Saturday: Hili dialogue

June 6, 2015 • 8:38 am

Yesterday at INR5 was laid back. The meeting started at 2 p.m. with an intro and then two good talks by Vyckie Garrison (founder of “No Longer Quivering”, a recovery operation for women who were once fundamentalist Christian breeder cattle) on “How to talk to a fundamentalist,” and Dr. Ian Mitchell on Canada’s crazy drug policy, with the implication that it would be better to legalize nearly everything and for the government to take over all drug distribution.  After a dinner of spinach salad, ribeye steak with garlic mashed potatoes, asparagus, beer and cheesecake (they treat speakers well here!), the antitheist broadcasters Seth Andrews, Aron Ra, and Matt Dillahunty did their last “Unholy Trio” act, which was both hilarious and inspiring. As I’m currently facing the wrath of religionists, it’s good to be among kindred spirits for a while, even if we are preaching to the choir! (I’m not speaking about faith, though, but about free will.) I have to say that Aron Ra is one of the scariest looking dudes I’ve ever seen, but I had dinner with the Unholy Trio (and others) before their presentation, and he is a sweetheart. Ra had just returned from Norway, where he deliberately spent the night in the town of Hell. I noted that, being in Norway, this is proof that Hell does freeze over.

Today’s schedule is busy, staring with a buffet breakfast at 8:30 a.m. and going through the day. There is a passel of interesting talks, including ones by philosopher Peter Boghossian, a passionate speaker and author of A Manual for Creating Atheists; ethical philosopher Chris DiCarlo from Toronto; the activist Maryam Namazie (who told me she’ll speak on the importance of liberals opposing Islam); my friend Faisal Saeed al Mutar, another ex-Muslim and a humanist activist; and Robert M. Price, an ex-Baptist minister who, though he may still be a believer, thinks that the whole Jesus business is mythological. After dinner Lawrence Krauss and Richard Dawkins will take the stage for one of their famous conversations. The “Humanist of the Year” award will be given at 1 pm, though we have no idea who the recipient is. I speak tomorrow, along with Carolyn Porco, Krauss, and Harriet Hall, whom I met yesterday.

The good thing about INRs is that the schedule is relaxed, with lots of breaks, and the talks are allotted 75 minutes per speaker, so you can talk for, say, 50 minutes and still have a long Q&A. Also, you have free rein to choose your topic, and I have no idea what most people are talking about (if you consult the schedule, you see only a name and not a topic.) The venue is full—350 people—and I’m happy to note that my two popular books are selling briskly. (Remember, if you say “Maru” you get a cat drawn in your copy.) Posting will be light for several days as I simply have no time to write, much less cogitate about writing. Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, life is sweet and slow, and Hili thinks of time and the river:

 Hili: First of all, we have to consider our priorities carefully.
A: What do you suggest?
Hili: A walk to the river.

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In Polish:
Hili: Przede wszystkim musimy starannie rozważyć priorytety.
Ja: Co proponujesz?
Hili: Spacer nad rzekę.

Eugenie Scott and Ruth Bancewicz hold a science-religion lovefest

June 5, 2015 • 2:30 pm

Over at Premier Christian Radio (!), Eugenie Scott, former director of the National Center for Science Education (NCSE), and Ruth Bancewicz, a research associate at the Templeton-funded Faraday Institute for Science and Religion at Cambridge University (and author of the new book God in the Lab: How Science Enhances Faith) have an 80-minute discussion called “Unbelievable? Is faith good for science.”   Here is the precis of her book on Amazon:

An exploration of how the work of scientists in different disciplines has enhanced their faith, God in the Lab is an exploration of the common ground that exists between science and faith. Science provides the opportunity to use creativity and imagination, to appreciate the beauty of the natural world, and to experience the wonder and awe of discovering new things. Experiencing scientific research firsthand has given Dr. Ruth Bancewicz a sense of awe that has enhanced her faith, and for ten years she has been a communicator of the positive expressions of the science-faith dialogue. Through her own insights and those of six other experienced scientists, she shows how science can build faith in God, and gently urges non-Christians to consider the connections they have with their Creator.

You can listen to the podcast for free, which deals (nominally) with the relationship between science and religion. I’ve concentrated mostly on Scott’s comments because she is an influential figure in science education, while Bancewicz seems to be largely, a garden-variety Christian who, despite her book, is given to spouting soothing platitudes that we’ve heard many times before.

Here are a few “highlights,” if you can call them that:

5:29: Genie Scott says she doesn’t consider herself an atheist, but a “nonbeliever”, because, she says, the U.S. connotation of the word is “antitheist,” and she’s not antireligious. She says that “from an anthropological prespective, it makes as much sense to be antireligious as to be antikinship.” That’s not really a fair comparison, because kinship doesn’t cause near the problems that religion does. Yes, religion is an institution to be studied as a human construct, but why is it senseless to oppose a construct (ISIS is one instantiation of that construct) that has terribly harmful consequences?

19:57: Scott claims that scientific hypotheses can be stimulated by religion.  Maybe that was true in Newton’s day, or among ID advocates today, but I’m not aware of a single hypotheses beyond creationist ones that derive from religious belief. Readers can correct me if I’m wrong.

23:30: Scott claims that atheist scientists aren’t thinking clearly when they say that “science compels a particular perspective like atheism or humanism.” Sorry, Dr. Scott, atheism is a direct outgrowth of the doubt and skepticism endemic to science. Atheism is not by definition a part of science, so in that sense doesn’t compel atheism, but it should. For least if you demand evidence for your conclusions, then there is an intimate connection between science and atheism, the refusal to accept gods on the grounds of no evidence. That, of course, is one reason why American scientists are vastly more atheistic than “regular” Americans.

30:41: Bancewicz argues that one does not have to pick between science and religion. Well, that’s true, as there are religious scientists and science-friendly believers. But if you want to be intellectually honest, you should espouse a consistent worldview: either one that relies on evidence and confirmation, or one that relies on faith, revelation and dogma. If you hold both, you are in a state of cognitive dissonance.

34:30: To Scott’s credit, she essentially denies the existence of miracles, saying that “a coherent religion has to be compatible with what we know of the natural world.” This shows that she recognizes the hegemony of scientific truth over religious truth, and, in effect, denies (without saying so) the view that Jesus was resurrected.  I would love to debate Scott on this issue, for if she really believes what she says, then Christianity is not a coherent religion since it makes a claim about reanimation of dead bodies that is not “compatible with what we know of the natural world.”

40:00 Bancewicz cites Simon Conway Morris’s flawed argument that the evolution of humanoid creatures was inevitable (this, of course, is because we’re supposed to be made in the image of God). I analyze and refute Conway Morris’s argument in Faith versus Fact, for I don’t see the evolution of humanoid creatures (i.e., those creatures with high intelligence, language, and the ability to apprehend and worship God) as inevitable. But then Bancewicz reinterprets “in God’s image” as simply meaning “a gift,” which is incoherent.

47:15:  Bancewicz, a Christian who “follows Jesus,” defines “faith” as “taking the available evidence and putting it together in a way that makes an inference to the best explanation”, and says that this is precisely what science does. I wonder, then, why the “faith” of Muslims, Jews, Hindus and Christians all gives them different inferences to the best explanations. Why, for instance, do the first three faiths give data different from the conclusion that “Jesus is the son of God/God and is our sole route to Heaven”? One sign of the desperation of modern theists is their eagerness to redefine “faith” as something beyond “belief without evidence.” It’s a touchstone of Sophisticated Theology™ that they try to say that faith is something more than what the Bible says (Hebrews 11:1):

Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.

And, as we know, the Bible is infallible!

59:00: Bancewicz flirts with the argument that modern physics may be telling us that there’s Something Out There Beyond the Laws of Nature (i.e., God). In other words, she’s approaching Natural Theology.

1:03: Bancewicz asks Scott why pure naturalism is not a “bleak picture of the world.” Scott responds, correctly, that there is no evidence of the universe of having an “ultimate purpose”, but she herself has an individual purpose for her life. She says (shades of Steven Weinberg), “The universe is pointless; my life is not pointless.”

Conclusion: Scott doesn’t cozy up to religion as much as she used to, and I agree with her substantially on several points. But I wish her organization, the NCSE (which she still helps direct), would just deep-six all the religion stuff, and stop saying that religion is compatible with science, which, as we all recognize, is largely a tactical move to enlist believers in the cause of evolution-acceptance. But she still won’t admit what she really is: an atheist. Nor will she admit that atheism can be seen as a logical and philosophical conclusion of the scientific method. And it is really part of science, because science has discarded as useless the concept of a god or the supernatural, in the same way it’s discarded the paranormal.

As for Bancewicz, she’s a lost cause—so deeply steeped in faith that there is nothing that will make her admit that the correctness of Christianity and the reality of Jesus are the “scientific” conclusion of her “researches.”

Weekly reader’s beef

June 5, 2015 • 12:30 pm

I have several comments—or rather rants—from theists this week, but I’ll put up only one. Reader “heavymetalvomitparty” comments on “Crowdsourcing an answer for a young atheist“, a post in which I asked readers to answer the question of a young woman (13 years old) who asked for a school project, why people still believe in God and the Bible given the recent advances of science. “Heavymetalvomitparty” says I’m unqualified to answer that question because I haven’t studied enough philosophy and theology! My emphasis in his/her attempted comment:

Others likely believe “God exists” for the same reason that you believe “science has proved the fact that we don’t have souls”: namely, someone whom they trust told them so.

In almost all cases and circumstances, belief is adopted on the basis of trust and testimony: we believe whatever the people we think trustworthy tell us about the thing about which they’re trustworthy. This is perfectly rational, so long as we choose good people to trust.

And all that said, I’d encourage you (though I’m sure Mr Coyne won’t actually send my words your way) to not trust Mr Coyne and others like him when it comes to the subject of religion. He has not spent any serious degree of time studying theology, or philosophy, or really anything relevant to your question. If you want to understand what the word “God” means, ask theologians (or monks). If you want to understand why people believe “God” exists, ask philosophers of religions, psychologists, sociologists, and historians — don’t ask a evolutionary biologist who specializes in fruit-fly research.

From the looks of your letter, you’ve already been trusting people like Mr Coyne on these subjects. I’d encourage you to question some of the things you have been told you “know”: that religious people are either purely indoctrinated or purely fear-driven, that brains have been “proven” to create personalities, that scientific theories of origin are in any way relevant to the question of God’s existence, etc. These assumptions are common nowadays, but are promulgated only by people (e.g., Mr Coyne) who don’t know what they’re talking about and haven’t done their theological, philosophical, or even anthropological homework.

Several points. First, I didn’t even try to answer the young woman’s question, but threw it to the readers, knowing that many of them were former believers. Second, there are clearly many diverse answers—as reflected in the readers’ comments—about why people believe. Some are indoctrinated, others find solace in the afterlife, still others a sense of community, and these factors can work together. This is indisputable: all you have to do is ask believers.

Second, why is it only monks and theologians who are qualified to say what the word “God” means? What about what the word means to the regular believers, who make up the vast bulk of religionists? (Note the denigration of my qualifications by saying I do “fruit-fly research.”)

As for the claim that many religious people are purely indoctrinated (does this reader know about madrassas or Catholic schools?), that personalities don’t derive from brains (they do), and that scientific theories of origin are irrelevant to the question of God’s existence (ask the 40% of American who are creationists), the reader hasn’t done his/her own sociological homework. Get out of the seminary and monastery, heavymetalvomitparty, and see what people really believe!

Frankly, I’m tired of people claiming that those of us who have read considerable theology and philosophy, or were believers in our earlier lives, aren’t qualified to say anything about religion because we’re neither priests nor monks. One thing that we do have is evidence—the evidence that supports scientific contentions—and one thing that theists have is NO EVIDENCE: no evidence supporting the existence or nature of any god. That should be the end of the discussion.

I’m continually amazed at how believers are able to be so vehement in their attacks on atheists when, after all, we’re simply pointing out this lack of evidence. The more I see of theists, the more I see them as a group of scared people, clinging to a superstition that they see slipping away: a security blanket that is being removed by atheists and skeptics. And so they grow angry and dismissive, and attack the credentials of anyone who dares comment on God or religion.

Finally, as any fool knows, “trust” in science is not the same thing as “trust” in religious leaders or mentors. Every religious mentor has a different point of view, some completely at odds with those of others. Think of what an imam versus a rabbi or priest might say to someone who “trusts” them, and compare that to the similarity of responses when someone asks several trustworthy biologists what the genetic material is, and how it makes proteins.

Noms: Vij’s Indian restaurant in Vancouver

June 5, 2015 • 10:15 am

Last night, Larry Moran, biochemist at the University of Toronto and author of the biology/atheism website Sandwalk, was kind enough to take me, his son (who lives in Vancouver), and one of his old friends to dinner at Vij’s, which may well be Canada’s most famous Indian restaurant. It is immensely popular, and deservedly so, as the food, which is high-class Indian—with recipes devised largely by Vij, his wife, and the cooks—is superb.

They don’t take reservations, so people line up about half an hour before the restaurant opens (5:30 p.m.), and once it’s full the next group simply waits outside. We were fortunate enough to get there right before the restaurant opened, which usually means waiting an hour or more, but we managed to get in right away and secured the best table in the house, next to the window.

Here it is from the outside, with people waiting to get in.

Restayrabt

As you see below, Vij’s is a small, cozy and unpretentious place. After you’re seated, the waitstaff brings around gratis appetizers on trays. During the meal, hot naan and rice are provided ad lib, so one never runs out of bread. This is important to me, as I eat Indian food the way northern Indians do: without utensils and using pieces of bread to grasp and enfold the noms, as well as to sop up the luscious, savory sauce. The interior, full of happy diners:

Inside

We started off with glasses of a local IPA. Beer is the best accompaniment to Indian food, though if you must have wine I prefer an off-dry, fruity white like a Gewürztraminer or Riesling. I was struck by how the late sun slanting through the windows turned the beer into a kind of liquid gold:

Beer

Here’s Larry with one of the appetizers (menu here), eggplant in thick yogurt and garlic curry, served with deep-fried onions on top. You can see the gratis plates of naan which are brought frequently:

Larry and eggplant

The appetizer of the day, not listed on the menu: shrimp nestled in grilled red pepper with a spicy sauce. Superb:

Shrimp pepper

We each ordered one main dish and split them. This is braised beef shortribs with asparagus and a delicious sauce, with cardamom and ghee, that required many naans to sop up:

Short ribs

My choice: Rajasthani style spicy goat stew with vegetables:

Goat curry

Larry chose Vij’s most famous dish, a must-have. It’s called “Wine marinated lamb popsicles in fenugreek cream curry on turmeric and spinach potatoes.” It was ethereal. As you can see, the “popsicles” are separated chops from a rack of lamb.

Lamb popsicles

I was impressed by the colors in the sauce:

Lamb popsicle 2

This was a vegetable dish that was a daily special. I’m not sure exactly what was in it, but it was a combination of zucchini and other vegetables in a spicy sauce, with the “balls” resembling the idli, or lentil dumplings, of southern India. It was also great:

Veg

During dinner Vij himself came around, and we had a chat. I told him that I had been to India many times, and loved the food.  He lived mostly in northern India (and most of the food shown above is northern Indian style), and has had his restaurant for two decades. Larry photographed me with the Great Man, who later brought me extra chutney.

Vij and I

It was a spectacular dinner (reader Merilee, I believe, also suggested I visit this place), and Larry’s son goes here often. Thanks to Dr. Moran for hosting us! I doubt I’ll eat this well again on this visit to Canada.

Readers’ wildlife photographs

June 5, 2015 • 9:30 am

We will have truncated versions of the RWPs this week, as most of them are on my big computer in Chicago, and I will have plenty of pictures of Atheist Wildlife. But here are two I was just sent by Stephen Barnard from Idaho, as well as a Chicago sunset photo from me. Readers: do not beef that I have neglected d*gs!

Young Mule Deer (Odocoileus hemionus) buck, and a d*g (Deets, [Canis lupus familiaris]) hunting voles until he sees the camera pointed at him.

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And a recent sunrise in Chicago, photographed from my crib:

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Friday: Hili dialogue

June 5, 2015 • 8:49 am

I am up ungodly late for me: 6:15 a.m., but I deserve to sleep late on a conference/vacation. Also, I was stuffed with Indian food from last night (see next post). The meetings start today with afternoon registration, and then a talk at 2:30 by Vyckie Garrison, of “No Longer Quivering”. Garrison, who won the 2014 “Atheist of the year” award from the American Atheists, was once in the odious Quiverfull Movement of Christianity (viz., the Duggars) that aimed to turn women into subservient breeding stock. I saw her speak in Pittsburgh last year, and she was absolutely terrific; her story of that movement’s beliefs and aims was terrifying. She is an engrossing and passionate speaker, and now an outspoken atheist.

An hour later, Ian Mitchell, a physician in Kamloops and clinical assistant professor at the UBC Department of Emergency Medicine,  will speak on “Reefer Madness: How to go forward with evidenced-based drug policy”. After a dinner break, the UNHoly Trinity (Seth Andrews, Aaron Ra, and Matt Dillahunty, will do their joint “act”: all are podcasters, entertainers, and former fundamentalist Christians. Tomorrow and Sunday the meetings begin in the morning and last all day, but it is a pleasure to hear good speaking having a full hour to talk. (Tentative schedule here.) And the organizers always ensure plenty of time for chats and noms.

So that is how my day lines up, and I will provide photos and other information later. The weather is once again gorgeous, and although it’s early I can see a sunny and cloudless sky.

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, I see Hili is actually making some incursions into philosophy!* Don’t ask me to explain this; perhaps Malgorzata will in the comments!

Hili: I have a firm principle.
A: What principle is that?
Hili: Everything that moves has to be defined immediately.
A: So what is it?
Hili: It looks like Cyrus painted with a brush made of camel hair.

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In Polish:
Hili: Mam twardą zasadę.
Ja: Jaką?
Hili: Wszystko co się rusza musi być natychmiast zdefiniowane.
Ja: I co to jest?
Hili: Wygląda jak Cyrus malowany pędzlem z wielbłądziego włosia.
______
*Malgorzata writes this:
Hili is a proponent of alternate taxonomy taken from an ancient Chinese encyclopaedia and quoted by Jorge Luis Borges.