Over the past two years I’ve had a few emails like this one, which really makes me feel good. I haven’t had hundreds, as has Richard in his “Converts’ Corner,” but we all do what we can. This came today:
Dear Dr. Coyne,
As you are a person who surely receives far too many unsolicited emails, please do not feel obligated to reply. I am compelled to extend personal thanks to you for Why Evolution Is True, and in doing so I’ll try to keep it brief.
I count myself as one of the success stories resulting from your book, if the measurement of success is understanding why evolution is true and why the creation stuff of religion is not.
A personally traumatic event earlier this year–the death of my stepfather (who raised me) as a direct result of his religious faith–pushed me over the edge. My mother and stepfather had been evangelical Christians since the 1970s, and to keep it short I will say only that I was exposed to and taught things that were unhealthy and confusing. Earlier this year my stepfather died of septic infection caused by an ulcerated melanoma that went completely undiagnosed and untreated for years in favor of prayer. Upon the revelation of his condition my mother asserted to me that everyone’s days are “numbered” by God, and if it hadn’t been the illness he would have been hit by a car or suffered cardiac arrest. God was going to call him home that day no matter what. Further emphasis is unnecessary. Whatever tiny bit of residual faith I had from my upbringing was gone; I had had enough of the nonsense.
The point of my story is that I, like many former Christians, had avoided exposure to subjects that contradicted the Bible. One of my mom’s favorite Bible verses is, “I tell you the truth, anyone who will not receive the kingdom of heaven like a little child will never enter it.” This is a terrific scripture to use against the pursuit of knowledge. Christians often warn against thinking one is smarter than God.
After I admitted to myself that religions are foolish superstitions, I set about to expose myself to the things that I had avoided earlier in my life. The primary was evolution. Not only did I want to understand it, I wanted to know. The first book I read was yours. It is a powerfully-written and accessible presentation of the evidence, and it inspired me to continue reading on the subject, which I have done with great enthusiasm.
It may or may not surprise you to learn that acknowledging the truth of evolution can be a life-changing event. It was for me, in the very best way. So thank you for your work.
Sincerely,
[Name redacted]
I suppose there’s some solipsism in my publishing this (with permission of the writer, of course), for we all like a pat on the back. But I also put it up to show that stridency and militancy need not turn one away from evolution, and that, contrary to the accommodationist line, evolution does provide an impetus for letting go of faith. In that sense fundamentalists are right. As they know well (but accommodationists and scientific organizations apparently don’t), learning about evolution often weakens one’s faith, for reasons we all understand.
And now I challenge Karl Giberson, Chris Mooney, or the people at BioLogos to produce, say, six letters that match this one or the hundreds on Richard’s website, and to document their claim that the accommodationist approach, showing that faith and religion need not be at odds, is the best way to turn opponents of evolution into supporters.
Congratulations and condolences, [Name redacted], and welcome to the strong but gorgeous light of reality.
Cheers,
b&
Yea!
I hope you feel as good as I did when the burden of religion finally slipped away.
Jerry, it’s great and gratifying, edifying, to read letters such as this one. I’m very hearten to understand that material (your book) is so much more available than in the past… and “past” meaning just twenty years ago! Now, a person can go on the internet, do a search on “evolution”, and they’re sure to find your book and much more. Twenty years ago, a person such as your correspondent would have had to go to the local library and face many hurdles to glean much information….heck, our household just entertained two women from Wyoming, who had no idea where the nearest public library was, relative to their residences.
We all feel uplifted by the letter you shared.
I can relate to the letter-writer’s story. In my case it was the break up of a relationship, and Dawkin’s “Evolution: The greatest show on earth” (followed by pretty much everything else he’s written, and more recently WEIT) that turned me from a fundamentalist, born-again, young earth creationist to the atheist I am now. And I’m a hell of a lot happier for it.
Certainly not to diminish the contribution that WEIT made to [name redacted]’s transformation, but it sounds like his mother’s religious inanity after the death of his stepfather had as much to do with it as anything. That was my general process. I understood evolution in high school biology and had no need for creationist crap. I just sort of ignored religion, so I didn’t notice its harmful effects on hearts and minds. It wasn’t until 9/11 and several personal events that I really took to hard-line criticism of religion and more openly identified as an atheist.
sub
Careful about asking for letters from Mooney – he has no problem passing on fake stories as genuine.
Mooney is still around? That’s a bit depressing.
Chris Mooney is now the host on Point of Inquiry, replacing D.J. Grothe who is now president of the James Randi Educational Foundation. POI is still good, and Mooney is a good host – better than I expected.
I’d prefer a more strident mix for my atheism his – no water, and not too much ice. But truthspeaker, should I take your remark as a joke?
sez ron murphy: “But truthspeaker, should I take your remark as a joke?”
No. See On the incivility of atheists for an example of a completely fabricated non-event which Mooney not only presented as truth, but went out of his way to avoid recognizing the falsity of after said falsity was revealed.
I must have been off planet or something, because I missed all that. I only ever picked up the tail end rancour towards Mooney from the PZ crowd, never knowing of the story behind it, and taking their vitriol as par for the course over there.
I’m not trying to excuse Mooney at all in the incident. It seems (at least with hindsight and to some in real time), that the TJ stuff was such baloney that Mooney, and others, were biased enough to be gullible in accepting it. Not good journalism from someone who makes out to be a science journalist.
But truthspeaker did say above “he has no problem passing on fake stories as genuine”, which I still see as heavily humour laden, because it isn’t literally true. Mooney does have a problem with it and has said so:
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/intersection/2010/07/30/tom-johnson-a-final-word/#.UMxgvIPtTjI
Unless I’m missing other evidence that Mooney has no problem passing on fake stories?
Maybe Mooney does have a problem with passing bullshit along as if it were true, but if so, he sure didn’t have enough of a problem with it to, you know, not do that in the TJ incident.
And the rancor some New Atheists direct towards Mooney (which long predates the TJ affair) has a whole lot to do with Mooney’s insistence on Framing Uber Alles, and Mooney’s consistent position that people who say bad things about religion really oughtta just shut up, and yada yada yada.
Maybe Mooney does have a problem with passing bullshit along as if it were true, but if so, he sure didn’t have enough of a problem with it to, you know, not do that in the TJ incident.
Yes, but he didn’t know it was bullshit at the time he passed it along.
And he’s apologized for having unwittingly done so.
@ JG:
Maybe if you’d watched it play out in real time (and it seemed like eons), you’d get the idea that his reversal resulted mostly from having his back to the wall.
And so people like Mooney who say bad things about us less patient atheists oughtta just shut up, and yada yada yada?
I’ve no problem with criticising Mooney for his blunder, or for his bias. But it seems criminal repeat offenders get cut a better deal than this. If he puts up a post or article that says why New Atheists shouldn’t be so strident, then tell him why we should. This is what argument is about.
I’m not a follower of his, but from what I’ve heard on POI he seems fair enough.
Diane G.
Fair point. But how long can you bear a grudge? I know people who fought in WWII who still can’t forgive the Germans.
And here’s a post on WEIT welcoming a convert who finally got the message. If Mooney ever posts that he was wrong and he now sees New Atheists had the best strategy, there will be plenty who’d say, OK Chris, glad to hear it, let’s get on with the job. But in some eyes he’ll always be evil spawn of an atheist devil.
I’m not bearing a grudge, I’m just saying that based on past behavior, any story related by Mooney is not reliable.
I suppose there’s some solipsism in my publishing this
I think you mean narcissism, not solipsism. Not faulting you for it, though: this must be very gratifying.
I caught that too, still by writing WEIT and maintaining this most excellent science website, Dr. Coyne has provided for future realities like this to occur. So he’s making his own reality in that sense. 😉
The accommodationists actually peddle science to believers as “scientism”…. something to be believed in. WEIT hits believers with the facts. The facts speak volumes about all that is not … fact.
Good for you, Jerry, but mostly good for [Name redacted].
Dear Name Redacted,
Just this morning, I was recounting to a friend what it was like to encounter the truth of evolution after years of denial to protect my religious beliefs. I found it almost impossible to express. The sheer thrill of it; the sheer scale of the marvel to behold; the overwhelming sense of homecoming to a home I never knew I had. It was like a person born deaf who, after reaching adulthood, gets to here his mother’s voice for the first time.
Overwhelming.
Your brother in awe,
Jack
Beautifully stated! Congratulations on breaking out into the real world.
Well deserved!
Some years ago, I dated an undergrad (I was a masters student and not THAT much older!) at Ohio State, who rejected my atheism vehemently. COuldn’t understand it at all, went against her Catholic upbringing, and caused so much friction in our relationship. As a psych major, she had to take some science class and picked geology. Had one of those big freshmen classes, hundreds of students in a big lecture hall. Still, about half way through it, one day she came home and just said, “you know, you’re right, arent’ you? I see it know.” The geology class did it. Just washed over her like the blood of Jesus and converted her. (Sorry, had to use that metaphor.) I hope my influence set her up a bit to be ‘converted,’ but my point here is that evolution, geology, whatever…those sciences can have big impacts on some students, and we should realize that. I attended some of the lectures with her, at her request, and the prof didn’t even proselytize or talk much explicitly about the deeper issues. Just good straight scientific geology was enough.
We often hear from both sides about “default beliefs”. The religious often tell us that as children appear to accept authority then we are all born with an innate god-belief. On the other hand, we are told by non-believers that we come into this world with a “blank slate”.
While both have some empirical merit, the truth is that if we do have “default beliefs” they are the beliefs that we accumulate by, mainly, parental or cultural transmission. We all have such beliefs that we don’t even think to question, covering all topics from suitable marriage partners to shop-opening hours and beyond.
It often takes a contrary experience to get us to question such beliefs. For the idea of God, nothing so dramatic happened. At the age of (as I recall) eight years, upon hearing the story of Abraham and Isaac, I thought about it for an hour or so and emerged as an atheist, even though it was some years later before I even heard the word. Religion was not a major topic at home, so I wasn’t under any pressure.
Of course, the religious will often tell us that bad experiences with certain believers will taint our beliefs for the worse, and these few bad apples or experiences don’t reflect the true nature of their belief system.
My response is, of course, bad experiences are a major contributor to change of belief (and I would include good experiences where the expectations are bad). Very few of us have learned to consciously challenge our own “default” beliefs as a matter of routine. For this reason, bad experiences are indispensable for learning, however unwelcome they might seem at the time.
Congratulations to [Name Redacted] and although I’m sorry for his or her experiences, I’m sure that good will come of them.
nope.
I can’t think of a single modern (as in, the last 20 years) popular atheist that has said this.
not starting off with belief in a deity DOES NOT in any way equate to “blank slate”.
if this is not what you meant, you should try to reword this to be much more clear.
“The religious often tell us that as children appear to accept authority then we are all born with an innate god-belief.”
Actually, I think Dawkins has a good take on this: Children accept authority because it enhances survival to listen to someone who has already faced dangerous situations. Religious memes co-opt this in order to enhance survival of the meme.
+1
Don’t think for a moment your work doesn’t make a difference! It does improve many lives.
Accomodationism has to include allowing things you know are not true to pass without challenge so that maybe the other side will accept part of the truth we know. The difference is, we are accepting a lie and they are learning the truth. Both sides are trying to get along by accepting what they don’t really believe, so in reality, it is no more than an exchange of lies. Stating the truth of our knowledge is the only way to communicate with anyone.
That letter made MY day.
A Norwegian creationist ( a professor of physics actually) once said when criticising what he saw as Darwinian brainwashing on Norwegian universities:
“I know people who have studied biology with a background in a critical view of the theory of evolution, while after the PhD has relied on the theory of evolution. What is really going on in the academic scenes? Wonder professor of physics at the University of Life Sciences in Ås, Peder Tyvand.
(it’s a quick google translate, but you get the essence)
Talking about shooting yourself in the foot.
While this creationist professor saw this as brainwashing, we biologist see this, of course, as the effect evidence has on some fundamentalist.
Knowledge is a dangerous thing for religious people.
Bizarre. Creationism is as utterly and obviously incompatible with physics as it is with biology. It should be sufficient cause for immediate dismissal exactly the same way that (non-joking) advocacy of a flat Earth should be.
b&
Also being from Scandinavia, I wonder if regular commenter Torbjörn Larsson has ever run into this physicist professionally, or is familiar with any of his work? Would be interesting to know if he produces good work untainted by his magical beliefs, or not.
The professor I was talking about is Peder A. Tyvand. I believe he is mostly into mechanicns and fluid dynamics and doing research in these fields. He is professor at a recognised university, but as far as I know he is more known for his bizarre views on evolution( He is the leader of Origo, a Norwegian-Danish ID organisation) than his research in physics
http://www.paakanten.no/index.php/med-mer/arkiv/2010/program19/30-personer/20104/242-peder-tyvand
He may be a excellent in these fields but his views on evolution is truly bizarre although he of course tries to dress them in fancy scientific jargon.
Thanks for the additional information!
Yes, it’s bizare and the wast majority of professional biologist in Norway just ignore this guy, although he for the last 20 years or so have challenged biologist to debates
Fortunately, in Norway creationism is such a small problem that we do better just ignoring them
[Name redacted], I can only hope that if I ever face a challenge to my core beliefs that are of similar magnitude to what you faced, and accompanied by personal tragedy, that I am capable of responding with the same determination and intellectual honesty that you (and others with similar deconversion stories) have exhibited.
The way you responded to this situation is a display of what I consider to be some of the best behavior possible for human beings. And I think it will be necessary for the majority of human beings to regularly respond as you did in similar situations if we are ever to achieve anything close to the bright future we all wish / strive for.
I have never been a believer, and was never marinated in woo of any kind, so I have had it pretty easy in comparison.
“I tell you the truth, anyone who will not receive the kingdom of heaven like a little child will never enter it”
That could not possibly have anything to do with moral innocence and humility, could it?
No. Christendom founded universities because salvation comes through ignorance.
If it did all adult christians would go straight to hell upon dying.
Well, not exactly. Adult Xtians are like everyone else. When they die they don’t go anywhere. They simply cease, just like the rest of us.
You sure know how to take all the fun out of it! 🙂
Ever at your service! 😉
Lying for jesus, killing those of a different christianity, or those not of your christianity certainly constitutes moral innocence, doesn’t it.
“If you don’t believe in my christianity, you’re bound for the hell of my beliefs” certainly just reeks of humility, doesn’t it.
sez kevin: ““I tell you the truth, anyone who will not receive the kingdom of heaven like a little child will never enter it”
That could not possibly have anything to do with moral innocence and humility, could it?”
Perhaps it could, if one considers the quoted statement in isolation, with reference neither to any other statements from the same source nor to any relevant RealWorld evidence. If one does not consider the quoted statement in isolation, one notes that according to bog-standard Xtian dogma, God commanded Adam and Eve to be, and remain, ignorant (see also: “don’t eat of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil”); and the Fall of Man was directly precipitated by the acquisition of knowledge. As well, one notes Martin Luther’s declaration that “Reason is the Devil’s whore”, among a remarkably large number of other things which support the proposition that Xtianity is hostile to intelligence, learning, and knowledge.
Regarding ‘moral innocence’, what has Xtianity to do with either morality or innocence? Xtians have both supported and opposed slavery; have both supported and opposed equal rights for women; have both supported and opposed any other moral position one cares to name. Clearly, Xtian Belief is (to say the least!) not a reliable indicator of the Believer’s moral status. And given that the Bible demands the death penalty for ‘offenses’ as minor as doing work on the Sabbath, it’s not at all clear that the Xtian concept of ‘innocence’ has anything to do with ‘innocence’ as sane, moral, thinking humans understand it.
As to ‘humility’, Xtians like to say that the Creator of the Universe — the Sustainer of All Existence — the single most important, single most significant Entity that ever was or ever will be — that Entity takes a close personal interest in the tiniest details of your lives. Xtians also believe that they’ve got a direct line on Absolute Truth, such that anyone who disagrees with them about said Absolute Truth must necessarily be in error. If that’s humility, I am Marie of Rumania.
“No. Christendom founded universities because salvation comes through ignorance.”
I don’t think anyone would deny that universities have been founded by people who happened to be Xtians. The question is whether the Xtianity of those people should be given any credit for the founding of those universities, or whether the Xtianity of those people was an irrelevant, incidental detail, just as those people’s preferences re: hairstyle and hygeine were irrelevant, incidental details. Given the previously noted evidence that Xtianity is hostile to intelligence, learning, and knowledge, it would seem reasonable to conclude that the Xtian beliefs of university-founders are, indeed, irrelevant and incidental.
JAC, never minimize the importance of what you are doing, not only here on your website, but also with your research and with your book.
Never!
And I second that!
This letter, Jerry‘s commentary and the subsequent posts illustrate atheist evangelism at its finest. Congratulations all around are in order.
A recent study of those who rejected Christianity and converted to atheism concluded that the following factors seemed to be most common:
1. Christians behaving badly – sure, people who call themselves Christians can be jerks. Some (not all) simply believe blindly without evidence.
2. Disappointment with God – sure, heartbreak can be disillusioning. But how does atheism help fix this?
3. Weak or absent father — Paul Vitz argues this based on a study of the lives of history’s “great” atheists, including Hume, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Russell, Sartre, Camus, Hobbes, Voltaire, Butler, and Freud.
4. Social pressure — Paul Vitz says, “On reflection, I have seen that my reasons for becoming, and remaining, an atheist-skeptic from age eighteen to age thirty-eight were, on the whole, superficial and lacking in serious intellectual and moral foundation,” that he accepted the ideas presented to him by academics without ever actually studying them or questioning them in any way. So why did he accept them? He also wanted to be accepted within his scientific field, “by putting on the right – that is, atheistic – ideas and attitudes.”
5. Cost of discipleship — G.K. Chesterton said, “The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting. It has been found difficult; and left untried.” Philosopher Mortimer Adler became a Christian in his eighties, admitting that converting previously would simply be too hard for him.
6. Immorality (especially sexual immorality) – Brant Hanson says the largest single factor driving disbelief in our culture is sex. He calls it “The Big But” because he so often hears this from unbelievers: “ ‘I like Jesus, BUT…’ and the ‘but’ is usually followed, one way or the other, with an objection about the Bible and… sex. People think something’s deeply messed-up with a belief system that says two consenting, unmarried adults should refrain from sex.”
Michael Shermer, editor-in-chief of Skeptics Magazine writes, “In reality I think most of us arrive at most of our beliefs for non-rational reasons, and then we justify them with these reasons after the fact.” He may be right.
As Headbutter of the Gods has pointed out above “if we do have ‘default beliefs’ they are the beliefs that we accumulate by, mainly, parental or cultural transmission. We all have such beliefs that we don’t even think to question, covering all topics from suitable marriage partners to shop-opening hours and beyond.”
What metaphysical naturalists (including atheists, agnostics, skeptics, nihilists, etc.) fail to recognize is that their worldview already controls tax-based education at all levels and that the vast majority of these students never question what they are taught to believe as true. Hence, I suspect that thousands (perhaps millions) of copies of WEIT are already purchased with tax-based funds for university and high school libraries and for public libraries by librarians who simply believe that WEIT tells the whole story of what actually exists. These same librarians likely never seek to add to their collections any responsible scientific critiques of WEIT.
Those metaphysical naturalists who believe that our cosmos somehow exploded into existence some 13.8 billion years ago without cause or intelligence or that first life somehow spontaneously synthesized on earth without cause or intelligence sometime later fail to recognize their own blind faith on these beliefs, not much different than beliefs in magic.
“I suspect that thousands (perhaps millions) of copies of WEIT are already purchased with tax-based funds for university and high school libraries and for public libraries ”
Yeah Jerry, you MUST be a multi-millionaire!
How are the the poor, downtrodden YECs in the USA supposed to compete with your rock-star fame and fortune?
(that is sarcasm, in case you are irony-impaired)
sez al hiebert: “A recent study of those who rejected Christianity and converted to atheism concluded that the following factors seemed to be most common:”
I would be interested to know more of this study. Who conducted it, how did they select their sample, where can I get a look at the actual survey data, etc?
“1. Christians behaving badly – sure, people who call themselves Christians can be jerks. Some (not all) simply believe blindly without evidence.”
Xtians like to make noise about how their Xtian belief makes them better people. If this were true, we would expect jerkwads to be less common amongst Xtians than amongst the population at large; we would certainly not expect jerkwads to constitute a large-enough fraction of Xtians that lots of un-Believers would cite Xtian jerkwads as a reason for giving up Xtianity.
In other words: If a lot of atheists find Xtian jerkwads to be a good reason to dump Xtianity, that fact, in and of itself, is a good reason to suspect that Xtianity is neither true nor a good thing in which to believe.
“2. Disappointment with God – sure, heartbreak can be disillusioning. But how does atheism help fix this?”
Xtian believer: “God would not have let this horrible thing happen unless I deserved it, so I am a horrible person.”
Atheist: “Shit happens.”
Care to re-ask how atheism “fix[es] this”?
“3. Weak or absent father — Paul Vitz argues this based on a study of the lives of history’s “great” atheists, including Hume, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Russell, Sartre, Camus, Hobbes, Voltaire, Butler, and Freud.”
So what? I’m not an unbeliever because of my parents, I’m an unbeliever because I haven’t yet run into any religious belief-system that didn’t redline my BS meter.
“4. Social pressure — Paul Vitz says, “On reflection, I have seen that my reasons for becoming, and remaining, an atheist-skeptic from age eighteen to age thirty-eight were, on the whole, superficial and lacking in serious intellectual and moral foundation,” that he accepted the ideas presented to him by academics without ever actually studying them or questioning them in any way. So why did he accept them? He also wanted to be accepted within his scientific field, “by putting on the right – that is, atheistic – ideas and attitudes.””
Right. And belief isn’t propped up by social pressure?
“5. Cost of discipleship — G.K. Chesterton said, “The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting. It has been found difficult; and left untried.” Philosopher Mortimer Adler became a Christian in his eighties, admitting that converting previously would simply be too hard for him.”
Now I really want to know more about this alleged ‘survey’, the actual data in particular. Because in my (necessarily limited) experience, I don’t know any atheists who reject god-belief because they thought it was too hard/costly/whatever.
“6. Immorality (especially sexual immorality) – Brant Hanson says the largest single factor driving disbelief in our culture is sex. He calls it “The Big But” because he so often hears this from unbelievers: “ ‘I like Jesus, BUT…’ and the ‘but’ is usually followed, one way or the other, with an objection about the Bible and… sex. People think something’s deeply messed-up with a belief system that says two consenting, unmarried adults should refrain from sex.””
[nods] Yep. Something is deeply wrong with a belief system which gets bent out of shape over the private activities of consenting adults. If this God person really was as big on “unconditional love” as you Xtians like to say It is, what’s up with that?
“What metaphysical naturalists (including atheists, agnostics, skeptics, nihilists, etc.) fail to recognize is that their worldview already controls tax-based education at all levels and that the vast majority of these students never question what they are taught to believe as true.”
“never question”? I call bullshit on this factoid. If it’s true, how, exactly, does it happen that well over 50% of the American public does not accept unguided evolution?
“Hence, I suspect that thousands (perhaps millions) of copies of WEIT are already purchased with tax-based funds for university and high school libraries and for public libraries by librarians who simply believe that WEIT tells the whole story of what actually exists.”
That’s nice. What bits of “the whole story” do you imagine to be left out of WEIT? And on what evidence do you believe that those bits should be considered as valid parts of “the whole story”?
“These same librarians likely never seek to add to their collections any responsible scientific critiques of WEIT.”
Hold it. What “responsible scientific critiques of WEIT” do you speak of? If said ‘critiques’ are come from the YEC-pushing organization Answers in Genesis, or the ID-pushing Discovery Institute, those ‘critiques’ are neither ‘responsible’ nor ‘scientific’. So how about you show your cards here, hm? Exactly what ‘responsible scientific critiques’ are you referring to here?
“Those metaphysical naturalists who believe that our cosmos somehow exploded into existence some 13.8 billion years ago without cause or intelligence or that first life somehow spontaneously synthesized on earth without cause or intelligence sometime later fail to recognize their own blind faith on these beliefs, not much different than beliefs in magic.”
I don’t know how either the Big Bang or abiogenesis happened. What I do know, is that at this time, there really isn’t any evidence which would support the “goddidit” hypothesis more strongly than the “eh, it happened” hypothesis. If you think you have any such evidence, great! Let’s see what you got.
summary of tldr inane rant:
assertion
projection
assertion
projection
denial
projection
denial
did I miss anything?
^^that was in reference to Al Hiebert, btw.
I ever mention I hate nested comments?
Just one I think.
Persecution
#6. Immorality — especially sexual immorality. Al says this is pertinent to differences between those who are theist and those who are non-theist. Reasonable Doubts this week offers evidence that Al, at least in this instance, is for once not entirely wrong.
Episode 109: The Biology of Religious Patriarchy
(podcast at RD website)
by reasonabledoubts
Why are religious moralists so preoccupied with sex? Attitudes on sexuality are far more predictive of religiosity than attitudes on charity, social justice or any other measure. Religious scriptures abound with rules and restrictions aimed at controlling women’s sexuality in particular. Is the current religious obsession with sex just an unfortunate result of religion’s male-dominated history or are there deeper forces at work?
Excellent. You must have feel proud that you are getting through to people; hundreds more I’m sure who don’t write in.
Take that, “Jane” (Dan Akroyd’s version of James J Kilpatrick comes to mind, too.)
Regarding your challenge to Giberson, Mooney, etc., I think their response will be, “The plural of anecdote is not data.” That seems to be the go to reply when presented with atheist conversion stories.
One comment from a former believer: I accepted (what I thought of as) evolution while I was still a believer; getting rid of all of the hocus pocus took time for me. It was “well, believing miracle X isn’t REALLY necessary…” and then the list of discarded beliefs just grew and grew…until one day I realized I saw things like “the resurrection” as, well, metaphors that I really didn’t believe.
But it was a long progression that took years, and I’d have to say that it started with science.
This is so good to know.
Congratulations to Name Redacted and welcome to life in the 21st century
Hi Jerry,
I don’t read the letter the way you do. They read your book after losing the last vestiges of their faith. “After I admitted to myself that religions are foolish superstitions, I set about to expose myself to the things that I had avoided earlier in my life.”
Here is a piece that refers to a paper in which we see 100% (albeit in a very small number, n=7) of creationists accepting evolution whilst not losing their faith.
http://bcseweb.blogspot.co.uk/2012/11/anti-creationists-need-to-think-about.html
BTW I think that it is important to use words carefully. Accommodationism might mean that one accepts science and faith don’t conflict or it can also simply refer to the fact that atheists should not refuse to work with the religious when they are working and arguing against creationism. I think there might be a danger of confusing in mixing up the two.
Regards,
Psi
I wouldn’t assume that Jerry failed reading comprehension, but I’m not you, psiloi.
My reading is that the sense in which WEIT achieved a ‘conversion’ is not the rejection of religion, which happened first as you noticed, but the ending of ignorance and denial of the facts of evolution.
Which is more valuable? As an ex-Christian biologist, I think they’re both extremely important outcomes and synergistic, mutually reinforcing causes.
I didn’t either assume say or imply that Jerry failed reading comprehension.
I don’t disagree with anything else you say other than there is a one size fits all solution.
You seem to have simply ignored the points made in the piece and the evidence in the paper linked to in it whilst accusing me of attacking Jerrys intelligence. Why would you do this?
Accommodationist is a term used to describe someone who believes that it is okay to misrepresent their own beliefs, and tell believers that it is okay to continue to believe goddidit, in an attempt to convince believers to accept a distorted, inaccurate version of evolution. And that it is somehow mean, cruel and/or stupid to tell the truth about evolution, present any scientifically derived/verified knowledge that conflicts too much with believers’ beliefs, or to confront believers in any way that would cause them to become defensive about their beliefs.
This term as used in the context of current belief / non-belief debate is fairly new and the only reason I can think of to account for any ambiguity in its meaning is that accommodationists, like the average person, don’t like negative criticism.
One of the best parts of ditching faith is the realisation that there is no nasty deity messing around with your life. There is also a peace in knowing that shit just happens.
The more I learn about evolution and the mutations that produce new features, the more wonderful nature seems. Goddidit is just so pathetic in comparison
To cast a skeptical eye on the datum….
I wonder how the fraction of deconversions among readers Dr. Coyne’s book and other such compares the base deconversion rate, controlling for generational cohort?
Does his book actually have the impact he’d like to think? Does it have more than he’d expect? Is it merely correlation rather than causation? Does it in fact backfire, and make it easier for the religious to reconcile their religious/creationist beliefs to the evidence?
I suspect you’d also probably have to control for the frequency that the person reads at all, as that seems a factor on conversion rates.
Actually, I didn’t expect my book to have any impact on the faith religious people. I expected only to teach them what scientists think about evolution (ditto for nonbelievers). These emails from believers ca,e as a surprise to me. I don’t expect my book to have a measurable impact on reducing religion, of course. I have to say, though, that I’ve never gotten an email from a religious person thanking me for helping them reconcile evolution with their faith. My book says almost nothing about religion.
And do you have any idea of what impact I’d like to think my book had? You don’t, of course, so you’re just being snarky.
Sorry, but your comment is out of line, and has nothing to do what I said. Did you read the rules the other day?
Yes, I read the rules. I’ve also made a point of re-reading them before responding. And no, I don’t have any empirically justified idea which of the options I suggested would predominate — which is exactly why I considered it interesting enough to raise the question.
Sorry for my presumption as to your preferences on the impact, especially if I’m incorrect. I’d also clarify that I did not intend to suggest such impact was any part of your prior authorial intent.
However, there seems to be a notion in circulation that the “New Atheists” and their writings are a major factor in the so-called “Rise of the Nones”. And there does seem to have been at least some change in the trend of change, lately. Despite this, my impression is the “New Atheists” are more symptom of the continuing acceleration of a prior trend; and that giving credit/blame for the change to the writings of Dawkins, Hitchens, and others may reflect a confusion of correlation and causation, an exaggerated “great man” heroic view of history, and other malconceptions.
I felt my comment related, in so far as your remarks appeared to be discussing a particular case of your books impact, and my remarks dealing with the extent this might or might not be generalized. No disrespect to you was intended. If you still disagree, it is your website.
“Despite this, my impression is the “New Atheists” are more symptom of the continuing acceleration of a prior trend…”
Why would we care about your speculations without any evidence? Your statements appear more to be trolling than deliberative.
Why would we care about your speculations without any evidence?
Because abb3w has raised an interesting speculation that deserves better than your reflexive smackdown.
Giving a direct and response seems likely to bend or breach three of the rules (1, 2, and 4) that Dr. Coyne just re-emphasized, handing me a nice Catch-22. However, JG has apparently found the speculation itself interesting, providing me a brief (but annoying) existence-case proof that there is some non-empty set of reasons why one or more person would care.
Please provide the evidence that supports your position. (Which I gather is something like “the rise of the ‘nones’ is the result of the accomodationist tactic of respecting religion”)
I popped in to read some comments, and will have to leave one of my own here. I am the person whose letter is quoted above.
I was raised in a very religious home. The revelations and related teachings of my parents mutated from one absurdity to another, but were consistently unhealthy: casting out of demons, making prophetic statements, anticipating Armageddon, etc. If I might refer to something Christopher Hitchens said in God Is Not Great, which I read after Why Evolution Is True, in a way my parents were experimenting on me.
When one becomes an adult, furthers his or her education formally or informally, one begins to expand the distance from suspicious teachings of the past. This is where a book like WEIT becomes life-changing for someone like me.
A believer who has lost enthusiasm doesn’t take immediate action. Over time I stopped talking about God and Christianity. Then I stopped thinking about it. I would pray only when I was worried or felt stress. The Bible was no longer my default go-to book, but I avoided diving into subjects like evolution because I was trained that “ideas” like evolution are dangerous. It sounds foolish, and it is, but this is what happens when children are taught something from a very young age. It is like an intellectual flinch.
Too many things didn’t add up, but each of us needs a personal truth. Christianity was the one I was knew, and so I kept one toe in the God pool.
An upsetting event motivated me to take intellectual action. I still needed that truth, but this time I wanted to know what was true and what was not. Knowing and believing are not the same thing. I reached for a volume that would teach me about the primary subject I had been warned against. It was a revelation. I am angry at myself for my willful ignorance, for clinging to fairy tales when something more miraculous was true.
It was hard to admit being wrong for thirty years; it embarrassed me a little, but I am much the better for it. And, to assist your measurement of the de-conversion effect of Dr. Coyne’s book on me, I read a great deal and always have.
“aliceisfree” totally beats “name redacted” as an online identity!
Most impressive. That “need for truth” says it all for me; once one reflects on how much of what is offered as fact is obviously just opinion, one’s direction becomes much clearer. Even when the truth can seem less comforting, ultimately the reward & peace of intellectual consistency trumps faux comfort. That it also opens up worlds of new inquiry and discovery is just the frosting on the cake.
IMO you should be enormously pleased with yourself, not angry; your journey says a lot about you in all the important ways. Thank you for sharing it.
Jerry, I don’t understand your use of “solipsism” in reference to patting yourself on the back. Pleasure, joy, ego inflation, and pride for receiving and publishing this letter … those I understand
Cool outcome, although hardly unexpected. For all the cries of accomodationists that gnu atheists are only making the problem of religion worse, this seems like pretty good evidence to the contrary. Whether via blogs, books, private/public conversations, that promote science and question the premises of religion can only have two possible outcomes: A.) fail to convince the religious person and B.) make some positive contribution toward them eventually ditching religion. Of course there are alot of religious crazies that will only stand firm or even become MORE religious, but those are not the people that atheist activists are trying to reach. It’s the people who are already curious or on the fence that are only an argument or two (or twenty etc.) away from finally having the guts to finally embrace atheism. Greta Christina’s current book makes this case very well. In short, the more times people make an intelligent case against folly of religion, the greater the likelihood that people will open their eyes to see that folly.
Well Jerry asked for half a dozen examples of people accepting the science as a result of accommodation and I pointed to a study showing seven such cases at Glasgow Uni i.e. creationists who accepted evolution by accommodating it with their religion. There were no examples of any creationists accepting evolution after losing their faith or losing their faith after hearing the facts about evolution.
There has been no response at all to this evidence in these comments.
Seeing as this was the whole point of the post I am mystified by this deafening silence.
In case everyone just “missed it” here is the link again.
http://bcseweb.blogspot.co.uk/2012/11/anti-creationists-need-to-think-about.html
Thanks,
Psi
I remember seeing Roger Downie present some of this, but don’t remember too much about it. Do you have any info on what “accepting evolution” means in this study? Do they accept it as natural or a guided process? To what extent do they accept common descent? Do they mix it with ID? ……
Bottom line is that they are not accepting the science if they have to run it by their theology first. The evidence is the same regardless of how they interpret their particular book of beliefs
Hi Billy,
Answers to this question;
“Do you agree that the process of biological evo-lution lasting many millions of years has occurred in one
form or another?”
Were used.
Not really sure what you mean by “running it by their theology first”. If answers this question with a “strongly agree” and is a theist then do you think they accept evolution or not?
Would you work with them to fight against creationism?
Regards,
Psi
Thanks Psi,
I don’t think that is a very helpful question, as it is very open to interpretation. For example, what does “in one form or another” mean? It could allow ID for example
I don’t consider any form of theistic evolution as compatible with science. I would and have worked with religious people in the past about the truth of evolution. I have even pointed out that many christians accept evolution at a public lecture I gave on the subject when a creationist tried the old evolution = atheism lie (although I personally think there is a good case to argue here). However, I find it pathetic in the extreme that talks on evolution always have to end up discussing religion. Facts are facts regardless of the bible, koran, book of mormon (insert favoured text here)! I however draw the line when they deviate from science. Evolution is about science, not gods.
By running it by their theology, I mean theology is irrelevant to the scientific facts. If the deciding factor is that they have to fit it in with their religious beliefs, they have abandonned the science
The questions were not pulled out of thin air – the paper explains more about them.
The paper does also say this:
“A breakdown of evolution into three components (human origins, macroevolution, and microevolution) found that some evolution rejecters accepted some components, with microevolution having the highest acceptance and human origins the lowest. These findings are discussed in terms of strategies for evolution education and the phenomenon of evolution rejection worldwide.”
and this:
“All level 4 [now in their final year at uni] rejectors belonged to “low evolution” degree programs. It is clear that for most of them, no amount of scientific evidence would overcome their beliefs, a more entrenched position even than that taken by level 1 rejecters.” (“Low evolution” here describes courses such as psychology or pharmacology, as opposed to, say, zoology.)
So the facts and evidence don’t seem to work with everyone. I think it is called the “rationalist fallacy” (??) to think that they will.
and you see this:
“By level 4, our evolution rejection sample size was very small, but the importance of a belief precluding evolution remained the main factor. Our sample size for switching from rejection to acceptance was also small (n=7), but it is fascinating that these students were less affected by scientific evidence than by a realization that evolution and their religious beliefs were not in conflict.”
So for these students in Glasgow, reaching some kind of personal accommodation between the science and their faith was the path to accepting evolution.
We also see this:
“It is worth emphasizing that, although evolution rejection was strongly associated with holding a religious belief, the majority of believers accepted evolution.”
So I guess that what I am asking is, would you insist on arguing with theists about whether or not they actually accept the science to your satisfaction, even when they state that they do, and when working with them looks like a more effective route to getting creationists to realise that they don’t have to choose between their faith and accepting the facts?
Also my experience is that creationists use the “its atheists versus christians” claim as their main and loudest recruitment and retention tool, it sounds like you have seen it in action too.
That’s why I think it is more effective to simply accept the fact that most theists (at least in the UK) accept evolution when they say they do, rather than quibbling about if they had to run it by their religion first and whether or not they can prove it logically.
I have had more abuse from atheists for working with the religious in this way than I have had from creationists – and I get plenty from them.
You don’t have to be an accommodationist (in the sense of compromising on any of the science or evidence) to point out that most theists manage to accommodate the science and evidence with their beliefs. I’m trying to keep creationism out of UK schools and I want to do it in the most effective way possible and I don’t see that giving the creationists recruitment and retention ammunition and simultaneously rejecting the support of theists in this battle makes any sense at all.
Regards,
Psi
I never claimed the question was pulled out of thin air, and still maintain it is not informative as it is too wooly – even considering the other questions, ID can still be a belief that is held.
“would you insist on arguing with theists about whether or not they actually accept the science to your satisfaction, even when they state that they do, and when working with them looks like a more effective route to getting creationists to realise that they don’t have to choose between their faith and accepting the facts?”
Science is science, so I wouldn’t accept any religions view as valid to the discussion of truth. I am a scientist, and interested in only telling the facts – not making them palatable by distorting them for theists. Allow them an inch of theology and who is to stop them including “god guided evolution” in class?
I also had a teacher at school who refused to teach us evolution. We had to read the relevant chapter for ourselves. I don’t think we can make any concessions to faith on a scientific matter. Anything else is style over substance
Granted, it shows that, but what it does NOT show is that creationists accept evolution more frequently when they hear accommodationism rather than atheism, which is what you are telling us. In fact, one student did accept evolution after undergoing some unknown CHANGE, but since none of the students appeared to have lost their faith, or, more important, been exposed to new atheists evolutionists, you can’t say that accommodationism is the better strategy.
So I’ll give you six accommodationist victories (against kids who were in the UK, not American evangelicals) against dozens turned to evolution by atheists.
Slightly off the topic, but Non Sequitur has a nice comment…