It seems to me that the only reason the Guardian still employs Andrew Brown is that his ridiculous columns elicit blog traffic by those who wish to refute him. I read him for the same reason I smell the milk when I know it’s gone bad, and I’m rarely disappointed. His latest piece, “Atheists need to run an Alpha course of their own,” suggests that militant atheists like Richard Dawkins, who publicly equate evolution with atheism, are responsible for much of creationism in the Islamic world.
What apparently inspired Brown was a tweet from Richard Dawkins one week ago:
In response, Brown produces an entire column based on this tweet and a talk in England by Islamic astronomer Salman Hameed. If Brown had done any more research on Islam and creationism, he would have found that virtually everything he said was wrong:
The fact that [Dawkins’s] question might have answers he has not grasped seems never to trouble him. The result is purely comic if you don’t care about science education, as most people in this country don’t. But if you do think scientific literacy is valuable his tweet is depressing because there is increasing evidence that the Dawkins approach is actually cementing creationism as a mark of Muslim identity in the west.
At a conference last week at the Centre for Social Relations at Coventry University, I listened to Salman Hameed, an astronomer who has moved into sociology and conducted large-scale research across five countries on why and how Muslims are creationist. The overwhelming answer is not that they reject the fact of evolution but that they reject the name Darwin, because he is associated in their minds with atheism, racism, and imperialism. None of these associations are strictly justified, of course. But the association with atheism is still popular.
The idea that you cannot be a biologist, or even a proper scientist, and still believe in God is palpably false but energetically believed by Dawkins and his acolytes.
I’ve read quite a bit on Islam and creationism in the past few months, and it’s palpably clear that the roots of Islamic creationism are nourished by adherence to the Qur’an (which has a creation story), which—unlike the Bible—is universally seen as inerrant and not subject to metaphorical interpretation. In fact, Islamic “accommodationism” consists largely of showing how every fact of modern science was anticipated by the Qur’an. Atop this is a general distrust of Western science, which is seen as corrosive of Islamic values. While bigots like Brown can tout Dawkins’s atheism as an excuse for Muslims to remain creationists, I’ve found that it actually has little to do with the persistence of creationism in the Islamic world. (I note, though, that in a few Muslim countries, like—suprisingly—Iran, evolution is taught in the public schools, but humans are inevitably an exception to the evolutionary process.)
But Brown is simply talking out of his nether parts when he says things like the following:
There are such Muslim creationists but they are not found among the educated.
That’s simply wrong. Many educated Muslims are creationists, and if Brown had done the least research he would have found that. Even Adnan Oktar, the infamous Harun Yahya who disseminates Islamic creationism worldwide, is university educated. In the book Atoms and Eden, which I discussed recently, one of the interviewees was Nidhal Guessom, an Algerian professor of astrophysics at the University of Sharjah (United Arab Emirates). Guessom is a brave man, for he regularly speaks out against Islamic creationism, an action that could lead to his death. Here are three quotes from his interview (pp. 221, 222 and 226):
“The culture of authority, which is Islamic culture today, is dominated by religious figures. The religious dimensions of society are crushing and stifling inquiry, and we have had too many people who were declared heretics.” One was consider heretical and said that there was a human element in the writing of the Quran and its meaning had evolved.”
“But in Islam, everybody is required to believe that every word in the Quran was revealed by God.”
. . .“evolution is being rejected equally by educated and uneducated Muslims.”
If Brown wants more examples of educated Muslims rejecting evolution, I will be glad to send him a list.
Brown is so bent on defaming Dawkins and the New Atheists, though, that he insists that Muslims are embracing creationism simply because militant atheists won’t shut up:
However, this is where Dawkins’ scorn does some real damage, even among people who have never otherwise heard of him. Because there is a self-consciously oppositional culture among young poor Muslims, who feel themselves stigmatised and disadvantaged, they can tend to embrace creationism simply because they know it’s wrong by the lights of the majority. Dawkins’ dismissal of Muslim creationism as “alien rubbish” was not only found as a YouTube clip on the EDL website for a while, but also used in the propaganda of Harun Yahya, the Turkish creationist and self-publicist. The emotional logic is clear: if this rich, sneering white man is against it, it must be good for disaffected young Muslims who feel that they are themselves treated as “alien rubbish”.
Shades of Chris Mooney! Brown’s prescription for curing Islamic creationism is to engage creationist Muslims in constructive dialogue. What a joke! Has anyone seen the YouTube videos of P. Z. Myers or Richard Dawkins trying to do just that?
There is a scientific approach possible to the problem of creationism. You ask what people mean by the word, both intellectually and emotionally; then you listen the answers carefully and try to translate them into terms both sides can accept. Only then is it possible to disentangle the social and philosophical uses of the term from its status as a quasi-scientific explanation and to promote, so far as possible, the scientific truth.
But that would require actual contact with real Muslim creationists, and a willingness to engage in dialogue with them, not matter how wrong they are. That is the same sort of process that the Alpha course forces on evangelical Christians. It works only to the extent that they can pretend to take seriously the objections to their own belief. So perhaps what Dawkinsite atheism needs today is its very own Alpha course – if it is ever to be more than increasingly hysterical sermons to the converted.
Of course one can try to educate Muslims about evolution—I’ve been trying, and have just succeeded, in getting Why Evolution is True translated into Arabic. But I am under no illusion that it will cause a sea change in Islamic attitudes towards evolution. If Brown thinks he can bring Islamic creationists to Darwin by “constructive dialogue,” I have a bridge in Saudi Arabia I’d like to sell him. It would be like trying to convert lions to vegetarianism by showing them cabbages.
This is literally the case: the Guardian Media Group’s entire business model these days is posting odious rubbish for page views.
“Trolling is free; but clicks are sacred.”
I agree. I won’t even read Brown any longer. It used to be nice to read the good kicking he generally got in the comments but even such joys are passing.
But, but, but…how about cauliflower? They are cabbages with a college education so they could work…
It’s remarkable how many commentators there are like Brown, who presume to cajole one group they have failed to understand into engaging with another group they know nothing about. With mediators like this, who needs muddlers?
I do, however, think this ability to speak from his “nether parts” holds some interest for the evolutionist. Quite an adaptation there.
Is he an ex-Roman Catholic? Is he channelling rectum-derived papal edicts?
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+1 reference to Bill Maher.
Speaking from the nether regions … why do I think of “Le Petomane”, and why do I wish to see the hilarious Leonard Rossiter’s film of this performer’s life.
+1.
I laughed out loud just at the mention…
now I’ve got to watch.
I think Steve Martin did an homage to LP once.
From talking to Muslims (I used to have lunchtime chats with a Muslim at work) creationism is the DEFAULT for Muslims.
My friend had bought into the entire Creationist malarky, and she was by no means an extremist.
s/DEFAULT/Only acceptable position/
(that’s a Slashdot-ism for “substitute” … and the rest should be pretty obvious.)
It’s also the sed substitute command!
But this is no place for IT geekiness!
I don’t know what they all think, I just think in the way that while outright Creationism is a minority view in the various Christians sects, non-Creationism is the minority view amongst Muslims.
sigh.
I’m finding the comparison to the Alpha Course completely opaque. Can anyone help me out?
I think Brown just means that we atheists need to take a class on Atheism. This class will presumably show us that you don’t get people to accept evolution if you feed into their rabid fear that accepting evolution makes you an atheist. Because atheism is a horrible thing to them.
The religious will like us better if we concede this point.
The Alpha Course (TM) is a dumbed-down introduction to Christianity run by many churches in an attempt to grow their clientele. Big Questions and Deep Thought are avoided, emphasis is on charismata (spiritual gifts); they are non-progressive on subjects like gay rights.
Seriously? “Dumbed down”?
How much dumber can it get?
Thank you, I do have a passing familiarity with the Alpha materials. I’m having trouble imagining what the atheist equivalent would look like, let alone how evolution is supposed to play into whatever syllabus Andrew Brown has in mind.
(Sastra: Thanks for trying, but I’m still not getting what point he’s making. I suspect this is one of those cases in which there’s no “there” there, ie. nothing coherent to be understood).
That is not a scientific approach: it is a marketing approach. If people have fixed their identity on what they believe, then pander to this egocentric way of deciding fact questions and swing it around in your favor. Don’t strike at prescientific thought processes. Co-opt them. Get religious people to think it’s okay to believe in both evolution and their religion. Try to show them evolution-friendly interpretations of the Quran.
And Dawkins’ point against this is spot on: method, method, method. As long as people come to conclusions using a method which celebrates faith and places their personal identity front and center, then there is no way to hold this back and keep it “reasonable.”
Andrew Brown thinks he is granting respect to Muslims by using a Little People Argument. “The ‘Little People’ are not like you and me — capable of thinking scientifically and accepting results. They are simple folk who need their superstitions. It’s cruel to expect too much of them — they can’t handle the truth. So bring them along slowly in the only language they recognize. Talk down to them.”
That’s not respect. It’s a plea for forbearance against the weak based on a pragmatic assessment that they’re just hopeless cases. And it’s not likely that you will get people to approach questions more scientifically by conceding priority to faith. It will boomerang back on you with the sort of desperate apologetics of the Muslim creationists who want science AND God.
Yes, it’s actually quite stunningly condescending on Mr. Brown’s part, those poor Muslims just can’t figure it out for themselves, so let’s treat them like intellectually disabled children.
While Richard Dawkins does not respect Muslim creationist ideas and the ideology of Islam in general, he does treat Muslims as intellectual equals who can respond to criticism of their ideas like any other adult member of a secular society, which is far more respect than Mr. Brown shows towards them.
If Brown had done any more research on Islam and creationism, he would have found that virtually everything he said was wrong
I think you are being far too charitable to Mr. Brown.
I’m sure he has done the research and knows exactly what the relationship between Islam and creationism is and chooses to lie for personal gain.
There is that old aphorism, “never attribute to malice that which can be explained by ignorance”, which applies in many walks of life, but in Mr. Brown’s case it’s pure malevolence.
He isnt just a commentator either but the editor of the belief section.
Not sure whether he is just trolling for clicks (look at the number of comments on that posts vs his other posts) or being serious.
He gives me the impression of being one of those atheists who whilst not believing thinks its a useful tool.
As for his attitude towards Dawkins specifically I think the theory he did something to upset Brown on a personal level, ran over his dog or similar, is one of the best explanations.
Sold more books.
Never did much care for cabbage!
lol.
What is it that accommodationists don’t get about an anthropomorphic-type God?
Those that believe in that type of God ARE by definition creationists.
That type of God created shit with an inherent purpose in mind. It doesn’t matter where or when He started the creating, whether he poofed everything in their current form OR poofed everything as a single-celled organism and then guided it along the way.
lol.
“God created shit”.
And then he peed his/hers/its pants, according to the religious’s texts. I sense a papal theme here (reading Ant’s comments).
lol.
Well if it was found out that life originated from fecal matter, then faithheads would argue that God did indeed create shit and guided it along to ultimately produce humans to have a special relationship with Him.
haha
love that last sentence. The average theist has no desire to to know something that says that their myths are wrong. One can tell them about evolutionary theory, or one can tell them about another “true” religion, and the stance of any atheists on it will make no difference on how they accept it.
Besides trolling for clicks, the need to tarnish upright atheism with the accommodationist stinky brush of ‘fundamentalism’ is apparent.
Let me check the statistics:
– Roughly a century of accommodationism (Scopes 1925 to the 4 horsemen 2005ish):
US nones grew to about 10 % of the population (BBC 2004).*
– A decade of Dawkinsite atheism (2005 – 2010):
US nones grew to about 20 % of the population (Pew 2012).
“In the last five years alone, the unaffiliated have increased from just over 15% to just under 20% of all U.S. adults.” [Pew 2012]
[ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_atheism ]
To paraphrase:
“If just accommodationists would shut up, nothing would happen. Except that our ears wouldn’t be as filled with rectum-derived BS.”
* It is of course known that the demographics started to change significantly already in the 90’s. Or more precisely, there is a small albeit perhaps not significant change with each generation before then.
But the idea that modern atheism as opposed to its outdated version of accommodationism speaks to the in-group (or harms itself!) is not substantiated by the general facts.
Brown needs to do his homework.
Dear Jerry,
While chiding Andrew for not doing the homework, you have identified me as an “Islamic astronomer” – whatever that means. [as per intro – you have quoted statistics from my 2008 Science paper on Islamic Creationism – Science 322, 1637].
Couple of quick points: I actually agree with the statement that the rejection of evolution is found amongst both the educated and uneducated. But what do they mean by “evolution” is often not straightforward biological evolution. But the issue of Muslim creationism in UK is embedded in the larger context of immigration history (a large fraction of Muslims migrants to UK were brought from rural areas of Pakistan to work in textile industry), socio-economic conditions (Muslims live in the poorest neighborhoods of major British cities, and their unemployment rates are 3 times higher than other groups – partly due to collapse of the textile industry in the 80s), and access to lower quality education. So within that context, the rejection of evolution has become a part of identity for many British Muslims. But not all. As scientists by training, we should always be weary of the confirmation bias. It always makes news when Muslims in UK reject evolution, and not when they accept it.
The variables to address evolution acceptance are indeed complex – and we would all like the acceptance of evolution to go up, including in the Muslim world. We are all on the same page here. But we also have to understand the larger contexts.
And talking of educated Muslims, we have done oral interviews with Muslim physicians and medical students in 7 countries (including UK). Our first paper was out yesterday in Evolution: Education and Outreach. It deals with Pakistani doctors in the US. You can find it here:
http://www.evolution-outreach.com/content/6/1/2
Fascinating. Thanks for the link to the paper. So nice when there’s full text.
I just used the description Brown gave, which is that you’re an astronomer who has moved into sociology. If you’re not Islamic, my apologies (actually, my encomiums!).
You realize, of course, that Brown’s column was about more than just the UK, right?
And your own paper refutes the notion that educated Muslims can’t be creationists, so Brown is wrong. It also shows (in a sample size of 23!) that a lot more of them rejected human evolution than evolution as a whole. I call those creationists.
And really–do you think a sample of 23 Pakistani-American doctors attending a medical convention says ANYTHING meaningful about the relationship of Islam to evolution as a whole?
The 2009 Pew survey shows 45% of US Muslims accepting evolution as the best explanation for human origins:
http://www.pewforum.org/Science-and-Bioethics/Religious-Differences-on-the-Question-of-Evolution.aspx
Given the selective nature of the demographics of US Muslims, this percentage is likely to be much higher than would be found worldwide.
A fair number of non-Muslim physicians and medical students in the United States turn out to be creationists, because they see science as a tool source, the same way some engineers do. The importance of evidence-based medicine can conflict with their handed-down ideas about treatment or reliance on individual observations (“case studies”) of the effects of treatment. This is something that the surgeon/blogger Orac has focused on, both at his own blog, Respectful Insolence, and at a group blog Science-based Medicine under his own name (David Gorski).
lol.
Living in Ohio, I’ve met students doing a combo MD/PhD who are creationists! That IS messed up.
Yes I agree that to many of them, Science is simply some sort of tool.
More importantly they kind of see Science as a tool to tell them what they want to get anyway!
haha
Timothy Winter, aka Abdal Hakim Murad, is said to be the leading Muslim in Great Britain, and he has been involved with a project that teaches Muslims about evolution, focusing on those in leadership positions in the British Muslim community; not sure how much progress the project is making.
One of the problems with this discussion is you all are assuming that rationality of belief is correlated with intelligence. This leads to the assumption that if you believe something stupid, you must be stupid. Being stupid is bad, so naturally people don’t like to be told what they believe is stupid.
But let me give some examples that compellingly show rationality of belief is not strongly correlated with intelligence. 1. Galileo was a Catholic. 2. Tom Cruz is a scientologist. 3. John Polkinghorne is an Anglican Bishop. 4. Mark Shields is a Catholic. 5. C.S. Lewis was a Christian. 6. Michele Bachmann and Sarah Palin believe in Witchcraft. (Ok, ok, it is a stretch to imply these two are intelligent.) 7. Jesus Christ believed in demon possession. 8. Johannes Kepler believed that Jupiter was inhabited. 9. Aristotle thought men had more teeth than women. 10. William Dembski believes it is impossible that life could have originated without a designer. 11. John F. Kennedy was a Catholic. 12. Jimmy Carter was a fundamental Christian. 13. George W. Bush believed God wanted him to be president. (Ok, another stretch.) 14. Michele Bachman (or was it Sarah Palin?) believed Paul Revere’s famous ride was to warn the British that the colonists had arms. 15. Thomas Aquinas believed Jesus was God and born of a virgin. 16. Satan (aka the Devil) believes he can overthrow God.
Ok, got it? Some very smart people believe some very stupid things!. Just because a person believes something proven time and time to be wrong, doesn’t mean they’re stupid!
(I won’t go into the stupid things I have believed in my life!)
Don Chesik wrote:
No, we are not assuming that. I think you have it backwards. We not only recognize that intelligent people can be irrational — we promote the view that it is neither wicked nor stupid to be wrong. If you make a mistake, you change your mind. This is the scientific approach and we want it applied to religion. We think Muslims are, as human beings, wise enough to be able to handle this.
It is in fact the other side which is promoting the view that if you are wrong you are stupid and/or wicked. If Dawkins says creationists are ignorant of the facts of evolution then he MUST be telling people they’re stupid. If atheists think people are wrong about the existence of God then they must think theists are stupid. And bad.
Belief = identity. “If I am wrong then not just my belief is wrong: *I* am wrong. I am the wrong sort of person. If I change my mind I die. Those who seek to persuade me are trying to kill me, to take away my faith and diminish me.”
This is the way they cut off honest dissent. If you confuse an attack on an idea with an attack on a person and translate “you’re mistaken” into “you’re stupid” then there can be no debate, no dialogue, no discussion. There is no growth or learning, no progress from the recognition of mistakes. There is an unbridgeable divide between people and the choices they make due to their tribal and personal identities.
That’s religion. It’s not science, and it’s not us.
Two errors here:
Tom Cruise isn’t intelligent by any stretch of the imagination.
Galileo may or may not have been a believing Catholic – we have no way of knowing that. He was a practicing Catholic because failure to do so was illegal in the time and place he lived.
IQ 94-98 according to Google.
Fine movie actor, though.
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Your post seems to be the first mention of the word “stupid”, and although I see a humorous digression regarding the “Alpha Course” as being a “dumbed down” introduction to Christianity, I’m pretty sure your concern has been dealt with in many ways in many discussions on this site. (Most seem to acknowledge that it is difficult to say with precision what “intelligence” actually is, though I think it’s sometimes quite obvious to recognize stupid when you see it.)
I think most people here were once believers in something they now consider quite wrong, and thus, they are unlikely to equate belief with stupidity. They may, however, note that as education increases, such beliefs decrease. Uneducated Muslims don’t accept evolution at all. Educated ones tend to feel uncomfortable with it even though they think that it’s a good explanation for much of life; they still believe humans are specially created– that even if evolution was Allah’s method of creating plant life and animal life– it doesn’t apply to human life, as human life is specially created. The idea of humans and apes sharing common ancestry is repulsive to most Muslims– even the biology teachers.
The reason for them clinging to creationism has nothing to do with people thinking them stupid– it has everything to do with their indoctrination– they believe in a god who will punish them unless they believe certain things. Understanding evolution is not worth the risk to them.
There is no evidence that disrespecting other peoples delusions drives them further into delusions, but there is lots of evidence showing that people can be manipulated hugely if they imagine their eternity is at stake. Faith and obedience to Allah are strong aspects of the Muslim culture and Muslims are taught to distrust those who interfere with either.
is this the “free will” religionauts bang on about
Yep.
You are free to believe in god(s), BUT if you DON’T believe (or if you believe the wrong stuff about the wrong god… or you believe the right stuff but not with enough fervency) THEN you will be tortured for all eternity.
But it’s still your choice!
Could it be that people are against Darwin and Dawkins because they espouse ideas that contradict their worldview? No, no! It must be they have the wrong worldview because Dawkins is so darn mean.
I could see a reasonable argument to be made that people of limited means, entrenched in a culture that makes a belief in evolution immensely costly, cannot be expected to change their minds very easily. The idea that all that is holding them back is a mean old biologist that will not cater to them, however, is completely ludicrous.
Brown, like most at the Guardian, believes in identity politics. An individual’s views are not nearly as important as the status of the group to which they “belong”.
Dawkins is white and middle class, most Muslims are not. Ergo, Dawkins is bad if he challenges views that are cherished among any “victim” groups, and Muslims are victims. That’s really all you need to know.
However laughable this perspective is, intellectually speaking, it is the default (visceral) position for most “progressive” opinion-formers. And unless we untangle that confusion, little can change, regardless of the quality of anyone’s arguments.
All my evidence about self-described atheists defending religious positions is anecdotal; but it really disturbs me. Recently, on Facebook, I have argued with one who called Dawkins a ‘perjurer’ and Peter Singer a ‘half-wit’. The same man quoted mercator.com, edited by a Catholic, as his source countering accusations of Pope Francis’ complicity in the Argentinian Dirty War; another quoted the Christian Science Monitor, fer Christ’s sake, in a piece on politics.
I’m completely bewildered by this nonsense; what on earth are these people, Brown amongst them, playing at? What’s the beef? Is it really as miserable an explanation as wanting more clicks? Is that it? Or is there something rotten in this Guardian-reading strand of British atheism? Deliberately confusing the religious rank-and-file with their leaders; and alleging that an attack on the latter is a condemnation of the former.
I think it’s easier to demonize the messenger than to examine one’s faith– especially if one secretly feels special for one’s faith or fears eternal torment for the lack of it.
Maybe so, articulett, but the unfortunate corollary of your idea (and my anecdote) is that there are far more British religious types than we thought. I am thinking of the encouraging conclusions of Richard Dawkins’ 2011 sociological research at the time of the British census.
A priori, I can think of many reasons why someone who described themselves as religious might be a crypto-atheist; but within my group of about 60 Facebook friends, most of whom will be hedonistic atheist slackers like me, I can think of 2 who are definitely crypto-Goddies.
OK, it’s only 4%, and it’s anecdotal, but maybe more of the ‘atheists’ in Dawkins’ research really are slaves for Jesus than we know. I really can’t bear their intellectual dishonesty and shocking hostility to Dawkins et al. It’s the worst thing.
It’s probably the faith in faith crowd… although they aren’t faithful themselves– they still think faith is something worth protecting. Any criticism of faith is seen as being out of line
I have asked people who criticize fellow atheists to cut and paste the very worst things that they think Dawkins (or Harris or whomever) has ever said rather than parphrasing what they think he said. Very few have anything to offer. Some allege that Dawkins said religious parents should be thrown in jail for child abuse, but when they find the quote of what he ACTUALLY said, they must admit that it isn’t anything like what they remembered.
Dermot – I would agree that there are far more European religious types than commonly thought. Having lived in Germany for the past several months, this certainly seems to be true. Wrote more about it here:
http://dougandrhonda.blogspot.de/2013/03/secular-europe-not-really.html
There is a young girl that has and is trying Brown’s suggestion in order to get muslims to allow girls to attend school. So far it has gotten her no end of problems including being shot in the head. What say you Brown one?
Obviously it’s the atheists’ fault.
So what does the biology dep’t of a Middle-eastern University look like?
Civil engineering can get by, but surely you need to understand evolution to study biology in depth?
Medicine would be in trouble if you couldn’t comprehend how cold and flu viruses mutate and become resistant over a few generations.
This reminds me of the saying in ice hockey that the second penalty is the one that gets called.
What that means is, if one player trips another player or makes an illegal check, the referees might not see it. But if the second player retaliates, the referees are sure to see it and call the penalty.
Perhaps a short animated slide show might help: http: //ed.ted.com/lessons/five-fingers-of-evolution
All the evidence and accommodationism in the world won’t change the mind of people who believe in a god who will punish them eternally if they don’t believe the right unbelievable creation story!
Where faith is a virtue, evidence that conflicts with that faith is to be avoided. When scientists defer to the faithful it gives the false illusion that faith is worthy of respect, and it just isn’t. Islam is no more worthy of Scientific respect than Scientology.
I think the message that needs to get out is that faith is not a virtue among those interested in the truth. And there is no more scientific evidence for souls than there is for invisible penguins; if there was, scientists would be testing, refining, and honing that evidence. Hopes and fears regarding an afterlife allow people to be manipulated in horrific ways– and faithful Christians and Muslims seem to be most strongly affected with the more virulent strains of this meme.
It’s those who– indoctrinate others to believe in a god that rewards those who believe the right thing and punishes those who don’t –are that are to be blamed for making sure that even well educated Muslims hang on to the idea that humans are “specially created”. Certainly not Dawkins or any other atheist. In the mind of a Muslim, Dawkins is a threat to their salvation, as is anyone who causes them to question their faith.
Perhaps there will be a generation of creationists who were theistic evolutionists until they read Dawkins, though I’d wager that the people who are creationists are so because they’ve listened to their parents and their community and creationist authors. If only those creationists would pick up Dawkins and wrestle with the ideas he presents…
I think there is a way of making sense of this point. In the culture wars, what Dawkins represents is a voice that explicitly links atheism to evolution. People not wanting to reject their faith will reject evolution because of the connotation built up between evolution and atheism. Dawkins by being a public spokesman for both atheism and evolution in effect creates a false dichotomy in the minds of believers – either reject science, or reject faith.
Though if this is the case, then this effectively mounts to trying to drive any naturalistic worldview out of the public square for fear of believers taking the wrong message from it.
What is false about that dichotomy? If you want to have faith in a god, than you must reject the use of evidence. Which means waving goodbye to science.
And yes, that does mean that you’ve got to go back to pre-scientific medicine (i.e. no medicine, including no anaesthesia and no antisepsis), turn the electricity and clean water off. Get rid of the synthetic fabrics and dyes. And footwear.
Accommodationist? Moi?
Oh, OK, I’ll let the god-squaddies have clean drinking water. The Romans could do decent plumbing.
“If you want to have faith in a god, than you must reject the use of evidence.”
Can you expand on this some more? After all, there are plenty of places where God is invoked where evidence at this stage does not rule out a God. God being the origin of everything, for example, would be something that people believe about God, yet I’d be hard-pressed to even come up with something evidential that could rule one way or the other. And what about those who argue that the evidence points to a divine Jesus? They are clearly trying to use evidence for their faith.
Are you saying, kelskye, that the existence of delusional people demonstrates that their delusions are fact based?
No, I’m saying that it does no good to pretend that religious believers don’t use evidence and/or reason as part of a construction of their faith.
As the saying goes, you don’t get to choose your facts. You get the lot, or you get none.
If you want antibiotics, then you also get radiometric dating. And if you don’t like an old universes that contradicts your particular creation myth then you have to deal with that cognitive dissonance yourself.
If you want electricity, then you also get genetics and evolution in with the deal. No option ; no way out ; it’s a package deal.
“And if you don’t like an old universes that contradicts your particular creation myth then you have to deal with that cognitive dissonance yourself.”
I think the point that Andrew Brown et al. are making is that they too accept an old universe and that fact fits perfectly in with their view of God. That’s the false dichotomy they see.
It’s really sad to see Dawkins believes that most muslims are good. Opinion polls and the laws in islamic countries show that to be false. Unless he believes jailing homosexuals is a sign of humaneness.
It’s strange that Dawkins feels that he must be kind about muslims when we all know he knows the truth. Would he feel the need to be kind about members of the westboro baptist church? Would he call them kind and humane? And yet they are liberal pacifists who support freedom of speech and freedom of religion, which you can’t say about the vast majority of the world’s muslims.