Atheist-bashing roundup

December 29, 2013 • 11:22 am

‘Tis the Christmas season, which means that it’s time for atheists to lecture other atheists on how we should be softer on religion. One might call it “The War on Atheism.” The sad thing is that both sides in this fracas are atheists, with one telling the other that They’re Doing it Rong.

Over at the Guardian, columnist Suzanne Moore joins the trend with her piece “Why non-believers need rituals too” (subtitle: “To move many away from religion, atheism has to weave itself into the social fabric and shed its image of dour grumpiness”). The article was apparently written for New Humanist and then republished.

Needless to say, Moore is an atheist. And she makes the remarkably obtuse claim that atheists must adopt religious-like rituals to shed our public image as joyless automatons.

One of the problems I have with the New Atheism is that it fixates on ethics, ignoring aesthetics at its peril. It tends also towards atomisation, relying on abstracts such as “civic law” to conjure a collective experience. But I love ritual, because it is through ritual that we remake and strengthen our social bonds.

. . . When it came to making a ceremony, I really did not want the austerity of some humanist events I have attended, where I feel the sensual world is rejected. This is what I mean about aesthetics. Do we cede them to the religious and just look like a bunch of Calvinists? I found myself turning to flowers, flames and incense. Is there anything more beautiful than the offerings made all over the world, of tiny flames and blossom on leaves floating on water?

How many of you have participated in humanistic funerals or weddings? I know from readers’ comments that they are many.  The ceremonies I’ve attended include recitations, poems, songs, sundry celebration, and, of course, noms.  So much for austerity!

I agree with Moore that ceremonies and formal celebrations are inherent in humanity, for they help us mark the big transitions in our lives: marriage, birth, death, and special birthdays (the latter are not really transitions, but arbitrary points in time). Atheists do all these things in a secular way. On my 60th birthday, there was a lovely party, with tons of food, friends, and good wine, and I was given a lovely a book containing letters and comments from absent friends. Those absentees included Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins, and Steve Pinker—atheists who supposedly ignore “aesthetics.” Some Calvinists!

What we don’t need are weekly supplications to a divine being. And I, personally, don’t need no stinking incense. Further, something within me quails at the trend toward weekly secular services, including songs and recitations of Darwin. Do we really need those? Do any readers participate in atheist churches and actually think they’re useful? I suspect most of us would avoid them like the plague. To each their own, but Moore doesn’t speak for me.

And in her drive to decry the so-called “coldness” of atheism, Moore compares us to—wait for it—the faithful (my emphasis):

Already, I am revealing a kind of neo-paganism that hardcore rationalist will find unacceptable. But they find most human things unacceptable. For me, not believing in God does not mean one has to forgo poetry, magic, the chaos of ritual, the remaking of shared bonds. I fear ultra-orthodox atheism has come to resemble a rigid and patriarchal faith itself.

This is what the Germans call Wahnsinn. For those rigid and patriarchal faiths are precisely the ones that most rely on poetry, incense, wafers, candles, wine, and group prayer.  (You won’t find that stuff at a Quaker meeting.) What is more ritualistic than Eastern Orthodox ceremonies?

Once again we see an atheist decrying other atheists for being too much like believers, but in this case the accusation is ludicrous. And really, we forgo poetry and magic and bonding? What about Dawkins’s The Magic of Reality? I would bet that most of us know more poetry than the average believer. What we don’t do is believe poetry that peddles delusions.

. . . What, then, makes ceremony powerful? It is the recognition of common humanity; and it is very hard to do this without borrowing from traditional symbols. We need to create a space outside of everyday life to do this.

. . . In saying this I realise I am not a good atheist. Rather like mothering, perhaps I can only be a good enough one. But to move many away from religion, a viable atheism has to weave itself into the social fabric and shed this image of dour grumpiness. What can be richer than the celebration of our common humanity?

Frankly, I’m tired of people like Moore extrapolating from her own personal needs as an atheist to instruct the rest of us to be more like her.  I am happy to attend a secular wedding, and I don’t need candles or incense. Being with friends who are joining in matrimony is sufficient. Yes, humans need ceremonies, but do we really need to borrow their elements from religion?

As for the “dour grumpiness” of atheists, that is a fiction concocted by the religious and perpetuated by faitheists like Moore. In fact, some atheists go out of our way to assure others that we’re really a happy and well-adjusted group (think “The Friendly Atheist”). I find that a bit unseemly. Let others learn on their own that we are generally a well-adjusted and amiable group, attuned even more keenly to the pleasures of life because we know that this life is all we have. Do we really have to add, “Look, I’m a normal person”?

So, Ms. Moore, by all means enjoy your floating flowers and incense, but don’t try to tell the rest of us what we need. As for trying to convince the faithful that we’re not a bunch of miserable nihilists, I find such activity beneath us. Let us first convince the faithful that they’re wasting their lives in pursuit of a delusion, and perhaps then they will accept us as fully human.

***

Over at The Daily Beast, writer Michael Schulson—apparently a nonbeliever—condemns Peter Boghossian’s new book, A Manual for Creating Atheists, for being just as dogmatic as fundamentalist Christianity (is this refrain becoming familiar?). A few snippets:

The loose ensemble known as the “New Atheists” have always had a weirdly evangelical streak, with their emphasis on faith as the essence of religious practice, and with their implication that the entire world would be better off if everyone would start thinking exactly as they do.

What a boring place the world would be if everyone thought alike! Without arguments, there would be no way to approach the truth. But the arguments must be rational ones. Still, I think the entire world would be better if nobody based their opinions on unevidenced and transcendent beings. Evangelicals, on the other hand, believe precisely the opposite.

. . . But Boghossian is hardly an isolated voice. His book has endorsements from a number of prominent atheists, including Shermer, Richard Dawkins, and the University of Chicago biology professor Jerry Coyne. “Since atheism is truly Good News, it should not be hidden under a bushel,” writes Dan Barker, co-president of the Freedom From Religion Foundation, in his endorsement of Boghossian’s book. For this small but high-profile representatives of activist atheism, the word of no God is a new gospel—one that’s eager to condemn those who don’t embrace its message.

I am glad to find myself in good company!  Once again we have an invidious comparison between New Atheism and religious gospel.  Thick-headed writers like Schulson, however, simply can’t fathom that being passionate about reason is different from being dogmatic about delusion. They think that using the word “gospel” is sufficient to dismiss atheism. Deeply subtle questions like “what are they trying to say?” and “what is the evidence?” escape people like Schulson. For him, and other lazy atheist-bashers, it’s always about tone.

. . .As a result, we can see in the writing of Dawkins and Sam Harris, and certainly in A Manual for Creating Atheists, a disdain for the whole idea of a pluralistic society—a disdain, tellingly, that they share with conservative evangelicals.

Yes, I happen to think, along with other atheists, that the world would be better off if religion were gone, or at least those theistic religions that can’t keep their beliefs to themselves, but want to impose them on the rest of us through law and morality. As for pluralism of culture, food, politics, and so on—bring it on!. But I have no respect for pluralism of beliefs if that includes irrational belief.

. . . Movements don’t radicalize when they start having crazy ideas. Movements radicalize when their members become unable to have ordinary interactions with people different from themselves. We need strong, persuasive secular voices, who can explain the power and advantages of non-belief, and draw intelligent comparisons between their own ways of seeing the world and the ways of faith.

As far as I know, Dawkins and others have plenty of ordinary interactions with people different from themselves. Didn’t Richard have regular discourse with the Archbishop of Canterbury, for crying out loud? And New Atheists regularly reach others—not only the choir but the faithful and the doubters—through their writings.  In fact, unlike Schulson, the New Atheists are strong secular voices, and have been enormously successful. That’s why they’re so often attacked by either believers or jealous unbelievers like R. Joseph Hoffmann.

****

In another festive pieces of atheist-bashing (read this one only if your digestion is quite sound), the website Catholic Stand is asking “Is atheist Richard Dawkins being sufficiently responsible in his statements?” (The answer, of course, is “no.”) He calls Richard “Dawk,” which should tell you all you need to know.

Poland I: I have landed

December 29, 2013 • 7:55 am

It was a grueling trip to Poland: the flight was delayed, long, and there were lengthy waits for the bathroom (I conclude that Poles micturate more often than do other nationalities). Further, over the Atlantic some woman began screaming in the rear of the plane. I couldn’t see what was happening, but the blood-curdling screams went on for half an hour before they stopped.  When we landed in Warsaw, there were further delays as medics came aboard and removed someone on a stretcher before we were allowed to disembark. I don’t know if it was that woman, or if someone else was ill or had even died.

Though it was 2 p.m. when we landed, the sun was barely over the horizon; I had forgotten how far north we are (Chicago is 42° north, Warsaw 52°).  I was greeted by biology student and aspiring journalist Justyna, a protegée of Andrzej and Malgorzata. She was wearing a festive holiday hat and sporting a brand-new tattoo:

Justyna

Yes, it’s a Darwin fish:

Tattoo

Justyna kindly escorted me to the station, where I got a bus to Płock (2 hours), followed by a 40-minute drive to Dobrzyn with my hosts Andrzej and Malgorzata.

At last I was ensconced at my adoptive home, and greeted with a stupendous meal of beef, potatoes, and salad, washed down with a fine Chianti (no fava beans). I was not permitted to photograph the meal as it wasn’t deemed sufficiently aesthetic, but these restrictions were lifted for dessert.

To be precise, six desserts. Clockwise from lower center, they are makowiec, an iced poppy-seed cake (a Polish specialty), sernik, toffee-covered cheesecake (a stupendous treat), both from bakeries, and then two cakes made by Malgorzata: keks (Swedish fruitcake) and miodownik (honey cake), babka, a yeast cake, and ciastka, Polish cookies.  In the background you can see Hili, who is, as one reader described, “filling out nicely.” I, too, will fill out nicely if I continue to eat desserts like these:

Desserts

Hili, was of course in attendance, and nommed a can of gourmet cat food I brought her from the States. She looks well pleased.

Hili

A welcome sight at bedtime. Sadly, the editor-in-chief hasn’t yet deigned to sleep with me, but perhaps I can lure her into the sack with some noms.

Bedtime

Finally, we are all back at work this morning, the routine we will keep up until I leave.

working

A preprandial walk to the river. Hili tagged along (she needs the exercise), as did Emma the d*g (not shown).

Walk

Hili points out a flock of cormorants over the Vistula. She wishes she had wings—or that the cormorants were flightless. 

Cormorants

Animal camouflage: can you spot the cat? (The white markings are maladaptive.)

Hidden

Islamic radicals kill more polio workers

December 29, 2013 • 5:42 am

One of the most pernicious effects of religion is the opposition of some faiths to modern health care. I’ve posted on this frequently, especially about American religious sects which prohibit health care, vaccination, and blood transfusions for children, children who have no ability to make medical choices. As a result, many of those children have died. Although these faiths might be considered “extreme,” the rest of us have made the laws that exempt their adherents from the necessity to take proper care of their children.

Even more horrible is the tendency of militant Muslims, particularly the Taliban, to murder those who are trying to vaccinate children against polio. This is happening in Pakistan, Afghanistan, and parts of Africa. It’s not just the shots, either—oral polio vaccines are considered just as un-Islamic.

The Guardian, the New York Times, and Jihad Watch report that another five vaccination workers—all Pakistanis—were killed in the last two weeks. As the Guardian notes:

Five female health workers vaccinating children against polio have been shot dead in Pakistan in a series of attacks blamed on Islamist militants. One victim was a 17-year-old schoolgirl volunteer.

Four of the killings, which officials said were carried out by masked men on motorbikes, took place in the southern city of Karachi, Pakistan’s commercial capital, on the second day of a drive to eradicate the disease from the country.

The fifth, of the schoolgirl, occurred in the violent western city of Peshawar. According to some reports, a sixth health worker, a man, was also killed in Karachi.

It was not clear who was behind the shootings, but Taliban insurgents have repeatedly denounced the anti-polio campaign as a western plot.

The anti-Islamophobes can thus blame this on colonialism, but that’s a stretch, for anti-Westernism is a characteristic of Islamism (read The Looming Tower by Lawrence Wright). And if that’s not enough, there are more explicit religious motivations for Islamic anti-vaxers. (By the way, midwives have also been killed.) As Jihad Watch notes:

The Times says that the Taliban “accuses the United States of using a drive to eradicate polio in the country as a cover for spying,” but that isn’t the only reason why they’re murdering polio workers. A Pakistani Muslim cleric has said that polio vaccinations are un-Islamic. And such “extremist” clerics are not just in Pakistan: in Nigeria, a Muslim cleric was arrested for playing a role in sparking the murders of polio workers.

From USA Today:

In Pakistan’s Northwest territories, where Taliban clerics have significant influence, polio vaccination teams are maligned as un-Islamic or Western purveyors of poison meant to sterilize Muslim women.

Without this Muslim opposition, the world was poised to eradicate polio from the planet, just as we have eradicated smallpox.

The Guardian adds:

Statistics released in October showed an improvement in the polio situation in Pakistan, with 47 children paralysed by the disease in 27 districts compared with 154 cases in 48 districts in 2011. However, in 2005 only 28 new cases were registered.

Just ponder what it’s like to be a paralyzed child.  When I was young, and polio vaccines were new,  we were often frightened by pictures of afflicted children confined in iron lungs. Only  47 paralyzed children may be an “improvement,” but those are 47 lives severely and unnecessarily damaged. And since polio is transmitted only between humans, the diseased are a reservoir to keep the virus alive,  leading to a serious danger of outbreaks in the Middle East.

Science jokes

December 29, 2013 • 2:30 am

by Matthew Cobb

It’s Sunday all over the world and many of us are not at work. So here are some rib-ticklers to ease your way towards Monday. Today’s edition of The Observer (the world’s longest-running Sunday newspaper, now basically the Sunday edition of The Guardian) has a long feature in which scientists are invited to tell their jokes. Some of them are quite droll, and there’s a long comments section on the website in which readers have chipped in with their own.

The jokes are generally a mixture of the overly-complicated and downright awful puns, but which still might raise a smile. Among my favourites are:

• What does the ‘B’ in Benoit B Mandelbrot stand for? Benoit B Mandelbrot. (Adam Rutherford)

• Psychiatrist to patient: “Don’t worry. You’re not deluded. You only think you are.” (Uta Frith)

• Three logicians walk into a bar. The bartender says “Do you all want something to drink?”
The first logician says “I don’t know.”
The second logician says “I don’t know.”
The third logician says “Yes.” (reader mbooth)

• I have CDO, it’s the exact same as OCD, except the letters are ordered alphabetically. (reader FelixDK)

• Q: Why was 6 scared of 7?  A: Because 7 8 9. (reader RealDealBillMcNeill)

• Two friends go on a safari. They are attacked by a lion. One of the guys kneels down and starts putting on this Nikes. His friend asks: “What?! You think you can outrun a lion with those?” The other replies: “No, I only have to outrun you.” (reader ShimaSol)

• When I heard that Oxygen and Magnesium had hooked up, I was like “OMg!”(reader mc1ronny)

In the comments there are also a number of variants on a Heisenberg joke. Now at the risk of falling into reader theDavibob’s trap (“Explaining a joke is like dissecting a frog. You understand it better, but the frog dies.”), which of these versions is the best, and why?

1) Police officer: excuse Mr Heisenberg, do you know what speed you were doing? Hesienberg: No. But I know where I am.

2) Werner Heisenberg was stopped by the police for speeding. The policeman asked Heisenberg if he knew how fast he was going. “No,” says Heisenburg, “but I do know exactly where I was.”

3) Heisenberg and Schrödinger are out for a drive when they get stopped by the police. The policeman asks Heisenberg “Sir, do you know how fast you were going?” and Heisenberg says “No, but I know where I am!”. Confused, the officer says “Sir, you were doing 80 mph”, and Heisenberg throws his hands in the air and huffs “Great, now I don’t know where I am anymore!”. The policeman thinks something is going on, and orders the pair out of the car so that he can search it for contraband. He looks under the seats, in the glove compartment, in the back, and then walks around the car and opens the boot. He stares into it for a moment, turns to Schrödinger and says “Sir, did you know there’s a dead cat in here?!”, so Schrödinger rolls his eyes and snorts “Yeah, we do now!”.

Now post your own favourite science joke!

Christian reader: the Bible predicts black holes

December 28, 2013 • 2:03 pm

Oh dear; I have received another bizarre email from a Christian. Since I’m too tired to think, I’ll just put it up for your delectation. It’s in reference to the plaque from a donor of the Los Angeles County Natural History Museum that referred to animals as “creatures of God.” Some of us found that unseemly in a publicly-run museum, made a bit of a fuss, and the plaque was removed. This, of course, peeved the faithful, one of whom wrote me.

Dear Mr. Coyne:

As a Christian, I find it interesting that a person in Chicago would care about a plaque in Los Angeles.  However, that is your right, just as it is your right to NOT believe in God.  I fully support that right and you will probably hold that belief until you die.  I pray you don’t, but probably will.  It is at the time of death that you will no longer be an atheist as you will get the chance to meet God.  You see, God doesn’t believe in atheists!

You made the comment in the article I read that “… I needn’t remind you that science is done by ignoring God, and has never given the slightest bit of evidence for the intercession of God in the origin, evolution, and diversification of life.”  I find that very strange since science is continually proving the Bible to be true!

Do some research.  I challenge you to read Job 26:7.  Scientists have since CONFIRMED there are Black Holes in space.

Thank you for taking the time to read my message.

God bless you.

[Name redacted]
Indianapolis, Indiana

I accepted the reader’s challenge and read Job 26:7. Here it is in context from the King James Bible (I put verse 7 in bold):

5 “The dead tremble,
Those under the waters and those inhabiting them.
6 Sheol is naked before Him,
And Destruction has no covering.
7 He stretches out the north over empty space;
He hangs the earth on nothing.
8 He binds up the water in His thick clouds,
Yet the clouds are not broken under it.
9 He covers the face of His throne,
And spreads His cloud over it.

One would think, if that verse supposedly describes black holes, that a). God would be a bit more explicit, and b). The reader would do a bit of research on what black holes actually are, and how the Earth can’t possibly be construed to hang on one.

Muslims who are accommodationists—yes, there are some—also find such specious correspondences between verses in the Qur’an and the discoveries of modern science. You can see a particularly amusing collection here.

Saturday: Hili dialogue

December 28, 2013 • 1:01 pm

I have made it to Poland after a long and exhausting trip.

The good news is that the weather is great (50 F and sunny) and I’m with my good friends, These include Malgorzata, Andrzej, and their boss, the editor-in-chief, who is showing a decidedly domineering attitude towards her staff:

Hili: This should be moved further down.
A: Hili, you are disturbing me.
Hili: On the contrary, I’m inspiring you.

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In Polish:
Hili: Trzeba to przesunąć na dalszą pozycję.
Ja: Hili, przeszkadzasz.
Hili: Przeciwnie, inspiruję.