Hitchens on Bishop Long

September 30, 2010 • 9:19 pm

Hitchens is still turning out his weekly column for Slate.  The latest, “God’s bigmouths,” takes on the sorry spectacle of Bishop Eddie Long, using him as an example of mendacious black preachers.  And I swear, the column almost exactly duplicates the language and cadences of H. L. Mencken:

The easiest way to gain instant acceptance as a black “leader” these days is to shove the word Reverend in front of your name.

Or, if you are really greedy and ambitious, the word Bishop. Bishop Eddie Long of the New Birth Missionary Baptist Church in Georgia preaches that Bayard Rustin was a vile sinner who suffered from the curable “disease” of homosexuality. I have a rule of thumb for such clerics and have never known it to fail: Set your watch and sit back, and pretty soon they will be found sprawling lustily on the floor of the men’s room. It may be a bit early to claim the scalp of Eddie Long for this collection, but I doubt I shall have to withdraw . . .

The day can’t be far off when Long follows the traditional script and starts to yowl for prayer and repentance. And this would all be the greatest fun if it didn’t also involve the degradation of the King family and the steady erosion of the real memory of the civil rights movement, which is not safe when left in the keeping of God’s bigmouths and tree-shakers.

Is that Mencken-esque or not?

The dark side of Buddhism

September 30, 2010 • 2:44 pm

by Matthew Cobb

Buddhism seems such a nice religion – all about “spiritual development”, not hurting anyone, thinking about the higher things in life, and so on. This nice-guy uniqueness appears to be misplaced, however. Not only do all religions say they’re concerned with the next world rather than this (which doesn’t stop the Pope wearing Gucci, or Armani or whatever), Buddhism – like all religions – has its dark side.

Over at the Times Literary Supplement, this side of the Rupert Murdoch Times paywall, Katherine Wharton has a chilling review of a new book of essays about “Buddhist Warfare”, edited by Michael Jerryson and Mark Juergensmeyer. Like other religions – and of course, ideologies – Buddhism has justified “compassionate torture” (“burning of the remnants of the victim’s past sins”), killing, and even mass murder”

“When a soldier killed a man he earned the title of first-stage Bodhisattva (Buddha-to-be). The more he killed the more he went up the echelon towards sainthood . . . the insurgents were given an alcoholic drug that made them crazy to the extent that fathers and sons no longer recognized each other and didn’t think twice before killing each other; the only thing that mattered was killing.”

One of the writers, Brian Victoria, implicates D. T. Suzuki (1870–1966), “the most influential proponent of Zen to the West in the twentieth century”, in providing the justification for the slaughter of millions of Chinese during the Asia-Pacific war.

Another quotes the ninth-century Chinese monk Yi-hiuan, who urged his hearers:

“Kill everything you encounter, internally as well as externally! Kill the Buddha! Kill your father and mother! Kill your closest friends!”.

I am sure Buddhist readers will be shocked, and hasten to let us know that this is not a true representation of their beliefs. I should hope not. But it is true, is it not?

Michael K. Jerryson and Mark Juergensmeyer, editors
BUDDHIST WARFARE
257pp. Oxford University Press. Paperback, £18.99 (US $29.95).
978 0 19 539484 9

Oh, and as ever, this issue of the TLS has a fantastic cover:

New Scientist’s third way: neither science nor faith

September 30, 2010 • 8:14 am

I’m on a bus to Boston (the first internet-equipped bus I’ve ever ridden), so excuse the following post, written in haste.

There’s a form of accommodationism that, while attacking the deficiencies of both science and faith, tries to combine them in a wooly-minded nexus. That is what Templeton, for instance, is trying to do.  This week, on New Scientist’s “opinion” site, you find David Eagleman, a neuroscientist at Baylor College of Medicine, taking atheists to task for their lack of humility and the faithful for their lack of evidence.  He claims  to have found a superor third way that is neither fish nor fowl:  possibilianism.

So while there are plenty of good books by scientist-atheists, they sometimes under-emphasise the main lesson from science: that our knowledge is vastly outstripped by our ignorance. For me, a life in science prompts awe and exploration over dogmatism.

Let’s see—who are those book-writing scientist-atheists? Dawkins, surely, and Victor Stenger.  Perhaps Sam Harris as well.  It wasn’t my impression that these guys failed to concede our vast ignorance about the universe.

Given these considerations, I do not call myself an atheist. I don’t feel that I have enough data to firmly rule out other interesting possibilities. On the other hand, I do not subscribe to any religion. Traditional religious stories can be beautiful and often crystallise hard-won wisdom – but it is hardly a challenge to poke holes in them.

Those “interesting possibilities” would seem to be supernatural ones, since that’s what atheism has provisionally ruled out.   Yet Eagleman’s “possibilites” seem to fall within the purview of science:

So it seems we know too little to commit to strict atheism, and too much to commit to any religion. Given this, I am often surprised by the number of people who seem to possess total certainty about their position. I know a lot of atheists who seethe at the idea of religion, and religious followers who seethe at the idea of atheism – but neither group is bothering with more interesting ideas. They make their impassioned arguments as though the God versus no-God dichotomy were enough for a modern discussion.

What if we were planted here by aliens? What if there are civilisations in spatial dimensions seven through nine? What if we are nodes in a vast, cosmic, computational device? . . .

Consider the enormous “possibility space” of stories that can be dreamed up. Take the entirety of the Judeo-Christian-Islamic tradition as a single point in this possibility space. The eastern religions are another point. Strict atheism is another point. Now think of the immense landscape of the points in between. Many of these points will contain stories that are crazy, silly, or merely wildly improbable. But in the absence of data, they can’t be ruled out of that space.

This is why I call myself a “possibilian”. Possibilianism emphasises the active exploration of new, unconsidered notions. A possibilian is comfortable holding multiple ideas in mind and is not driven by the idea of fighting for a single, particular story. The key emphasis of possibilianism is to shine a flashlight around the possibility space. It is a plea not simply for open-mindedness, but for an active exploration of new ideas.

But doesn’t this sound just like science? Indeed, Eagletnan’s program seems to be one of scientific exploration:

Within the realm of what is addressable, we profitably apply logic to further knowledge. Possibilianism is “anything goes at first” – but we then use science to rule out parts of the possibility space, and often to rule in new parts.

And indeed, if we think we were put here by space aliens (presumably as a naked replicating molecule, since we already know we weren’t planted here as primates), we need to look for evidence for that.  If evidence is impossible to get, then we might as well dismiss the project, since no answers will be forthcoming.  But Eagleman plays down the fact that his “possibility” space includes a lot of supernatural assertions that are either falsified by science or incapable of scientific refutation because they’ve rendered themselves immune to disproof.  And those possibilities are outside his program.

Eagleman’s problem is that he doesn’t clearly distinguish his Third Way from science itself, so I’m not sure why he wrote this piece. Indeed, I’m not sure what he means.  In the end, his post seems to be a misguided way to empower supernaturalism and spiritualism—and appeal to their adherents—without saying so directly.

John Shook “clarifies”

September 29, 2010 • 4:46 pm

Over at his own CfI blog,  “It’s only natural,” John Shook, Director of Education and senior research fellow at the Center for Inquiry,  reacts to the new poll showing that atheists and agnostics know more about religion than many believers–and, by inference, deals with the brouhaha about his HuffPo article on the abysmal theological ignorance of atheists.  Actually, he doesn’t deal with that: he simply tells us that we really must understand theology and then pats atheists on the back for having done so (his piece is called “Atheist pride in understanding religion“).  It’s pretty lame, and doesn’t address the controversy aroused by his misguided remarks.

Atheists who have some comprehension of religion and how its ideological system works should rightfully be proud, as proud as atheists satisfied with knowing naturalism alone. And all atheists should be encouraged to put their knowledge to good use. Those atheists who want to publicly engage believers in civil discourse will admirably support the rational and naturalistic worldview, and probably open up more cracks of doubt in believers. There is no reason at all to just assume, as a few atheists do, that no intellectual engagement with religion is possible or worthwhile. As I repeatedly urge, atheists do have the superior worldview and our intellectual leadership from Richard Dawkins to Daniel Dennett and many more, too numerous to name, should be our role models. Recommending some familiarity with religious thinking is no treacherous betrayal, but wise counsel.

Atheists capable of guiding public discourse about religion, and capable of showing religious people a dignified and smart way to abandon religion’s delusions, are heroic figures in these dangerous times. We must use every strategy possible to confront religion. From the sparks of slashing debate to the smiles of pointed blasphemy, atheists can do it with our wits.

Okay, fine and noble sentiments.  But click the link supporting his claim that “no intellectual engagement with religion is possible.”  It doesn’t link, as you might expect, to any atheists who made that claim, but to his original HuffPo article. And that article, while flinging out strong accusations of theological ignorance, doesn’t name any perpetrators.

And he ascribes “intellectual leadership” to Richard Dawkins?  I would have thought that Dawkins was one of the theologically benighted who inspired Shook’s original post: one of the “know-nothings” who is “proud of their ignorance.”  After all, Shook said this: “To listen to the loudest atheists, you can hear the bewilderment. And they just can’t believe how a thing like religion could appeal to any intelligent person.”  Who, exactly, are these “loudest atheists”?  Who is louder than Dawkins–or Hitchens?  Dawkins is, of course, the atheist most often accused of not knowing “sophisticated” theology.

I have a feeling that Shook (like Phil Plait in his “don’t be a dick” talk) won’t be forthcoming with examples of prominent atheists who are know-nothings.  I read his new article as a retraction, but not really a retraction.  Mistakes were made, but not by Dr. Shook.

I challenge Shook to name names and give examples–and not examples of a few blog commenters who don’t know theology.  Until he does so, I have little respect for the man.

Is there life on Gliese 581g?

September 29, 2010 • 3:37 pm

by Matthew Cobb

A report in The Guardian describes the discovery of an apparently Earth-like planet in orbit around Gliese 581, a red dwarf star about 20 light years away. The key point is that Gliese 581g – as it has been romantically dubbed by the astronomers – is rocky (unlike the vast majority of exoplanets thus far discovered), it has sufficient gravity to potentially maintain an atmosphere and that it is in the “Goldilocks zone” – not so close to its sun that everything would fry, and not so far that everything would freeze.

That having been said, I don’t think we’ll be firing up the warp drive just yet to go and colonise it. Like our Moon, Gliese 581g keeps one face permanently to the sun, the other permanently facing the sidereal gloom. In other words, it would be extremely hot on one side, extremely cold on the other and just right only in a narrow band between the two.

Nevertheless, Steven Vogt, an astronomer at the University of California, Santa Cruz, is quoted as saying “Any emerging life forms would have a wide range of stable climates to choose from and to evolve around, depending on their longitude”. This seems to be jumping the gun somewhat, given they have – literally – only the slightest glimmer to go on. A more important point made by Vogt would seem to be this: “The fact that we were able to detect this planet so quickly and so nearby tells us that planets like this must be really common.”

Moar on Swinburne

September 28, 2010 • 8:57 am

Yesterday, philosopher John Schellenberg (yes, his name is revealed!) suggested that we read two philosophy books:  Richard Swinburne’s The Existence of God, and William P. Alston’s Perceiving God: The Epistemology of Religious Experience.

Over at EvolutionBlog, Jason Rosenhouse discusses his take on Swinburne’s The Existence of God.  (He has read it, by the way.)  Jason has a Ph.D. in mathematics with plenty of training in probability (see his book on the Monty Hall problem), so he’s well equipped to analyze what seems to be a Bayesian approach to proving God.  Jason’s verdict? Thumbs down:

I have read my share of Swinburne, however, including The Existence of God. I fear he had the opposite effect on me from what Coyne’s correspondent described. It is not anything I learned from the fundamentalists that has driven me to my generally negative opinion of theology and the philosophy of religion. It is people like Swinburne who did that.

This is an assessment of Swinburne’s work as a whole; go read the post for his comments on the book.  This seems to be the first of a series of posts that Jason will publish on Swinburne.

I’m still going to read The Existence of God, but judging by the comments of those who have already read it, I’m not expecting a slam-dunk proof of God.

Also note that Richard Dawkins has published, as a comment (# 56) on that thread, his Sunday Times review of a book by Swinburne.