God math is bad math

John Allen Paulos, in an interesting essay on the co-option of mathematics into religious apologia, makes a useful explanation. To counter the idea that the elegance of mathematics is a reflection of the divine, he suggests otherwise — it is a reflection of the natural world.

The universe acts on us, we adapt to it, and the notions that we develop as a result, including the mathematical ones, are in a sense taught us by the universe. That great bugbear of creationists, evolution has selected those of our ancestors (both human and not) whose behavior and thought are consistent with the workings of the universe. The usefulness of mathematics is thus not so unreasonable.

Sad to say, the comments to the article are a bit depressing: the creationists descend and start yammering about transitional fossils and mangling Gould and that sort of thing, the usual foolishness we expect from them. It deserves better.

Growing godlessness

A new poll seems to be showing that the efforts of those ferocious agitating atheists are working — either that, or the corruption of the theocratic right is driving more people into our arms. Daylight Atheism reports that atheists are at 25% of the American population, which isn’t quite right: the numbers include atheists and agnostics at 18%, with another 6% preferring not to say. It would be more accurate to say that about one in four Americans is a freethinker of some sort…and I suspect that that is an underestimate. There are many who affiliate themselves with a church for reasons of tradition and the lack of other social outlets, but don’t really believe in this weird personal god others favor.

The article in The Nation on this subject is interesting and positive, although I also see a little timidity in its efforts to find much to criticize in the “New Atheists” (I also object to the title…this “New” nonsense is inaccurate and tends to minimize the fact that atheism has a long and worthy intellectual history). This part is right on, though.

The great success of the New Atheists is to have reached them [unbelieving citizens], both speaking to and for them. These writers are devoted, with sledgehammer force and angry urgency, to “breaking the spell” cast by the religious ascendancy, to overcoming a situation in which every other area of life can be critically analyzed while admittedly irrational religious faith is made central to American life but exempted from serious discussion.

Sunday short takes

Check out the pulp edition of the Carnival of the Godless — it’s got pulp superheroes narrating the action. I never quite imagined Occam as a ham-fisted bruiser, but OK…

If you prefer a softer approach than those scary godless atheists, there’s also a Humanist Symposium available today.

As usual, Revere has a short, clear sermonette. He does make one mistake, though: he compares theology to a chess game in which there are many intricacies, but that the details don’t mean anything about how you should govern your life. “Chess” is the wrong answer. It’s more like Calvinball. That’s right, Calvinball. Calvinball is the correct answer. Otherwise, it seems to have garnered a lot of comments from the usual tiresome suspects who emerge to bitch and moan about bad, bad atheists who dare to say what they think without softening the blow.

Wilkins despairs. He’s discovered an archive of anti-creationist literature from the ’20s and 30s, and notes that nothing has changed, and his expectation that the religious would abandon creationism to strengthen their own agendas has failed. Buck up, John! No one expects rapid social change on something so deep-rooted, and even though I aspire to see religion reduced to nothing but a sad punchline to a bad old joke, I don’t expect it to happen in my lifetime, or my children’s lifetime, or even my grandchildren’s (if any). Don’t moan about the distance to the destination, savor the journey! Or in this case, Oy! Enjoy the brawl!

Reed seems to think the good guys won in a battle over the dishonest phrasing of a description of the Creation “Museum” published in a Kentucky visitor’s bureau pamphlet. They’ve backed down and changed the wording…but I’m in agreement with Greg. What did Ken Ham get out of this? A little controversy, a little free advertising, and he still has the state of Kentucky promoting his lies for him. This is a victory?

Sometimes, conflict is the only answer

Mooney says that because polls show that Americans are so blinded by religion that they would choose the words of a bloody-handed Middle Eastern sky god over the evidence of science, Dawkins and all us uncompromising atheists are wrong in our tactics. We are henceforth to heed the words of Nisbet and stop confronting people on their religious biases.

Huh?

But that’s exactly the problem that we’re addressing — that people will foolishly prefer “white-beard-in-the-sky-guy” over reality. And the message he takes home from this is that we’re wrong? This is nuts. I read that poll and it says we have a serious problem that we cannot simply ignore any more; this rather craven avoidance that Mooney/Nisbet propose is not working and will not work.

I’m definitely siding with Jason on this one.

Those attitudes, and the unflagging respect for religious faith that they entail, must be weakened. Can that be done? I don’t know. It certainly isn’t easy, but other Western countries have managed to do it.

But I am definitely certain that you can not weaken those attitudes by refusing to attack them.

These polls represent the state of affairs today. What got us here was not the vocal opposition to religion served up by Dawkins and the others. They are newcomers on the scene. Instead, what got us here is years of Republican pandering to the religious right, coupled with Democratic cowardice in the face of increasing challenges to church-state separation (among other factors, of course). As I have written before, it is the nicey-nice strategy of non-engagement endorsed by Mooney and Nisbett that is refuted by these polls. The strategy where you publicly attack bad religious ideas has barely been tried.

I have this suspicion that Mooney and Nisbet are drinking too deeply of the kool-aid of public approval. They’ve got a message that says do nothing, avoid criticizing people on their deeply held beliefs, and instead try to smuggle little bits of good policy past them by actively pandering to them by “framing” your proposals in their terms … and of course audiences love that and eat it up and congratulate them on their wise and sensible perspicacity afterwards, because nothing they say will ever confront the root of the problem, and those people will never feel the need to change. Nisbet/Mooney provide a feel-good façade for inertia on our side, and reinforcement for the destructive beliefs of the religious right.

You are doing something wrong if the purveyors of ancient lies and dumb dogma are thanking you for your conciliatory position; we should be making them angry and worried, and if you have deep differences with someone, you are doing neither you nor them any favors if your sole strategy is conflict avoidance. You might as well just surrender and be done with it.

Wow

We had our very first meeting of UMM Campus Atheists, Skeptics, and Humanists tonight. About two dozen people had expressed interest before, so we expected, optimistically, about 20 people to show up. We got there a little early, and people were waiting for us … and then our 20 were there, and then more, and then more, and then more. I had to keep going up to the counter to tell them we were going to have to order a few more pizzas.

Final tally: 60 students showed up. We basically took over the whole restaurant.

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Don’t waste your breath warning them of me, Billy

I have survived the first week of classes (my schedule leaves Fridays free of lecturing), as have my students — one down, sixteen to go. I’ve got a fairly heavy load this term, with a brand new introductory biology course (with 84 freshman students!) and a neurobiology course for more advanced students, so it’s going to be a long hard slog, I can tell. Pity those poor students, though — thrown right into the lion’s den. Ask Billy Graham, he knows.

Q. I’m headed for college in a few weeks, and as a Christian I’m wondering what to expect. Some people say that my faith will be attacked there, and I’m not sure I’m ready for that. Do you have any advice for me?

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Why we need to speak up assertively

Ophelia makes note of a comment from Hitchens, about a revelation on his book tour:

At the end of the event I discover something that I am going to keep on discovering: half the people attending had thought that they were the only atheists in town.

I see that all the time, too. We atheists are a minority, still, but we’re not as alone as some of us have thought: when we announce ourselves, we have a ready audience pleased to hear from us. I think that is liberating — you don’t have to be afraid, you’re not alone, we can all stand together against the deluded.

A triumphant beginning!

Last night was the activities fair at UMM, where student groups try to catch the attention of the new students and persuade them to sign up. It was a mob scene with hundreds of milling people, and there in the middle of it … the brand new UMM chapter of the Campus Atheists, Skeptics, and Humanists. Here are most of the current officers — the missing one was me, behind the camera.

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Viktor Berberi, Collin Tierney, and Skatje Myers (and Richard Dawkins playing on the computer)

I was impressed. I expected they’d go over there and get maybe half a dozen to a dozen people to sign up, but instead they got more than twice my most optimistic prediction, and that’s drawing primarily from the freshman class. I think there has been a pent-up demand for this sort of thing, and the response was almost entirely positive. Collin mentioned that there were a few dismissive remarks, but otherwise, I think we can look forward to a good, large group of godless activists to be operating in Morris, Minnesota this year.

Only one problem: we’re going to have the first meeting at 7:00 on Thursday, and I said I’d buy all the pizza. I may have escaped a $15 million lawsuit, but the pizza bill may demolish all the money I saved.

It’s a rite of passage on Scienceblogs…

…that you have to take a sharp poke at the godless or godly to try and trigger a response, and now it’s Chris’s turn. He’s arguing with the usual faith/empiricism continuum, and adds a third axis to the debate, as illustrated here.

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OK, it’s an interesting try. I don’t think it quite works, though. That “cranks” zone on the left needs to be expanded up towards the faith vertex, and actually ought to be indistinguishable from “theists”.

The other deep flaw is the position of “agnostics” (I have a suspicion that Chris would place himself in that group). I can think of several agnostics around here who ought to be classified as fanatically agnostic — they have greater zeal in arguing for their waffly and uninspiring position than any atheist, and with less cause.

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While we’re tweaking, how about nudging my data point to somewhere south of the bottom line? I’m actively anti-faith, and I think my coordinates on that axis ought to be negative.