Here we have two notables on opposite sides of the religion-versus-faith issue, or at least clashing about how to deal with the oft-claimed incompatibility between science and religion. In one corner is Sam Harris, who, as you know, is a hard-core critic of faith, and not shy about saying that. His book The End of Faith could be counted as the beginning of New Atheism. In the other corner is Brian Greene, who doesn’t like to criticize religion because, he says, confrontation turns people off (he refused to autograph my Faith vs. Fact book that I was auctioning off for charity). And Greene doesn’t mind taking Templeton money to fund his World Science Festival.
This 9-minute discussion, from 2018, is part of a 2+-hour discussion you can find here.
Greene argues there’s a big reason to avoid being as hard-core as Harris. He claims that being vociferous (apparently like Harris or Dawkins) undercuts the stated goal of atheists to spread rationality. For Greene sees New Atheists as elitists who tell people that they are “stupid”—a contention that we often hear but I don’t think carries much truth. (Try finding such a statement in Faith vs. Fact!) Rather, Greene believes that people’s deconversion is best accomplished indirectly: by getting people to appreciate the natural wonders of the universe and showing your passion for them. This, he thinks, “will drive things in a good direction.” (I believe he means letting go of religion, though Greene isn’t explicit.) I can’t quite see how that would work.
Sam responds that people’s minds can change; believers can become nonbelievers. That is true, and I’ve seen it and, indeed, have even been instrumental in changing some minds that way. (No, I don’t call people “stupid.”) Greene responds that he’s changed minds, too, but yet he fails to show that the “soft” approach is more efficacious. How many I-got-people-to-give-up-religion anecdotes does he have? As Sam says, “You’re talking about the carrot and I’m talking about the stick. And the stick works.” This exchange, by the way, is hilarious.
Sam responds that there are some religious views that in fact facilitate the ruination of nature (global warming, for example, can be justified as a necessary precursor of The End Times). Greene responds that he’s rarely confronted with such people.
My methods are clearly the same as Sam’s, though I wouldn’t for a minute tell Greene that he has to go after religion big-time. That’s just not his way. However—and I don’t have evidence for this—I do think that the direct approach to criticizing faith, one that avoids ad hominem attacks—is more efficacious. I don’t think telling people that science and faith are perfectly compatible, for instance, can account for the rise of the “nones” in recent years. It appears that many people have become “nones” because they realized that religion is irrational and in conflict with science. As a paper published in 2023 noted:
. . . . the authors queried self-identified religious nones about their reasons for leaving their religion. In response, each participant wrote a short personal essay, which was coded by the research team. Four primary themes emerged. About half of the sample (51.8%) reported leaving for intellectual reasons or because they outgrew their faith. Roughly a fifth of the sample (21.9%) reported religious trauma, such as the hypocrisy of the sexual abuse scandals in the Catholic Church. Others (14.9%) reported leaving religion because of personal adversity, such as an inability to make sense of the tragic death of a child, or social reasons (11.4%), including a religious community’s being unwelcoming.
In other words, by far the most common reason for leaving faith is because people perceive that it has no intellectual underpinnings. They don’t leave it because appreciating a passion for the university changes them “in a good way”. (Note that New Atheists also emphasize at least two of the other three reasons people give up their faith.)
My take is that some methods (carrots or sticks) will work for some individuals or not for others. Also, some people might be more effective at wielding a carrot than others.
I watched this slightly frustrating “debate” a few weeks ago and felt very unsettled by it. I have read and enjoyed immensely all of Brian’s books and he is brilliant at demystifying cosmology. Sam Harris is also a naturally gifted and likeable writer on morality without need of supernatural supervision. There are two very different personalities and temperaments at play here and my gut feeling is that Sam is a stronger advocate. Too bad o’l Hitch isn’t around to eloquently challenge both players as too accommodating to any theological overtures to an uncreated creator
Hitchens was an amazing master of rhetoric and quick wit, and would dominate any debate.
He would not flinch from filleting the idiocies, inadequacies, and hypocrisies of the opposing view.
Miss him.
This was an interesting debate. I think that the persuasive argument needs to be tailored to the target audience. In some cases a COMBINED approach might work even better (a carrot to get them thinking and a stick to keep them thinking).
Brian Greene’s criticism was one Richard Dawkins faced over and over again when The God Delusion came out. My take is that people who wish to avoid causing offence don’t see beyond the initial reaction of offended believers, and assume that that is the end of the matter, whereas ideas can take root and grow long after the initial rejection, so just because people react against being told something doesn’t mean that approach isn’t doing its job. For me the clincher is the statistics, especially in the US: the growth of “nones” that continues to this day began, after decades of being static, with a very sharp uptick in 2006-07, precisely when the “Four Horsemen’s” books came out. That’s not a coincidence.
I think so too — attitudes are eroded away by repeated exposure to contrary ideas, which at first seem harsh.
It reminds me a bit of the parable of the sower of seeds…^_^
Some people would argue that string theory is kind of like religion. It is beautiful to adherents, an practically untestable, and must be taken on faith.
That’d be a problem were it not a hopelessly inaccurate description of the field and its practitioners. I can elaborate if you wish.
That is is similar to a religion is a common claim, and one can understand why. So I’d be curious to learn why that is very inaccurate.
Sure thing. The short version is that the broader field string theory is a part of, quantum gravity, that is, understanding how quantum mechanics and gravity work together, is beyond experimental reach for the foreseeable future. Direct measurement of quantum gravitational effects say in collider physics like that performed at LHC would naively require accelerating protons to ~10^16 times energies that are achieved presently. To the extent that human beings are curious about the fundamental laws of Nature and in particular about quantum gravity, there is then a fundamental decision to be made: whether to keep pushing, taking the lessons from 20th century physics to heart, or instead to give up until we have the technological capacity to probe these questions directly.
To excellent approximation the physics community has chosen the latter. There are only a few hundred permanent researchers in string theory/QG worldwide, with more like O(10^5) permanent researchers in physics writ large. (A fact which polemics like Woit and Smolin repeatedly fail to disclose. Nor that they have certain unresolved personal conflicts with high-level string theorists.)
Two additional comments.
1. If one decides to be curious about questions in QG, despite them being beyond present experimental reach, then string theory is to date the only mathematically consistent framework to study the problem we know of in such a way that is consistent with principles of 20th century physics. Hence why people interested in QG care about it.
2. The ambition that most people think about if they’ve heard about strings, a candidate unified description of all of Nature’s laws, is not the primary research question that drives the field. Since the 80’s it was realized that (a) string theory is a framework, in a similar but more constrained way to how quantum mechanics is a framework, and (b) that one can use lessons from it to make contact with less ambitious questions. That includes younger people that exploit lessons from strings to learn more about problems in what is called quantum field theory or strongly correlated systems, and so to other less contentious topics like many-body condensed matter physics.
You’re saying that string theory is useful beyond its application in developing a unified theory. For probing QG for instance. String theory works in some ways – so it’s not a religion. I don’t think religions work in any way.
As Mr. Christopher Hitchens said, To be an atheist is simple, “…all you have to do is say that you reject the supernatural dimension, and that is the crucial thing!”
Teaching children that heaven exists outside of the human mind is the great mistake and leads to the delusion on which all religions are based. GROG
Imo, dropping religion (by however means you arrived there) means spending less time on the question, pining for some god relief, going air head on religious figures, is less noisy with constant chatter about a fantasy and lies, and in most cases supporting unnecessary tribalism.
Have a cup of tea, state your position and carry on. Extracting fantasy from someone’s head is not a popular goal it will tend to make you look like a godless fanatic.
“Greene responds that he’s rarely confronted by such people.” (Religious people who facilitate the ruination of nature.)
I see those people all the time. They’re chanting “drill baby drill.”
You’ve misstated the comment, which was “global warming, for example, can be justified as a necessary precursor of The End Times”.
You are leaving out the part about the drilling bringing about some sort of holy rapture, and thereby distorting the meaning of the quote.
The point was not, as you imply, that religious people favor increasing the extraction of petrochemicals from the ground. The point was rather that religious people favor extraction of petrochemicals from the ground to further their religious goals.
The “Drill, Baby, Drill” folks are not suggesting that drilling will bring about a desired End Times / holy rapture. They simply don’t see a linkage between petrochemical extraction & usage and climate change, or simply don’t believe that climate change exists, or think that the US can do the drilling more cleanly than other countries. People I know personally who take this stance (Drill, Baby, Drill) also don’t desire the ruination of nature; most of my Republican friends (who are more generally in favor of D,B,D) are also avid outdoors people who hunt, fish, hike, run, or bike, and who don’t want those outdoors areas ruined by anything. They are in favor of keeping energy costs low by leveraging available supply, with the idea that it’s better to drill our own rather than buy from other countries who may not have the same concern for clean drilling conditions. They also favor nuclear as a long-term solution, and oppose wind and solar because of environmental concerns (disposal of solar panels, large amount of land taken up by solar, wind farm effects on whales and birds, etc.). I’m not saying whether their opinions are valid or not, only that they’re not advocating for drilling for the purpose of having their god come and take them to heaven sooner; rather, they’re doing it for worldly reasons, which is contrary to the notion that they favor it as “a necessary precursor to the End Times” (which could vary, based on one’s religion). I know many Christians, and a few Hindus and Sikhs, and none of them have ever made a claim that they think that we should ruin the environment to bring about the end of the world so they can meet their maker or move more quickly into the next realm.
What rom said. In other words, we probably need both the ultra-gentle Brian Greene approach and the more in-your-face Sam Harris approach. A study by Simpson, Willer, and Feinberg finds that “Radical flanks of social movements can increase support for moderate factions.”
Not all “nones” are atheists. A percentage are theists, or at least similarly spiritual, but do not belong to any organized church or denomination.
Yes, I’ve mentioned that frequently. However, the rise in “nones” goes along with the rise of nonbelief, and is itself indicative of loss of respect for religion.
I’m in the ‘can change’ category. I had the full set of evangelical certainty along with my lifetime partner wife. We both embraced rationality by gradual means and inquiry. The clarity of plain speaking atheism helped to plot our escape not gentle nudging. We have lost many friends (!) but gained much more.
Mark 10:21, Luke 12:32-33, Luke 14:33, Luke 18:23, Matthew 19:20-21, Matthew 6:24-25
Sell all you have and give to the poor. The commands of Jesus. This has been a hobby horse of mine as of late. If all atheists gave this reply every time some yip yap politician brayed we need more Bible and Jesus in our nation, it would soon take all the fun out of Jesus bleating. I’d love to see somebody try this line on the execrable Jordan Peterson.
Well, I definitely advocate taking the Dawkins approach to the new religion of trans ideology. 😁
Exactly! Trans ideology = cult = religion with fewer members.
During lockdown, Greene did a live series called Your Daily Equation. It’s up on YouTube. Greene would derive a famous equation from physics or math and discuss what the equation means.
He also had one (I think) AMA. I don’t know if these are on YT; I haven’t looked for them. Surprisingly, he answered a question about his religious beliefs. Greene replied that he is an agnostic. He doesn’t see any evidence for gods but cannot rule out their existence.
I kept asking him why he accepts money from Templeton if he is an agnostic. He chose not to answer me. In his defense, however, he received hundreds of questions.
I was once a devout, dyed-to-the-wool, believer in Christianity and young earth creationism. The in-your-face approach can work. It worked on me. People like Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens helped me to see through my delusions. So I know first-hand that a more direct approach to criticizing religion can, and does, work. Don’t let anyone ever say it doesn’t. (on a side note, I got to meet Richard Dawkins in person back in May of last year, in New York City, Brooklyn, at an event called Dissident Dialogues. I got to thank Richard in person for my freedom from religion, and he even signed one of his books that I own. He gasped when I told him that I was once a young earth creationist, lol)!