Parting of the ways
Matthew Parris is amusing.
During Holy Week we are treated to a variety of decent-sounding people in print and on the airwaves explaining that religion – or “faith” as they now prefer to call it – is basically all about shared moral values, making the world a better place and gaining a proper sense of awe at life’s mystery…Such faith sounds so reasonable. Churlish nonbelievers like me are made to feel it is we who are being arrogant, dogmatic, closed-minded. How can we be so sure?
Beeeeecause (as Parris of course goes on to point out) that’s not in fact what religion or ‘faith’ really is all about, that’s how.
You are living, dear reader, at a watershed in human history. This is the century during which, after 2,000 years of what has been a pretty bloody marriage, faith and reason must agree to part, citing irreconcilable differences. So block your ears to the cooing voices on Thought for the Day, and choose your side. “But how can you be sure?”…Words cannot express my confidence in the answer to the question whether God cured a nun because she wrote a Pope’s name down. He didn’t.
Moral values good (if they’re the right moral values, a question which has to be decided on secular, universalizable grounds), making the world a better place good, sense of awe more a matter of taste; but supernatural truth claims, not good; the thinking that goes into belief in supernatural truth claims, not good at all, in fact bad.
Oh, good! a well-known commentator has partially spotted that thee is blackmail going on.
It was Matthew Parris who said in the Times (04 Feb 2006), “We should never relinquish, nor lightly value our right, not to argue in the face of other people’s gods, but to fart.”
We must admit that not everyone is going to regard that as the opposite of arrogant, dogmatic, or closed-minded.
“Moreover, it is arguable that here in Canada we do not possess any such right.
“Blasphemous Libel
“Offence
“296. (1) Every one who publishes a blasphemous libel is guilty of an indictable offence and liable to imprisonment for a term not exceeding two years.
“Question of fact
(2) It is a question of fact whether or not any matter that is published is a blasphemous libel. [In other words, you won’t know whether you’ve committed an offence until the jury says you have.]
“Saving
(3) No person shall be convicted of an offence under this section for expressing in good faith and in decent language, or attempting to establish by argument used in good faith and conveyed in decent language, an opinion on a religious subject.
R.S., c. C-34, s. 260.”
I would very much like to see this section of the Criminal code of Canada undergo a Charter challenge.
And now, Let’s all work to put the Ishtar back into Easter.
Matthew Parris is not amusing.
“Where are you, intelligent Christians?…”
Faith and reason are not natural enemies. Regrettably, as in many public discussions which become polarized to the extent this one clearly has, moderate opinions struggle for attention. They can however be clearly heard, if you decide to listen.
It is intolerance of diversity which is the real foe.
“It is intolerance of diversity which is the real foe.”
Well, those who believe that may wish to devote their most urgent attention at those who threaten non-believers with hell-fire or wish to annihilate all those not of their faith. People who merely talk, even if what they say is that religion is dangerous, and neither threaten nor carry out violence, are simply not in the same league as the former and complaining first and foremost about non-believers who are merely vocal is a very unbalanced thing to do. When atheists are given the same degree of automatic privilege enjoyed by religious institutions and abuse it to a similar degree, then there will at last be a point in criticising us as if we were guilty of all their excesses.
“When atheists are given the same degree of automatic privilege . . .”
Privilege? Private law? Sorry, mate, God got there first.
Interesting. Can you expand on your point, Tapdog? It looks slightly automatic and formulaic as it stands. Why are faith and reason not natural enemies? What are the moderate opinions you have in mind? Why do you think they struggle for attention? How do you know I don’t hear them, how do you know I don’t listen? What kind of diversity do you mean?
Yeah, sorry – it all looks like pure boilerplate to me, as if you’d taken it off a shelf. I promise to listen, if you actually say something.
Dang, Elliott – that’s a fun law you got there.
Quite so Stewart, an excellent example.
Thanks for the compliment, Tapdog, but I’d still be interested in having the answer to OB’s question expanded on: why are faith and reason not natural enemies? Is reason not a threat to faith and is faith not a blinder to reason?
Re: Pope John Paul II
“God cured a nun because she wrote a Pope’s name down”.
When asked by one reporter whether she thought what had happened was a miracle Sister Marie replied “I don’t know, but to me it was like a second birth”.
That one innocent remark prompted a media frenzy given that Sister Marie is of the order of “The Little Sisters of Catholic Maternity’s” and so the bewildered nun was quickly bundled out of the press conference and straight into a waiting Pope Mobile!?!
“Pope Benedict XVI, who was second in line, during the reign of Pope John Paul II may declare “the second birth” an official miracle and begin procedures for making the late Pope a saint”. A lot of Roman Catholic’s whom I know are rather bewildered by Pope Benedict’s hurried desperation to make both Mother Theresa, and Pope John Paul II Saints! Why the rush? Is there something to hide, or what? It is very peculiar.
Well, so much for Tapdog’s ability to harmonize reason and faith.
Maybe he/she hasn’t been near a computer in the last few hours – not that I think the task is one that can be accomplished anyway. But I am always curious to see what kind of reasoning backs up such an assertion. Did I say “reasoning?” Maybe if reason and faith are not so incompatible it doesn’t require reasoning; faith that they can get along with each other will suffice.
It was near a computer long enough to ignore my questions and say something empty instead. Tapdog has nothing to say.
I’m curious too, that’s why I asked. I thought it might really have something in mind.
Theists carry on this way (see, as I said, Rick Warren – his answers are so off the point it’s embarrassing) and then wonder why we think faith and reason are incompatible. They refuse to think and then ask why we think faith can interfere with thinking. They perform the answer to their own question but go on asking it anyway. It’s a joke.
Come on, give him/her some time.
The line I can’t forget from Warren is “If death is the end, shoot, I’m not going to waste another minute being altruistic.” Talk about handing the argument to your opponent on a silver platter… I wouldn’t say it compares favorably to Sam Harris’s attitude of “there is no evidence for a god, so what can we do to increase love and happiness all around?”
But it seems some of them really do think that badly of us. Back last August when Dembski’s blog plugged the anti-Darwin parody site “The Brites,” one of his commenters didn’t at first realize it was a parody, writing “Now, read this song they sing at the Darwin Camp. How cna anyone say this isn’t a religion:” This, I think, is one of the big differences between the two sides: we can make points by bringing up the beliefs of the religious, while they can only do it by misrepresenting us. And since a significant percentage of their constituency only seems to know about our views second-hand, after deliberately misinterpretive filtering on the part of those they believe, they can get away with it.
What do you mean give it some time? It had some time; my questions were right there and it didn’t answer them, it made a silly quip instead. If it hadn’t returned at all, yet, I would give it some time, but since it did return and said nothing, it has no claim to more time.
“while they can only do it by misrepresenting us”
That’s one of the things that most irritated me about Warren – he kept doing that. Saying Harris had certainty, claimed to be able to prove, blah blah, when Harris had just said the opposite. The man cannot think.
Yes, I mean, I know it was edited, but please… like this bit:
“[Harris:]… Religion is the only sphere of discourse where dogma is actually a good word, where it is considered ennobling to believe something strongly based on faith.
WARREN: You don’t feel atheists are dogmatic?
HARRIS: No, I don’t.
WARREN: I’m sorry, I disagree with you. You’re quite dogmatic.
HARRIS: OK, well, I’m happy to have you point out my dogmas…”
… a gauntlet Warren never seems interested in picking up…
It’s the hot new thing: saying atheists are too certain and dogmatic and fundamentalist, always without a shred of evidence. Hence it makes me rather tired to have Merlijn defending ridiculous Tapdog and sly manipulative Walter Isaacson. I’m getting really really tired of this endless campaign of inaccurate ‘denigration’ of atheists conducted by people who can’t seem to read or listen or hear or think. I think it is not intellectually respectable and should not be defended by people who are.
True, but I’m nurturing a little optimism. Our future will not be determined by a few cases of the intellectually capable (I’m modifying your “respectable,” I realise) giving too much slack to those who aren’t. It will be determined more by numbers (I’m thinking of Sam Harris pointing out that one person with a crazy belief is – well, crazy, whereas the same belief held by thousands or millions is a religion). That why I find those figures before and after the Dawkins/Hitchens/Grayling team met the Neuburger/Scruton/Spivey team encouraging: “The audience was asked to vote on the motion before the debate, with the result 826 votes for the motion, 681 against and 364 don’t knows. At the end, the vote was 1,205 for the motion, 778 against and 100 don’t knows.” I haven’t done the maths, but someone on the Dawkins site pointed out that more votes in total were cast after than before. Maybe atheist latecomers were let in after the first round. I like the fact that when our best people go head to head with theirs (I don’t know who their best people are – I’m not aware that a convincing argument has ever emanated from that side) some people’s minds appear to be changed and largely in our favour. We’re not wasting our time. I can’t think how often I’ve made points in discussions with people where I’ve suddenly heard “I never thought of/about that.” And I suspect it happens more seldom in the other direction. Quiz question: which side owes its growth more to the birth rate and less to intellectual processes (there will always be exceptions, but what does the rule seem to be?)?
“Hence it makes me rather tired to have Merlijn defending ridiculous Tapdog and sly manipulative Walter Isaacson. I’m getting really really tired of this endless campaign of inaccurate ‘denigration’ of atheists conducted by people who can’t seem to read or listen or hear or think.”
I’m not defending Tapdog, since he has not yet made statements worth defending. But I am kind of hoping he does, as I believe the general points he made are, in principle, quite defensible. I also believe that doing so would be the honourable thing to do: if you enter a weblog comment space with an opinion quite different from the mainstream, you owe it to the weblog owner to remain and defend your opinion. There is no dishonour in not ultimately doing so succesfully – but there is in not even trying. You reading this Tapdog?
I did however defend Walter Isaacsson. I do not believe he is being sly and manipulative in that article at least. I think there is a lot of poor argumentation going on among would-be defenders of theism, and I have not hesitated to argue so around here; but I do not believe Isaacsson’s piece should be placed in that group.
“I’m not defending Tapdog, since he…”
Oops.
(*scurries off*)
Okay, you’re not defending Tapdog, but you did rebuke me for not giving it time, when it had already had time – had commented again – without using it. That looks a little like defending to me! Of course the points it made are defensible, but – oh you know.
“Oops.”
Naughty! :- )
Here’s your answer to Parris. It’s a bad one:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2007/04/07/do0701.xml
Choice extract: “… what sort of a belief system is it that asserts the superiority of Richard Dawkins, Professor of the Public Understanding of Science at the University of Oxford, over the woman who toils in paddy fields, or the child who begs in the dirt, or the prisoner in his chains?”
Thank you for that, Stewart. But Oh, dear, dear, dear . . .
Anyone here ever seen, or participated in, a performance of _Iolanthe_?
“I won’t say a thing against brains. I’ve a great respect for brains. I often wish I had some myself.”
“It’s the hot new thing: saying atheists are too certain and dogmatic and fundamentalist, always without a shred of evidence.” – said OB.
Has anyone else here tried debating with “Vox Popoli” (No, that isn’t a typo)?
They use this assertion the whole time.
And if you, quite politel;y, point out (again) that it anin’t so, your comments are summarily deleted, even though a letter to Vox Day gets commented on – with no right of reply.
They claim to be libertarians, but they won’t accept simple argument.
The mildest thing to say about that is: Hypocrites.
Tingey, why would you even want to try having a debate on anything over there? Don’t you have any walls at home you can bang your head on?