] has scoffed at, that Scripture which he has reviled, as their basis.

The only parts of the law that seem to be derived from Scripture are some of the more prudish laws restricting behavior on the Sabbath and, well, blasphemy laws. I think we can dispense with them all.

By the way, the accused was fined 5 shillings and court costs.

I have a new favorite porn star!

It’s feminist, atheist, science-loving Nina Hartley.

I haven’t actually seen any of her movies, and I wouldn’t recognize her if I passed her in the street, but I can still actually call her my favorite porn star, right?

Don’t bother recommending any of her movies; my lust is entirely superficial and only for her brain, and I’m certain I’d prefer a conversation over lunch than seeing her naked. (Not to say anything derogatory about her body, of course, which I’m sure is just lovely.)

SSA fundraiser

The Secular Student Alliance is looking for cash, and they’re having a fundraiser: check out the book Hemant is auctioning off. Somebody has scribbled all over it! I remember when I was about 4 and my dad discovered I’d scrawled all over some of his books, and he got mad at me — I should have told him to hang on to them, I’d just increased their value.

I doubt he’d have believed me, but I’m going to remember that excuse for the next time I’m 4.

I’m lazy today

In the past week, there have been a couple of anti-atheist articles published in the newspapers. I have it easy, though: other people have taken care of the rebuttals.

Gary Gutting thinks Dawkins missed the boat on the serious philosophical reasoning behind god-belief. Unfortunately, he doesn’t offer any. As is typical for this genre of apologetics, it founders on an incoherent, absurdist definition of deity.

Here Dawkins ignores the possibility that God is a very different sort of being than brains and computers. His argument for God’s complexity either assumes that God is material or, at least, that God is complex in the same general way that material things are (having many parts related in complicated ways to one another). The traditional religious view, however, is that God is neither material nor composed of immaterial parts (whatever that might mean). Rather, he is said to be simple, a unity of attributes that we may have to think of as separate but that in God are united in a single reality of pure perfection.

“Whatever that might mean”, indeed. Gutting has contrived a hodge-podge of attributes that are all tailored to remove his god from consideration by natural, human means…which then leaves unanswered the question, “How does anybody know anything about this being?” After all, we atheists aren’t the ones making declaratory statements about the desires and actions of this simple, immaterial cloud of vapor.

But I’m lazy. Go read Ophelia Benson for more.

Gutting is at least trying (and failing) to make a rational argument. Suzanne Fields, on the other hand, is slobbering out pure trash talk. She likes to sneeringly, viciously accuse atheists of being sneering and vicious. The low point for me (and it’s really low, a kind of Marianas Trench of rhetoric) is the part where she tries to imply that Christopher Hitchens has come over to the godly side, now that Jesus has given him cancer.

But his writing on atheism is short on sophistication. “With all this continual prayer,” he asks with the air of an adolescent, “Why no result?” But since he has been diagnosed with cancer, he seems to appreciate not only his physicians but the “astonishing number of prayer groups” working on his behalf.

Where does this “with the air of an adolescent” come from? It’s a good question. Religious people make claims of influence on an all powerful deity, but he seems to do squat-all. What’s really cheesy, though, is that implication that Hitchens now appreciates the power of prayer. He does not. He’s very clear on that. What he and most atheists can appreciate is the good intentions of most praying people. It’s rather sad that Christians themselves work so hard to make charitable interpretations of their actions so difficult to give, since we know that they will be misused and abused.

But hey…lazy. Fields has an article that I could do a sentence by sentence demolition on, but I don’t need to: Russell Blackford utterly destroys it.

Now, back to other things.

Copenhagen on YouTube

The recordings of the Copenhagen conference are appearing on YouTube now — here’s my talk, but you should also like AC Grayling’s and Gregory Paul’s. I think they’re just in the process of being uploaded, since I don’t see Peter Singer’s on the list…you’ll eventually have hours and hours of stuff to watch and listen to.