Letting go of gods is a reason for joy…like being free of prison

Yesterday, I mentioned this silly fellow Damon Linker, who complains that the New Atheists aren’t sad enough about their godlessness. This seems to be the new gripe du jour; you can’t be a serious atheist unless you’re all broken up about the absence of god, and unless you tell all the believers how much you appreciate what their superstition brings to the world, and how now you’re going to go home and cry because you have a god-shaped hole in your heart. It’s deeply dishonest and stupid. If anybody tried to pull that nonsense on me in person they’d get a rude response that would reveal that the teddy bear can snarl after all.

Meet Father Barron. I give you fair warning: if you actually watch this video, you may find yourself trying to smash through the glass of your video display to slap the smug prick. The infuriation is compounded by the fact that he’s wearing that pretentious dog collar, which I imagine he thinks gives him a look of authority, but to me is like putting on a big red clown nose. No, that’s not fair; a clown nose wouldn’t be an announcement that one is a pompous fraud.

And there it is again, the crazy complaint that the New Atheists aren’t serious enough, that they’re playing at atheism, because they just don’t express the existential anguish that apostates are expected to feel. Now Camus and Sartre — there are some good atheists; they’re safely dead, so they won’t spit in the eye of a priest, and they appreciated how miserable they were without gods.

Oh, Father Barron, so smug and sure in your phony Catholicism — you must be merely playing at religion, since you aren’t all distressed and weepy over your failure to grasp the power of science and reason and rationalism. How can I take you seriously if you don’t make YouTube videos crying over how sad you are to be trapped in the cloying, smothering dogma of the Catholic church?

And then he gives away his game:

they [the good old atheists] knew that inside us we have a deep desire for fulfillment, truth, goodness, justice…in other words, for God.

Barron is a fool. The equation of fulfillment, truth, goodness, and justice with god is what theists do; atheists haven’t given up on any of those principles, we feel no lack of those important matters to grieve over, we have simply realized that god does not provide fulfillment, truth, goodness, or justice and have sought them out in more practical and real arenas.

And most importantly, we actually respect and take seriously that idea of valuing truth, which is why we reject the superstitions priests offer us. We take it so seriously that we expect to be given reasonable explanations and evidence for fantastic claims, and do not simply accept stories told to us by stuffy old gomers wearing funny collars.

Mohammed is defiled…but it’s a very old story

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All the kerfuffle about people drawing Mohammed in recent years has been seriously misplaced: there is a very entertaining archive of Mohammed images, everything from serious medieval renditions to obscene contemporary scrawls. Cat’s out of the bag, Muslims—pictures of Mohammed are everywhere, and they’ve been around for centuries.

In related news, the UW Madison Atheists, Humanists, and Agnostics did their own consciousness raising excercise, chalking stick figure Mohammed’s all over campus. Some of the reactions were amusing: I think it’s clever that some of the opposition came along with chalk, drew boxing gloves on the figures, and added “Ali” after the name. And of course there were also the expected responses, where people defaced and scuffed out the images.

As it turns out, no, you cannot draw depictions of Muhammad in Madison. At least, not without having them immediately changed to pictures of Muhammad Ali, and not without having them censored the next day. Let’s imagine an alternate universe. Let’s say the drawings were never tampered with, but instead were met with nothing more than shrugged shoulders and public admonishment for our childish behavior. In this scenario the egg would be on our faces. Instead, suffice it to say that our point has been proven. The right to criticize religion and perform blasphemous acts needs to be defended more than ever.

Exactly right.

And there was much rejoicing!

A deal has been struck to import Gudeløs into the US. This is good stuff; I’ve had one bottle of it, and was looking forward to tapping the source in Denmark, and now it looks like I may be able to get it more regularly.

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Devil’s Brew and the Danish Atheist Society have entered into an unholy alliance, and the result is ‘Godless’ – an ale brewed entirely without superstition. [Godless] is an imperial stout with burnt and sweetish impressions, together with notes of licorice. To exercise social responsibility, Devil’s Brew donates one Danish Crown to the Danish Atheist Society for each bottle sold.

Wait…all beers are godless. There are no Christian beers, Muslim beers, Hindu beers, and to so label them is beer abuse.

Sam Harris v. Sean Carroll

The discussion is interesting. Sam Harris recently and infamously proposed that, contra Hume, you can derive an ‘ought’ from an ‘is’, and that science can therefore provide reasonable guidance towards a moral life. Sean Carroll disagrees at length.

I’m afraid that so far I’m in the Carroll camp. I think Harris is following a provocative and potentially useful track, but I’m not convinced. I think he’s right in some of the examples he gives: science can trivially tell you that psychopaths and violent criminals and the pathologies produced by failed states in political and economic collapse are not good models on which to base a successful human society (although I also think that the desire for a successful society is not a scientific premise…it’s a kind of Darwinian criterion, because unsuccessful societies don’t survive). However, I don’t think Harris’s criterion — that we can use science to justify maximizing the well-being of individuals — is valid. We can’t. We can certainly use science to say how we can maximize well-being, once we define well-being…although even that might be a bit more slippery than he portrays it. Harris is smuggling in an unscientific prior in his category of well-being.

One good example Harris uses is the oppression of women and raging misogyny of the Taliban. Can we use science to determine whether that is a good strategy for human success? I think we can, but not in the way Harris is trying to do so: we could ask empirically, after the fact, whether the Taliban was successful in expanding, maintaining its population, and responding to its environment in a productive way. We cannot, though, say a priori that it is wrong because abusing and denigrating half the population is unconscionable and vile, because that is not a scientific foundation for the conclusion. It’s an emotional one; it’s also a rational one, given the premise that we should treat all people equitably…but that premise can’t claim scientific justification. That’s what Harris has to show!

That is different from saying is is an unjustified premise, though — I agree with Harris entirely that the oppression of women is an evil, a wrong, a violation of a social contract that all members of a society should share. I just don’t see a scientific reason for that — I see reasons of biological predisposition (we are empathic, social animals), of culture (this is a conclusion of Enlightenment history), and personal values, but not science. Science is an amoral judge: science could find that a slave culture of ant-like servility was a species optimum, or that a strong behavioral sexual dimorphism, where men and women had radically different statuses in society, was an excellent working solution. We bring in emotional and personal beliefs when we say that we’d rather not live in those kinds of cultures, and want to work towards building a just society.

And that’s OK. I think that deciding that my sisters and female friends and women all around the world ought to have just as good a chance to thrive as I do is justified given a desire to improve the well-being and happiness of all people. I am not endorsing moral relativism at all — we should work towards liberating everyone, and the Taliban are contemptible scum — I’m just not going to pretend that that goal is built on an entirely objective, scientific framework.

Carroll brings up another set of problems. Harris is building his arguments around a notion that we ought to maximize well-being; Caroll points out that “well-being” is an awfully fuzzy concept that means different things to different people, and that it isn’t clear that “well-being” isn’t necessarily a goal of morality. Harris does have an answer to those arguments, sort of.

Those who assumed that any emphasis on human “wellbeing” would lead us to enslave half of humanity, or harvest the organs of the bottom ten percent, or nuke the developing world, or nurture our children a continuous drip of heroin are, it seems to me, not really thinking about these issues seriously. It seems rather obvious that fairness, justice, compassion, and a general awareness of terrestrial reality have rather a lot to do with our creating a thriving global civilization–and, therefore, with the greater wellbeing of humanity. And, as I emphasized in my talk, there may be many different ways for individuals and communities to thrive–many peaks on the moral landscape–so if there is real diversity in how people can be deeply fulfilled in life, this diversity can be accounted for and honored in the context of science. As I said in my talk, the concept of “wellbeing,” like the concept of “health,” is truly open for revision and discovery. Just how happy is it possible for us to be, personally and collectively? What are the conditions–ranging from changes in the genome to changes in economic systems–that will produce such happiness? We simply do not know.

The phrase beginning “It seems rather obvious…” is an unfortunate give-away. Don’t tell me it’s obvious, tell me how you can derive your conclusion from the simple facts of the world. He also slips in a new goal: “creating a thriving global civilization.” I like that goal; I think that is an entirely reasonable objective for a member of a species to strive for, to see that their species achieves a stable, long-term strategy for survival. However, the idea that it should be achieved by promoting fairness, justice, compassion, etc., is not a scientific requirement. As Harris notes, there could be many different peaks in the moral landscape — what are the objective reasons for picking those properties as the best elements of a strategy? He doesn’t say.

I’m fine with setting up a set of desirable social goals — fairness, justice, compassion, and equality are just a start — and declaring that these will be the hallmark of our ideal society, and then using reason and science to work towards those objectives. I just don’t see a scientific reason for the premises, wonderful as they are and as strongly as they speak to me. I also don’t feel a need to label a desire as “scientific”.

Your mission, should you choose to accept it…

…is to work on uprating this video:

You may recall that today the Mormons are trying to push up the rankings of a truly stupid video which argues that the fact that someone believes in something fervently means it must be true. Don’t bother watching the Mormon video — in fact, avoid giving it any more traffic — and instead follow this link to the Thunderf00t video and click on the “Like” button to vote it up, and also leave a comment. The more input, the better. We don’t quite have the numbers of the Mormon church, so spread the word and get more people to join in.

Massimo Pigliucci is so very rude

Massimo Pigliucci has written a book, Nonsense on Stilts: How to Tell Science From Bunk(amzn/b&n/abe/pwll), that actually sounds very interesting — it takes a strong skeptic’s approach to truth claims. What really makes it sound worth reading, though, is a review by Carlin Romano that pans it, Pigliucci, and a whole great legion of scientists irritated with the public endorsement of nonsense: Romano complains that we’re on “ego trips.” Why? Because Pigliucci expresses such strong certainty about the conclusions of science.

Here’s the heart of the review. It’s a lot of aggravating piss-pottery about tone.

Pigliucci offers more hero sandwiches spiced with derision and certainty. Media coverage of science is “characterized by allegedly serious journalists who behave like comedians.” Commenting on the highly publicized Dover, Pa., court case in which U.S. District Judge John E. Jones III ruled that intelligent-design theory is not science, Pigliucci labels the need for that judgment a “bizarre” consequence of the local school board’s “inane” resolution. Noting the complaint of intelligent-design advocate William Buckingham that an approved science textbook didn’t give creationism a fair shake, Pigliucci writes, “This is like complaining that a textbook in astronomy is too focused on the Copernican theory of the structure of the solar system and unfairly neglects the possibility that the Flying Spaghetti Monster is really pulling each planet’s strings, unseen by the deluded scientists.”

Is it really? Or is it possible that the alternate view unfairly neglected could be more like that of Harvard scientist Owen Gingerich, who contends in God’s Universe (Harvard University Press, 2006) that it is partly statistical arguments–the extraordinary unlikelihood eons ago of the physical conditions necessary for self-conscious life–that support his belief in a universe “congenially designed for the existence of intelligent, self-reflective life”? Even if we agree that capital “I” and “D” intelligent-design of the scriptural sort–what Gingerich himself calls “primitive scriptural literalism”–is not scientifically credible, does that make Gingerich’s assertion, “I believe in intelligent design, lowercase i and lowercase d,” equivalent to Flying-Spaghetti-Monsterism?

Tone matters. And sarcasm is not science.

Romano is oblivious to the actual facts of the Dover case. William Buckingham was not some thoughtful theist who wanted a philosophical discussion in the science classroom; he wasn’t even an ID proponent. He was a born-again jesus freak befuddled on hillbilly heroin who was more of a young earth creationist. He wanted to get the Christian Bible into the public school classrooms, was willing to lie on the witness stand to do it, and saw intelligent design only as a tool to smuggle Jesus into the science classes.

Yes, really.

“Inane” is also how Judge Jones described the school board’s actions: to be precise, he called it “breathtaking inanity”. The view they were trying to push on children, that the there is a magic man in the sky who poofed us all into existence, is actually entirely as silly as the Flying Spaghetti Monster. Pigliucci was right. Romano is wrong.

But what if Buckingham had been a genteel, considerate, ruminative Owen-Gingerich-style Pennsylvania populist? Would that make any difference? No. Gingerich is a religious cosmologist who believes that “a common-sense and satisfying interpretation of our world suggests the designing hand of a superintelligence.” There is absolutely no evidence for this, despite his claims that that bogus ‘fine-tuning’ argument supports the notion. It’s a fabulous fantasy of a grand cosmic super-brain hovering about at the beginning of the Big Bang that is just as ludicrously unfounded as the claim that Jesus did it, or that the Flying Spaghetti Monster flapped a few noodly appendages to conjure a home for pirates into existence. Leaving the word “Jesus” out of your explanation does not turn it into science.

The only thing I agreed with in Romano’s cranky review was the second to the last sentence above: “Tone matters.” It certainly does, but not in the way he imagines. Romano has written a kvetching review in which he reserves all of his bile for the fellow promoting an evidence-based view of reality, and provides nothing but gentle strokes for people who favor fantasies over hard truths…and his complaint is that scientists are insufficiently conciliatory to those deceitful purveyors of faith and fables. Tone does matter when you use that brand of argument to beg special treatment for liars, and to justify chastising those who deliver a blunt truth — it means one is pandering to faith-based folly.

Tone matters, because too many have been insufficiently fierce in their criticism of pious excuses for sloppy thinking. Tone matters because we haven’t been rude enough in the face of special claims of privilege for religious inanity. We need to flip that tone argument around 180°—the problem isn’t that our tone is so harsh, it’s that yours is so inappropriately soft towards people who lie to children, who want to gut our educational system, and who want to taint science with a bias for magic.

The University of Illinois will be smitted…smoted…smattened…CURSED for their heresy!

They’re in big trouble now: the atheists chalked portraits of Mohammed on sidewalks all over campus. Allah will be offended, and there might even be nothing but a yawning chasm where Champaign and Urbana once stood. Any UI students should write in and let us know if there are any omens, portents, unusual flights of birds, widespread crankiness, etc.

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As you can see, the images are detailed and explicit. That’s obviously Mohammed — it even has a name and an arrow pointing to the figure.

(via Phil Ferguson)

Tim Minchin serenades the Pope

Tim Minchin has a new and utterly delightful little song about the Pope. Warning: it’s catchy. You might end up singing it around the house.

Oh, and also…it’s a teeny bit naughty. Maybe not safe for work, unless you work in a Catholic office — then you should turn it up loud.

Also, if you’re one of those people who fret over “tone”: insert your name where ever Tim says “Pope”.

Let’s not give England all our attention today — look at France!

This story about the desperation of the French priesthood to recruit new victims has some interesting statistics.

There are around 24,000 priests in France today, down from 42,000 in 1975. The number of Catholics entering the diocese has declined as well, from 116 ordainments in 1999 to 89 in 2009.

…

While 64 percent of the French population, or 41.6 million of the country’s 65 million inhabitants, identifies itself as Catholic, only a little more than 2 million attend church each week, said Jacques Carton, a representative from the Bishops Conference in France.

How desperate are they? Most of the story is about how they’re putting up posters and advertising on Facebook to convince young men to give up sex and commit their lives to sitting in churches and prancing through rituals. Yeah, that’ll work. Why not go all the way and put personals on Craigslist? That would at least sucker a lot of people into contacting them, because they’d all assume it must be something really perverse.