Anyway. Peace. :- )

I am going to bow out of this particular conversation now, before I make more of an ass of myself. I think I have made my main point – that the “new” feature of the “New atheists” is their “radicalism”. Calling them “non-apologetic atheists” just doesn’t suffice. I have never apologized for my atheism either, but that fact doesn’t make me feel like wearing a red script A. I can agree that religion is a problem, but I don’t see how it can be called “the problem”, and I definitely will react negatively to a return of that old 60′s radical slogan “If you are not part of the solution, then you are part of the problem”.

Any secondary points I may have attempted, and in particular any perceived defense of The Intersection, the Templeton Foundation, or Accommodationism – any such arguments, suggestions, or snide remarks are hereby withdrawn. I have no particular desire to conduct a dialog with theists, simply because they happen to be people too. On the other hand, I have no particular wish to sabotage a dialog with people, simply because they happen to be theists.

More interesting are your claims about “real life”. I’ll take your word for it as to what subjects do and don’t come up in dialog, and who brings them up. But I stand by my claim that Eric is not anomalous as a “New Atheist” who is also a “radical atheist” in the sense I have described. And while I withdraw my claims about how new/radical atheists behave in “real life” dialogs, I invite you to read what some “real life” atheists immediately think the proposed topic is when the word “dialog” is mentioned.

Jerry Coyne:

I think it shows far more respect for the faithful to engage their arguments honestly and openly than to pat them on the back and say, “There, there—even though I don’t share your beliefs I won’t risk upsetting you by questioning them.” But Mooney’s post is not about any kind of constructive dialogue. How could it be, if one side is forbidden to have its say? The post is about why scientists should give more respect to religion.

Further, the claim that “we can hardly expect believers to discard their faith based on philosophical considerations, no matter how persuasive these may seem to many secularists or scientists,” is ridiculous, of course. This is a deliberate distortion in service of the notion that, despite the claims of those horrid New Atheists, science and faith are compatible.

There are in fact many, many people who have discarded their faith because its tenets were either philosophically insupportable or came into direct conflict with the palpable facts about the world. …

Yes, it may be too much to expect most religious people, steeped in faith from birth, to reject religion. But there are the children, too. Keep them from being brainwashed, and see how many voluntarily choose faith over atheism when they reach majority. I would guess that if religious brainwashing of children were prohibited, atheism would increase drastically within a generation. The vast majority of people are religious not because they chose their faith voluntarily—because it made more sense than other faiths—but simply because they were brought up that way. It is not too harsh to call this brainwashing.

Larry Moran

The first thing you have to realize is that atheists do not accept the premise that supernatural beings actually exist. You aren’t going to get anywhere in a discussion with an atheist if you base your arguments on that premise.

Let’s say you’re a religious person—like those on the panel—and you want to have a productive dialogue with an atheist about whether science and religion are compatible. [PiP: my emphasis] The first thing you do is admit up front that most religions have beliefs that are in direct conflict with science. The second thing you do is either admit that you hold those beliefs, and therefore your religion is in conflict with science, or that you disavow all those beliefs, in which case your version of non-conflicting religion that’s left needs to be explained.

At that point you can have a dialogue by describing your remaining religious beliefs and explaining why they don’t conflict with science.

Ophelia Benson

PZ

The excuse of “We are open to dialog on any topic, but those theists and their running dogs keep shifting the topic to our atheism.” just doesn’t ring true to me.

When dialog is attempted, the unapologetic atheist often morphs into a radical atheist and shifts the dialog to “the real problem”.

I don’t know that. It doesn’t describe the real life I know at all. In the real life I know, the subject just doesn’t have to come up, and if it does come up it’s not usually a “radical atheist” who brings it up.

The sock puppets’ whole purpose was to pick fights with “new” atheists, so they demonstrate nothing.

Mind you, what you say does describe most accommodationists – they pretend their purpose is unity but in fact it is to pick fights with “new” atheists.

I thought Eric already made that clear. When dialog is attempted, the unapologetic atheist often morphs into a radical atheist and shifts the dialog to “the real problem”.

Double Hmmm. And Chris doesn’t understand why Accommodationism might make dialog with “New Atheists” difficult. But I thought the sock puppets had already made that clear too. When dialog is attempted, the Accommodationist morphs into an NA-critic and shifts dialog to the “real problem with the NAs”.

Boring. I learned back in Kindergarten that you don’t make friends by criticizing them. Or at least you don’t make friends with the folks you are criticizing. Now can we just be friends?

…just what kind of “dialogue” is it that is giving Mooney such a woody? What kind of dialogue is even possible if one half of the conversation refuses on principle to change their view and reserves the right to stick their fingers in their ears and go, “la, la, la, la” if the other half dares to be anything other than an obsequious toad?

Perhaps a dialog on some other topic – one which permits dialog. Gay rights, say, or AGW, or public education, or evolution. Some topic other than whether or not religious faith is irrational.

But some people just don’t see any other topic as worth discussing. Eric MacDonald says regarding “New Atheists”

I say we adopt the name, because it’s a good way of making a distinction between people who think that religious believers have something to contribute to the future of the world other than theocracy and injustice, and those who think that religion has had its chance, and needs now to be opposed in the name of more effective ways of knowing about and changing the world.

One might call Eric a “radical” in the sense in which the word is usually understood in politics. Eric, along with those who endorse his views here, thinks that he has identified the *root* of all our problems and thus he understandably has little patience for dialog on any other topic. I think that this may be a major source of the hostility which the “New Athiests” have received from “Accomodationists”. The Accomodationists may simply not accept the radical diagnosis. Or perhaps they accept the diagnosis, but are unconvinced of the efficacy of radical solutions. Is this where the miscommunication arises?

Sorry to bring this up in a thread some 3 weeks old. But I just arrived, hereabouts.

And I remember Paul W. Shame how he stole my initial.

Sample here in case you’re curious.

He’s never commented here either, as far as I know.

There’s another “Dave W” who seems to have commented a lot at Bad Astronomy, but he doesn’t leave a website (like you noted), but Google suggests that he hasn’t posted at the Intersection at all.

Oh, do I? Huh. No, it was more than two…long informative sciencey comments, lots of them. Maybe there are two Dave Ws. That’s likely, actually, because the other didn’t have a link in his name. Or maybe it wasn’t Dave…

Anyway, you’re swell too! :- )

But really, the integrity question is about editing to change someone’s argument, or to make them look foolish (or wholesale deletion of arguments which are inconvenient to one’s own, as happens regularly at UD, for example). Those are the kinds of things we all can do, but only the unhinged seem to actually do.

On that other note, I think you may have me confused with someone else, also. Unless you really are talking about the two comments that I left on the Intersection that I had to Google to find because I’d forgotten all about them, in which case I’m flattered and in awe of your memory.

Well mostly. I do, rarely, edit comments for reasons other than spam/coding – but when I do I say I’ve done it. The other reasons are: 1) libel concerns – I remove direct accusations of lying. 2) tedious repetition by someone who has been repeatedly requested to stop the tedious repetition. 3) plain abuse by an anonymous commenter or a sock puppet, usually one who has had at least a week to spout unedited anonymous abuse (as in the case of “Kees”/Bernie Ranson).

I think that covers it…except that when I removed some comments by and about an anonymous sock puppet (yes both anonymous and a sock puppet) last week I’m not sure I said I’d done so. I’ll correct that. I consider myself to have integrity. That much, anyway.

That Dave W – this gives me the chance to say how much value I got from your comments at the Intersection. I couldn’t say it there, of course, because I’m banned!

“They can edit you after fact like they did to Dave W. and make you look like a moron using your own (real) i.d.”

As a forum moderator, I’m pretty sure that any forum or blog owner can edit anyone’s comments after-the-fact to say whatever they (the owner) wants. It’s just that owners with integrity don’t do so except to remove spam or fix coding. Never to change the meaning of a post in order to “win” an argument and/or to make your opponent look foolish, since as soon as it gets out that you’re willing to stoop to such levels, you won’t be taken seriously ever again, even if you want to be.

(Yes, this is that Dave W.)

And this isn’t a “New Atheist” message, but a far older one — in ancient Greece, the philosopher Epicurus recommended non-belief in gods as a useful stance because of the freedom from fear it provided, allowing one to live a happier life.

And it’s true in general that one should judge X on what X says rather than what her commenters say, but that is not true of the sock blog, given that the fakeness of the commenters and the blogger itself is so blatant.