Ten paces in each direction
What’s Karl Giberson talking about?
He’s saying gnu atheists are wrong to say that religious believers are stuck in the past and unable to change. Then he says there are some religious believers like that, but there are some clueless non-religious people, too. Then he says that some of the religious believers who refuse to accept scientific findings that they don’t like are educated but just don’t want to accept scientific findings for religious reasons.
Oh. So…how is that not what gnu atheists say? How does what Giberson says show that gnu atheists are wrong to say that? Here’s how he explains believers’ reasons for saying no thanks to parts of science:
Mohler is educated and does not hold this belief because of simple ignorance. He is well-read and informed on such things. But he’s inclined, for widely accepted theological reasons, to get his science from the Bible.
Yes…that’s the point. That’s the kind of thing that makes religion not compatible with science – it’s this business of being inclined, for theological reasons, to get your science from the bible, or the koran or the guru or the tv show about a medium. So how are we wrong?
Well because there are other believers, who don’t do what Mohler does – at least not all of it. We’re wrong not to agree that that means they have more in common with us than they have with Mohler. It could be otherwise, Giberson says. Mohler could think they have a lot in common, but he doesn’t; and Coyne could think they have a lot in common, but he doesn’t. Both of them reject the middle ground, and Giberson thinks this is naughty.
Why is it that people on middle ground always seem to be on the “other” team, when this seems far from obvious? In the recent election, by analogy, why were moderate Republicans vilified for being too much like Democrats? Has everyone in the country decided that there is only “us” and “them,” so that “not us” equals “them”? Whether we agree with people in the middle or not, is there not value in acknowledging those who can make connections between disparate points of view?
But who says Giberson is the one who is in the middle? Who says the middle is midway between Albert Mohler and Jerry Coyne? Not I. There are lots of places one can locate the middle, and lots of ways one can locate oneself there and everyone else out on the two Poles of Error. In any case I think most gnu atheists aren’t really very interested in all this political mapmaking. I don’t care whether Mohler is more “extreme” than Giberson or Coyne is more “extreme” than Scott or Rosenau. I don’t have to vote for any of them, nor do I have to campaign for any of them, so I can just judge them all on the merits, not where they fit on some Map of Difference-splitting.
He seems to have trouble understanding why his “profound middle ground” gets no respect from the religious fundamentalists and no respect from the gnu atheists. Well, Karl, the answer is simple. Your “profound middle ground” is really only a shallow sandbar than can easily wash away. Biologos is irrelevant because it is too tepid to persuade anybody.
Perhaps Karl imagines that the gnu atheists have declared war on religion. However, history suggests to me that the war was started by religion, and started a long time ago.
I was just thinking today that there needs to be some sort of scale – with visuals – of all these terms associated with who’s more extreme, moderate, militant, gnu, accommodating, etc. to be able to proper classify oneself these days.
Perhaps it just depends on the specific issue at hand.
When it comes to the teaching of evolution in public schools I consider Christians such as, say, Ken Miller an ally. I’m not sure of Giberson’s view on this issue, but if he’s in favor of teaching evolution unsullied with superstitious baggage in public schools, then I would also consider him an ally in that battle.
When it comes to the issue of science and reason vs religion and superstition, I see Ken Miller, Giberson, and even non-believers such such as Scott, Rosenau, Moody, et al as being on opposing side of the argument, on the side of superstition, or accommodating superstition.
[…] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Skeptic South Africa, Ophelia Benson. Ophelia Benson said: Ten paces in each direction http://dlvr.it/8VTtr […]
I’ve put my take on Karl’s position into pictorial form.
http://sneerreview.blogspot.com/2010/11/whining.html
A quote from the article in question:
“Both Coyne and I are trying to get more people to believe in evolution.”
I think the problem is fundamentally that Karl Giberson sees it all as a discussion as to whether religion A is better than religion B. Do you believe in an almighty god, or do you believe in evolution? Whereas I – and I think most atheists – feel that the argument should be between people who believe in something (god, or colonic irritation, or homeopathy, or whatever) and people who want to base their lives solely on things they know and feel they (or someone else) knows or will eventually know.
The quote reveals starkly the difference between a genuine atheist and somebody who wants to sit on the fence with feet dangling on both sides, with possible padding to the top of the fence supplied by people or organisations with loadsa dosh.
I like your graphic, Sigmund. Heehee.
I like October, too. I had not seen this “Sneer Review” before!
From July 2009: the thoughts of Guy Framey.
http://sneerreview.blogspot.com/2009/07/new-accomodationists-claim-science-is.html
Well I had seen it before of course, it’s the home of the world-famous “The Downfall of Unscientific America“…but I forgot.
If Karl Giberson wants to persuade more people that there is a doG then, as a scientist, he knows how to do it – provide the evidence and allow people to evaluate it. He doesn’t do that because he can’t. Methinks it is not Coyne or Mohler who feel threatened, they are both secure in their positions – the one fonded in science and rationality, the other in superstition and delibeate ignorance (and how can there be a middle ground there?). Giberson seems to be the one who feels threatened
> But they can both be threatened by accommodationists on the middle ground, who share some, but not all, of their beliefs.
There is no middleground. Accommodationists are utterly naive about religion. There are no liberal religions, only liberals with religion. It’s compartmentalisation and loyalty only to which ever group you happen to be sitting with (in other words disloyalty), and the same applies to you quislings, you’re disloyal and your position is contemptible.
Perhaps the worst kind of believer is the so-called moderate, the one that has no loyalty to his religion nor to his liberalism. She switches whenever it suits her, and picks and chooses which verses of whatever scripture sounds nice to liberals, but would agree with the other nasty scriptures when the time comes for it.
Accommodationists are a disgrace for attacking fellow atheists but do nothing to rid people of religion. Karpman called it the Drama Triangle, and Accommodationists are the drama queens of the religious world. Switching from Persecuter to Rescuer to Victim because they’re confused, emotionally undeveloped and lack rationality.
Which makes sense, because Giberson is the one who understands the need for evidence, but wants to believe in his evidence-free god anyway. As you say, Coyne and Mohler are both free from that problem, for opposite reasons; Giberson is the one who is stuck with it.
Well, now, there’s two distinct reasons right there why Giberson cannot claim to be useful, to me or any other critical-thinking person. The first: there is no science in the bible, at all. Nothing in the bible can possibly fit the definition of science, no matter how badly you mangle it. Mohler might want to believe in unsupported stories about creation found therein, but this can in no way be confused with science.
The second issue is the simple yet stupid fragment, “for widely accepted theological reasons.” Who cares if they’re widely accepted? I’m sorry, did we start deciding reality by voting? There’s a very large number of people that think evolution takes place when one species morphs into another existing species in a couple of generations – that makes them right? Or does it merely make it not permissible to correct their deeply held beliefs because they’re not alone?
I don’t actually worry about sides, I just insist that real evidence trumps belief. Playing word games to excuse belief just means Giberson fails to meet that criteria.
“Some of these Christians who prefer their planets young, like the Southern Baptist leader, Al Mohler, however, are not oblivious to the progress of science?
The above has to be the silliest line in Giberson’s article (well, for me anyway). If you think the universe is young (about 6k years old) aren’t you “oblivious to the progress of science” which tells us otherwise? Where is the “intellectually defensible space” he speaks of? And by what confounded logic can he claim that “both Mohler and [he] worship the same God” while living in different universes given that Giberson presumably accepts the “scientific progress” that tells us the universe is more likely 14 billion years old?
Finally, this: “Are we locked in a zero sum game where victory on one side automatically prescribes defeat on the other?” asks Giberson. Yes, because there’s no proper equivalency between religion and science as subjects (or methods of inquiry into the “big questions”) that would justify accommodation or bridge-building. Religion will “lose” because it can’t even be admitted into the debate in the first place. How can it be sound to look for reasons to acknowledge unfounded/unfalsifiable ideas or propositions, except (as Victor Stenger might put it) to prove that religious claims of fact don’t belong in the realm of scientific hypothesis-making to begin with? Yipes!
Just Al is correct – how can one claim there is science in the bible? One can claim one gets a world view from it (though, like with many things, the world’s most influential piece of fiction has many such), but science? Ridiculous. And people want “accomodation” of that??
I’m guessing that many accommodationists have religious friends who complain about strident atheists, thus they feel motivated to placate their friends by attacking the “fundamentalists.”
“Can’t we all just get along?” No. You believers are members of the dominant cultural paradigm. We are your victims. So we cannot just get along.
I do think that Dawkins had it right.
When two diametrically opposed points of view are expressed, the truth does not necessarily lie in the middle. One side may simply be wrong.
Exactly. That line about theological reasons is exactly why gnus don’t agree with accommodationists. Helpful of Giberson to provide it.
The comic xkcd has a useful example of Gibersonian compromise in another domain:
http://xkcd.com/690/
Right, exactly. When the Republicans do poorly, they move to the right. When the Democrats do poorly, they move to the right. So you see, only by everyone moving to the right together can we achieve our goals.
Yeah.