No rational case for God = increasingly desperate attacks on atheists

[Mudhammam]

That's ridiculous. Even the atheist who claims to know there is no god in the same way they know the moon is not made of cheese is on much firmer ground to make that assertion than any believer has EVER been.

You're using hyperbole to overstate your case and fend off what you don't want to hear. Why do that?

Whateverist do you mean exactly? Hyperbole, how?

[Whateverist]

With moons and cheese we pretty much know what's being talked about. With gods, not so much. So the two situations are light years apart. The possibility that something as large as the moon might actually consist of a processed dairy product is ridiculous on the face of it. To suggest that every theist believes something equally ridiculous is too black and white. You're tossing out the more worthy forms of belief by painting them with the same brush.

Rejecting fundy gods is easy. So choosing the example of a rapturing Jesus is hyperbole. It is choosing a version of god that is over the top and thus easily dismissed. Not every theist is going to have such easily dismissed beliefs.

[ManMachine]

Your point about homosexuals is perhaps not representing the argument as it introduces the element of what people do in the name of religion.

What else are we to evaluate religion by if not by its holy texts and the resulting behaviors of its adherents???

Religion, or at least the prevailing religion in America at the time did not and still does not advocate imprisoning and executing homosexuals, that behaviour (at least in a Western context) is born of 19th century values.

You should look up the case of Alan Turing or Bertrand Russell and City College, both exemplary of discrimination against homosexuality (Russell was accused of writing in support of it), both the result of the Christian religious mob that was very influential in legislating their morality, no doubt as they still do today, but with decreasing effect. Homosexuality is one example among many behaviors that Puritans sought to eradicate from society--are you seriously saying that wasn't and isn't connected with religion? Even today, this goes on in Christian and Muslim cultures, and the push back, which has been ongoing for over 150 years, has indeed become far more mainstream than ever before; that is the secular influence I'm talking about, which Gray appears to ignore or write off.

Another thing, even the atheist community is larger and more vocal than it was 150 years ago. This is not really a matter of opinion as it is historical fact. Some have even suggested that we are now living in the dawn of the age of atheism.

In medieval Europe homosexual relationships were largely ignored, King James I famously had a male lover, the worst he suffered was a leaflet campaign.

Sure, this may have been true of THE KING, but not the average person whose entire career and reputation, if not their actual flesh, would have been destroyed.

Let's not be too assured about what we consider to be secular progress, we still suffer from a values-hangover born of pernicious Victorian morality.

The subject is as long as it is broad, which goes back to your point about tit-for tat gainsaying, it would be pointless and not move the debate any further on. Let's agree to disagree.

I will look into what you say, I will also re-read my books by Gray and weigh any new information up against his opinions. A number of people I know who have read his works find his books better as they give him time to frame his arguments, which are quite complex, he has a phenomenal grasp of philosophy, one of the finest I've come across.

MM

I totally agree with you here.

The issues have waxed and waned throughout history, and not always because of religion. You cannot pick one historical element (that happens to support your point) and suggest it is representative of history in support of the position that secularism has made things better for homosexual people. That's just nonsense.

I am well aware of the vile injustices and persecution of people like Turing, Russell, Wilde, etc. but you are talking about a very narrow period in history namely the early 20th century, which, if anything, supports my comment about Victorian values.

Don't think I'm defending religion, I'm not at all, but I am saying you simply cannot use the historical issues with homosexuality to support the view of a perceived rise in secularism. How do you determine improvements made as a result of the liberalisation of religious doctrine as distinct from secularism? You can't, neither can anyone else.

MM

[Cato]

How do you determine improvements made as a result of the liberalisation of religious doctrine as distinct from secularism? You can't, neither can anyone else.

Liberalization of religious doctrine is secularism. There is no distinction.

You just fucked yourself if this is the basis for your argument.

[Mudhammam]

With moons and cheese we pretty much know what's being talked about. With gods, not so much.

That largely supports my argument. I can perhaps more easily say I KNOW there is no god either because 1) the definition given is incoherent and more or less meaningless, or 2) the proposition is as absurd as the something you'd see in the Matrix films or a moon composed of cheddar. If you look at any religious doctrine, it's about as likely as the ancient belief that the earth was carried by four elephants who stood on the back of a giant tortoise. Remember that even the most vague, meaningless combination of anthropomorphic terms used to define god, even the ones that seem possible,are borne from myths as ill-informed as the one I mentioned. There is no evidence for God and any being worthy of such a title appears incompatible with the Universe that actually exists, one which seems to suppress any capacity (he/she) it should have to intervene. Is the moon's cheesy crust really less believable?

So the two situations are light years apart. The possibility that something as large as the moon might actually consist of a processed dairy product is ridiculous on the face of it. To suggest that every theist believes something equally ridiculous is too black and white. You're tossing out the more worthy forms of belief by painting them with the same brush.

What are these "worthy" forms?

Rejecting fundy gods is easy. So choosing the example of a rapturing Jesus is hyperbole. It is choosing a version of god that is over the top and thus easily dismissed. Not every theist is going to have such easily dismissed beliefs.

What other gods matter or deserve the title? Why not call a quantum soup in a vacuum "god"? It's not really worthy.

How do you determine improvements made as a result of the liberalisation of religious doctrine as distinct from secularism? You can't, neither can anyone else.

MM

As Cato pointed out, you just revealed the fatal error in Gray's argument. All atheists/free thinkers/secularists leading up to the Enlightenment or who lived during that period were products of religion. The calls for liberalism in the Muslim world today, if they're reflective of the changes produced by the Church during the Middle Ages and later on, would also result in their own Spinozoas, Humes, Kants, Darwins, Marxs, Nietzsches, etc. etc. These were all religious adherents by heritage at one time or another, and they and others like them who stood up against the church are the ones who can be truly said to have liberalized religion.

[ManMachine]

Gray comes across as someone who is miffed because his books didn't sell as well. Gray is simply trying to equivocate atheism and religion in order to continue his well known disgust of the human species without troubling himself with having to distinguish between groups of its members.

Which Christian values do you claim atheists are ignorant of? This sounds a bit like the 'atheists don't really understand religion canard.

Scientists' criticism of religion is largely a philosophical debate. Scientists, like many others, will however use scientific discovery to inform their opinion. Complaining that scientists don't use science in their criticism is similar to saying a plumber doesn't use plumbing to hang a ceiling fan.

Sorry Cato, I missed your post in the melee.

I don't think Gray has any axe to grind, he has a good relationship with Dawkins, who has provided cover quotes for his works. Dawkins decided to go into the popularise market, as is his prerogative, while his scientific works are still required reading in evolutionary genetics his popular philosophy is not on the reading list of most philosophy curriculum. Gray, on the other hand, is still considered a philosophical academic, notwithstanding his journalism and pop philosophy books his academic work is broadly well regarded and read, if not always agreed with.

Gray's approach to atheism and religion is more subtle then you give him credit for, he is not attempting to equivocate atheism and religion, he is attempting to demonstrate that they are both human constructs and ultimately function to serve many of the same human needs and are subject to the same corruptions and distortions. In this sense you could accuse him of being a reductionist but he is not suggesting that those human needs are in themselves irreducible or simple.

Gray himself identifies some of those values in the article, I'll leave that to him, he puts it across better than me. He is not saying 'atheists don't understand religion', that's not an accurate reflection of his philosophy, what he is saying is that the religious and atheists (and other social groups) fail to acknowledge humanity with all its inherent flaws, and consequently develop idealised - and he even goes as far as to say in some cases delusional - notions.

He is most critical of liberalism (both theistic and atheistic), which he views as the root of most of the incongruities he identifies.

I would challenge your statement that 'scientists' criticism of religion is largely a philosophical debate', I don't agree. I would suggest that intellectual criticism of religion is a largely philosophical debate, not all scientists are intellectual, it doesn't follow that a person good at scientific endeavour is a good philosopher.

I think you misunderstood Gray's point on science. He uses Dawkins' 'memetic theory of religion' as an illustration that when scientists choose to apply scientific thinking (in this case Darwinian) outside its proper sphere, it makes no sense. He is not saying science should not inform people nor that it should not be used in its proper context. As you suggest, plumbers should plumb.

MM

[Cato]

I would challenge your statement that 'scientists' criticism of religion is largely a philosophical debate', I don't agree. I would suggest that intellectual criticism of religion is a largely philosophical debate, not all scientists are intellectual, it doesn't follow that a person good at scientific endeavour is a good philosopher.

It's wrong to claim that it is not a philosophical debate simply because you think some of the participants aren't good philosophers. Testing for the existence of god in and of itself can be a scientific endeavor; however, the dearth of available evidence quickly invokes philosophy even if it's just a discussion regarding justification of belief. If not specifically addressing truth claims, religious discussions boil down to ethical debates. How is this not philosophical?

Are you perhaps narrowly defining doing philosophy as something that only educated academic professional philosophers can engage in? Even they can make mistakes, like your man Gray and his constant equivocation of secularism and religion.

[ManMachine]

I would challenge your statement that 'scientists' criticism of religion is largely a philosophical debate', I don't agree. I would suggest that intellectual criticism of religion is a largely philosophical debate, not all scientists are intellectual, it doesn't follow that a person good at scientific endeavour is a good philosopher.

It's wrong to claim that it is not a philosophical debate simply because you think some of the participants aren't good philosophers. Testing for the existence of god in and of itself can be a scientific endeavor; however, the dearth of available evidence quickly invokes philosophy even if it's just a discussion regarding justification of belief. If not specifically addressing truth claims, religious discussions boil down to ethical debates. How is this not philosophical?

Are you perhaps narrowly defining doing philosophy as something that only educated academic professional philosophers can engage in? Even they can make mistakes, like your man Gray and his constant equivocation of secularism and religion.

Fair comment. You're right, there are lots of bad philosophers that doesn't make the debate any less about philosophy, just a bad debate, but I think Gray's point is valid regardless of that. He is not saying bad philosophers are not allowed to be philosophers, he is saying it's a bad thing to try to use scientific thinking to counter religion, which is, after all, more philosophy than it is science.

Of course I'm not suggesting educated academics are the only people who engage in philosophy, otherwise for one, this board wouldn't have so many participants. It is healthy and largely constructive (if some of the individual topics are not so) to have people debate their philosophical point of view.

But I think if Dawkins or any other philosopher puts themselves out there then it's fair game for the academic philosophers to make comment, I'd even say it's kind of a validation of Dawkins standing in the public eye in some ways, I'm sure if Gray made public statements about Evolutionary Genetics then Dawkins' opinion on that would be considered a valuable one.

To put all this into context, Gray is building a case and making a specific point about what he calls 'secular fundamentalism' not secularism in general. There is a danger that can be inferred to mean there is a subgroup of secularists who are fundamentalists, I don't think that is what Gray is saying, he is saying we do not recognise fundamentalism, which can occur in any ideology, in secularism and that it is easy to cross the line (as illustrated through his given example of Dawkins' 'meme') without being checked.

Rightly or wrongly I think what Gray is attempting to do is redress the balance of criticism in the overall debate and puncture the bubble of complacency that has led to the misuse of scientific thinking outside its proper context, that can only be healthy, can't it?

MM

[Cato]

To put all this into context, Gray is building a case and making a specific point about what he calls 'secular fundamentalism' not secularism in general. There is a danger that can be inferred to mean there is a subgroup of secularists who are fundamentalists, I don't think that is what Gray is saying, he is saying we do not recognise fundamentalism, which can occur in any ideology, in secularism and that it is easy to cross the line (as illustrated through his given example of Dawkins' 'meme') without being checked.

Rightly or wrongly I think what Gray is attempting to do is redress the balance of criticism in the overall debate and puncture the bubble of complacency that has led to the misuse of scientific thinking outside its proper context, that can only be healthy, can't it?

I recognize and agree with the concept of secular fundamentalism, but disagree with your assessment of Gray's motivation and use of the concept.

Secular fundamentalism is real and is most often encountered when someone asserts the absolute that there can be nothing we call supernatural to the point where it becomes dogmatic. I think this is a very rare position in that most advocates of science will adhere to scientific principles of hypothesis testing rather than being simply dismissive of particular claims. Take for instance the particular pictures presented in this thread.

The demand of the supernatural proponent is that science test the hypothesis for an event that cannot be replicated. Science is therefore left without some of its most valuable tools in that conditions cannot be controlled, monitored and analyzed in the hope of accepting or rejecting the hypothesis that the photos are of actual ghosts. In steps philosophy armed with the breadth of our collective scientific knowledge to ask the question, "Absent the ability to replicate the event, is it reasonable to conclude that we have a picture of an actual ghost?".

There are many facts that suggest no: a significant percentage of spirit photographs can be shown to be hoaxes, spirit photography was an industry dating back to the American Civil War with well understood methods of 'inserting' departed loved ones into pictures; i.e., the ability to create convincing photos of ghosts is not a new phenomenon, the fact that apparition sightings are exceedingly rare, evidence of sightings even more so, the same routine is used by all claimants of unusual/unexplained entities/events such as chupacabra, the New Jersey Devil, Big Foot, Loch Ness Monster, alien encounters, etc. Don't forget the highly tuned human ability of pattern recognition and ability to discern shapes, particularly that of faces. When our entire body of scientific knowledge and experience is brought to bear on the subject, it is reasonable to conclude there are no such things as ghosts. The handful of unexplained pictures will have to remain thus pending new information which may never be obtained. Those that wish to believe in ghosts based on this thin evidence in are free to do so, but all things considered it's not a very justifiable position.

The above process can hardly be considered 'secular fundamentalism', which I think you will agree to. The charge of secular fundamentalism is usually lobbed in the direction of skeptics when claims of this nature are immediately dismissed without exposition of the underlying thought process.

Now back to Gray. I think our disagreement concerning Gray centers not on the definition of what secular fundamentalism is, but Gray's broad application of the concept. As I attempted to demonstrate above, most people aren't dismissive of the supernatural simply because the claims are supernatural; i.e, dogmatically enforcing a materialistic worldview (secular fundamentalism), but because we have very good reasons not to accept the claim based on what little evidence is provided and supported by sufficient previous consideration.

In my opinion, Gray's desire to equivocate secularism and religion is simply a strategy to keep us all in the same herd in an attempt to validate his ridiculous "plague of people" mantra.

Edit: MM, I just realized I referenced ghost pictures that are in a different thread. Hope this doesn't confuse my argument.

[JesusHChrist]

I think you misunderstood Gray's point on science. He uses Dawkins' 'memetic theory of religion' as an illustration that when scientists choose to apply scientific thinking (in this case Darwinian) outside its proper sphere, it makes no sense. He is not saying science should not inform people nor that it should not be used in its proper context. As you suggest, plumbers should plumb.

Just what *is* the proper sphere religion occupies? Ethics? Law? Morality? Philosophy? Theology?

For the first four, I can't think of anything religion offers that isn't also sufficiently addressed in the secular realm.

As for Theology (defined as the study of God(s)), it is the study of something yet to be known to exist. An ephemeral vacuity based on nothing.