Several of us have posted about the dire religion-coddling and atheist-bashing at this year’s evolution meetings. Over at Metamagician, brother Blackford analyzes whether atheists really are as dogmatic as fundamentalists. Blackford has special expertise in this area, since he used to be an evangelical Christian but is now an atheist and a philosopher.
(Whoops, Germany just scored against England.)
Blackford concludes that to a large degree dogmatism is a byproduct of adhering to an “integrated system of thought” that doesn’t have much wiggle room for change. In this light atheists are no more likely to be inflexible than accommodationists.
There are many possibilities, but the idea that the people at the ends of the assumed spectrum must be more dogmatic than those in the middle is just wrong. If Christian fundamentalists are especially dogmatic it may be evidenced by their maintenance of a position in flagrant contradiction to science, and it may be caused by commitment to an integrated system of thought with little give, by their sense that the stakes are very high, and maybe by other factors (e.g. if they reached their position through childhood indoctrination). These factors may not apply so much to liberal and moderate Christians, but nor need they apply to atheists. Again, there is just no reason to think that the degree of someone’s dogmatism will correlate directly with her distance from the centre of some alleged spectrum of viewpoints.
(Germany just scored again. It doesn’t look good for England).
And look at the facts: are accommodationists really more flexible in their thinking than atheists? Do you really think that Francisco Ayala, or Karen Armstrong, or Chris Mooney, or Francis Collins, are palpably more open to changing their minds than are the annoyingly shrill New Atheists? I don’t see it.
(England has come back with a goal—and another goal that was good but disallowed. What a great match!)
And there’s this: most atheists are atheists because of a lack of data to convince us that there is a God, especially a theistic one. Is it so inflexible to keep that position until we have data that convince us otherwise? (I have published a list of things that would convince me of the existence a theistic God. I have yet to see a religious person publish a similar list of observations that would convince them that no god exists.)
If you see atheists as dogmatic because they won’t accept a god without evidence, then by all means level this criticism at scientists as well. “Those dogmatic and inflexible scientists—why can’t they just stop banging on about climate change, AIDS, and homeopathy? Can’t they have a respectful conversation with, and find common ground with, the climate-change deniers, the AIDS doubters, the dowsers, the astrologers, and the homeopaths?”
Halftime.
Admittedly, that’s what a lot of alt-med proponents and climate-change deniers are saying about science.
It is baffling to me that to prove that science and religion is compatible, often arguments are used that appear to throw science under the bus.
Jerry Coyne. The Howard Cosell of good sense.
I always liked Grayling’s reply to the accusation of being an atheist fundamentalist: “What would a non-fundamentalist atheist be? Would he be someone who believed only somewhat that there are no supernatural entities in the universe – perhaps that there is only part of a god (a divine foot, say,o r buttock)?”
I think this hits the nail very firmly on the head. In my experience most atheists/agnostics are open to sound arguments (amounting to proof) that religions have some basis for their beliefs; they just don’t get any. The religious on the other hand generally have no conception of a challenge to their beliefs: said beliefs are, in a word, sacrosanct.
P S that was definitely a legal goal. Grrrrrrr.
I just spent a bit of time re-reading the Edge responses linked above and marveled again about the quality of most of them.
It seems to me that one needn’t take the same doxastic attitude toward a well confirmed theory as one takes toward the negation of a theory lacking confirmation. The accomodationist, perhaps, admits that there are no epistemic reasons to believe theism but in the absence of epistemic reasons to believe atheism they advise agnostic tolerance of belief in theism for practical reasons (community, ritual, way of life, tradition, comfort) and find the new atheist approach strikingly insensitive to what they see as the practical value belief has.
I disagree with several premises of this accomodationist line of thinking, but I think it’s helpful to try to understand where it’s coming from.
Where is their evidence that belief has practical value? It is all hearsay and some studies have shown that not only does religious belief does not have a monopoly at providing the same level of comfort/happiness, but that it does not even provide a higher level as some secular aspects do.
This constant insistence that faith is an unqualified good is similar to the old story about a man who gave his wife roses weekly until finally she killed him because she really hated roses. Do people really get any benefit from that nice bunch of roses that get stuffed their laps by the pushers of non-evidential beliefs? We do not know so stop pushing this nonsense.
As Hitchens has said, there is nothing, no good, that religion supposedly does, that a secular approach could not achieve.
This mealy mouthing of the mantra of faith is good is what needs to challenged, so the accomodationists will be continued to be soundly confronted on this aspect. If they can provide evidence, then perhaps some framing of how we can discuss the topic can be set up. Until then, the accomdationists have no leg to stand on, while the new atheists do. We have evidence that coddling the religious is not the way to go, as with the moral majority mess that happened in the States.
Where the accomodationists are coming from, is from a cowardly point of reference. Period. End of discussion. And also from a pile of strawmen, as many atheists are not strident and would not openly insult and ridicule people, just the beliefs.
It is indeed helpful to understand where it’s coming from. It’s also helpful to be careful not to be swayed by its (strikingly consistent) use of manipulative language and rhetoric – aka “framing.” It’s helpful to hold out for real arguments rather than framing. So when they call us “strikingly insensitive” and similar, it’s useful to point out the framing.
Also when they accuse us of “intolerance”. Apparently, criticizing someone’s belief is “intolerant”.
I never understand why law enforcement officers are sooo insensitive to the practical values of heroin.
This article pretty much nails it.
It also behooves us to note that this is generic to the basic empiricism (science; science based skepticism, as practiced by major skeptic organizations) that much of current atheism grows out of.
A version of atheism I entertain is based on a (for me) satisfying test for materialism. But from that follows an explicit list of criteria that falsifies such a monism.
– Observing different speed of light in my living room as opposed to my kitchen.
– Observing my bedroom obeying quantum mechanics while my closet obeys classical mechanics and thus undergoing the ultraviolet catastrophe of non-Planck radiation. (Well, looking at some of my shirts and ties, that may well be the case?! :-o)
– Observing that prayers work.
– Observing the existence of a non-material soul.
– Observing that a three day corpse recollects the decay gases and returns to the exact molecular metabolic state as before, gets up and says “Hello World”.
All of those and more would convince me that materialism is to be rejected. (And the last three would go a long way to convince me that specifically post-semitic gods could be the alternative dualism.)
The point here is that even if there is data that convince someone that there aren’t any gods, it is indeed generic that it is the lack of data, perhaps against materialism, but more strongly for gods, that is the problem for convincing of alternatives.
No data, no score.
It is helpful to recollect that it is only post-Enlightenment that gods seem to be reluctant to prove their existence. In the good old days they were happy to burn bushes, smite cities, part seas, deluge worlds, feed multitudes, cure lepers, and raise dead. It is rather curious that they have suddenly become so shy. So I simply don’t buy the theo-philosophical arguments about the untestability of gods, as this smacks of nothing more than revisionist special pleading.
My thoughts exactly. Moving gods-posts, at the very least.
Seems to me that movements without rational underpinnings require music, marching songs and the like, to keep the adherents and new converts focused. Of course there’s a whole religous music industry, but whether they realize it or not, the Accomodationists have a song, too, rooted in minstrelsy (author apparently Unknown/Traditional/Anonymous. The chorus is this & rest of which can be easily found online:
Then children, keep in the middle of the road
Children, keep in the middle of the road
Don’t you look to the right
Don’t you look to the left
Just keep in the middle of the road
In the middle of the road
In the middle of the road*.
Could someone remind me what the Athiest Anthem is?
*Maybe AAAS will now offer free ringtones for renewals?
I respectfully suggest
I guess I could quibble and say that’s more the Astronomer’s Anthem, but still pretty good. Thanx!
This affords a chance to make a segue to greatest dance of molecular biology ever performed, at Stanford nearly 40yrs ago now. A classic, if you’ve never seen it, and this is a particularly good copy:
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u9dhO0iCLww&hl=en_US&fs=1&rel=0]
“I’ll fix my eye on the golden stair”
Just … oh wow.
The song’s astonishing, isn’t it? Especially if you’ve heard it on the 78 that I picked up at a junk shop years ago – it’s nothing like the YouTube of the U Georgia choir doing it – here’s the link, no need to embed the video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nMXoA3QlTUE
Having heard the 78 version, I wonder if the UGA kids understand what the hell they’re singing about. The message is clear on the 78: keep your head down to avoid getting lynched.
AAAS’s motivation may well be analogous – to fend off pressure to cut funding from from those who think that science starts from an atheistic bias. Still, we’d all be better off if AAAS would just stick to science and stay out of accomodationism, IMHO.
Oh. Hum. Yes, that could be the message, considering it is “a traditional African-American Gospel song”. Then wow-some in other regards too, not only the apropos anti-evolution “ladder” metaphor.
It is important that we not lose the debate on where the middle ground is. The middle ground is where the facts point and we are standing on it.
Let it never be forgotten that the middle ground between two intractable opponents most often contains a minefield.
And it’s usually where the bullets are passing through.
I should just clarify, though, that I was never a fundamentalist. Not all evangelicals are fundamentalists. Maybe that was my undoing. 😉
> “I have published a list of things that would convince me of the existence a theistic God.”
Jerry, did you do the same for a deistic God?
Parsimony takes care of that on its own.
I can’t speak for Jerry, but note that my stronger claim rely on weaker, broader counter-evidence, so any dualism need to present theirs. No Get Out of Test Free Card special pleading.
Which sucks for deism, since it is constructed precisely to not be testable, like its brother Moving Goalposts AKA Gods of the Gaps.
[Of course, technically the claim makes a mere mockery out of pantheism. So if you are prepared to be mocked… :-D]
“And look at the facts: are accommodationists really more flexible in their thinking than atheists? Do you really think that Francisco Ayala, or Karen Armstrong, or Chris Mooney, or Francis Collins, are palpably more open to changing their minds than are the annoyingly shrill New Atheists? I don’t see it.”
Neither do I. What you might have there are fundamentalist mugwumps.