20 questions – no make that 21
Jerry Coyne points out another outbreak of godbothering from Francis Collins – which is all the more inappropriate (the apt word, for a change) now that Collins is director of the National Institutes of Health. (The outbreak is inappropriate, not the pointing it out.) The publisher does not omit to get in the obligatory slap at those god damn pesky impertinent inappropriate noisy New Atheists:
“Is there a God?” is the most central and profound question that humans ask. With the New Atheists gaining a loud voice in today’s world, it is time to revisit the long-standing intellectual tradition on the side of faith.
‘Is there a god?’ is not the most central and profound question that humans ask; far from it; at this stage of the game it could better be called the most futile time-wasting childish infatuated question that humans ask. The voice the ‘New Atheists’ have gained, if they have gained one, is really not all that loud compared to the voice the Old Theists have had and continue to have for the last however many thousands of years, so I really don’t see why so many people feel compelled to pitch such a huge fit about a few atheists finally plucking up the nerve to say atheist things aloud instead of under their breath in a closet when no one is home. I really don’t. I really don’t see why so many people are so god damn truculent about having to share a minuscule corner of the discourse with atheists. I don’t see why our ‘gaining a voice’ is treated as some kind of foul presumption.
At any rate (she said, smoothing herself down and coughing slightly and picking up the scattered objects that fell off the desk), what is this about revisiting ‘the long-standing intellectual tradition on the side of faith’? Had that ‘tradition’ fallen into desuetude? Not that I’ve noticed. It seems to me that the putative ‘long-standing intellectual tradition on the side of faith’ has been shouting away without a break since Aquinas was a schoolboy.
And that’s just the publisher’s blurb. Collins himself is worse…but check him out at Jerry’s, I’ve run out of time and (for the moment) patience. I’ll just say this. What I would like to know is, even if ‘why is there something rather than nothing?’ is a stumper (and of course it is, in its way, as are so many questions of that kind), why does anyone think the answer to it could possibly be ‘God’? Why does anyone think the answer to it is obviously ‘God’? Why does anyone think that’s a good and satisfactory answer? Why does anyone think that’s a logical and reasonable and even inevitable answer? I don’t know. It seems to me ‘I don’t know’ is a better answer, and ‘we don’t know’ is better still. Saying ‘God’ sounds to me like saying ‘Janet’ or ‘Larry.’ It sounds like a risibly human, small, parochial answer – it sounds like saying an orange cat is the reason there is something rather than nothing.
‘Why is there something rather than nothing?’
‘God.’
‘What’s god?’
‘God is… the reason there’s something rather than nothing.’
Jason, I don’t think that gets us very far, other than into an infinite regression.
I prefer the notion that the whole universe rides on the back of a monstrous huge turtle. At least that would be something that is there, to reach out and touch.
And there’s turtles all the way down.
Just so. You’ve made many incisive points over the years, O, but one of the things I most appreciate from your writing is how you’ve pointed out how “self-regarding” so much of this faux-philosophizing really is. I can’t think of any other writer or critic who so consistently points out how all these apologetic fits are really all about me-me-me-me and my-my-my-my emotional needs (pout).
This is important. And it’s not talked about enough. I think I knew it, but it didn’t bubble up to the top of my consciousness until I started reading you regularly. I wish others would cotton to it.
As central and profound questions go, I’d back “What’s for lunch?” over “Is there a God?” any day.
You and me both, Cam! I just got a great recipe for chicken paprikash today, from a Real Live Hungarian. That’s lunch tomorrow.
Better be careful Josh. Remember Pauline Reage?
The reason why they feel compelled to pitch such a huge fit is that they can feel the power relationships beginning to change, if ever so slightly. They are terrified of what might happen if a significant fraction of the population ever begins to insist that “faith” claims are not adequate — that political decisions must be based on objective evidence and reason.
The situation seems similar to what has happened over and over again in each part of the world where the government decides to restrict smoking in public places. A great many smokers immediately rise up screaming about (among other things) how reprehensible it is for the government to “make criminals” out of large numbers of peaceful and previously law-abiding citizens. They never acknowledge that it is morally wrong for smokers to inflict cancer upon innocent bystanders, and that if the law did not recognize this before, then there is something wrong with the law that needs to be fixed.
In both cases, there is a large group that has been getting unfair special privileges for centuries (if not millennia), and they are worried when other people start to protest publicly about the unfairness. They realize that they don’t have a leg to stand on as far as rational argument is concerned, so they hope that throwing a temper tantrum will be enough to get them their own way.
So far this strategy seems to be working better for the religious than it did for smokers. The effectiveness seems to be determined mainly by how many other people you can get to join your hissy fit.
It’s interesting that Collins sees fit to dismiss the NOMA argument as a barrier to the religious in his introduction.
“In the twenty-first century, many seem to have concluded that the spiritual experience and the life of the mind ought to occupy separate domains, and that disruptions, conflicts, and disenchantments will result if the firewall comes down. Surely humanity’s ongoing search for truth is not enriched by such limitations.”
Many of us on the other side have problems with NOMA too but mainly due to Gould surrendering questions of morality and meaning to the religious. In strict terms with (genuine non-overlapping domains of influence) NOMA is fine – it informs us that we cannot possibly know anything for sure about God or Gods and they have no role in intervening in the day to day workings of the universe. In other words it is a severe problem to theistic worldviews. Theists require a daily dose of SOMA – slightly overlapping magisteria to help them cope.
‘Is there a Santa?’ is one of the most profound questions a six-year-old can ask. That some of us never get beyond what amount to childish beliefs is not the fault of atheists. The fault, dear Collins…
(Erm, I don’t mean ‘child-like’ questioning is wrong. It’s child-like to ask ‘Why does the sun shine?’ It’s childish to reply ‘Because God doesn’t want us to bump into things in the daytime.’)
I know it’s a bit overly literal, but I do find it odd when the “new atheists” are described as “loud”.
It’s odd for the obvious reason that the atheist presence is miniscule in comparison to the amount of pro-theist marketing out there, which is often FAR more aggressive and intrusive than the marketing done on the atheist side.
It’s also odd because, whenever I’ve seen a debate between a “new atheist” and a religious believer the atheists are always quiet, reserved and polite and the theists are often shouting, ranting maniacs. Dinesh D’Souza and Shmuley “Hitchens is a man who hates life and hope” Boteach spring immediately to mind. Not to mention Bill O’Reilly.
So the question arises; Why do so many theistic commentators think that lying about atheists is an appropriate way to promote their beliefs?
And whenever I see the statement that “[insert nonsensical question here] is one of the biggest most profound questions that can be asked”, or something along those lines, I always get this image of somebody walking along thinking about that question and forgetting to look when they cross the road, getting run over by a bus. What is a “big question” is really relative to the situation, isn’t it? I think we often find ourselves in situations where seemingly mundane worldly questions such as “is there a bus coming?” are much bigger questions than “is there a god?” You could even say that we constantly find ourselves in such situations.
Esoteric ponderings about murkily-defined and largely useless concepts such as “gods” only seem to muddy the waters and never really add anything of value, especially when contemplating things of great practical importance.
“Can some people run faster than others?” The answer seems obvious, but my country is currently spending billions in preparation for a retest. I expect the answer to be “yes”, and hope that this will be definitive enough to undercut demands for further expensive retests in future.
More seriously I’ll take a thousand Roger Eberts over Francis Collins any day:
“I believe that if, at the end of it all, according to our abilities, we have done something to make others a little happier, and something to make ourselves a little happier, that is about the best we can do. To make others less happy is a crime. To make ourselves unhappy is where all crime starts. We must try to contribute joy to the world. That is true no matter what our problems, our health, our circumstances. We must try. I didn’t always know this, and am happy I lived long enough to find it out.”
Big bloke with beard in sky? What an irrelevant question to any human concern.
The answer is obviously The thing that made the things for which there is no known maker.
I don’t think it’s a bit too literal to pause over all these claims that atheists are too loud – I think it is entirely germane and important and worth doing.
It’s a move to delegitimize atheism, of course, but it’s also a completely ridiculous claim (but ridiculous claims often do what they’re intended to do, of course). Not least it’s ridiculous because atheists don’t have anything like the institutional clout that theists have, nor do we have the Official Hierarchies who have automatic access to the media. We have no pope, no archbishop, no bishop. We also have no equivalent of the Washington Post’s ‘On Faith’ section or Comment is Free’s ‘Belief’ section or the BBC’s ‘Religion and Ethics’ section or NPR’s many faithy programs. We are nowhere near as ‘loud’ as theists are – yet we are the ones who are constantly called the aggressive militant fundamentalist strident shrill loud New Atheist noise machine – including by some atheists!
It’s a sustained dishonest effort to make us shut up, and It Is War.
Do you have to be so loud, OB? :)
Something I often wonder is exactly what level of niceness, or quietness or whatever would be acceptable. I know you’ve asked a similar question of Chris Mooney – if atheists aren’t supposed to be as loud or confrontational or critical or mean as they are, then exactly what level of loudness is appropriate?
The reaction to atheist bus campaigns and billboards is what really freaks me out – in the US and UK, and around the world a number of atheist groups have paid for adverts that say such heinous things as ‘atheists exist and aren’t evil’, and you get rabid godbots going insane about it!
When you’re in a situation like that, when it’s pretty much impossible to imagine a less intrusive message without just shutting up, that’s when it becomes clear that the problem isn’t the atheists’ tone or methods, it’s that atheists are daring to speak out at all. THAT’S what must be stopped at all costs, regardless of how much they have to lie and cheat to do it.
So, as you say, what’s there to do but assemble your ranks and charge? In a metaphorical sense, of course.
I posted this at whyevolutionistrue earlier, Victor J. Stenger from his paper “Using a Mathematical Model Based on Established Physics and Cosmology” on the something verus nothing question:
“In short, the natural state of affairs is something rather than nothing. An empty universe requires supernatural intervention–not a full one. Only by the constant action of an agent outside the universe, such as God, could a state of nothingness be maintained. The fact that we have something is just what we would expect if there is no God.”
The paper is available at his site, http://www.colorado.edu/philosophy/vstenger/
I have indeed asked Chris Mooney that question, several times, which is apparently why he banned me from commenting at his blog. He flatly refuses to answer it – which is odd, because how does he even expect us to take his advice if he won’t explain what it is? How can we do what he wants us to do when we don’t know what he wants us to do because he refuses to tell us?
Maybe you’re asking the wrong questions. Existence is far too trivial and pedestrian an attribute to expect Mooney’s transcendent advice to possess. Perhaps if you approach it from the perspective of the apophatic tradition?
Oh but Mooney is all about pragmatism and ‘framing’ and getting things done. He’s all about strategy and plotting and this making people do that. He’s also all about telling everyone what to do, and ratting on people he dislikes in the national press, and saying why people were wrong to write this review for this magazine – the apophatic tradition is not for him!
He doesn’t claim to be transcendent – he claims to know how to win, and get allies, and avoid antagonizing people (ha! that’s incredibly funny if you think about it), and build coalitions. He’s of the earth earthy. Yet…when asked for specifics, he slams the door in your face. It’s all very odd.
Isn’t that the apophatic tradition? Claiming that nothing can be said about something unless they are the things that you approve of being said? And then saying vicious and largely baseless things about people you dislike? That’s certainly the way the supporters of that tradition behave. You know, I only brought that up as a joke but I’m starting to think there’s something in it.
I downloaded the latest Point of Inquiry today and was pleasantly surprised to see that Victor Stenger was on talking about “The New Atheists”. I wondered how Mooney would deal with Stenger, but it turned out to be one of the ones DJ Grothe had recorded before leaving.
The interview was great, but it’d be interesting to see how Mooney would deal face to face with one of those evil science-scuppering atheists who ruin everything. He’s not done that yet, has he?
“I really don’t see why so many people feel compelled to pitch such a huge fit about a few atheists finally plucking up the nerve to say atheist things aloud instead of under their breath in a closet when no one is home.”
Many among them do it because it’s identity politics, because they perceive that people are being reactionary, self-identifying as antagonistic towards religion, and so on. Maybe the new atheism is inevitable and the antagonism is unavoidable, and maybe their defences against it are typically poorly considered or in bad faith, but the emotional side of the reaction is nevertheless understandable and predictable.
In more or less the same way, as a small child I became incensed at the Energizer advertisements that attacked Duracell, because we usually had Duracell batteries around the house. Same reaction when Sega commercials mocked Nintendo, and I highly enjoyed Super Mario. Why did I react in these ways? Because I was a small child, and children are vaguely loveable dummies.
What bothers me most, actually, is that he managed to get one of the biggest trade publishers of all – HarperCollins – to do this. With a publisher like that, he’ll sell zillions of copies.
No offence to our publishers: Wiley-Blackwell and Continuum are terrific (my experience with W-B has been uniformly positive, and Continuum didn’t let you down at a point when it easily could have).
But as they’ll say themselves, they don’t have the muscle of HarperCollins. It means, for a start, that there will be goddamn display racks in every Borders store. It means an enormous print run, very low unit cost, low resistance from bookshops’ purchasers, and massive sales. Not only will he be rich from the royalties; he’ll get his message out very widely. And all this for a book that seems to be just a reprint anthology, i.e. very little that is new and very little actual editorial work involved. Grrrr.
And heavily featuring C S Lewis. Grrrrrrr.
“It seems to me ‘I don’t know’ is a better answer, and ‘we don’t know’ is better still. Saying ‘God’ sounds to me like saying ‘Janet’ or ‘Larry.'”
And distinctly less satisfying than saying, “ninjas”.
Fuma Kotaro! That’s the answer. Fuma Kotaro, the deathless ninja.