Tonight’s Silent Witness is doing its bit for a sensical worldview. The editors of a philosophy magazine fell out over differing religious opinions; one a Christian who writes articles about the astonishing philosophical impact of the resurrection, the other an atheist who writes articles saying that the universe is indifferent to us all. Christian guy turns up dead, and the pathologists figure it must be the atheist because in an indifferent universe why should he adhere to any kind of moral values? They’re right - we’ve seen the guy committing at least one murder. The female pathologist is having something of a religious awakening and keeps coming out with pithy comments about the interconnectedness of things etc.

It’s pretty awful. I keep expecting Judge John Deed to turn up. For an attitude that’s so utterly stupid ‘atheists have no morality’ does turn up with amazing frequency.

40mins left. Can’t decide whether the rest of the show will be about pinning the murders on the guy, or there’ll be another twist…

Update: there was a slight twist. Evil Atheist was being manipulated by Psycho Atheist, who was secretly desperate to check there wasn’t anything in the afterlife. His final explanation backed up earlier hints that he was also trying to do something completely random to confuse people obsessed with reason, since there’s really no such thing. So he was more of a Psycho Postmodernist. That makes much more sense - postmodernists really are crazy people
Update 2: A couple of reactions from the BBC website:

“I feel like not watching this series any more, after the offensive Christian propaganda masquerading (crudely) as drama that we were presented with in this episode. Frankly I am amazed that this script was approved by the BBC, with its grotesque caricatures of bloodythirsty killer atheists (including the absurd remark that they ‘believe in nothing’) and the clunking message throughout that all good guys - even scientists - are open to the message of Christianity. It even ended with a Mary Magdalene and Jesus tableau at the hospital bed, just in case we hadn’t got the message. Imagine the uproar if it had been written the other way round, with the bad guys as Christians - something tells me that would NOT have made it to production. The dialogue was laughable throughout, and the plot was full of holes and non sequiturs. It was a sorry departure from the usual high standards of this series. Don’t make this mistake again - stick to decent writers with no agenda.”
Gary King, Heathfield, East Sussex

“At last! A crime drama that didn’t portray religious people as either fanatics, psychopaths, terrorists or lily-livered weaklings who need a crutch to survive. Well done BBC for swinging the balance back where it belongs. The villians were pathological nihilists who were just the right side of cartoonish and managed to show where the logic of such an extreme belief system will lead. The dead Christians demonstrated how belief in an afterlife brings great comfort to the dying, and the glorious irony of seeing one of the nihilist killers trapped by a fingerprint on an icon of Jesus was extremely clever. This is by far the best Silent Witness yet. Any chance the BBC could break the ‘no repeats’ rule and show it again?”
Paul Downie, Hamilton, Scotland

US comedian George Carlin’s Invisible Man in the Sky routine.

Made me laugh

Just when I was starting to think it was just me, I find, via Norm, that Butterflies and Wheels also disagreed with norm’s earlier comment about seeing only the bad in religion. B&W disagreed with him, he countered their arguments, and they’ve just replied. I’ve read through the arguments and, although I still think that Norm misrepresents what’s being said, I’ve discovered some viewpoints I hadn’t considered before.

While most reasonable people agree that creationism / intelligent design are dangerous and backwards ideas, there are far fewer who are willing to debate religion itself - the attitude of ‘you mustn’t criticise other people’s beliefs’ is overwhelmingly prevalent, and I know many people who frown whenever I do. If we were discussing politics there wouldn’t be an issue, but religion still holds this elevated position in society - it’s rude to question ‘beliefs’, and that’s the end of it. It’s not whether you agree or disagree, it’s that you shouldn’t bring it up in the first place.

It is nice to discover that other people feel the same way. I know it shouldn’t matter, but unfortunately I pay more attention to how many people agree with me than I should.

I tried to let this go, but it’s been gnawing at me all evening. Norm, in my opinion one of the clearest writers on the net, today linked in full agreement to the following paragraph:

So why can Professor Dawkins only see the bad in religion? Why is he incapable of making an objective, “scientific”, study of it, in all its diversity? Why is he unable to make distinctions between the many different forms of religious belief? I do not know the answer to these questions, but I do know this apostle of reason, when confronted with the word “faith”, suddenly becomes irrational, careless of truth, incapable of scholarly analysis. I really think it must be some sort of virus, and I wish my colleague a speedy recovery.

It’s from a theologian’s response to The Root of All Evil shows from the past couple of weeks. The rest of the article is your standard misunderstanding and illogical argument, and I think the above is, too. The above is the response I see most often, and it’s regularly put forward by people whose views I strongly agree with on other matters. I can’t help thinking that they’re missing the point, though.

It’s not that Dawkins sees only the bad in religion, it’s that the good is entirely indistinguishable from the bad. When religious texts are just as full of hate and barbarism as they are tolerance and peace, and the whole thing is on a foundation of no evidence, how are you going to tell some people that their behaviour is wrong, while simultaneously telling others that their behaviour is correct? Both good and bad come from the same doctrine, it’s just that the interpretations differ. That is the argument that religion overall is harmful.¹ It’s not being blinded to the good parts and only taking notice of the extremists, it’s pointing to the logically inconsistent nature of the whole institution.

The next argument would be that those who simply believe in a deity without subscribing to any particular religion are doing no harm, and that’s where the argument about stifling rational thought comes in. I’ve covered that already, and there’s no need to repeat it.

I’m not simply following Richard Dawkins wherever he leads, it’s that I’ve yet to see anybody counter the above argument. I think it’s possible that the above is too idealist for the world we actually live in, and that’s what Norm etc. mean when they object. I’ve seen neither Dawkins nor anybody else make any serious proposals for actually solving the problem, but I see no issue with pointing out the logical inconsistency.

It seems morally decent to stand up for those religious folk who do good deeds, but I don’t think it’s logically consistent to accept and encourage them, while saying extremism is clearly wrong. The challenge is to extract the good from religion and put it forward as a way of living with a decent moral foundation, and not something that just relies on the word of nonexistent deities.

1. edit: re-reading a day later, this isn’t quite what I meant [↩]

The conclusion to Richard Dawkins’ Channel 4 documentary ‘The Root of all evil?’ was shown tonight. Apparently Dawkins dislikes the title, and it’s certainly a misnomer. He himself quoted Nobel Laureate Steven Weinberg:

Religion is an insult to human dignity. With or without it, you’d have good people doing good things and evil people doing bad things, but for good people to do bad things, it takes religion.

The argument is certainly that religion is a major negative factor in the world’s problems, but not that it’s the sole cause.

In the last week I’ve been engaged in various discussions, both on this blog and others, about religion and the flaws in Dawkins’ arguments. Although I disagreed with most critiques, I tried to watch the show with these in mind. I felt that the two shows needed to be seen together - the first was an out-and-out attack on religion, with the second explaining more about why regular religion is dangerous, not just the extremists, and clarifying that it’s entirely understandable why religious beliefs prevail in a psychological sense.

Tonight’s show had more that was new to me than last week’s. I hadn’t heard of the disturbing Hell Houses, or the Accelerated Christian Education program in which children are isolated and given science textbooks with references to Noah’s Ark. I thought Dawkins did a good job of explaining why these fairly extreme examples were the natural extension of the more normal moderate beliefs, particularly when he tried to question how moderate believers justified picking and choosing the parts of scripture they liked.

The only part I’d have changed was the section on morality. While the point was to provide an evolutionary explanation for why we behave in a moral fashion, I think it could be easily confused with a morality drawn from science, which I don’t think is possible. Science and morality are in different spheres, and it’s hard to imagine how they could ever link. I personally work from the principles of ‘the greater good’ and ‘treat people as you’d like to be treated’, and from that I think that decent methods of behaviour can be drawn. The conclusions often cross over with religious ideas, but without the messy problem of contradictory scripture. But that’s brancing into secular humanism, which is a whole other topic
At one point Dawkins politely, but directly, asked a rabbi how the ‘faith school’ could justify teaching that the Earth is only 5000 years old, an idea shown to be incorrect by every branch of science. And it’s then that you can see through the bluster and the rhetoric and realise that the rabbi simply has no answer. And that’s exactly the point. How can that be justified? And why is it acceptable to the majority of the population?

It also touched on the idea of religion as a meme. I find that an absolutely fascinating idea, because it’s entirely logical and anybody can do it as a thought experiment. If you wanted to create an idea, or a thought, that although false would never die out, what properties would it have? It could require that you spread it as widely as possible, it could make a virtue of mystery, etc. etc. Once you’re done you look at the results and the parallels with religion are obvious. That’s just coincidence? Unfortunately the program couldn’t go into much detail, but it’s great to see it getting some exposure on national tv.

Overall, I think the two shows were an excellent introduction to the idea of religion as both dangerous and flawed. If nothing else, it has hopefully started many people thinking and debating, and that can’t hurt.

If you missed the Dawkins show the other night, a video clip of one of the most memorable moments can be found here.

Dawkins is interviewing Ted Haggard, one of the foremost US christian fundamentalists, and gets an earful of abuse when he deigns to suggest that Haggard may not be fully aware of the facts. Partial transcription:

Ted Haggard: Sometimes it’s hard for a human being to study the ear or study the eye and think that happened by accident.

Dawkins: I beg your pardon, did you say “by accident”?

Haggard: Yeah.

Dawkins: What do you mean “by accident”?

Haggard: That the eye just formed itself somehow.

Dawkins: Who says it did?

Haggard: Well, some evolutionists say it.

Dawkins: Not a single one that I’ve ever met.

Haggard: Really?

Dawkins: Really.

Haggard: Ohh.

Dawkins: You obviously know nothing about evolution.

Haggard: Or maybe you haven’t met the people I have.

Cue tirade. It really has to be seen to be believed.

There’s a massive amount of hypocrisy in there¹, but in the end that’s irrelevant. There are so many offensive things about Haggard’s comments that it’s hard to know where to start. He accuses the entire scientific community of arrogance for drawing tentative conclusions from evidence, and that drives me up the wall…I won’t continue as it’ll just wind me up. Others have covered it in greater detail.

As somebody on the J-walk comments said:

Sometimes it’s hard to look at a christian fundamentalist and think he/she became that way by intelligent design.

Puts the mental into fundamentalist, too. I’d also like to specifically point out the reaction of Fay Weldon, a woman who seems to get crazier and crazier with passing sentence, yet still garners a weird amount of respect in the UK media. She was on Radio 4, discussing the program:

Tom Sutcliffe - he was the only sensible one there - pointed out, ‘His specific point in the first programme is that faith is the problem - the belief in things without as it were physical or substantial evidence is the central problem.’ Then Weldon, outraged, says, ‘Well it’s outrageous, what is he going to put in its place, science?’ ‘Yes!’ says Sutcliffe, slightly exasperated. Weldon is flummoxed. ‘He’s going to look at the stars and say - ‘ [laughs] ‘I mean how is he going to explain them away?’

Quote from here. But, you know, maybe Haggard’s got a point. We should really do something about all these saltationist scientists who think the eye just spontaneously evolved. They’re just everywhere.

1. can’t resist pointing out that Haggard then had Dawkins thrown off his property for “calling the congregation animals” - preusumably referring to evolutionary theory. Given that we, cows and peas have a common ancestor, in a sense the entire congregation are like vegetables… [↩]

I generally ignore blog posts I strongly disagree with, but when norm links to one and thereby lends it some credibility I feel it’s fair to point out the various problems. Tonight’s The Root of All Evil? is bringing the snipers out from the woodwork, and it’s entertaining to listen to them. Richard Dawkins is an easy target because of his strong views, and it’s easy to snipe from the sidelines by claiming that his arguments are “obviously” wrong. It’s easy to mistake passion and dedication for arrogance, and it’s surprisingly common even within the atheist community. In this case the author goes on the attack, but analysing the arguments rather than summarising them falsely would be a far more effective tactic if the aim is actually to change people’s minds.

Regular readers will know that I’m a big fan of Dawkins, but only because I’ve thought about his arguments and decided I agree. Because I’ve agreed with previous arguments I’m more inclined to listen and actively seek out any new thoughts, but I don’t just accept them because he said them.

Now, taking issue with either Dawkins or Bunting on the subject of religion is a bit like shooting fish in a barrel because with both of them, their propensity to pontificate about the subject is in inverse proportion to their knowledge of the subject

If you’ve read Dawkins you’ll know how much knowledge he actually has of religious method, instruction and history. I don’t understand this statement; to me it seems rather bitter. There isn’t any evidence to back it up. What follows is:

Does one really have to deconstruct his stupid and really quite vicious argument that parents who bring their children up as believers are guilty of child-abuse? Or his ridiculous idea that theology departments in universities should be closed-down because they’re devoted to the study of something that doesn’t exist? She writes that, “a misanthropy is increasingly evident in Dawkins’s anti-religious polemic and among his many admirers” and I find myself thinking she’s on to something here. I cringe when I hear people describe religious belief, and believers, as stupid. The majority of the human race, both now and in the past, have believed in a deity or deities; I’d confine myself to the observation that, in my experience anyway, those who consider themselves on account of their atheism to be intellectually superior to the majority of the human race really ought to take a more sober estimate of their abilities - to say no more than that.

There are a large mixture of bizarre statements and untruths in here, so I’ll take them in turn:

• The child-abuse allegation is summed up by a Dawkins article from a 1997 edition of Humanist magazine:
  

  Which brings me to my point about mental child abuse. In a 1995 issue of the Independent, one of London’s leading newspapers, there was a photograph of a rather sweet and touching scene. It was Christmas time, and the picture showed three children dressed up as the three wise men for a nativity play. The accompanying story described one child as a Muslim, one as a Hindu, and one as a Christian. The supposedly sweet and touching point of the story was that they were all taking part in this Nativity play.

  What is not sweet and touching is that these children were all four years old. How can you possibly describe a child of four as a Muslim or a Christian or a Hindu or a Jew? Would you talk about a four-year-old economic monetarist? Would you talk about a four-year-old neo-isolationist or a four-year-old liberal Republican? There are opinions about the cosmos and the world that children, once grown, will presumably be in a position to evaluate for themselves. Religion is the one field in our culture about which it is absolutely accepted, without question — without even noticing how bizarre it is — that parents have a total and absolute say in what their children are going to be, how their children are going to be raised, what opinions their children are going to have about the cosmos, about life, about existence. Do you see what I mean about mental child abuse?

  How is this ’stupid and really quite vicious’? I don’t see that this is clear-cut. It’s different from the normal associations of child abuse, but I think the point stands. When we hear of suicide bombers brainwashed by fanatics we know that they’ve been taken advantage of, used and duped. How come it’s ok to do this to children who don’t know any better? Because it’s the norm? Is it ok to forcing children to think what you think? It comes down to the definition of ‘child-abuse’. I’m not making a statement about whether this does or doesn’t fit the definition, but it’s not so obvious as the claim suggests.

• The closing down of theology departments. Hmmm, not sure about this. I can’t find any Dawkins quotes calling for this, and indeed it wouldn’t appear to be something he’d say. I guess the claim comes from writings like this:
  

  What has theology ever said that is of the smallest use to anybody? When has theology ever said anything that is demonstrably true and is not obvious? I have listened to theologians, read them, debated against them. I have never heard any of them ever say anything of the smallest use, anything that was not either platitudinously obvious or downright false. If all the achievements of scientists were wiped out tomorrow, there would be no doctors but witch doctors, no transport faster than horses, no computers, no printed books, no agriculture beyond subsistence peasant farming. If all the achievements of theologians were wiped out tomorrow, would anyone notice the smallest difference? Even the bad achievements of scientists, the bombs, and sonar-guided whaling vessels work! The achievements of theologians don’t do anything, don’t affect anything, don’t mean anything. What makes anyone think that “theology” is a subject at all?

  If you look up the word ‘theology‘ there are various definitions. Is Dawkins talking about the “course of specialized religious study usually at a college or seminary” or “The study of the nature of God and religious truth; rational inquiry into religious questions.” Given his other writings, I’d almost certainly say it’s the former. To me he makes a valid point, and there would certainly be an argument for educational establishments not offering courses in religious doctrine (if such things even exist). Like I said, I can’t find anything relating directly to the closing down of specific courses, and I’m happy to be proven wrong.

• Cringing at people calling believers stupid. Yep, with you on that one. But, again, I can’t find any evidence of Dawkins doing this. The idea probably comes from strong statements like this:
  

  To claim equal time for creation science in biology classes is about as sensible as to claim equal time for the flat-earth theory in astronomy classes. Or, as someone has pointed out, you might as well claim equal time in sex education classes for the stork theory. It is absolutely safe to say that if you meet somebody who claims not to believe in evolution, that person is ignorant, stupid or insane (or wicked, but I’d rather not consider that).

  That’s not saying that believers are stupid, that’s saying that people who actively claim not to believe in evolution are either lacking in knowledge of the facts, unable to think clearly, or lack the intelligence to comprehend the facts. This isn’t referring to people who don’t know what to think, this is actively
  not believing. It’s not a passive thing. Given the overwhelming evidence for evolution, his point stands. Evolution is entirely independent from the idea of a deity, anyway. It’s entirely possible to acknowledge the incredible likelihood that evolution is a fact while still believing in a deity. No reasonable atheist / secular humanist would ever call believers ’stupid’, as there are extremely large factors that could prevent people from gaining access to what we see as the truth.

  Dawkins expresses very strong views very succinctly, but care must be taken not to read more into them than is actually there.

• “The majority of the human race, both now and in the past, have believed in a deity or deities; those who consider themselves on account of their atheism to be intellectually superior to the majority of the human race really ought to take a more sober estimate of their abilities”. This is a tricky one, and depends on your definition of ‘intellectually superior’.

  If I know more about photography, say, than a friend, do I consider myself ‘intellectually superior’? If you confine it to knowledge of photography, yes. By this I mean that it’s a fact that I know more. I take satisfaction in my knowledge, but not in that I have more of it than somebody else. That would make no sense. The statement seems to imply smugness, moral superiority and looking-down-upon those who know less, and I don’t see that in Dawkins’ writings, although admittedly it’s a failing of some atheist writers. It’s closely linked to the ‘believers are stupid’ idea above.

  The scientific method says that we should look at all available evidence, form a tentative hypothesis and be open to further developments. I’m an atheist because I see no evidence for the existence of a deity. That ‘the majority of the human race…have believed’ is entirely irrelevant. I’ve read widely on the topic, and consider myself more educated about it than the average man on the street. But this doesn’t mean I’m claiming to be ‘intellectually superior’ or that I can understand more than the average person. It doesn’t mean I think I’m a different class of human, or morally superior. It simply means that I think I’ve looked at the evidence and come to a conclusion that any reasonable person would. I’m grateful that I have had the opportunity to do such a thing - it would make no sense to consider myself ‘better’ than anybody else for doing so.

The rest of the post deals with other matters, but I just wanted to put my case forward here. Blanket statements and attacks from the sidelines annoy me, especially when the issues involved are so important. If you think I’m wrong about anything, feel free to argue in the comments.

Tomorrow at 2000 Channel 4 are showing the first part of The Root of all Evil?. In it Richard Dawkins puts forward his case that religion is to blame for much of the world’s problems. I first read a form of this The Blind Watchmaker and found the argument very compelling indeed. Of course it’s Dawkins making the claim, so the onus is on him to provide the evidence. That he has, with arguments from history, psychology, biology and anthropology. With his case made, I’ve read the counter-arguments and found them always severely lacking. They’re always either personal attacks, or ‘that’s obviously wrong’. This show should be compelling viewing. Nick Cohen explains further:

In The Root of all Evil?, Oxford’s professor of the public understanding of science uses the very Darwinism fundamentalists reject to explain why they are so keen to ‘abuse childhood innocence’ in religious schools. Children can’t follow the scientific method and test everything their parents say. If they decide to find out whether it is truly dangerous to walk off a cliff, they will be in no position to pass on their genes when they grow up. Evolution has preprogrammed them to believe what adults tell them.

With a shockingly irresponsible Labour government preparing to use sectarian schools to divide our country by religion and race, Dawkins is giving us a warning as well as an argument. Channel 4 dramatises it by sending him to confront fundamentalists of all faiths. He treats them with donnish puzzlement rather than aggression.

You can’t say the same of his interviewees.

Definitely one to watch. Christian Voice¹, a fundamentalist UK organisation who seem to have the ear of the major media, will undoubtedly have something to say about it. Mind you, it’ll probably be that we’re all going to hell, or something similarly productive.

Update on 16th Jan: There are follow-up posts here, here and here.

1. I’m not increasing their pagerank by linking to their website [↩]

I’ve recently fallen into the habit of going to bed slightly earlier and watching the day’s episodes of The Daily Show and Sports Night. Both are great, but I’ve realised that the latter is in fact bad for me. Every episode contains something that sets my mind going, then I can’t get to sleep. Yesterday’s, incidentally, introduced me to the wonderful word persnickety. That’s a keeper.

Just saw David Cameron being interviewed on Newsnight. Again, I thought he was impressive. Jeremy Paxman helped by asking some entirely ridiculous questions, but DC fought back well. Such a shame he’s a Conservative
One last thing: two wonderfully sharp essays on What it Feels Like to be an Atheist, and Why Atheism. Excellent invocation of my favourite bearded metaphor, too. Via the j-walker.

Oh, and New Scientist now has a podcast. Kinda like Darwin, but with different words.

Bit of a crap day, truth be told. Hopefully tomorrow will be better!

Via the newly-discovered-by-me J-Walk blog, a decent essay on atheism:

It is worth noting that no one ever need identify himself as a non-astrologer or a non-alchemist. Consequently, we do not have words for people who deny the validity of these pseudo-disciplines. Likewise,