Hoffmann debate continues

March 28, 2011 • 4:38 am

Last week I posted on Jacques Berlinerblau and R. Joseph Hoffmann’s attacks on Gnu Atheists, both accusing Gnus of being not only politically ineffective and clueless, but also completely ignorant about the history of atheism.  Over at Butterflies and Wheels, a post by Ophelia Benson has inspired a lively discussion, with Hoffmann defending his accusations and everybody else piling on.  I’ve contributed a bit, too.  It’s heartening to see the quality of argument produced by fellow atheists.

Hoffmann continues to maintain, in the face of the facts, that Gnus have had no success in promoting atheism.  He waves his credentials and makes a familiar last-ditch argument by those beleaguered:

And btw, my field is history of religion, and my reputation in that area confers at least as much right to be taken seriously as Mr Coyne’s. The ferocity and insecurity of the responses I have received strongly indicates that there was something worth…mentioning.

Does this remind readers of The Intersection of a similar defense: “I must have struck a nerve”?  There are, of course, other reasons besides nerve-striking for fierce responses to such an arrogant accusation.

In better news, I petted baby pigs and lambs this weekend.

 

105 thoughts on “Hoffmann debate continues”

      1. I mean that Hoffan’s comment on Ophelia’s page linked to his 5 good things article.

  2. Jeepers, Dr. Coyne. For a ferocious atheist, you sure are a big ‘ol softy, with the pig petting and so forth. It’s kind of adorable, really.

    2. Just you wait for the forthcoming post where we find out exactly which delicious comestible those piggies and lambs have been turned into. (Or are there such things as woolly cowboy boots?)

    3. Helen, he’s a total softie:-)) The post that got me was the one about the stray kittehs in Greece, and how he carries dry cat food around in his pack to feed them. Awwww….

  3. The fact is, these guys are getting scared. Most of the educated public who pay attention to religious issues are not religious. Far from being politically impotent, the impact of people who don’t believe in a sky wizard on the Obama election was about the same size as the race factor. I break it down here: http://iranianredneck.wordpress.

  5. “Actual persecutions of atheists have been pitifully infrequent and rare throughout history–no major purges or anything of the sort.”

    http://rjosephhoffmann.wordpress.com/2010/09/28/five-good-things-about-atheism/#comment-2235

    I’m sorry, but this is an ignorant opinion from a so-called historian. Perhaps he should expand his limited ivory tower world view into the modern Arab world, or to when atheism was an heretical and capital offense during the ancient and medieval eras.

    1. For most of history, being one step on the road to atheism was enough to get you killed, so it’s not particularly surprising. Non-trinitarianism was enough to get Michael Servetus burned at the stake. How many overt atheists does Hoffman think there are going to be in those circumstances?

        1. More to the point, what few admitted atheists or suspected atheists there were didn’t have a long life expectency.

          How dangerous it was to be accused of being an atheist at this time is illustrated by the examples of Étienne Dolet who was strangled and burned in 1546, and Giulio Cesare Vanini who received a similar fate in 1619. In 1689 the Polish nobleman Kazimierz Łyszczyński, who had allegedly denied the existence of God in his philosophical treatise De non existentia Dei, was condemned to death in Warsaw for atheism and beheaded after his tongue was pulled out with a burning iron and his hands slowly burned. Similarly in 1766, the French nobleman Jean-François de la Barre, was tortured, beheaded, and his body burned for alleged vandalism of a crucifix, a case that became celebrated because Voltaire tried unsuccessfully to have the sentence reversed.

          http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_atheism#Renaissance_and_Reformation

    2. In addition to all that, it ignores the fact that multiple polls have found atheists to be the group Americans feel most comfortable discriminating against. Not the “usual suspects” (blacks, mexicans, gays, and recently muslims); atheists. That should piss him off, like it does most of us.

  6. The Berlinerblau piece could serve as a dictionary definition of both “straw man argument” and “argument from authority” and the Hoffmann one isn’t much better.

    Its all starting to look a lot like the Judean People’s Front and the People’s Front of Judea shouting “splitters” at each other.

    I’m with Campaign for Free Galilee myself……..

        1. Yes, there are lumpers & splitters in all walks of life, biology & palaeontology in particular! Just search those words in Google Scholar. It is clearly a very basic part of what it means to be human.

          1. Human?!

            It’s well known that members of the CFG don’t even have the sense to cover their dirt floors with straw!!! Savages – all of them…

          2. ..Oh wait, FGC policy states the we’re against the use of straw…..never mind…

          5. Typical kind of political rhetoric we’ve come to expect from the FGC — oh wait, that’s my group…

  7. The ferocity of responses he has got inicates that he is an irritation.
    As for calling them “insecure”…who is the “shrill” one here?

  8. Why such hostility for defending reason and science? Personally, I don’t think there are “gnu” Atheists, just old atheists who (to paraphrase Tina Turner) are “sick of the shit”. Why are accommodationist so intellectually dishonest, they place such sacred value on a person’s feelings, why can’t they do that about what’s actually TRUE instead?

  9. I question the use of the word ‘debate’. I believe it is as wrong to use the word in this context as it is to use the word in a phrase such as “the debate with creationists continues”.

    The “I annoyed people, therefore I must be saying something worthwhile” argument is just idiotic beyond belief. That’s why I absolutely refuse to ever visit the ‘Intersection’ again.

    Baby pigs and lambs? Is that a precondition for petting baby black-footed cats or baby cheetahs?

    2. The “I annoyed people, therefore I must be saying something worthwhile” argument is just idiotic beyond belief.

      Really? So I guess “they laughed at Galileo too” isn’t up to much either? Aw shucks; I thought it was a real conversation stopper.

    3. The “I annoyed people, therefore I must be saying something worthwhile” argument is just idiotic beyond belief.

      I believe MadScientist wins this comment thread for that observation.

  10. For anyone seriously interested in the history of religion, here is a good place to start:
    /www.cscs.umich.edu/~crshalizi/White/#evo-1

          1. Seem to have had a typing nightmare there – sorry!
            wallace Arthur’s book is Creatures of Accident. He is an Evo Devo scientist in Ireland, a founding editor of “Evolution and Development”.

  11. I think the effectiveness that Gnus have had so far is in making other atheists 1) feel comfortable in expressing their non-belief and 2) really secure in why they don’t believe (i.e., the specific claims made by religion that are wrong/weak/unhelpful/harmful/ridiculous/immoral/etc….

  12. It’s strange to me that “hyper-empiricist, hyper-materialist” is supposed to be a criticism. One of the things that is refreshing about the New Atheists is the straightforward, unapologetic empiricism and naturalism. I feel like that’s what annoys people like this the most. They’re OK with people being atheists or empiricists or naturalists, but they think people should at least feel bad about it. The New Atheists don’t feel bad about it.

    2. Indeed.

      What’s the alternative to “hyper-empicism” or “hyper-materialism”?

      It seems to me to be a clear-cut black-and-white matter. Either the universe is subject to rational analysis (with the usual caveats of the specific, limited, and well-identified restrictions of Gödel, Heisenberg, etc.) or it’s not. Either there are non-material ghosts in the machine or there aren’t.

      Are we supposed to reject religious myths as children’s tales but still chant the occasional Hail Mary or oṃ maṇipadme hūṃ just for good measure? Should we shake our FDA-approved medications ten times before ingesting them? Is it necessary for NASA to cross-check orbital insertion calculations against the latest astrological forecast to determine how many gallons of chicken blood to splatter on the launch pad?

      What forms of irrational magic are we supposed to adopt in order to temper our hyper-empirical, hyper-material perspective of the universe?

      Cheers,

      b&

      1. ‘What’s the alternative to “hyper-empicism” or “hyper-materialism”?’ –
        vague wooliness.

      2. The alternative is carving out a fiefdom where empiricism and naturalism are assumed not to apply. That’s what the religious want because they want religious claims to be immunized against empirical questioning and bothersome naturalistic concerns.

    3. …define the difference between “empiricism” and “hyper-empiricism”… and then explain why the latter is necessarily a bad thing.

      1. I suppose “hyper-empiricism” must mean “empiricism in more than 3 dimensions” if it works the same as with cube and hypercube.

  14. As I said at my place, yesterday when I packed it in for the day I was mostly sorry I’d written that post, but today I’m far from sorry. It’s elicited a lot of great (and informative) comments.

    2. I’m glad you don’t regret it anymore. Always stick your neck out a little, even if you are a bit uncertain. As long as your arguments and/or observations aren’t frivolous and are offered in good faith (as indeed they were), then somebody will learn something, even if it’s only you. Fortunately in this case, everyone (with perhaps the exception of a certain Hoff) might have learned something. Thanks!

  15. That’s a nice double bind he’s created there. If I say something and a group vociferously disagrees it means I must have a point. If I say something and there is little disagreement it means I must be right. I’m going to have to remember that one. By the way, when did Hoffman quit beating his wife?

  16. I was raised as a Methodist, used to believe most of what I was indoctrinated with and now I am an atheist. Strangely I still find myself trying to educate myself about what I don’t believe in – reading books on religion and trying to understand just what many people do believe. That is enough work in itself. Now it seems I am supposed to educate myself in the history of atheism; but I am not entirely sure what it is I am supposed to understand. Is it the history of those who didn’t believe in gods? Or the alternative ideas which they espoused? And alternative ideas to what, exactly?
    I keep thinking of the “non-stamp collector” analogy. Imagine trying to educate yourself in the history of not collecting stamps or the alternatives to that.
    Or am I missing something here?

    2. …history of not collecting stamps…

      Oh, I like that! To be perfectly frank, I’m a little dissapointed that we’ve apparently become ok with the appellation “New Atheists.” I always liked Harris’ idea about “non-astrologers,” and “non-stamp-collectors.”

  17. Interesting quote. Maybe I am missing something: I don’t take astrology seriously, yet I am ignorant of its history and the history of opposition to it.

    So why is our blowing off the unsubstantiated claims of religion any different?

    2. Let us not forget about yule and santology.

      It is vital to know the nuances in the various beliefs – is there one Santa, or more, or aspects such as Santa, Rudolph and the Creamy Eggnog; is Santa dressed in red or green; does he circle the world clockwise or counter-clockwise; et cetera.

      Because if we don’t know enough detail, if we don’t respect the spirit of the idea, we can’t understand it as a fairy tale.

      [And if we do, we Make War on Christmas. Bad Gnus!]

      1. Accommodationists might think that no gnus is good gnus… 

        But seriously, Santa dresses in blue, for he is Russian, and is more properly called Grandfather Frost.

        (You see, Santa is really the historical Sinte Klass, or St. Nicholas, conflated with the real Ghost of Christmas Presents.)

        1. Only a heretic would conflate Santa Claus with D’ed’ Maroz! You might as well conflate Rudolf with Snigurochka. It is well known that Santa would be killed with ice magic if he dared violate Russian airspace, because that’s how the Cold War on Christmas goes.

  18. The ferocity and insecurity of the responses I have received strongly indicates that there was something worth…mentioning.

    Right, because another asshole alluding to Pol Pot and Shylock and using the associations of genocide and racism to paint atheists as amoral cretins (but only the ‘wrong sort’ of atheist) is, frankly, both tiresome and unworthy of respect. And that I, and everyone else belittled by that asshole, shouldn’t let him know, in no uncertain terms, what kind of asshole he is… Blow-back, it’s not just for failed CIA operations…

    Anyway, as it stands now, his whole defense is a crap load of rationalizations that boil down to: ‘she was asking for it by wearing that short skirt, why is she so mad…’

  19. If Mr. Hoffmann is a professor of history, he might find it more profitable to regard the current rise in atheism as something to document for future reference rather than rail against. And if he’s really bent on painting atheism into the corner of religion, he could even coin a new term – The Gnu Reformation. Oh, did I just datestamp that?

    1. Perhaps he simply wishes to be remembered, in the dystopian near-future atheistic dictatorship he so clearly envisions, as a brave iconoclast who paid the price – copping some gnasty words disguised as reasoned criticism of a seemingly vapid argument – for his dissent.

      However, both my crystal ball AND my magic 8-ball say he’ll be forgotten, or at best remembered as an irrelevant point-missing hand-wringer. That’s where I place my money – and my balls don’t lie.

  21. Are the Gnus promoting Atheism?
    I will be 84 this May and although I have read Dawkins, Hitchens, Stenger, Coyne et al, I don’t know if I’m a Gnu just because I agree with them. I became a non-beliver when I was 14 years old when the “Deacons” ostrisized my father, from a Southern Baptist Church (a deacon) for having an affair on the side. I was old enough to know one of them, a dentist, was having an affair with his assitant. Just as well my father never missed”it”. I considered them all hypocrites, non-forgiving non-Christians although none would admit it. So I identify with many atheists prior to Dawkins et al. History? Here’s some”
    T. Jefferson to J. Adams, 1821; “I encourage a hope that the human mind will someday get back to the freedom it enjoyed 2,000 years ago.
    Denis Diderot (1713 – 1784) Man will never be free until the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest.
    Tom Paine remained a Deist but died just four months after Darwin was born. A scientist such as Tom would have been an atheist if he could have read The Origin. It answered his questions; why are we here? how did we get here?
    Darwin stopped going to church the Sunday after his 10 year old daughter dies.
    Marshall Gauvin; a Freethinker which now is a radical atheist. circa 1920’s.
    Bertrand Russell – Why I Am Not a Christian.
    There is not much of a gap between these and Dawkins. Stenger, Hitchens, Sagan and yes Jerry Coyne.

    1. With all respect, Gayle, Tom Paine cannot be described as a “scientist”. He was a superb political propagandist, and his writings may have made the difference between the success and failure of the American Revolution – but a scientist? No.

      Gnus reading might enjoy Paine’s commentary on the Bible and its inconsistencies, but Hobbes and Spinoza had already beaten him to the punch in that regard.

    2. No gap at all, really, except in the sense that science has filled in many of the gaps that used to help religion seem reasonable. “Gnu” is a repudiation of the canard that we think there is anything “new” about the current wave of atheism.

  22. I am puzzled (to put it kindly) by the following two quotations from Hoffmann:

    First, this: “At the beginning, having seen Dawkins worthily opposed in debates at Oxford in the 1980s . . . ” The link is to a video of a discussion between me and Alister McGrath which took place, not in the 1980s but in 2006.
    http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=6474278760369344626&hl=en-GB#
    Others may judge whether McGrath ‘worthily’ opposed me. My own assessment of his performance is ‘utterly pathetic’, but in any case it certainly was not 1980s.

    Second mysterious quotation from Hoffman: “But, as it soon became clear, the only people who the News wanted to debate, or wanted to debate them, were preposterous self-promoters like William Lane Craig, John Lennox and John Maynard Smith . . .”

    Craig and Lennox are indeed preposterous self-promoters, but John Maynard Smith? The great John Maynard Smith? Brilliant evolutionary biologist and as staunch an atheist as you could wish for?

    With these two howlers behind him, it ill becomes Hoffmann to criticise anybody else for poor scholarship.

    1. I haven’t watched the video yet (no chocolate or gin or McGrath on video in the mornings), but judging by his writing, I doubt the worthiness of McGrath’s opposition.

      1. I think the most I’ve seen of McGrath was against Hitchens. He’s all hand-waving vagueness.

        1. Right. McGrath said something like ‘Christianity is not imposed’ and Hitchens had the perfect jab at it.

    2. My own assessment of his performance is ‘utterly pathetic’

      Oh, Richard! Now you’re just being strident! 😉

    3. The “John Maynard Smith” comment baffled me too. Maybe he meant “John Maynard Keynes”, that well-known religious apologist? Erm…….

      1. I suspect that was the case.
        Was it a slip-o’-the-mind, or a signal of a mind disordered by the shock of reality?
        I suspect that even the perpetrator may not be able to determine the cause of this muddle.

  23. The only real difference between old and ‘gnu’ atheism is that the new is online. This means that people who previously assumed they were in a nearly non-existant minority now know the truth. There are many of us and the internet gives us the means to support each other no matter how beleaguered we are IRL. We can no longer be intimidated into silence and this scares the bejeebers out of believers and accomodationists alike. The internet shall set you free!

    1. It also means that when godbotherers talk flapdoodle in newspapers and other media outlets, we now get to point out how flappy and doodly it is. They didn’t have that before. There is no longer a polite hush when they deliver their deepities – instead, often, there is a stampede of questioners and disputers and “how do you know that?”ers.

  24. After all this bullshit I was feeling a little blue but then I remembered that the waters around us have grown, and I accept it that soon we’ll be drenched to the bone. They better start swimmin’ or they’ll sink like a stone. For the times they are really a-changin’

    Let Dylan remind us: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vCWdCKPtnYE

  25. This hyper-empiricist line is just ridiculous, there is no such thing. Do they also call Hume’s writings ‘hyper-empiricist’? If they have a problem with it, why not present ‘actual arguments’ (wow what a concept) against this empiricism or materialism. And really, the term materialism isn’t as popular as say, physicalism. It’s just poisoning of the well to refer to these terms in a derogatory tone without even making arguments against them, there is nothing ‘wrong’ with empiricism or physicalism. In fact, the recent philpapers survey of what philosophers believe shows that show that most philosophers are empiricists, physicalists, & atheists. So to refer to these positions as if they is something wrong with them is standing against the majority of modern philosophical thought. These guys are being fundamentally dishonest & wholly ignorant of their own subject.

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